Lobbyists Turn to Senate With Pleas to Keep or Nix Tax Items

House Republicans’ mega tax measure looks beautiful to some lobbying interests, but others in the influence sector are ramping up their pleas to the Senate to nix what they see as ugly provisions.

The GOP Congress and President Donald Trump have made swift passage of their tax cuts and budget package a top priority, setting up what lobbyists have dubbed the Super Bowl of tax lobbying. The ability of interest groups to marshal their resources to shape the final outcome on Capitol Hill will affect a wide variety of industries and institutions including renewable energy businesses, elite universities and foundations and wine and spirits wholesalers.

Trump and Republicans have named the package their ‘One Big Beautiful bill’ and say they aim to get it to the president’s desk by the July Fourth congressional recess.

“The Senate is now the center of gravity with the size and scope of the bill creating real opportunities to impact the final package,” said lobbyist Arshi Siddiqui, founder of Bellwether Government Affairs where clients include Micron Technology Inc. and Cigna Group.

The Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America and other lobbying groups from bakers to plumbers will work to preserve an item in the House-passed bill that makes permanent and expands a pass-through deduction for business owners.

“Right now, we’re in a very good place,” said Dawson Hobbs, the wholesalers chief lobbyist.

Other industries are in a tough place. Lobbyists for companies that have planned investments around Democrats’ tax breaks for electric vehicles and renewable energy are going on the attack.

Some lobbying clients will look to preserve provisions they like in the House measure while others are seeking to remove what they view as problems, said Rosemary Becchi, a partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, who was tax counsel to the Senate Finance panel.

“It’s a mixed bag,” Becchi said Thursday morning. Groups lobbying for the pass-through tax issue are pleased with permanency and an increase in the deduction, but others are concerned about items, such as an excise tax on foundations.

“Some clients are saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute. This is going to do a lot of harm,’” Becchi said. “They are looking to get those provisions removed.”

Big Business

Some of K Street biggest spending groups ramped up their lobbying efforts around the bill and expect to intensify in the weeks ahead with corporate fortunes on the line.

The Business Roundtable is running radio and TV ads, including on Fox News. The group’s CEO Joshua Bolten dispatched a letter to House members Wednesday urging them to vote for the measure, saying it would “help to create a more prosperous economic environment for American companies, workers and families.”

The US Chamber of Commerce made it a key vote, meaning the group would use it to evaluate lawmakers’ voting records when making campaign endorsements.

“This legislation will enhance America’s global competitiveness, fuel long-term economic growth, and avoid the largest tax increase in U.S. history,” former Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) wrote in a letter to his former colleagues dated Wednesday. Davis, who is the US Chamber’s senior vice president of government affairs, indicated that the lobbying would continue.

He wrote that “there is always opportunity for refinement, and we look forward to continued collaboration with members of Congress and the administration as the process moves forward.”

Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said Thursday, after House passage, that it was a “major victory for manufacturers across America” in a news release.

Swaying the Senate

Provisions in the bill will be subject to Senate rules that prohibit items without a budgetary role. Siddiqui said Republicans’ self-imposed deadlines may give the Senate even more sway.

“Senate leadership’s leverage increases further if they are pre-conferencing the final bill to pave the way for a quick House vote to meet the president’s timeline,” she said.

Colleges with big endowments targeted by the House measure are working to do damage control in the Senate. They face an increase in the taxes paid on investment income, up to 21% for the largest.

Elimination and limits on tax credits for renewable energy, electric vehicles and related technology are driving a lot of business for lobbyists whose clients want to keep those in place.

“A lot of our clients on the energy side, have built business models around clean energy credits,” said Stewart Verdery, founder of Monument Advocacy where registered lobbying clients include Maxeon Solar Technologies Ltd. and Johnson Matthey Inc., a sustainable technologies company.

Ben Steinberg, an executive vice president at Venn Strategies, said his Battery Materials and Technology Coalition, which wants to preserve tax credits from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, had already shifted to the Senate, even before the House officially passed its version of the measure.

“We have language we’re working on,” he said during an interview Tuesday.

Steinberg said Thursday in an email that if the version that passed the House were enacted it would mean “the country would lose out on hundreds of thousands of new jobs and hundreds of billions in new investment that would ultimately build productive capacity via manufacturing plants and energy deployment.”

The industry, he said, “will now work with the Senate to rebuild this legislation so that businesses can depend on Congress and this country for smart, stable investment decisions and growth opportunities.”