Eli Lilly bumps up 3Q federal lobbying 5 percent

WASHINGTON (Lobbying Activist) — Drug maker Eli Lilly and Co. punched up its spending on federal lobbying in the third quarter as it focused on market access and pricing reform in Europe, trade issues and the healthcare overhaul, among other matters.

The Indianapolis drugmaker spent $2.1 million in the three months that ended Sept. 30, a 5 percent increase from the same quarter last year and a jump of more than 30 percent from the $1.6 million it spent in this year's second quarter.

Lilly lobbied on trade issues involving China, Russia and Vietnam. It also lobbied on pricing reform in Germany and Greece and market access in Poland and Italy, according to a report filed with the clerk of the House of Representatives. It lobbied on hospital discounts, patient safety issues, counterfeit medicines, financial derivatives and the healthcare overhaul, which promises more customers for drugmakers by covering millions of uninsured people. Congress passed the overhaul in March, and it will be rolled out over the next several years.

Besides Congress, Lilly also lobbied the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Patent and Trademark Office and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, State, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, according to the disclosure report filed Oct. 18 with the House clerk's office.

(source:bloomberg.com)

Lobbying on in BJP for vacant positions

The newly elected chairman of BJP Parliamentary Party L.K. Advani blesses Sushma Swaraj after she was appointed as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha on Friday.






Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party were on Friday lobbying hard with Ms. Sushma Swaraj, the newly anointed Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, for several positions that are lying vacant.

After Mr. Jaswant Singh resigned as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the most prestigious parliamentary committee, several senior MPs have made it known they would like to be considered for the position. With Ms. Swaraj’s elevation, the position of chairman of the standing committee attached to the Ministry of External Affairs that was held by her is also vacant.

In the parliamentary party, all positions are to be filled afresh, including the positions of Deputy Leaders of Opposition in the two Houses, till now occupied by Sushma Swaraj in the Lok Sabha and S.S. Ahluwalia in the Rajya Sabha.

For the deputy’s post in the Lok Sabha, the buzz is around the names of Ananth Kumar and Gopinath Munde. With the party becoming “Brahmin-heavy”— Mr. Jaitley and Ms. Swaraj and the next party chief, Nitin Gadkari, are Brahmins. On that score Mr. Kumar, also a Brahmin, is likely to lose out to Mr. Munde with his backward caste credentials.

On Saturday, the BJP Parliamentary Board is expected to announce its “choice”— Nitin Gadkari — for the position of next party chief at the end of tenure of Rajnath Singh. He will take charge by mid-January or February and set up his own team of office-bearers, for which hectic lobbying has begun.

Keywords: Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, lobbying

Source:beta.thehindu.com/

Review Due On Lobbying Effort, Riverfront

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 9:16 AM CST

A year-end review of the city’s lobbying efforts and a progress report on a riverfront opportunity analysis are in store when the Fort Smith Board of Directors meets for a special study session Thursday evening.

According to a memo from Deputy City Administrator Ray Gosack, two representatives from Watts Partners, the city’s Washington lobbying agency, will report on current lobbying activity and plan future efforts in Washington, D.C.

The lobbyists will be seeking clear direction on funding priorities for the coming year.

Federal budget requests will likely be due in February, and requests for the next highway authorization bill will likely be due some time in 2010.

“It’s important for the board to reaffirm that the existing priorities are still current,” Gosack wrote.

Although the order can be rearranged and new priorities added, he cautioned against sending “confusing signals” to the congressional delegation or making wholesale changes that could undo efforts on several multi-year initiatives.

The top five previously established funding priorities are:

• Interstate 49 between Interstate 40 and U.S. 71 South.

• Industrial site improvements at Chaffee Crossing.

• May Branch flood control project.

• Wet-weather sanitary sewer system improvements.

• U.S. Marshals Museum.

Also Thursday, property owner Bennie Westphal and consultant John Castro with the Dallas-area firm Cushman & Wakefield will report on progress in the yearlong analysis of riverfront development opportunities.

Westphal, whose family owned an 80-acre tract along the riverfront and adjacent to the property they donated for the future U.S. Marshals Museum, approached the city in January seeking a private-public partnership to help pay for the analysis.

He envisioned a development that would include a minor league baseball park, a concert and hockey arena, restaurants, retailers, a hotel, a pair of condo and office towers, a park and a wedding chapel.

In early February, directors agreed to contribute a third of the cost of the analysis, about $62,000. The city entered into a contract with the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, which in turn contracted with Castro for the study. Westphal was a third party to the latter contract.

Castro said in January that the opportunity analysis would help define what the property could be and would also identify the kinds of things needed to create jobs, attract people and meet the “live-work-play” ideal of mixed-use development.

Directors ranked riverfront and economic development at the top of their budgeting priority list in January, followed closely by quality of place. In October, they prioritized a number of quality-of-place initiatives, putting a $20 million riverfront sports venue high on the list. However, they put off a decision about funding sources in the face of tough economic conditions.

On Dec. 1 the board passed a no-frills budget that allowed no funding for quality of place.

The special study session is 6 p.m. Thursday at Elm Grove Community Center, 1901 N. Greenwood Ave.

Source:swtimes.com/

Hamas leader accuses Israel of holding up Shalit deal

Noam Shalit meeting with the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Amar, in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Report: Shalit talks to be deferred until after Eid al-Adha; Hamas: Shalit swap stuck on prisoner list.






A senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, Khalil Al-Hayya, accused Israel on Wednesday of holding up negotiations over a deal to secure the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit.

The Gaza leader told a Hamas-linked Web site that Israel had not met the demands of the groups holding Shalit. But he did not say that the deal had been torpedoed or had failed.

Meanwhile, the Al-Arabiya TV network reported on Wednesday that the negotiations over Shalit would be postponed until after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Friday.
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Al-Hayya's comments came after other Hamas officials said the talks between Hamas and Israel have hit a snag over some of the top militants the Islamic group wants freed in return Shalit, and a deal is unlikely in the coming days.

Israel is objecting to some of the names put forward by Hamas, a senior official of the militant group familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. He said the German mediator shuttling between the sides has presented an alternative list of names provided by Israel, and Hamas leaders are studying it.

Shalit was captured by Gaza militants in a cross border raid in June 2006, and has been held prisoner since. Contention over the names on the list of Palestinian prisoners submitted by Hamas to Israel for release has held up the prisoner exchange on more than one occasion.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian source told Fox News that a final decision on the deal that would see Shalit released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners does not rest solely on Hamas, but rather it is Israel that must decide whether to green light several of the names on Hamas' list and make the exchange happen.

As officials in Israel awaited Hamas' final answer, Gilad Shalit's father Noam was hard at work soliciting support among government officials for the potential deal. Should both sides agree upon the terms of the exchange, it would only be carried out after the deal was approved in a cabinet vote.

Noam Shalit met on Wednesday with Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Amar, who spoke with him about the Jewish imperative of freeing captives.

"After I pray for the return of Gilad to his home, I will add a prayer for the government to come to the right decision on this matter," Amar said.

Shalit is expected to also meet with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.

Noam Shalit also met with Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau on Wednesday. At the Knesset, Shalit told reporters that "we still don't have any news, we are in the process of meeting with ministers. That is the situation right now."


Waiting on Meshal

Hamas' Damascus-based political leader Khaled Meshal was scheduled to relay to the Hamas delegation his decision on the latest compromise drafted by the German mediator. Simultaneously, Israel's security cabinet was also set to meet Wednesday afternoon on another previously scheduled issue.

The London-based Arabic language daily Al Hayat reported that the Hamas leadership was split over the Israeli compromise proposal. According to the report, senior Damascus-based Hamas officials are in disagreement: while the more extreme officials insist on the release of all the prisoners on their list, more moderate Hamas leaders contend that it is futile to expect that Israel meet all of the group's demands.

The Arab daily also said that for the first time since Shalit's abduction over three years ago, Israel has agreed to release Palestinian prisoners considered "heavy" - or having committed serious crimes. However, Hamas sources told an Al Hayat reporter in Cairo that Israel still refuses to release some of the prisoners on the list, and has even turned down a Palestinian proposal to deport those men from the Palestinian territories following their release.

Among the prisoners Israel refuses to release are Ibrahim Hamed, the former commander of Hamas' military wing and the mastermind behind the terror bombing at Moment cafe in Jerusalem; Abdallah Barghouti, a relative of Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti and another mastermind of the Moment attack as well as terror attacks at Sbarro pizza parlor in Jerusalem and on Allenby Street in Tel Aviv.

The sources confirmed to Al Hayat that progress has been achieved in the negotiations over the prisoner swap, but added that the final decision will be made on Wednesday as the Damascus-based Hamas leadership reviews its options.

Earlier Wednesday, a senior Israeli official told Army Radio that the U.S. administration was opposed to the emerging understandings between Israel and Hamas surrounding the deal. "The U.S. does not support negotiations with terror organizations," the official said. "Washington knows that any release of Palestinian prisoners to the West Bank could harm Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and become a victory for Hamas," he added.

The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC also voiced concern over the possible prisoner swap but refrained from explicitly criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Senior AIPAC strategist Josh Block said: "This is a wrenching situation and a reminder of the kind of difficult choices Israel must make when it is beset by enemies. And it is entirely for the democratically elected government of Israel to make these decisions, not for anyone else, and that as Americans who support Israel, we have only empathy for Israel."

Source:haaretz.com/

Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US

Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person.
This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby.For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.

And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy.

Considering Israel's deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds covered by the loan guarantees will ever be repaid. The bonds are likely to be structured so they don't pay interest until they reach maturity. If Stauffer is right, the US would end up paying both principal and interest, perhaps 10 years out.

Israel's request could be part of a supplemental spending bill that's likely to be passed early next year, perhaps wrapped in with the cost of a war with Iraq.

Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years.

Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given $240 billion since 1973, Stauffer reckons. In addition, the US has given Egypt $117 billion and Jordan $22 billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with Israel.

"Consequently, politically, if not administratively, those outlays are part of the total package of support for Israel," argues Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College, for a recent conference at the University of Maine.

These foreign-aid costs are well known. Many Americans would probably say it is money well spent to support a beleagured democracy of some strategic interest. But Stauffer wonders if Americans are aware of the full bill for supporting Israel since some costs, if not hidden, are little known.

One huge cost is not secret. It is the higher cost of oil and other economic damage to the US after Israel-Arab wars.

In 1973, for instance, Arab nations attacked Israel in an attempt to win back territories Israel had conquered in the 1967 war. President Nixon resupplied Israel with US arms, triggering the Arab oil embargo against the US.

That shortfall in oil deliveries kicked off a deep recession. The US lost $420 billion (in 2001 dollars) of output as a result, Stauffer calculates. And a boost in oil prices cost another $450 billion.

Afraid that Arab nations might use their oil clout again, the US set up a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That has since cost, conservatively, $134 billion, Stauffer reckons.

Other US help includes:

• US Jewish charities and organizations have remitted grants or bought Israel bonds worth $50 billion to $60 billion. Though private in origin, the money is "a net drain" on the United States economy, says Stauffer.

• The US has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans to Israel, and $600 million in "housing loans." (See editor's note below.) Stauffer expects the US Treasury to cover these.

• The US has given $2.5 billion to support Israel's Lavi fighter and Arrow missile projects.

• Israel buys discounted, serviceable "excess" US military equipment. Stauffer says these discounts amount to "several billion dollars" over recent years.

• Israel uses roughly 40 percent of its $1.8 billion per year in military aid, ostensibly earmarked for purchase of US weapons, to buy Israeli-made hardware. It also has won the right to require the Defense Department or US defense contractors to buy Israeli-made equipment or subsystems, paying 50 to 60 cents on every defense dollar the US gives to Israel.

US help, financial and technical, has enabled Israel to become a major weapons supplier. Weapons make up almost half of Israel's manufactured exports. US defense contractors often resent the buy-Israel requirements and the extra competition subsidized by US taxpayers.

• US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5 billion a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs, Stauffer estimates. Not requiring Israel to use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another 125,000 jobs.

• Israel has blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years, says Stauffer.

Stauffer's list will be controversial. He's been assisted in this research by a number of mostly retired military or diplomatic officials who do not go public for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic if they criticize America's policies toward Israel.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the amount of housing loans guaranteed by the US.