With Megan R. Wilson, Marcia Brown, Daniel Lippman BRADY LANDS ON K STREET: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has picked up a major new hire ahead of next year’s deadline to extend key provisions in Republicans’ 2017 tax overhaul: one of the chief architects of that bill, former House Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady. — It’s the latest step in Brady’s reemergence since leaving office last year, and comes as the business community’s influence machine has begun to really rev up to lay the groundwork for preserving prized tax breaks that are already phasing out or will sunset at the end of next year. — The fiscal cliff stands to have “huge impacts on the economy, on mainstream businesses, on working families,” Brady told Megan, and “whether you are interested in expiring provisions or you are concerned about being a pay-for for the extensive permanence of those provisions, you need to be engaged now, and you need to be engaged aggressively.” — Brady won’t be registering to lobby, as with the role he took last month as the face of the corporate advocacy group Alliance for Competitive Taxation — even though his yearlong cooling-off period for lobbying his former colleagues has expired — but will provide clients with “unique strategic advice.” He also has no plans to conduct any FARA-registrable work, the firm said. — His hiring is a major boon for Akin, K Street’s second-largest firm by lobbying revenue, especially on the tax front after Brendan Dunn, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top tax aide, left Akin in recent weeks to launch his own firm. Akin’s roster of clients includes the Business Roundtable, PhRMA, Verizon, Anheuser-Busch, AT&T, Bayer, Honeywell, RTX and more. — In addition to tax issues, Brady will also advise clients on other policy areas under the Ways and Means jurisdiction, including the plethora of health care fights in Washington (Megan has a great write-up on that here) and trade matters, including an upcoming negotiation deadline for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement and an increasing populist shift toward more protectionist trade policy. (Akin also represents Nippon Steel in its bid to merge with U.S. Steel.) Brady will also work on energy issues, he said. — Brady is the third former House Republican committee chair on Akin’s staff, joining former House Foreign Affairs Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and fellow Texan and former House Science Chair Lamar Smith. Happy Monday and welcome to PI. Send tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. NEW BIO LEADERSHIP CLEANS HOUSE: “The Biotechnology Innovation Organization on Monday announced 30 layoffs that are part of a restructuring of the organization,” Stat News’ John Wilkerson and Rachel Cohrs Zhang report. — In an email to staff, new BIO chief executive John Crowley called the changes an effort to “better align our operations with our mission and the strategic priorities.” Expected departures include senior leaders like chief public affairs and marketing officer Rich Masters, chief policy officer John Murphy and chief science officer Cartier Esham, sources told Stat, and come after the biopharma industry group parted ways with its top lobbyist last month.
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REALTORS’ PERILOUS MOMENT: NOTUS’ Maggie Severns and Byron Tau (a PI alum) have a deep dive on how the National Association of Realtors, one of Washington’s most powerful — and deep-pocketed — trade associations, found itself in its current state of turmoil, facing antitrust threats and grappling with the fallout of a sexual harassment scandal that threaten to upend the real estate industry and NAR’s dominance over it. — “To hear critics tell it,” they write, “NAR and its more than 1,000 state and local affiliates have exploited their influence over real estate transactions to gain more money, which they spent building a gigantic political influence apparatus that secured their status. But behind the partying and spending, NAR has been facing existential risk since the advent of the internet. And over the last two years, it has started to come crashing down.” A NEW STATE DATA PRIVACY PLAYBOOK?: “Vermont lawmakers just defied national trends by passing the toughest-yet state bill protecting online data privacy — and they did it by using a new tactic designed to get around industry pressure,” our Alfred Ng reports. — “The bill lets Vermont residents sue companies directly for collecting or sharing sensitive data without their consent. As they drafted and finalized it, lawmakers deployed a countermeasure against business pushback: They brought together lawmakers in states from Maine to Oklahoma who had fought their own battles with the tech industry and asked them for advice.” — Though it’s not yet clear whether the strategy will pay off, “already, national consumer advocacy groups are looking to Vermont as a possible model for lawmakers who want to pass tough state tech regulations around the country — a battle that states have, until now, largely been losing.” HOW WALL STREET TOOK ON THE FED: “JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and other big-bank CEOs played hardball with the Federal Reserve over proposals that the lenders hold more capital. Now, it looks like those tactics are paying off,” according to The Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Ackerman. — “The Fed and two other federal regulators are moving toward a plan that would significantly lessen a nearly 20% mandated increase in capital for the biggest U.S. banks, according to people familiar with the matter. Required increases in capital for banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs … would on average be about half as much as originally floated,” and “would be a big win for the banks and Dimon.” FIRST IN PI — ANNALS OF ANTITRUST LOBBYING: Farm and food businesses are launching a new digital ad buy of roughly $50,000 to push for reviving the Robinson-Patman Act, a 1936 law prohibiting price discrimination that has gone largely unenforced since the 1980s. — The Main Street Competition Coalition is planning ads across social media platforms including Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn through June. The campaign includes Google display ads as well as ads on Spotify, connected TV and POLITICO that will start running this week through June. — While Robinson-Patman can be applied across the economy, it’s an especially important law in the grocery retail sector, where large players can secure better terms at the expense of their smaller competitors. Enforcing the law, its supporters say, would rid the market of what they see are unfair business practices, such as slotting fees, which require suppliers to pay grocery stores for prime grocery shelving real estate. — But the law has detractors. Give America A Break, an initiative of the 501(c)4 Foundation for America’s Families Inc., previously debuted a six-figure ad campaign against Robinson-Patman Act enforcement, arguing it could raise prices for consumers and hamper “the convenience and affordability offered by large retailers.” — Speaking of: Members of the National Grocers Association, which is part of the Main Street coalition, land in Washington Wednesday to lobby lawmakers to support enforcing the Robinson-Patman Act. The fly-in also aligns with the House farm bill markup scheduled for Thursday, and the group’s nearly 150 meetings on the Hill will also touch on the issue of credit card swipe fees. ALSO FLYING IN: NGA will join a litany of other trade associations headed to the Hill this week for fly-ins. First up, the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute; Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International and the Plumbing, Heating, Cooling Contractors National Association are in town today and tomorrow to meet with lawmakers on the Hill as well as officials at the Energy Department and EPA to discuss the transition to more climate-friendly refrigerants, Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, workforce development and regulation of HVACR and water heating equipment. — NATSO, which represents gas stations, truck stops and travel centers, will kick off its fly-in on Tuesday, with over five dozen members in tow to meet with lawmakers on key committees including the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, House Energy and Commerce and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. — Attendees will push to extend the biodiesel tax credit and permit the sale of E15 year round, in addition to promoting legislation to ensure long-term solvency for the Highway Trust Fund. The fly-in will culminate with the group’s annual pie reception for members of Congress. ICYMI OVER THE WEEKEND: “Several members of Tesla’s lobbying and public policy team — including its top federal lobbyist — are departing the company, leaving the office responsible for influencing U.S. and global policy in flux as the electric vehicle giant faces increasing international competition,” our Hailey Fuchs reports. — “Hasan Nazar — who led federal U.S. policy for Tesla — is departing, along with other policy staffers including Patrick Bean and Brooke Kintz, according to two people familiar with the situation granted anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel issues. Bean oversaw global charging and energy policy, and Kintz led state-level policy in the U.S. and oversaw work in North America.” Last month, Tesla’s vice president for policy and business development, Rohan Patel, announced his departure, and the company has also lost several key state officials in recent months. — “It’s unclear who now leads the company’s federal lobbying arm in Washington at a critical time for the electric vehicle maker,” with key policy fights playing out over trade, EV tax credits, infrastructure and emerging regulations of autonomous vehicles. SPOTTED at the NRSC’s headquarters last week for Holland & Knight’s annual fundraiser, which raised more than $213,000 for the Senate GOP campaign arm, per a tipster: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Whip John Thune (S.D.), NRSC Chair Steve Daines (Mont.), Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), Pete Ricketts (Neb.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Miss.), Markwayne Mullin (Okla.), Roger Wicker (Miss.), John Boozman (Ark.) and Roger Marshall (Kan.), and Kathryn Lehman, Lisa Hawke, Dimitri Karakitsos, Rob Bradner, Scott Mason, Sean McGlynn, Tom Davis, Chris DeLacy, Dennis Potter, Dan Sennott and Lisa Barkovic of Holland & Knight. — And at Eastern Market’s The Wells for the firm’s annual fundraiser for the DSCC, which brought in over $180,000 for the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, per a tipster: Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Peter Welch (Vt.), and Todd Wooten, Rich Gold, Beth Viola, Ed Perlmutter, Phil Baker-Shenk, Misha Lehrer, Ron Klein, Kayla Gebeck Carroll, Micah Burbanks-Ivey and Leslie Pollner of Holland & Knight.
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