K Street in brief

Coin for K Street 

Add coin collectors to the list of interests lobbying on the Iraq war.

Peter Tompa, a lawyer at Bailey & Ehrenberg, wants an exemption allowing imports of ancient Iraqi coins. The trade was restricted by the State Department late last month.

{mosads}Tompa is representing the Professional Numismatists Guild and the International Association of Professional Numismatists, two nonprofit groups that represent the world’s coin and paper money experts.

“There is a big trade between the United States and Europe. [Coins] have been literally collected since the Renaissance,” said Tompa, himself a coin collector for 30 years.

Congress called for the State Department to restrict the coin trade from Iraq in 2004. The new rules are designed to stave off a burgeoning black market for Iraqi historical artifacts that has boomed since the U.S. invasion.

Tompa argues, however, that ancient Iraqi coins have been inappropriately caught up in the dragnet. To bring Iraqi coins to America, owners now have to establish proof of ownership going back several years, said the attorney. That’s a lot of effort for an item that may only cost $10 to $15.

Tompa is optimistic about his lobbying effort. He has carved out an exemption for Italian coins in the past and is now finding lawmakers who are willing to raise concerns about the restrictions in letters to the State Department.

Kevin Bogardus

Prescribing a price fix 

Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) is not thrilled by a new Medicare competitive bidding program that durable medical equipment (DME) companies have been railing against. This is not necessarily good news for the medical equipment industry.

“I don’t think that the idea of just wiping the slate clean is an alternative,” Stark said at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Health Subcommittee, which he chairs.

The industry — which makes and sells oxygen tanks, wheelchairs, hospital beds, walkers and the like — is looking to Congress to scrap the competitive bidding program being put in place by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which the agency projects will reduce Medicare’s DME spending by 26 percent. The $6 billion, five-year cost of getting rid of that is prohibitive, Stark suggested.

The industry has loudly complained about the way CMS selected the winning bidders in the first 10 metropolitan areas and charged that competitive bidding would drive suppliers out of the market and reduce access for beneficiaries.

Stark indicated he’d heard those concerns and suggested an alternative: keeping the program’s new quality standards and using the bid prices to set lower, national fee rates but doing away with the bidding itself. That could turn out to be the industry’s worst nightmare.

“Might Medicare be better served and significant administrative costs saved by requiring all suppliers to meet the new accreditation standards and then taking what we learn in this first round to change the fee schedule by which we now pay for DME? Those improvements can be done once and will immediately be in effect nationwide,” Stark said.

Ways and Means Committee ranking member Jim McCrery (R-La.) suggested a more targeted approach that would preserve but improve the bidding program. “I would prefer that, Mr. Chairman, to junking the whole thing and then trying to reset the prices,” he said.

 Jeffrey Young

Colombians keep coming 

Colombian officials continue to parade to Washington to lobby for a free trade agreement stalled in the House in a dispute between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Bush.

This week Colombian Minister of Defense Juan Manuel Santos will visit lawmakers and lobbyists in D.C. The purpose of the trip is to give a speech Wednesday at the Council of the Americas annual convention, but the Colombian embassy said Santos also would have time to press for support for the trade pact. 

Santos’s schedule includes meetings with the Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), who has spoken favorably of the deal. He is also set to meet Reps. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), Vic Snyder (D-Ark.), Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) and Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), who chairs a House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over foreign operations.

In the Senate, Santos is scheduled to meet Sens. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).

The deal is stuck because of a rules change that eliminated a 90-day timetable for House consideration of the Colombia deal. The change, which only 10 Democrats opposed, means the House is under no time limit to consider the deal. That led President Bush to declare it effectively dead.

Separately, Colombian Ambassador to the United States Carolina Barco is visiting Florida to drive up support for the trade pact in a state that has a substantial Colombian-American population. Florida exports over $1 billion in goods to Colombia annually, according to embassy statistics.

Ian Swanson

Microsoft, K St. merge 

Microsoft’s pursuit of Yahoo might have failed, but the effort has paid dividends for K Street.

Adding to its own formidable roster of lobbyists, the Redmond, Wash.-based company recently hired at least two firms — the Raben Group and Bryan Cave Strategies — to work specifically on the Yahoo bid, according to lobbying disclosure forms filed with the Senate.

At the ready to help smooth the case on Capitol Hill were Robert Raben, a former House Judiciary Committee aide to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), and David Grimaldi, former legislative counsel to Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) — both of the Raben Group.

Lobbyists hired to work on the Yahoo bid at Bryan Cave include Broderick Johnson, a past senior aide to President Bill Clinton, and Waldo McMillian, a former staff member for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Microsoft was expecting fierce opposition from its high-tech rival, Google, which also packs a considerable punch on the Hill. The two giants had previously faced off over Google’s ultimately successful purchase of DoubleClick.

“Microsoft’s lobbying approach reflects our belief that we have a responsibility to engage with policymakers,” Jack Evans, Microsoft’s spokesman, said in a statement.

“And like virtually every other corporation in America, we retain outside experts who can offer counsel.”

K.B.

Wind power  

A wind energy project in Nantucket Sound continues to blow business K Street’s way.

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a group that opposes the plan, recently hired BKSH & Associates to lobby for a permanent protection of the sound from energy development.

The effort is to fix what they see as an anomaly. The wind energy development is proposed in an area of federal waters that is encircled by protected state waters.

Audra Parker, director of strategic planning at the Alliance, equates the lobbying effort to closing the doughnut hole. She said permanent protection of the sound is a long-term goal of her group.

The alliance has been locked in a years-long battle with Cape Wind over the energy company’s efforts to install 130 turbines in Horseshoe Shoal in the sound. That project has been the subject of considerable lobbying in recent years, but is still years away from completion.

The Mineral Management Service, a division of the Interior Department, is writing an environmental impact statement on the project, and Interior officials are creating new rules relating to offshore wind energy development along the outer continental shelf.

Cape Wind proponents see the development as a way to provide needed clean power to area residences and businesses. The development is projected to average around 170 megawatts of electricity.

Critics say the project will be an eyesore and raises environmental concerns beyond air pollution.

Each side has hired lobbyists to help make its case on Capitol Hill. The Alliance, for example, has also retained Patton Boggs and Perkins Coie.

Cape Wind, meanwhile, has signed DLA Piper and Capital Lobbying. 

 Jim Snyder