p ublic p olicy g roup Polsinelli Shughart

Transcription

1 p ublic p olicy g roup Polsinelli Shughart

2 At Polsinelli Shughart, Your Goals Are Our Objectives The Public Policy Group at Polsinelli Shughart is known for its strong relationships with policymakers in Congress, and at the highest levels of the Administration. The Group is fiercely bipartisan and includes Democrats and Republicans, but each professional takes a bipartisan approach to lobbying. This enables our clients to achieve their public policy goals regardless of the outcome of an election or the volatility of the political environment. Our team capabilities, along with descriptions of results obtained for our clients, are described below. We include observations on our efforts that have appeared in the media as well as views of our clients on the work we have performed for them. The advocacy provided by our Public Policy Group assures that our clients receive: Early and accurate political and policy intelligence; Assistance in defining legislative and regulatory objectives; Comprehensive legislative and regulatory advocacy strategies; Guidance to form and work within industry and policy coalitions; Detailed analyses of relevant legislation and regulations; Assistance in recruiting congressional and administration champions; Assistance in drafting testimony and comments on legislation and proposed regulations; Preparation of witnesses for congressional and agency hearings; Full service preparation for congressional meetings; and Political and legal counsel on campaign contributions and lobby disclosure requirements. Access Bipartisanship Commitment Access Experience ipartisanship Expertise Commitment Experience Solutions Expertise Vision Solutions Vision The professionals in our Public Policy Group bring a history of extraordinary accomplishments to every client relationship. When you engage us on your behalf, we bring you the experience of having met tough challenges in Congress and in federal agencies, and we bring the record and the confidence of having prevailed. We do things differently for our clients so that they receive measurable results. Integrity. Polsinelli s advocacy is conducted with the highest legal, ethical, and professional standards. Our clients value our integrity, and lawmakers and staff view us as trusted advisors and rely on us for policy guidance. Service-Oriented. Our commitment to effective representation has earned or saved our clients billions of dollars. We view ourselves as partners with our clients team members who learn our clients issues, businesses and objectives so that we can anticipate how federal policies will affect their interests and help them respond aggressively. Personalized. Our principals provide comprehensive personalized services to each client. They communicate with each client directly and are involved in high-level strategy and day-to-day details. Why Clients Choose Our Public Policy Group The Public Policy Group at Polsinelli Shughart offers our clients a wealth of experience in its bipartisan team of legislative policy professionals who are committed to achieving positive legislative and regulatory outcomes for our clients. Our Group includes former Members of Congress, former senior congressional staff, who include former chiefs of staffs, senior legislative staff and counsels to Members of Congress, House and Senate Committee staff, and executive branch officials.

3 Strategic Counsel Our counsel to our clients is guided by our experience and comprehension of the legislative, regulatory, and political processes. We develop creative solutions and forge alliances between diverse groups of lawmakers and stakeholders to achieve common goals. We understand that an important element of successful persuasion is the ability to weave political considerations and parochial interests into discussions of the merits of an issue. We have developed a deep understanding of the backgrounds, priorities, and politics of Senators and Representatives and their states and districts. We analyze political developments, identify emerging trends, predict future policy outcomes, and design strategies tailored to each client s needs and objectives. Issue Expertise Lawmakers and their staffs view us as professional, knowledgeable and straightforward advocates who bring a wealth of substantive experience to discussions, even when we may be on different sides of an issue. Our expertise encompasses multiple issue disciplines, including federal taxation, budget and appropriations, health care, energy, transportation, administrative law, advertising and product regulation, First Amendment and commercial speech, telecommunications, privacy, and intellectual property. Our clients value our ability to help them understand not only the broad policy implications of government action but also the intricate legal and regulatory details that can affect their businesses. Budget and Appropriations The nation s economic challenges have reshaped executive branch, congressional and public attitudes toward government spending. It has led to seismic reductions in government programs and elimination of traditional earmarks. Our Public Policy Group is committed to providing the best guidance to our clients through these challenging economic times. Our Group principals include budget and appropriations professionals, including: two former Members of the House Budget Committee, and senior staff to a cardinal who chaired the former Veterans, HUD and Independent Agencies Subcommittee. Access Our Public Bipartisanship Policy Group Commitment Experience brings more Expertise than three Solutions decades of Vision successful representation of our clients. The gridlock in the congressional authorization process has shifted more decision-making to the appropriations committees, placing a premium on the ability of our clients to know the members of these committees and to be able to understand, interpret and obtain timely information about their actions. Often an appropriations bill is the only significant legislation to survive in a congressional session. Notwithstanding these austere times, we have compiled a noteworthy record of success as we have helped clients obtain provisions in appropriations bills and competitive grant funding awards. Health Care Our Public Policy team of health care professionals provides our clients with an in-depth knowledge of both the legislative and agency rulemaking processes. Their knowledge and experience is drawn from service as a Member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, as well as a chair of the House Democratic Health Task Force. Our team also includes healthcare professionals from former high ranking congressional and agency staff, as well as a formally trained physician with a Juris Doctor degree. Our clients have praised our ability to chart the impact of government health policies and to analyze the intricate legal and regulatory details that affect healthcare delivery and operations. We have provided health care policy counsel and advocacy for our clients regarding Medicaid funding and reform, Medicare reform and reimbursement policy, managed care, coverage and payment for pharmaceuticals and biologics, and intellectual

4 No one could have prepared me better to testify before Congress in such a short timeframe property issues connected to pharmaceutical and biotechnology products. We have conducted in-depth analysis of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that has been distributed by national trade associations, hospital system, and other clients throughout the country. Mike Malone Executive Director, Northwest Arkansas Council Our Public Policy Group directs two national coalitions of media and advertising companies and associations that represent broadcast television and radio networks and stations, cable television programmers and operators, newspaper and magazine publishers, advertising agencies, and Fortune 500 advertisers. All forms of advertising have been the subject of proposed restrictions on content, and a number of legislators and regulators have urged limits on the deduction of the cost of advertising as a business expense to raise more tax revenues. We designed and executed the strategies that made it possible for these coalitions to defeat several efforts to restrict or tax advertising. Polsinelli Shughart has skillfully managed a long-term campaign to preserve the business deduction for the cost of advertising. Combining tax policy analysis with lobbying of the tax-writing committees in Congress, and the marshalling of grassroots forces, they have helped our industry defeat every challenge to the tax treatment of advertising. Dan Jaffe Executive Vice President, Association of National Advertisers Commercial Speech Taxation and Energy The Public Policy Group tax and energy professionals bring our clients decades of experience in shaping congressional tax and energy legislation including the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, the Balanced Budget and the Taxpayer Relief Acts of 1997, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of Our Public Policy Group includes a former Member of Congress who served as a six-term Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, senior staffers who worked for House Ways & Means Committee members who worked on rate reform, pension reform and the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and a 13-term Member of the House Rules Committee that developed the rules for House consideration of tax and energy legislation. Municipal Governments, Health Care and Higher Education Institutions The Polsinelli Shughart Public Policy Group has secured funding and legislative support for cities, counties, government chartered organizations, non-profit institutions, hospitals, and institutions of higher education. Anticipating the dramatic reduction in federal funds for state and local governments, our team has developed and implemented effective strategies to help them revitalize infrastructure. We are providing the experience and expertise to help them build for the future.

5 A Record of Accomplishments For Our Clients Coalition Defeats Ban on Advertising Polsinelli Shughart professionals designed and executed a campaign that helped defeat legislation before two major House and Senate committees that would have imposed a moratorium on prescription drug advertising, along with other restrictions on advertising content. Congress adopted an industry-supported substitute that we helped craft that provided advertisers with clarity about the legal standard for FDA regulation of advertising. Guiding Complex Tax Legislation Our team was asked by a group of independent oil and gas producers to devise and implement a strategy to protect incentives for investing in domestic oil and gas exploration. Another coalition of businesses sought our advice and strategic assistance in a successful effort to amend the 2009 Worker, Home Ownership, and Business Assistance Act to permit businesses that incurred business losses during the depth of the recession to carry back those losses and deduct them from profits earned in the prior five years, rather than the two years permitted under the Tax Code. Internet Tax Freedom Act Efforts were gaining momentum in Congress to overturn Supreme Court precedents that bar states from compelling companies to collect sales taxes where there is no nexus with a catalogue publisher or a company that markets its products on the Internet. We directed a coalition of Internet and direct marketing businesses that left the Supreme Court decisions intact, ensuring that sales taxes may not be collected on remote sellers where there is no nexus with the taxing authority. Protecting Medicare Patient Access to Medicines Providers of home medical care were threatened by a proposal from the Secretary of Health and Human Services to cut 60 percent of the reimbursement for delivering and administering chemotherapy, hemophilia drugs and respiratory medicines to the homes of Medicare patients. The industry, with our team s guidance, persuaded Congress to bar action on these payment cuts for more than a year. The delay saved Medicare providers hundreds of millions of dollars and preserved patient access to critical home-delivered therapies. The Polsinelli team played an instrumental role in crafting and implementing a strategy to win bipartisan support for domestic independents at a time when the oil and gas industry has been under significant political attack. Mike Cantrell President, Domestic Energy Producers Alliance One of the best investments we have made in government relations. Jim Davidson led a coalition that designed and directed a sophisticated campaign that defeated advertising restrictions in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Gordon H. Smith President and CEO, National Association of Broadcasters

6 Notwithstanding the difficult odds, Polsinelli Shughart skillfully guided a coalition of advertising, media and food manufacturing companies and associations with an elegant strategy to engage the congressional appropriations process to block implementation of a multi-agency proposal to prevent advertising of food products. Polsinelli has helped the 4As demonstrate to Congress and the White House why advertising is so important to our nation s economy... [they] helped design and direct the development of two studies by Nobel prizewinning economists that illustrate the wisdom behind the current tax treatment of advertising and that document the economic and job creating impact of advertising in every congressional district in the country. Richard F. O Brien Executive Vice President, American Association of Advertising Agencies Critical Aid for Katrina Victims On behalf of two Gulf Coast hospital systems, we worked with the Louisiana and Mississippi Congressional delegations to ensure that hundreds of millions of dollars in Hurricane Katrina relief funds would be available to assist in rebuilding health care infrastructure, medical staff retention efforts, and providing essential health care services to hurricane evacuees. We worked with our clients as they accessed the relief funding through the state and local government protocols established to disseminate the funding. Mass Transit Funding for Atlanta After the city of Atlanta had been rejected in the initial round of Department of Transportation TIGER grant funding for its 2.6 mile streetcar line, our team was retained to produce a different result in the second round (TIGER II). Operating under a very short deadline, we worked with the city and a coalition of local transportation, civic and business stakeholders to secure a $46 million grant by far the largest award in that round of competition. We mobilized support from the Georgia Congressional delegation and key national leaders in the transportation field. Safeguarding Reimbursement for Cancer Treatment Polsinelli principals, representing a medical device manufacturer, successfully lobbied for a provision in the Medicare Modernization Act that preserved full reimbursement for a life-saving therapy. This lobbying campaign protected patients who receive this therapy and permitted hospitals to invoice directly for the client s product. Guidance Through the U.S. Food & Drug Approval Process Our team assisted a client in navigating the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) pre-market approval process (PMA) and won an approval from the agency for a highly controversial medical device. This campaign was multi-faceted and required continuous work with Members of Congress, the FDA and the White House. Preserving a Public Role in Agency Rulemaking The U.S. House of Representatives added to the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 a provision that would have repealed the 1975 reforms of the rulemaking process for the Federal Trade Commission. Our team designed and directed a strategy for a national coalition of advertising and media groups that persuaded the House-Senate conferees to exclude the provision from its version of the bill preserving FTC hybrid rulemaking and striking an important balance between agency procedures and public participation. Preventing a Ban on Food Product Advertising Four federal agencies were asked to report to Congress on the relationship between food advertising and obesity. Instead, the agencies delivered a detailed prescription for the nutrient content of all foods that would have been enforced by a ban on advertising non-compliant foods. Among the foods that would not meet the standard were most cereals, whole wheat bread, low-fat yogurt, and vegetable soup. Our team conducted a successful campaign that resulted in Congress directing the agencies to conduct a costbenefit analysis of the proposal and explain what effect, if any, the proposed nutrition standards and advertising ban would have on obesity. Broadcast Station Sales Tax The Senate Commerce Committee approved a national sales tax of two percent on the purchase price of a broadcast station each time the station license was transferred to new ownership. We helped the National Association of Broadcasters develop a strategy that led to defeat of this proposal on a Senate floor vote. Defeat of the tax saved the nation s broadcast station owners $600 million a year.

7 th Street Northwest, Suite 800 Washington, D.C (202) polsinelli.com Copyright 2012, Polsinelli Shughart PC. In California, Polsinelli Shughart LLP. Polsinelli Shughart is very proud of the results we obtain for our clients, but you should know that past results do not guarantee future results; that every case is different and must be judged on its own merits; and that the choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.