{"id":72038,"date":"2015-08-05T20:31:46","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T02:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=72038"},"modified":"2015-08-06T11:13:22","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T17:13:22","slug":"top-defense-contractors-spend-millions-to-get-billions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/08\/top-defense-contractors-spend-millions-to-get-billions\/","title":{"rendered":"Top defense contractors spend millions to get billions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_72046\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-72046\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/CapitolBuilding-771x455.jpg\" alt=\"The U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.\" width=\"771\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/CapitolBuilding-771x455.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/CapitolBuilding-336x198.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/CapitolBuilding-768x453.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/CapitolBuilding-1170x690.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/CapitolBuilding.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Pentagon\u2019s top contractors sent an army of more than 400 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this spring to press their case for increasing the nation\u2019s spending on military hardware, in a massive effort costing tens of millions of dollars of their own funds from April to June alone, according to an analysis of public lobbying data by the Center for Public Integrity.<\/p>\n<p>The contractors are upset in part because most military spending has been capped for the past few years under budget controls meant to rein in government debt. So far, the caps have forced a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/comptroller.defense.gov\/Portals\/45\/documents\/defbudget\/fy2016\/fy2016_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf#page=13\" target=\"_blank\">decline<\/a>\u00a0in main defense budgets from about $528.2 billion in fiscal 2011 to $496.1 billion in fiscal 2015, instead of a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/comptroller.defense.gov\/Portals\/45\/Documents\/defbudget\/fy2012\/FY2012_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf#page=8\" target=\"_blank\">previously projected increase<\/a>\u00a0to roughly $598 billion. Mounting frustration with the caps was evident in the administration\u2019s submission this year of a military budget that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fas.org\/sgp\/crs\/natsec\/R44039.pdf#page=9\" target=\"_blank\">exceeded<\/a>\u00a0the limits by about $38 billion, followed by moves by both branches of Congress to add even more billions.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This story is from\u00a0<a title=\"http:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/\nCtrl+Click or tap to follow the link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Center for Public Integrity<\/a>, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. To read more of their work on national security, go\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/national-security\/arms\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>\u00a0or follow them on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/publici\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The caps remain the law of the land, however, and they won\u2019t go away until Congress votes to lift them. The issue has so far been tangled up in a dispute between the parties over whether to also increase spending on social welfare programs. But several lobbyists said in interviews that they were optimistic that this could finally be the year that lawmakers agree to let defense contractors return to their historic pattern of ever-higher revenue from the federal treasury.<\/p>\n<p>This could explain in part why total lobbying expenditures by the 53 top defense contractors that reported paying for such work in the second quarter of 2015 were more than 25 percent higher than the amount they spent in the same quarter of 2014 \u2014 $58.5 million instead of $45.7 million. But not all of the lobbying was related solely to military spending.<\/p>\n<p>Boeing, a $100 billion corporation that makes military aircraft and other lethal hardware, as well as civilian aerospace goods, reported to the clerk of the House and the secretary of the Senate that it spent almost $13.2 million on lobbying in the first two quarters of this year. Its\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/disclosures.house.gov\/ld\/ldxmlrelease\/2015\/Q2\/300744687.xml\" target=\"_blank\">filing<\/a>\u00a0said some of this expenditure was related to expanding its \u201cCommercial Aircraft Sales\/Services\u201d and supporting the Export-Import Bank, among other issues. The aerospace contractor\u2019s commercial aircraft division receives billions in financing from the bank, and so it has a large stake in this year\u2019s continuing congressional skirmish over renewing the bank\u2019s charter.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Gayla Keller, a Boeing communications director, declined to comment specifically on their lobbying activities in an emailed response to questions.<\/p>\n<p>Parsing the lobbying reports to sort out just the defense-related expenditures for these contractors is not easy, because the lobbying reporting requirements have some ambiguity baked into them. Lobbying expenses are only reported on an overall basis for an organization, and aren\u2019t tied to specific issues or associated with the agencies that lobbyists target. And for some of the top defense contractors, the Pentagon is only one of many customers, albeit an outsized one.<\/p>\n<p>Still, 40 of the 53 top contractors that lobbied during the last quarter reported that one target of their efforts was the National Defense Authorization Act, the main legislation authorizing defense spending each year. Some of these firms \u2014 including Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon \u2014 said that their efforts were aimed at budget controls.<\/p>\n<p>General Electric \u2014 which makes washing machines and light bulbs and has a major health-care division \u2014 lobbied on the Export-Import Bank, Medicare, passenger and freight train safety and natural gas production, according to its latest\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/disclosures.house.gov\/ld\/ldxmlrelease\/2015\/Q2\/300744396.xml\" target=\"_blank\">disclosure<\/a>. It also lobbied on several defense weapons programs, including the B-1 Bomber, the CH-53K Super Stallion helicopter, the F-18 Fighter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.<\/p>\n<p>General Electric responded to the Center\u2019s requests for comment with an emailed statement that its \u201c[e]mployees educate officials on our Company\u2019s operations, emerging technologies and markets, as well as on our views on public policy issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Boeing and General Electric had the largest increases in lobbying spending compared with the same period in 2014, among the 15 defense contractors that spent $1 million or more to lobby in the quarter. General Electric almost tripled its lobbying spending compared with the earlier period, from $2.8 million to almost $8.5 million. Boeing more than doubled its spending for the quarter, from almost $4.2 million in the second quarter of 2014 to $9.3 million in the most recent quarter of this year.<\/p>\n<p>Industry experts the Center spoke with said that while there were probably multiple reasons for the heightened lobbying, lifting the budget caps has been the industry\u2019s central ambition. \u201cPeople are concerned about the sequester,\u201d said retired\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/punarogroup.com\/about-the-punaro-group\/\" target=\"_blank\">Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro<\/a>, the chairman of the National Defense Industrial Association, the country\u2019s main defense industry association. \u201cFor the industry as a whole, that may be the top issue,\u201d said a veteran defense lobbyist, who asked not to be named.<\/p>\n<p>Of the total 655 lobbyists employed by the contractors, 423 of them specifically lobbied on defense, in some cases along with other issues, according to the lobbying reports.<\/p>\n<p>General Dynamics paid for 74 lobbyists, more than any other contractor, for example, and 70 of these lobbied on defense, part of its $2.7 million lobbying tab. Lockheed Martin Corp., the world\u2019s largest defense contractor, spent $3.5 million and enlisted 64 lobbyists to press government officials, including 56 who lobbied on defense as well as other issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe defense budget is capped at a level that neither the industry nor the Pentagon wants,&#8221; said Gordon Adams, a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stimson.org\/experts\/gordon-adams\/\" target=\"_blank\">fellow<\/a>\u00a0at the Stimson Center and a senior White House budget official for national security during the Clinton administration.\u00a0\u201cThe industry has been active on that, company by company, and by the industry as a whole,&#8221; Adams said. Companies \u201ceither want to raise the caps or get rid of them all together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pentagon\u2019s top contractors sent an army of more than 400 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this spring to press their case for increasing the nation\u2019s spending on military hardware, in a massive effort costing tens of millions of dollars of their own funds from April to June alone, according to an analysis of public lobbying data by the Center for Public Integrity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[171,705,116],"class_list":["post-72038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-military","tag-money-in-politics","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}