HILL LEAVES BPI: “Veteran lobbyist Ed Hill is leaving the Bank Policy Institute after three years as the group's head of government affairs and is headed to Forbes Tate,” per our Zach Warmbrodt. — “Hill said in an interview that he'll serve as a partner at the government and public affairs advocacy firm. ‘I'm going to help them grow their financial services practice and work with their clients in the non-financial services space that touch on financial services,’ he said. The Bank Policy Institute, he added, will be his first client. Before joining BPI, Hill spent nearly two decades with Bank of America.” — “BPI on Monday said deputy head of government affairs Erik Rust will be promoted to replace Hill. Rust previously served in roles in the House and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.” FOR YOUR RADAR: “The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in eight states, including California, Arizona and Wyoming, as well as the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit to block the $24.6 billion tie-up between grocery store chains Kroger and Albertsons,” our Josh Sisco writes. — “In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon, the FTC and states said the deal will raise prices, lower quality, limit choices for shoppers and harm the companies’ workers. They added that a plan by the two grocery giants to sell more than 400 stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers, a move to make the deal more palatable to antitrust regulators, is inadequate to remedy their concerns, according to the lawsuit.” — The challenge comes in spite of an explosion in advocacy spending on behalf of both chains in recent years. Albertsons dropped almost $2.9 million on lobbying in 2023, an annual record for the company, which spent more in both Q2 and Q4 alone than in all of 2021. Last year, Kroger tapped a team at Squire Patton Boggs that included former House Speaker John Boehner on its way to spending a record $1.5 million on federal lobbying throughout 2023 — up from $830,000 in 2021. FIRST IN PI — USAID OFFICIAL HEADS TO TIBER CREEK: Tiber Creek Group has hired Nikole Burroughs, a deputy chief of staff at USAID, to help lead the firm’s appropriations practice. Burroughs has served in a number of different foreign policy roles in both the private and public sector, including as staff director for two House Foreign Affairs subcommittees, as a staffer on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the State Department, and at the International Rescue Committee. Most recently at USAID she served as a liaison between the agency and congressional appropriations and foreign affairs committees. — Burroughs will work alongside Matt Leffingwell, a former chief of staff to House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas), in Tiber Creek’s approps practice — an increasingly important area of expertise as government funding bills become one of the most reliable legislative vehicles in a gridlocked legislative branch. FLYING IN: NMDP, formerly known as the National Marrow Donor Program, will kick off a fly-in today to lobby for a $2 million funding boost to recruit young marrow and blood cell donors. Around 60 advocates have more than 100 meetings scheduled with lawmakers from 27 states in both the House and Senate, including appropriators and members of the House Education and Workforce and Senate HELP committees. IF YOU MISSED IT OVER THE WEEKEND: “The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to pare back a long-awaited climate-risk disclosure rule that has sparked a furious backlash from business lobbyists and GOP lawmakers,” a person familiar with the matter told our Declan Harty and Jordan Wolman. — “The final rule, which could be released in the coming weeks, is likely to include less-comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions disclosure requirements for public companies than the original plan, which was proposed almost two years ago, the person said.” — “In the latest draft of the landmark rule, the SEC has dropped a mandate that certain large companies report to investors information about the emissions generated by their suppliers and customers, known as Scope 3, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss non-public information.” — “The Wall Street regulator is also likely to ease proposed reporting requirements related to emissions generated directly from a company’s operations as well as its energy usage, known as Scopes 1 and 2, the person said. The person added that the agency has hinted that the disclosures could be tied to how important, or material, the information would be to the company’s investors.” ANNALS OF ONLINE FUNDRAISING: As Trump’s campaign sees its small-dollar fundraising struggle to keep up with what it hauled in ahead of 2020, CNBC’s Brian Schwartz peels back the curtain on some of the issues facing the former president and the GOP digital fundraising platform WinRed. — “Donations from those who describe their occupations as ‘retired’ made up about one-third of all the money the Trump campaign raised for his 2020 reelection campaign, roughly $255 million, according to OpenSecrets data. For these donors, Trump’s brand of apocalyptic, aggrieved and hyperpersonal fundraising has been particularly effective.” — But “five years after WinRed was founded and quickly rose to become the dominant digital fundraising platform for Republican candidates, these same donors whose recurring monthly contributions fueled Trump’s last presidential campaign do not appear to be giving at the same rate, or in the same quantity.” — Trump’s campaign itself has seen “a 62.5% drop in small-dollar donations, from the year before the 2020 election, to the year before the 2024 election,” which could be attributed to a number of things — including a robust primary field this time around, lack of a joint fundraising agreement with the RNC, or donor fatigue. — “WinRed, meanwhile, has been sued almost half a dozen times since its launch in 2019, with the lawsuits bringing into question aggressive fundraising tactics by Republicans, according to court records.”
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