With help from Daniel Lippman U.S. TRAVEL WANTS RELIEF BILL BY THANKSGIVING: The travel industry is pressing Congress to send a bill to help with the recovery from hurricanes Helene and Milton to President Joe Biden’s desk by Thanksgiving, pointing to an estimate that the economic blow from plummeting fall tourism could reach $2 billion in North Carolina alone. — “Past hurricanes demonstrate that it takes an average of 6-12 months before travel spending returns to baseline levels,” U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman wrote in a letter to congressional leadership today. He noted that the travel industry accounts for more than 2 million jobs and $282 billion in travel spending in states hit by the hurricanes — thus the urgent need “to help these communities recover and avoid further economic damage.” — “Visitation to Asheville/Buncombe County, NC, has dropped to record lows after Hurricane Helene destroyed highways, roads and water utilities,” Freeman wrote, adding that “without visitors, small travel businesses are unable to meet payroll and basic operating expenses.” — Specifically, Freeman asked that any disaster supplemental include more than $35 billion in funding for the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief program, which provides grants to help localities “jumpstart” the rebuilding process after a disaster, particularly in low-income areas. — Freeman also called for lawmakers to set aside a quarter of funding Economic Adjustment Assistance funds to support travel recovery, pointing to the success of a similar earmark for travel in Covid relief legislation. TGIF and welcome to PI. It’s officially election month. Send any and all tips about how you’re preparing for the transition, invites for briefings or memos you’re sending to clients/members, influence-related transition scoops and anything else you and your colleagues are gabbing about around the office: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. HOTELIERS ASSOCIATION TAPS NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE: The American Hotel & Lodging Association has named Rosanna Maietta as its next president and CEO after its former head Chip Rogers left the trade group earlier this year. — Maietta was most recently at the American Clean Power Association, where she served as chief communications officer and senior counselor to CEO Jason Grumet. Maietta is an AHLA alum, previously serving as president and CEO of the AHLA Foundation as well as a communications and PR executive at the trade group for eight years. THE REVOLVING DOOR PROJECT’S ETHICS WISHLIST: Just before the next presidential transition gets underway, the watchdog group Revolving Door Project is outlining the ethics reforms it wants to see from the future president and Congress, who will take office amid record-low levels of public trust in government. — “The next president will have an opportunity to set government ethics back on track with much-needed reforms, or can deepen the ever growing cynicism that gets in the way of the proper functioning of a democracy,” the group argues in a new white paper, which features case studies from the past three presidential administrations, Congress and the judicial branch to demonstrate where current rules have fallen short. — The group has laid out six different principles it believes should guide new ethics reforms, along with almost a dozen specific policy recommendations aimed at gumming up the revolving door of government, improving transparency among both lobbyists and government officials and rooting out conflicts of interest related to financial assets. — More generally, the paper calls for ethics rules “strong enough to avoid both egregious scandals and also standard practices that violate public trust,” noting that “the distinction between proven cases of corruption and perceived instances of it is relatively modest in terms of damage to public trust.” — It would also help to enact “bright line” ethics rules “that are simple to administer and enforce” and are “as comprehensive as possible in both who and what they cover,” the paper argues, while giving more teeth to those charged with enforcing potential ethical breaches. The group is also calling for future ethics reforms to differentiate between lobbyists for corporate or private interests and lobbyists for public interests. KEAN EYE FOR INVESTING: Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.), who’s in a competitive House race this year, once invested in a business venture advising clean energy clients and subsequently introduced a bill that authorized a massive increase in state support for clean energy that benefited that firm. — In early 2010, Kean, who was then minority leader of the New Jersey Senate, announced a passive investment in a company called Greener by Design LLC, giving around $100,000 for a 10 percent stake in the company, along with a top Democratic colleague. — The firm marketed itself as a “turnkey full-service environmental asset management and energy investment firm” and said it could help clients source grants and loans and with trading in the carbon credit and offset markets. — In his time in the legislature up to then, Kean had no prior history of sponsoring bills specifically to expand wind energy, according to a search of state records. But in June of that year, Kean and then-Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney introduced and passed a bill to boost the development of offshore wind by allowing developers to sell certificates generated by producing clean energy and authorizing up to $100 million in tax credits for wind energy development. — Two years after the law was enacted, Greener by Design started advertising renewable energy advisory services, including for wind projects, according to an archived version of its website. The company’s client page currently features its work with Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, a joint venture between Shell and EDF Renewables that in 2021 was approved by the program Kean helped create. — In recent years, his investment in the company has done quite well — increasing in value as much as tenfold from 2020 to 2021. In 2021, he reported the value of his stake as being between $500,000 and $1 million — up from $50,000 to $100,000 the year before, according to his financial disclosures. Last year, Kean transferred his stake to his wife. The relationship between Kean’s profits and the offshore wind program was first reported this morning by The American Prospect. — Kean has made ethics in government a central piece of his reelection campaign this year and said in a TV ad a month ago that he was supporting a bill to ban members of Congress from trading stocks. — Kean campaign spokesperson Kean MacLelland noted to Daniel that Kean had worked earlier in his career at the EPA as well as an energy and environmental aide for the late Rep. Bob Franks (R-N.J.) in the 1990s. He also said that Kean had sponsored or supported several amendments or bills to address climate change before 2010, including a bill to create a state commission to oversee wind and solar energy. — “Tom has always fulfilled strict ethical reporting standards in both the state legislature and in Congress,” MacLelland said, adding that while the House Ethics Committee “determined there was no conflict of interest” as a result of Kean’s holdings, they “recommended the assets be transferred to his wife, which he did out of the abundance of caution and to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.” — Greener By Design President Adam Zellner said in a statement: “The company has gone out of its way to make sure that every decision it’s made has been ethically cleared.” WHO’S SPOOKING BIG FOOD: “Donald Trump’s embrace of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his fringe health theories is triggering a flurry of outreach in Washington and beyond, with powerful ag interests rushing to defend their industries from Kennedy’s threats,” per our Marcia Brown, Grace Yarrow and Brittany Gibson. — “Trade groups representing farmers say they’re pushing the Trump campaign over concerns about Kennedy’s rhetoric on American agriculture. And lobbyists for packaged food companies and other major industry players are rushing to defend their use of additives and other ingredients under fire in the heat of the campaign.” — “While most in the agriculture and pharmaceutical industries remain skeptical that Trump would ultimately put Kennedy” — who’s floated a possible role in the administration in charge of public health and called for bans on products from pesticides to food additives and seed oils — “in a position of real power, conversations with more than half a dozen industry lobbyists and more than a dozen lawmakers and Hill aides indicate many are starting to prepare for that reality.”
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