CARMONA JUMPS TO MICROSOFT: Anais Carmona has left T-Mobile after more than seven years to join Microsoft’s lobbying team as a director of congressional affairs. Carmona joined the cell phone maker back in 2016 and was most recently a director of federal government affairs covering congressional Democrats. She’s also a former president of the Hispanic Lobbyists Association. LANDMARK TAILPIPE RULE GETS MIXED REVIEWS: The Biden administration this morning “issued one of its most ambitious climate rules, a push that could cause electric cars to make up the majority of U.S. auto sales eight years from now,” E&E News’ Jean Chemnick and Mike Lee write. — The new EPA emissions rule “is the strictest federal climate regulation ever issued for passenger cars and trucks — even though it offers manufacturers a slightly slower phase-in of pollution limits than the EPA had first proposed last spring” while broadening eligibility rules for automakers, which our Tanya Snyder reports cheered those changes (for the most part). — Other industry groups, on the other hand, were predictably furious. The American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which have each taken to the airwaves in recent months to preemptively denounce the impending rule, called on Congress to overturn the “deeply flawed regulation” and threatened to take the Biden administration to court over the rule, Jean and Mike report. — Corn growers and ethanol groups also blasted the rule, per our Garrett Downs. National Corn Growers Association President Harold Wolle warned that by not working biofuels into its climate mitigation efforts, today’s rule “will not only severely hamper the administration’s ability to reach its own climate goals, but it will also hurt family farms and rural communities that rely heavily on the sale of biofuels.” APPLE SEEKS CHANGES AT ITC AFTER LOSSES: “Over the past decade, some of Apple’s biggest regulatory headaches have come from” the U.S. International Trade Commission, The New York Times’ Tripp Mickle reports — most recently with a ruling that forced the company to remove a blood-oxygen monitoring feature on some Apple Watches or face a ban. — “Now the tech giant is pushing back. While it defends itself from patent complaints before the I.T.C., Apple has begun lobbying lawmakers to help rewrite the agency’s rules. The company has been campaigning across Washington for legislation that would make some patent owners ineligible to bring complaints before the I.T.C.” — “It has sought to influence the language of committee reports that could affect how the agency levels punishments. And it has added to its lobbying might by enlisting one of the agency’s former commissioners.” — “Apple is trying to blunt the agency’s signature power,” which allows its judges to “discipline a company that violates a patent by banning imports of the infringing product. Because Apple makes all its signature devices overseas, a block on the import of its devices would be perilous to the company. To avoid that penalty in the future, the company says, it wants the agency to put the public interest of a product ahead of a ban.” FLYING IN: The Bee Foundation and the Brain Aneurysm Foundation are heading to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Megan R. Wilson reports. Advocates are urging policymakers to support legislation known as Ellie’s Law, which would allocate $10 million per year for four years in brain aneurysm research funding at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. — The organizations have set up meetings with more than 130 congressional offices, including Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Reps. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). — The Federal Bar Association will hold its fly-in tomorrow, with meetings scheduled with more than 170 offices to seek funding for judicial security and support for bills to add federal judgeships and an independent immigration court bill. — Representatives from Primary Marking Systems, which provides labeling, data collection and packaging products, are in town this week as well. They’ll meet with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to push for the reintroduction of legislation to help states address backlogs of untested sexual assault kits. — The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, which advocates for ways to increase peoples’ number of healthy, disease-free years, is bringing scientists, venture capital-backed CEOs and other stakeholders to town for the group’s first fly-in. They’re slated to meet with ARPA-H leadership and the Congressional Longevity Caucus and hear from speakers including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. — Tennessee truckers with the Tennessee Trucking Association and American Trucking Associations are in town today to meet with their congressional delegation about energy and environment issues, lawsuit abuse and ways to strengthen supply chains and workforce development. MORE HOT WATER FOR CONTROVERSIAL DONOR: President Joe Biden’s campaign and the DCCC “are freezing hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations made by a businessman accused of fraudulently pretending to be associated with the CIA,” Daniel reports in West Wing Playbook. — “A Biden campaign official told West Wing Playbook they were putting a $50,000 donation made to the Biden Victory Fund last April by Gaurav Srivastava into escrow after concerns were raised about the source and legality of the donation.” — “A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which received almost $290,000 last year from a man identifying as Srivastava, said that group, too, has set aside the money for the ‘foreseeable future’ out of an abundance of caution.” — “The decisions to freeze the money come in the wake of recent reporting around Srivastava’s business dealings and philanthropic giving,” some of which PI detailed last month after the Atlantic Council terminated its relationship with Srivastava after they couldn’t confirm important details of his background.
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