Lobbying broke all-time mark in 2021 amid flurry of government spending (2024)

The revenue figures, compiled in recent weeks from government records by OpenSecrets, show that lobbying spending began steadily growing in 2017, President Donald Trump’s first year in office, before mostly flattening in 2020 as the pandemic began. The jump in 2021, when lobbying spending was about 6 percent higher than 2020, came as the government’s pandemic interventions and record expenditure took center stage, including an additional $1.9 trillion in pandemic relief and a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package.

The surge came as companies and associations aimed to roll back regulations on their industries — many of them pandemic-related — while others vied for a slice of the trillions in new spending. Manufacturers, unions, financial companies and technology firms all spent significantly more in 2021 than in previous years, but some of the biggest increases came from industries most affected by covid.

Cruise lines, shut down for more than a year by the pandemic, spent far more heavily than they did pre-covid, with Norwegian Cruise Line spending 100 times more than it did in 2019, American Cruise Lines spending 20 times more and others making smaller increases.

Norwegian hired two new lobbying firms and spent $1 million last year after spending just $10,000 in 2019, according to government filings. The company lobbied Congress, the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the suspension of cruises and guidelines for safe operations, as well as on the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the third major stimulus bill passed during the pandemic.

Another cruise operator, Carnival, spent more than $1 million in both years of the pandemic, lobbying on appropriations and pandemic-related job losses, according to filings. It spent 59 percent more in 2021 than 2019. Beginning in March 2021, cruise supporters sent 155,000 messages to Congress advocating for the industry’s return. The first cruise ship since the start of the pandemic was allowed to depart an American port in June, and since then more than 2 million passengers have traveled on cruises from the United States.

The cruise lines were cut out of an initial aid package, approved in early 2020, but the CDC recently said that it would allow coronavirus cruise rules to expire, making them optional for operators.

The cruise lines declined to comment but the industry’s top association, the Cruise Lines International Association, said that with no cruise ships departing the U.S. from March 2020 to the end of June 2021, operators have been focused on “the responsible return of cruise tourism.”

“Our focus has been on educating policymakers on the comprehensive, science-based public health protocols that facilitated a restart of cruise operations,” said spokeswoman Laziza Lambert.

Other industries spent heavily to address proposals raised by progressive policy proposals from leading Democrats, with mixed success. The American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical and plastics manufacturers, spent more than $16.6 million in 2021, up 18 percent from 2020 and well over double what it spent in 2019.

The group’s two top priorities, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Scott, were defeating a proposal to reinstate taxes on chemical makers to fund Superfund cleanup projects (which passed anyway), and a proposed tax on plastic makers aimed at keeping plastic waste out of the ocean (which did not pass).

Thousands of companies and organizations appeared to hire lobbyists for the first time during the pandemic, as more than 3,700 companies and other groups that spent no money lobbying the government in 2019 paid lobbyists last year.

Among the new entrants are dozens of health-care, technology, tourism and recreation companies, including individual museums, theaters and entertainment firms. Smaller restaurant owners formed a new association to fight for pandemic aid, called the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which spent $290,000 combined in 2020 and 2021.

Some of those groups may have hired lobbyists as a temporary measure initially but decided to increase their spending as the pandemic continued, said Dan Auble, an OpenSecrets senior researcher.

“Every aspect of the economy the past couple of years has been in full-blown crisis mode, so everyone got involved in lobbying,” Auble said. “I think it’s likely there are some people who came to Washington a couple of years ago and have stuck around, or industries that realized the benefits they could accrue by having an active presence in Washington.”

Auble said even well-entrenched industries that have lobbyists in Washington every year spent more in 2021 than usual, such as technology and defense firms. Live entertainment and recreation companies spent more than $10 million in 2021, 43 percent more than in 2019. That included heavy additional spending by sports leagues, including the National Football League and Major League Baseball.

The Business Roundtable increased its spending to $29.1 million, up 72 percent from 2020. The increased total represented a push to advance the infrastructure legislation and prevent tax increases, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Cummings.

The pharmaceutical industry, regularly one of the biggest spenders in Washington, also increased its spending as it fights controls on drug pricing and weighed in on vaccines and supply chain concerns. Its top trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), topped $30 million in spending last year, up 17 percent from the year prior.

“From supply chain issues to cancer research and continuing to deliver new treatments and vaccines to combat COVID-19, our organization is engaged with policymakers on a wide range of important issues,” PhRMA spokeswoman Sarah Sutton said in a statement. She said when it comes to drug prices, the drugmakers are “facing policies that threaten to disrupt biopharmaceutical innovation.”