Mechanism
Lobbying and purchased policy
Spending to shape law, regulation or enforcement, and the documented changes that followed it.
Information and Perception
Medicine and Public Health
- Finding MED-6.4
- Reported Bayer spent $9.19 million on federal lobbying in 2025. Ballard Partners reported $97.27 million in lobbying income for the first three quarters of 2026, and $88.06 million for 2025, in its Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.
- Finding MED-6.5
- Primary record The May 2025 MAHA assessment cited research on the health effects of glyphosate and atrazine. The September 2025 strategy named neither herbicide and committed EPA to building public confidence in its pesticide reviews.
- Finding MED-6.6
- Reported The Philadelphia Inquirer, carrying a Bloomberg article, reported on 10 August 2026 that food-company executives lobbied the Trump administration to delay or block release of a federal definition of ultra-processed food, according to people familiar with the discussions. STAT reported on 22 October 2026 that the planned release was canceled at the last minute and that the definition remained unreleased. The food industry disputes that its lobbying caused the delay.
- Finding MED-6.8
- Reported In October 2026 DEA proposed, in a new notice of intent, to use HHS-recommended 7-OH scheduling thresholds that, for solid products, are twice the limit in its July notice.
- Finding MED-6.9
- Reported Calley Means, a senior MAHA adviser until October 2026, said in a podcast interview that White House staff tied to lobbying firms blocked or reversed health policy. Officials he named have denied it.
War and Defense
Politics and Government
- Finding POL-1.2
- Primary record The 2004 repatriation provision taxed repatriated foreign dividends at an effective rate of 5.25 percent, and corporations repatriated $312 billion under it.
- Finding POL-1.4
- Primary record The Homeland Investment Coalition registered through PricewaterhouseCoopers on 14 February 2003. The filings report $700,000 in lobbying income for 2003 and $620,000 on the 2004 mid-year report.
- Finding POL-1.6
- Peer-reviewed Firms that repatriated under the 2004 provision did not increase domestic investment, employment or research and development, including the firms that lobbied for it.
- Finding POL-1.7
- Primary record CRS reports that studies generally find the repatriated funds went to shareholders through stock repurchases. Dharmapala, Foley and Forbes estimate $0.91 of repurchases per $1 repatriated in their working paper.
- Finding POL-1.8
- Primary record A Democratic majority-staff report of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that the top 15 repatriating corporations cut a net 20,931 U.S. jobs from 2004 to 2007 and raised stock buybacks 16 percent from 2004 to 2005 and 38 percent from 2005 to 2006.
- Finding POL-1.9
- Peer-reviewed Alexander, Mazza and Scholz report that firms lobbying for the 2004 repatriation provision had a return in excess of $220 for every $1 spent on lobbying.
- Finding POL-1.10
- Peer-reviewed Peer-reviewed studies of other samples find positive associations between lobbying and outcomes: lower effective tax rates (Richter et al.), more earmarks for universities with an appropriations committee member (de Figueiredo and Silverman), and better financial performance (Chen et al.).
- Finding POL-1.11
- Peer-reviewed Libgober finds that, in Federal Reserve rulemaking under Dodd-Frank, meetings with the Board and written comments were associated with abnormal stock returns in the tens of billions, and meetings were worth more.
- Finding POL-1.13
- Peer-reviewed Ansolabehere, de Figueiredo and Snyder conclude that campaign contributions are a form of political participation and consumption, and that little relationship exists between contributions and votes once unobserved effects are controlled. The paper covers contributions and does not measure lobbying expenditures.
- Finding POL-1.14
- Peer-reviewed Baumgartner and coauthors studied 98 issues, found that 60 percent of lobbying campaigns failed to change policy, and report that resources explain less than 5 percent of the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts.
- Finding POL-1.15
- Peer-reviewed Hall and Deardorff model lobbying as a legislative subsidy, a matching grant of policy information, political intelligence and legislative labor to strategically selected legislators.
- Finding POL-1.17
- Primary record Ballard Partners reported $88.06 million in lobbying income for 2025 and $19.27 million for 2024. For the first three quarters of 2026 it reported $97.27 million: $30.15 million, $32.23 million and $34.89 million.
- Finding POL-1.18
- Primary record Among the large firms whose filings were pulled in full, the largest single-firm annual lobbying income was $36.23 million (Akin Gump, 2016), $39.08 million (Akin Gump, 2017), $56.35 million (Brownstein Hyatt, 2021), $67.88 million (Brownstein Hyatt, 2024) and $88.06 million (Ballard Partners, 2025).
- Finding POL-1.19
- Primary record RAI Services Company has been a Ballard client every year from 2017. It paid $440,000 in each of 2017, 2018 and 2019, $560,000 in 2025 and $550,000 for the first three quarters of 2026. In 2025 it reported 20 outside lobbying firms with $3.445 million in income, and Ballard's fee was the largest.
- Finding POL-1.20
- Primary record Ballard's Lobbying Disclosure Act reports for RAI Services list "White House Office" among the entities contacted in the second and third quarters of 2026, and list the Food and Drug Administration. The first-quarter 2026 report lists only the House, and the 2025 reports list no White House Office. In those two quarters no other outside lobbying firm for RAI Services lists the White House Office.
- Finding POL-2.13
- Peer-reviewed Baumgartner and colleagues studied 98 issues drawn from interviews with registered lobbyists and report that 60 percent of lobbying campaigns failed to change policy. Measured resources explain less than 5 percent of the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts.
- Finding POL-5.17
- Primary record MAGA Inc.'s report for 1 to 30 April 2026 lists a $5,000,000 receipt from RAI Services Company dated 30 April 2026. Its itemized April receipts total $9,585,145.60, of which $585,145.60 is bank interest. The RAI Services receipt is 52.2 percent of the total.
- Finding POL-5.18
- Primary record MAGA Inc.'s filings list $1,000,000 receipts from RAI Services Company on 5 February, 30 June and 29 December 2025, $1,000,000 from Altria Client Services on 9 May 2025 and $1,000,000 from JUUL Labs on 4 November 2025.
- Finding POL-5.19
- Primary record MAHA PAC's reports list $500,000 from Botanic Tonics LLC dated 4 March 2026 and $500,000 dated 9 April 2026. Its reports through the pre-general report of 14 October 2026 list no later receipt from that name.
- Finding POL-5.20
- Primary record On 3 August 2026 Senator Ron Wyden, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent letters to Reynolds American, to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and to Botanic Tonics. The letters cite press reports for a chronology of the payments, a lunch and FDA's guidance, ask what was requested at the lunch and in calls, and set a deadline of 31 August 2026.
- Finding POL-6.1
- Primary record FARA requires a person who acts at the direction or control of a foreign principal and engages in political activities in the United States to register and file disclosures. A willful violation or false statement in a filing carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and the Attorney General may seek a civil injunction. Since 1995 an agent of a non-government foreign principal who registers under the Lobbying Disclosure Act is exempt from FARA registration.
- Finding POL-6.6
- Primary record The September 2018 Manafort superseding information charges that from at least 2006 to 2015 Manafort conspired with Richard Gates, Konstantin Kilimnik and others to act as unregistered agents of Ukraine, including by arranging payment of over $2 million from offshore accounts to two unnamed Washington lobbying firms, which the information does not identify. On 31 March 2017 DOJ's FARA unit told the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs in separate letters that each had an obligation to register for political activities for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine.
- Finding POL-6.10
- Primary record DOJ's report for July to December 2025 lists 29 registrants with a Qatar-related foreign principal, and 19 of them report amounts received. The largest listed amounts are $1,820,400 for Finn Partners from Qatar Museums and $420,000 each for BGR Government Affairs and Bachner Group.
- Finding POL-6.19
- Primary record The Podesta Group's FARA registration (no. 5926) was dated 1 April 2009 and terminated on 31 December 2017, with 33 foreign principals on the registration record. The firm reported $24.04 million in Lobbying Disclosure Act income for 2016 and $18.13 million for 2017.
- Finding POL-6.20
- Primary record Ballard Partners holds two FARA registrations in the record: no. 6415, dated 5 April 2017 and terminated 6 February 2021, with 12 foreign principals, and no. 7070, dated 13 January 2022 and active, with 6 foreign principals listed on 10 November 2026.
Food and Agriculture
- Finding AGR-2.7
- Primary record In 1977 the International Sugar Research Foundation, successor to the Sugar Research Foundation, submitted a brief to the Select Committee stating that the first edition of Dietary Goals was “misleading” and “not based on scientific evidence.”
- Finding AGR-2.8
- Peer-reviewed Kearns, Glantz and Schmidt reported in 2015 that 78 percent of the sugar industry’s submission was incorporated into the National Institute of Dental Research’s call for research applications for the National Caries Program, a program on tooth decay.
- Finding AGR-2.9
- Reported The 2003 WHO/FAO report on diet and chronic disease set a population goal of under 10 percent of energy from free sugars and described that goal as controversial. In March and April 2003, according to AP, CSPI and the Guardian, the Sugar Association's president wrote to WHO that the association would ask Congress to challenge U.S. funding, a food-industry coalition asked HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson to intervene on 20 March, and Senators Larry Craig (R-ID) and John Breaux (D-LA) made a further request to Thompson on 28 March. AP also reports that the senators wrote Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman.
- Finding AGR-3.15
- Primary record Original quarterly lobbying reports naming the farm bill in an activity description came from 716 clients in 2018, 1,003 clients in 2024 and 746 clients in 2025.
- Finding AGR-4.2
- Primary record According to the second edition of Dietary Goals (December 1977), meat and egg producers requested additional Senate hearings in 1977. The second edition then replaced the first edition's "decrease consumption of meat and increase consumption of poultry and fish" with "decrease consumption of animal fat, and choose meats, poultry and fish which will reduce saturated fat intake." Senator Dole wrote that he was "pleased that the second edition deletes language from the first edition recommending 'eat less meat'."
- Finding AGR-4.3
- Peer-reviewed In April 1991 USDA postponed the Food Guide Pyramid after the National Cattlemen's Association and other producer groups protested, and released a revised design one year and one day later. Nestle's account describes the Secretary's stated reason as "widely disbelieved." USDA's own 2011 chronology does not mention the postponement.