Oil giant Exxon Mobil — the largest corporation in America — spent $9.32 million on lobbying in the first three months of 2009, more than any other company in the nation, according to recently released lobbying filings. Joining Exxon in the top four were competitor Chevron ($6.8 million), defense contractor Lockheed Martin ($6.35 million) and drug maker Pfizer ($6.14 million).
About 100 companies and about 20 trade groups spent more than $1 million on lobbying in the first quarter, about the same as last year, according to lobbying reports filed Monday. Most of these companies are in the energy, pharmaceutical, insurance and telecommunications industries.
The lion’s share of Exxon’s lobbying effort was devoted to drilling access. Exxon, the most profitable company in America in 2008, according to Fortune magazine’s rankings, also lobbies on environmental policy, tax law and trade.
The company spends a good amount trying to get the feds off its back, but it also seeks favors and tax breaks from government. On health care, for instance, Exxon opposed Sen. John McCain and President George W. Bush’s plan to end the special tax treatment of employer-sponsored health insurance. And even pro-drilling lobbying is not, strictly speaking, laissez-faire advocacy. Much of the drilling is on federally owned lands, and this requires federal permission.
Chevron, the country’s second-most profitable company, according to Fortune, took a slightly different lobbying tack, notably in its emphasis on Burma.
Last year, Congress passed sanctions on the military dictatorship of Burma, barring imports from that country, where industry is controlled by the government. The one exception to the sanctions is a natural gas field operated by Chevron. That exception was written into the sanction bill by then-Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. and other Foreign Relations Committee senators. Biden’s chief of staff at the time was Alan Hoffman, a former lobbyist for Unocal, the oil company that started the natural gas project in Burma — and that is now owned by Chevron.
Lockheed Martin, which is king of what former President Dwight Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex,” receives more money in defense contracts than does any other company.
Much of Lockheed’s lobbying money was spent trying to save the F-22, the fighter jet slated for discontinuation by the Pentagon now that aerial combat (as opposed to aerial bombing) is no longer as much of a factor in defense. Lockheed appears to have lost the F-22 fight, but it won a consolation prize with the Pentagon’s call to accelerate production of the F-35, the F-22’s successor. Lockheed’s stock price jumped 10 percent earlier this month when the Pentagon announced its priorities.
Another Lockheed project is on the chopping block: a new Marine One helicopter to ferry the president over short distances. The project is nearly 100 percent over budget, and President Barack Obama has said he can make due with the current helicopter. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., an appropriator, has promised to fight to save Lockheed’s project because many of the jobs for building it are in his district.
Pfizer is the largest drug maker in America, and its top lobbyist, Anthony Principi, was Bush’s secretary of veterans affairs. The drug industry, early numbers suggest, spent more on lobbying than any other industry. Pfizer supported expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan, pushed for tighter regulation of generic biologic drugs, and called for the government to help soldiers quit smoking (Pfizer makes Chantix, a smoking cessation drug).
General Electric, which often leads the pack in lobbying expenditures, ranked seventh in the last quarter, spending only $4.54 million. Of course, that figure doesn’t include the salaries of GE employees Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, whose prime-time shows on GE-owned MSNBC are known for their liberal activism. MSNBC and its sister stations, CNBC and NBC, are engaged in a promotional blitz for “Earth Week,” in which various shows tout “green solutions” to environmental problems and climate change. “Earth Week” amounts to soft lobbying for the same subsidies and regulations that the parent company advocates.
Studying the priorities of these firms reveals that big business’ lobbying goals in Washington are a blend of handouts, carve-outs, deregulation, regulation and mandates — and that for the most part, the companies with the best lobbyists come out on top.
