The Chamber is on pace to exceed its lobbying spending in 2011, but is unlikely to match the furious activity of 2010, when work on the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and healthcare reform dominated Washington.
{mosads}It spent $65.8 million on lobbying last year, according to the LDA reports. That was a significant drop from 2010, when the Chamber and its legal affiliate spent an eye-popping $131.5 million on lobbying.
Last year, a Chamber spokesman told The Hill that declines in the group’s lobbying is typical for off-election years.
The Chamber’s small army of lobbyists has focused on a multitude of issues in 2012, including Dodd-Frank, health reform implementation, replacing the $109 billion spending sequester, the Keystone oil pipeline, reform of sugar quotas, customs facilitation and Environmental Protection Agency rules on natural-gas fracking.
The group scored big wins with the passage of Export-Import Bank reauthorization and passage of the National Flood Insurance Program reauthorization, but failed to win the inclusion of user fees in a Food and Drug Administration bill.