Lobbyists Are in ‘Mad Dash’ to Influence Senate GOP Tax Bill

It’s coming down to the last sprint for Washington lobbyists looking to influence the fast-moving GOP tax-and-spending package.

After months of waiting, House and Senate versions of legislation renewing much of the 2017 tax law are out. That’s kicked into high gear interests from companies seeking to preserve clean-energy credits, universities aiming to protect their endowments, and a slew of others.

Republicans want the legislation on President Donald Trump’s desk in a matter of days; a vote in the Senate is expected this week.

“It’s really kind of a mad dash,” said GOP lobbyist Mark Williams, a partner at Ferox Strategies, where registered clients include Eli Lilly and Co. and the National Retail Federation. “The Senate is getting inundated by a variety of industries, whether it has to do with international tax, energy tax credits, or in the health-care space.”

Myriad interests are engaging in “full-throated lobbying efforts to get stuff included or excluded” in the multi-trillion-dollar Senate package, he added.

New and Nixed

The Senate and House bills contained some key differences.

New taxes on sports franchise owners and private foundations are among provisions that vanished from the Senate bill. Their emissaries on K Street likely will be working to keep it that way, said Ray Beeman, a former House Ways and Means Committee GOP tax counsel who now leads EY’s Washington Council practice.

“The Senate got the benefit of feedback on the House bill,” Beeman said. “That gave the Senate an opportunity to calibrate based on the feedback over the last couple of weeks.”

And, unlike the Ways and Means legislation that passed the House in a matter of days, the Senate bill will linger a bit longer allowing for further tweaks, Beeman said.

Rosemary Becchi, a shareholder at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and former Republican tax counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, said she was pleased to see a new tax on profits earned by third-party entities that finance civil litigation.

Universities like Harvard and Vanderbilt have for several years played defense against GOP scrutiny of universities and efforts to hike taxes on their endowments. The current tax on investment income of certain large private colleges and universities is 1.4%.

The Senate GOP bill revised down a top new rate to 8% after House Republicans proposed a rate as high as 21%. Universities and their allies argue higher taxes mean less financial aid for students.

Steven Bloom, an assistant vice president at the American Council on Education, says the work isn’t done.

The fact that the Senate Finance Committee lowered the endowment tax rate indicates that “there’s a willingness to make changes,” Bloom said. “The bill is still in flux.”

Lawmakers Listening

Lawmakers say they’re still making changes to provisions ranging from the Medicaid provider tax to giving a longer runway to the tax credit on clean hydrogen that had been largely dismantled in the House and Senate bills.

It’s a message that people like K&L Gates’ partner David Skillman have sought to bring to lawmakers. The former counsel to Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said the Senate bill’s energy credit timelines are still extremely tight, and that’s challenging for companies seeking to build out their queue.

“The Senate’s energy provisions mark a good first step,” Skillman said.

Democratic lobbyist Steve Elmendorf, a founder of the firm Avoq, said it’s a big moment for lobbyists.

Influence campaigns should ramp up not only in Washington but at all levels, including in lawmakers’ districts, he said.

“People realize it’s a big bill, whether you think it’s beautiful or not,” he said. “Changes have been made, it’s not a fruitless effort.”