K Street in Brief

TOUGH SELL

Andrew Samet has earned a reputation in Washington as the go-to guy for trade deals that labor unions oppose.

He lobbied (successfully) for the contentious free trade deal between the U.S. and Central American countries two years ago. Now the former Clinton Labor Department official has been hired by Colombia to help push its own free trade agreement through Congress. Labor has been the big stumbling block for the deal due to the South American country’s history of violence against union members.

{mosads}“If you’re a country with a labor problem, Andrew is the guy you bring in,” said Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO, which opposes the Colombia free trade pact.

Samet has a particularly tough sell. The administration tried to force a vote on the measure. That angered House leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who changed House rules to take the deal off the legislative clock.

But the three-month, $58,000 contract is a natural extension for Samet. He prepared a report for the Inter-American Development Bank dissecting Colombia’s labor issues and crafting recommendations to resolve them. Samet was hired by Colombia as a consultant to prepare the report, which he delivered last summer.

As a lobbyist, Samet now will advise Colombia on how to best institute his recommendations and reach out to U.S. labor unions.

Samet thinks the deal, if approved, could help Colombia’s workers.

“My belief has been, you can expand trade and you can expand and improve labor standards,” said Samet. “They can go together, and they should go together. That should be true for Colombia, as well as other trade agreements.”

Kevin Bogardus

EASTON MOVE 

A senior Democratic Senate Finance Committee aide will join the formerly all-Republican boutique lobbying shop Tarplin, Downs & Young next week.

Michelle Easton will be the second Democrat at Tarplin, Downs & Young, which was founded in January 2006 to focus on healthcare policy.

Easton was chief health counsel to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) since January 2006; she left several weeks ago. She previously was legislative counsel to then-Sen. John Breaux (D-La.).

“We are very fortunate to have Michelle join our team as we and our clients prepare for the opportunities and challenges of major Medicare legislation and healthcare reform,” said Linda

Tarplin, a founding partner of the firm who worked in legislative affairs at the George H.W. Bush White House.

After years of working under Baucus and Breaux, who served on the Finance Committee and chaired the Special Committee on Aging, Easton has considerable experience with Medicare. Notably, Baucus and Bareaux were the only Democrats who helped draft the Republican bill that created the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003.

Baucus’s current chief health counsel, Liz Fowler, returned to the Finance Committee in March. Fowler worked for the panel from 2000 until 2005, when she left to join the private sector. In 2006, Fowler became a policy adviser to the health insurance company Wellpoint , a Tarplin, Downs & Young client.

Easton is Tarplin, Downs & Young’s second hire this year. In February, it brought aboard Isaac Fordjour, who previously worked for the National Marrow Donor Program and as an aide to a senior Democratic member of the Tennessee legislature.

Jeffrey Young

SOLE SURVIVOR 

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Reps. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Jim Costa (D-Calif.) will introduce a bill on Wednesday to protect the benefits of military members who become a family’s sole survivor of war and are required to leave combat.

A California sheriff’s deputy, Jason Hubbard, was required to repay portions of his enlistment bonus and was denied other benefits after he was called home from duty in Iraq and decided to leave the Army. 

Hubbard’s two brothers were killed in Iraq. The sole-survivor law required that Hubbard leave combat.

The legislation would protect the benefits for military members who have lost all of their siblings in war and want to leave the service entirely. 

Roxana Tiron

BIG BUSINESS

Golf is much more than a fundraising opportunity. The message top executives of major golf groups like the PGA Tour and LPGA are carrying to Capitol Hill Wednesday is that it is big business and a big job generator.

“Golf is a huge industry and has a tremendous impact on the economy,” said Greg McCarthy of Powell Tate , which is helping to promote a news conference.

The groups plan to release a study of the impact golf had on the economy in 2005. According to the report, golf was a $76 billion industry, making it larger than the newspaper industry, and the motion picture and video business. Golf is responsible for around 2 million jobs that provide wages of around $61 billion, according to the report, which was commissioned by the World Golf Foundation.   

In addition to the news conference, Reps. John Mica (R-Fla.) and Ron Klein (D-Fla.) plan to introduce a resolution designating April 16, 2008, as National Golf Day.

Jim Snyder

GREENBACKS 

The greening of the Washington advocacy business continues.

Terra Gen-Power, which operates carbon-free geothermal, wind and solar power generators, hired Bob Lawrence & Associates to lobby Congress on the renewable-energy bill.

Hart Downstream Energy Services , meanwhile, is lobbying for Tyson Foods , the chicken processor, on tax issues related to the development of renewable fuels.

And Viresco Energy , named for a Latin word that means “to grow green,” hired DuganSykes Consulting Services in Gainesville, Fla., to lobby Congress to support renewable energy.

Dozens of other companies hired lobbyists last year after Democrats took control of Congress and pledged to boost spending on renewable-energy programs.

Democrats and Republicans last year mandated a five-fold increase in the production of biofuels such as ethanol, but efforts to provide a big funding boost have largely been thwarted by oil and gas companies, from whose pockets the new money would have come.

Green companies helped contribute to a banner year for K Street. The Center for Responsive Politics reported last week that the lobbying industry generated $2.79 billion in business in 2007, a new record.

Old standbys, however, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, General Electric , AARP and ExxonMobil , continue to be among the biggest spenders in Washington. 

J.S.