With Daniel Lippman

K STREET WANTS FEWER RESTRICTIONS ON SECOND PAYCHECK PROTECTION PROGRAM LOANS: As Congress labors to negotiate another coronavirus relief package, the asks keep rolling in from K Street. Dozens of trade groups wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) on Wednesday urging them to lower the proposed threshold at which businesses are eligible to apply for second Paycheck Protection loans, which the Senate Republican relief package set at 50 percent of revenue.

— “Many small businesses operate with slim profit margins in a normal economy,” the trade groups wrote. “For them, even a revenue decline of 20 percent or greater could mean the difference between staying in business or closing.” Among the trade groups that signed the letter: America’s Health Insurance Plans, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the International Council of Shopping Centers, the International Franchise Association, the National Association of Broadcasters, the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail Federation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Travel Association and the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America.

GREENWOOD SIGNS ON AT DLA PIPER: Former Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-Pa.), who recently stepped down the Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s president and chief executive after leading the trade group since 2005, has found a new home on K Street: DLA Piper. He’ll be the chair of the firm’s new life sciences, health, policy and regulatory team, which he’ll help to build. In an interview, Greenwood said he was recruited to the firm by another Pennsylvania Republican: former Rep. Charlie Dent, who signed on as a senior policy adviser at DLA Piper after leaving Congress in 2018.

— Greenwood has a ready source of potential new business for the firm: the approximately 1,000 members of the trade group he until recently led. “I have many, many, many, many contracts among the CEOs of those companies and the government affairs folks at those companies,” he said. “Once we get our team assembled we’ll be reaching out to them.” He’s still a consultant to BIO but he might pitch the trade group on hiring DLA Piper as well. “I suspect we will,” he said.

— Greenwood never registered as a lobbyist while leading BIO because he said he didn’t spend at least 20 percent of his time lobbying — the threshold at which registration is required — but he said he might register for his work at DLA Piper. “Certainly if I get anywhere near that threshold I will,” he said.

Good afternoon, and welcome to PI. As this bleak summer grinds on, I hope you can find a little solace in the appropriations prowess of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). Tips: [email protected]. Twitter: @theodoricmeyer.

MORE SCRUTINY FOR KODAK: Three House committees “are seeking records from Eastman Kodak Co. and the government office that announced a potential $765 million loan to the onetime photography giant, the latest sign of scrutiny on the company and its part in a U.S. plan to restore some domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing,” The Wall Street Journal’s Rachael Levy and Geoffrey Rogow report. “In a letter to Kodak Chief Executive Jim Continenza sent Tuesday, the committees highlighted concerns about Kodak’s ‘lack of pharmaceutical experience’ and stock options grants made to executives and board members including Mr. Continenza in the run-up to the announcement.”

— “‘Although Kodak has experience manufacturing chemicals used in photography, it has not traditionally manufactured chemicals for use in pharmaceutical products,’ the letter to Kodak’s CEO said.” The letter was signed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s chair, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis’ chair, and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the House Financial Services Committee’s chair. The letter follows a request from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday for the Securities and Exchange Committee to look into potential insider trading before the deal was announced; the Journal reported on Tuesday afternoon that the SEC was already doing so.

DONALD TRUMP JR., NICK AYERS BASH PEBBLE PROJECT THAT’S SPENT MILLIONS ON LOBBYING: The Pebble Limited Partnership has spent million of dollars on Washington lobbying as it seeks permission to build an open mine in Alaska, with seven lobbying firms on retainer at the moment, according to disclosure filings. But it hasn’t won over two people close to President Donald Trump. “Like millions of conservationists and sportsmen, I am hoping @realDonaldTrump will direct @EPA to block the Pebble mine in Bristol Bay,” Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence‘s former chief of staff, tweeted on Tuesday afternoon. “A Canadian company will unnecessarily mine the USA’s greatest fishery at a severe cost. This should be stopped and I believe @POTUS will do so!”

— Donald Trump Jr. retweeted Ayers and weighed in himself. “As a sportsman who has spent plenty of time in the area I agree 100%,” he wrote. “The headwaters of Bristol Bay and the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with.”

— As The Washington Post‘s Steven Mufson, Brady Dennis and Ashley Parker report, the tweets came as things were going well for Pebble in Washington: “Just last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a final environmental analysisallowing a small Canadian firm to go ahead with its Pebble Mine near Bristol Bay. The Army Corps in its new report said the project would not cause grave harm to the region’s watershed.”

MEET THE FORMER LOBBYIST RUNNING THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: The Washington Post’s Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey have a profile of Chad Wolf, the former Wexler | Walker lobbyist who’s become Trump’s favorite Homeland Security secretary. “One senior White House official said Trump was initially skeptical of Wolf, and after one of Wolf’s first meetings with the president, Trump did not come away impressed. But since then, he has come to view him as an ally and a proponent of his agenda, and Wolf regularly talks to Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide who controls White House immigration policy. [Kirstjen] Nielsen, Wolf’s former boss at DHS, had an antagonistic relationship with Miller” and her successor, Kevin McAleenan, also clashed with him at times.

CRAPO PROPOSAL WOULD EASE DODD-FRANK RULES IN A WIN FOR BANKS: Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the Senate Banking Committee’s chair, has drafted a proposal that “would give the Fed temporary authority during ‘unusual and exigent circumstances’ to ease a set of bank capital requirements established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law’s so-called Collins Amendment,” POLITICO’s Zachary Warmbrodt reports. “The Fed would be able to relax the rules, which restrict how much debt banks are allowed to take on, for no longer than 12 months. It would then be able to grant a 180-day extension to let banks return to compliance with earlier limits.”

— Crapo included the proposal in an amendment to Senate Republicans’ relief bill “following a request from Federal Reserve Vice Chair of Supervision Randal Quarles, who said it was needed to address concerns about banks’ ability to handle a significant inflow of deposits during the Covid-19 crisis. Big banks lobbied in favor of the proposal, which Democrats have blasted as a dangerous rollback.”

IF YOU MISSED IT ON TUESDAY: “An American company has inked a contract with Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria to develop and export the region’s crude oil under a secretive deal approved by the U.S. government months after President Donald Trump announced he was leaving U.S. troops to ‘secure the oil,’ multiple people familiar with the project told POLITICO,” POLITICO’s Lara Seligman and Ben Lefebvre report. The agreement reached by a little-known firm helmed by politically connected former military and diplomatic officials has already angered the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which does not recognize the Kurdish authorities as autonomous. The Syrian Foreign Minister called the deal illegal and said it is aimed at ‘stealing’ Syria’s crude.”

—“The company, Delta Crescent Energy LLC, was incorporated in Delaware in February 2019, according to its business license. Its partners include former U.S. ambassador to Denmark James Cain; James Reese, a former officer in the Army’s elite Delta Force; and John P. Dorrier Jr., a former executive at GulfSands Petroleum, a U.K.-based oil company with offices and drilling experience in Syria.”

Jobs Report

— LKQ Corporation has hired Kelley Gossett as head of state government affairs. She previously worked for Airbnb.

New Joint Fundraisers

Brindisi Rose Victory Fund (Reps. Anthony Brindisi and Max Rose)
Team Nick (Friends of Nick Freitas Inc, 7th District Republican Committee, NRCC)

New PACs

New Moral Majority (Super PAC)
Police PAC Inc (PAC)
The Committee for Access to Affordable Healthcare (Super PAC)

New Lobbying REGISTRATIONS

Alston & Bird LLP: Devoted Health
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: Fox Corporation
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: Virginia Port Authority
Blank Rome Government Relations: Blank Rome LLP (on behalf of Ethos Holding Corp.)
Blank Rome Government Relations: Monteverdi LLC
Capitol Hill Consulting Group: Bresatech Capitol Resources, LLC: ARK Multicasting, Inc.
Cordone Consulting LLC: Produce Alliance for Corona-virus Economic Recovery (PACER)
Cove Strategies: InspectIR
Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, P.C.: Tandem Careplanning
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Kansas City Area Transportation Authority
Jack Ferguson Assoc., Inc: Alaska to Alberta Railway Development Corporation (A2A)
Jack Ferguson Assoc., Inc: Graphite One (Alaska) Inc.
Jack Ferguson Assoc., Inc: Native Village of Eyak
Jack Ferguson Assoc., Inc: Terra-Gen, LLC
Jack Ferguson Assoc., Inc: The Peterson Companies
McCarthy Strategic Solutions: Atria Senior Living, Inc.
Mercury Strategies, LLC: Lightspeed Systems
PricewaterhouseCoopers: NantWorks
Rasky Partners, Inc.: Compass Working Capital
Salt Point Strategies: Johnson Controls Inc.
The Cormac Group, LLC: Lir Media

New Lobbying Terminations

Jack Ferguson Assoc., Inc: Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound
Jack Ferguson Assoc., Inc: Birchwood Homes
LOP Strategies: Grayback Forestry
Zarrelli Strategies, Inc.: Policy and Taxation Group (PATG)

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