K Street takes lawmakers to school
Long accustomed to the red-carpet treatment from congressional Republicans, energy lobbyists are fretting over the GOP’s freshman class, filled with tea party members and other unpredictable newcomers who might not yet be sold on the merits of offshore drilling and nuclear energy.
They’re scrambling to win over the newbie lawmakers with finely tuned talking points, briefing books — and of course, campaign contributions for Republicans, some of whom already are facing tough races just two years out.
But there’s a nagging worry among the lobbyists that the freshmen won’t embrace a drill-baby-drill approach to energy — particularly if it conflicts with the GOP’s top goal of slashing spending and limiting the growth of the federal government.
“A lot will depend on where the tea party freshmen come down,” said Michael Whatley, an industry lobbyist with HBW Resources and a former chief of staff to ex-Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.). “Do they pick up those types of pitchforks and run with them?”
The 112th Congress has a lot of new faces: More than 90 House members plus 15 senators, the vast majority of them Republican. The numbers mean that coal, oil, gas, nuclear and renewable-energy advocates face a daunting task as they swarm Capitol Hill — simply because many of the freshmen are a mystery to the lobbying world.
On the campaign trail, for example, several pledged to support domestic expansion of nuclear power and offshore oil and gas production. But still unclear is how those ideas would square with a budget-cutting fever among the newcomers.
Lawmakers, trade groups and environmental groups are largely mum about who exactly is meeting with whom. In the House, as Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan and Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa of California have already found out, closed-door outreach to industry is guaranteed to draw quick Democratic complaints about broken pledges of transparency.
“I think there’s certainly a desire for people to get us as much information as we want,” South Dakota Rep.Kristi Noem, a freshman representative to the GOP leadership, told POLITICO. Noem said she’s had “quite a few meetings with different groups providing us information,” though she declined to go into detail.
Rep.Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) said he’s had a couple of brief conversations about nuclear power but added that he’s been in office for only a few weeks. “It’s a lot of information to take in,” he said. “It’s a learning process.”
Mindful that their dues-paying members want to see results out of their Washington-based representatives, several lobbyists for the energy industry and environmental groups acknowledged that they’re using up shoe leather to get their points out to the freshmen.
“In very short order, we’ll have met with all of them,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute.
Like many of his industry colleagues, Gerard said API has been making its pitch to the freshmen by sticking to fundamentals. Oil and gas lobbyists on the Hill are handing out copies of their recent report “State of American Energy,” which details the reach of the 9.2 million people directly and indirectly employed through their part of the fossil fuel extraction industry.
“I tell you what, the message resonates,” Gerard said. “When people understand the breadth and scope of the oil and gas industry, it’s generally an ‘Oh, hmm’ moment.”
According to Open Secrets, the oil and gas industry has already donated big bucks to freshmen on energy-heavy committees. On Energy and Commerce, GOP Reps. Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Cory Gardner of Colorado have raised $187,700 and $154,174, respectively. On Natural Resources, Republican Reps. Bill Flores of Texas has raised $175,728 and Jeff Landry of Louisiana, $71,200.
Meeting with so many freshmen and their bare-bones office staff also could take a lot longer than usual.
The Nuclear Energy Institute normally needs just a few weeks to begin schooling new members of Congress about the basics of the industry’s agenda. But this time, the group’s “education rollout” could take several months.
“We want to hit every single office,” said Derrick Freeman, senior director for federal programs at NEI. He added: “We have a story to tell, and we want to tell that story. … We want to be in everybody’s face.”
Other trade groups said they are just getting started in their outreach because of the stop-and-go nature of the early weeks of the new Congress.
“We certainly need to be getting up and visiting with them, making sure they understand the history of this industry, and more importantly the future of this industry,” said Robert Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association.
Ethanol producers say they have a chance with the freshman class to repair their image after a spell of tough press about the fuel additive’s energy footprint and influence on global food prices. “It’s maybe a bit refreshing that you’ve got [more than 100] members that perhaps haven’t been jaundiced by the misinformed debate over the past several years,” Dinneen said.
Dinneen said ethanol advocates plan to reach out to a broader contingent of freshman lawmakers beyond the Farm Belt, with the goal of inspiring the next generation of renewable feedstocks beyond corn. Invitations to site visits in the region will soon be in the mail.
“The best way to understand an industry like this is to kick the tires,” Dinneen said.
Renewable energy advocates are taking their message — a nationwide “clean energy standard” and permanent tax breaks — to the freshman class by pointing to their potential as a big job creator.
“There’s a bunch of members and new members from windy parts of the country, so they’re naturally very interested in understanding our industry,” said Rob Gramlich, senior vice president for public policy at the American Wind Energy Association.
Gramlich would not say which members he’s been in talks with, but he noted that 46 states are already home to about 400 manufacturing facilities for wind turbines.
“There are a lot of districts where there are real jobs that people can see,” he said.
And while it might sound like a long shot, environmental groups say partisan differences aren’t deterring them from trying to get their views across to the Republican freshmen.
During the upcoming Presidents Day recess, they’ll rely on local constituents to request meetings with the new members in their districts.
Back in Washington, the Sierra Club’s lobbying team fanned out last month to attend receptions for freshman Republican lawmakers after their official swearing-in ceremonies, said Dalal Aboulhosn, a water policy expert.
The nation’s oldest grass-roots environmental group has also blanketed the Republicans’ offices with requests for formal meetings. No one has bitten yet. But if they do, Aboulhosn said, the greens want to at least leave contact information, “so we can act as a resource for them, so when things do come up, they can contact us quickly.”
Greens said they realize they’re swimming against the tide in reaching out to Republicans, who are likely to be on the other side of their issues. But knowing that industry trade groups are doing education campaigns ahead of fast-moving debates on EPA and energy policy, they at least want to get a foot in the door, too.
“We do hear they’re on the Hill,” Aboulhosn said. “They’re getting ahead of the issues. We want to make sure we’re doing the same thing, letting members know there’s two sides to the story.”
-Darren Samuelsohn
