The Washington Post’s reporting on the apparent leveling off of Washington lobbying expenditures has a misleading but telling lede: “Could the great lobbying gold rush be over?”

The more banal misunderstanding tied up in this framework is the tendency to overhype small changes, which,  of course, is the nature of a news business in which every new piece of information demands a story. But if lobbying is indeed a gold rush (more on this shortly), it’s hard to see how this gold rush could be over when organizations are still spending $9.5 million a day (or $3.5 billion a year) on it.

Rather, given the amount of money that is still spent, it seems like it’s still very much a booming business, and as I’ve written before, my strong guess is that this is but a hiccup in what has been and will continue to be a steadily increasing interest in lobbying. Any speculation about the demise of lobbying is presumably much over-rated.

The more significant misunderstanding is that lobbying is a gold rush, and I think this is a more pervasive misunderstanding. Do companies and other organizations come to Washington to pursue special programs, earmarks, tax breaks? No doubt many do, and this is a non-trivial part of the lobbying business.

But look at who the heaviest spenders on lobbying are, and you’ll not find a lot of gold rushing.

I stole the excellent chart below from the Center for Responsive Politics, which does an invaluable service in collecting federal lobbying data.

First, it’s worth noting that that among these top 20 lobbying organizations, two-thirds (65 percent) of these organizations spent more on lobbying in 2010 than they did in 2009.

But more importantly, it’s worth peeking under the hood of these numbers and seeing what it means to spend eight or nine figures on lobbying.
Last year was certainly not a gold rush for The Chamber of Commerce, which accounts for four percent of all lobbying. Mostly, I suspect they’ve been playing quite a bit of defense, trying to shape intellectual environment by spinning narratives and doing everything they can to advance a free-market, pro-business perspective.

If you take a look at one of the Chamber’s quarterly lobbying reports from last year, you should be impressed at the length of the thing. The first quarter report runs 92(!) pages.

Here are the listings from a sample page, listing the Chamber’s lobbying on a single issue, category: “ENG – ENERGY/NUCLEAR”:

H.R. 3246/ S. 2843, Advanced Vehicle Technology Act of 2009 H.R. 3534, Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2009 H.R. 5320, Assistance, Quality, and Affordability Act of 2010, including an amendment by Rep. Diana DeGette which would establish disclosure requirements regarding materials used in the hydraulic fracturing process S. 1462, American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 S. 1792, A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the requirements for windows, doors, and skylights to be eligible for the credit for nonbusiness energy property S. 2818, A bill to amend the Energy Conservation and Production Act to improve weatherization for low-income persons, and for other purposes S. 3177 / H.R. 5019 / S. 3434, Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010 S. 3072, Stationary Source Regulations Delay Act S. 3663, Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act of 2010 S. J. Res. 26, A joint resolution disapproving a rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to the endangerment finding and the cause or contribute findings for greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act

Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (bill number not yet assigned) Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2011 (bill number not yet assigned)

Draft climate legislation expected to be sponsored by Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman (not yet introduced) Draft legislation to provide incentives to deploy nuclear power (not yet introduced) Various issues relating to the Kerry-Lieberman “American Power Act” (draft legislation, not yet introduced) Legislation to reauthorize the “Diesel Emissions Reduction Act” (not yet introduced)

NHTSA Proposed Rulemaking on Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for New Medium- and Heavy-Duty Fuel Efficiency Improvement Program (see June 14, 2010, Fed. Reg., Vol. 75, No. 113, Docket No. NHTSA-2010-0079) EPA Proposed Rulemaking on National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone (see January 19, 2010, Fed. Reg., Vol. 75, No. 1, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0172) EPA Proposed Rulemaking on Identification of Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials That Are Solid Waste (see Januaray 2, 2009, Fed. Reg., Vol. 75, No. 107, Docket No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-2008-0329) EPA Proposed Rulemaking on National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Major Sources: Industrial, Commercial and Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters (Boilers MACT) (see June 9, 2010, Fed. Reg., Vol 75, No. 110, Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2002-0058)

General issues including: policy for storing nuclear waste, the Department of the Interior’s moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, DOE Loan Guarantees for Rare Earth Elements, and Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (specific legislation not yet introduced)

Or similarly, here are the listings for “CSP – CONSUMER ISSUES/SAFETY/PRODUCTS”

H.R. 1521, Cell Tax Fairness Act of 2009 H.R. 2271, Global Online Freedom Act of 2009 H.R. 2309, Consumer Credit and Debt Protection Act H.R. 2221, Data Accountability and Trust Act H.R. 690 / S. 144, Modernize Our Bookkeeping In the Law for Employee’s Cell Phone Act of 2009 H.R. 3458, Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 H.R. 2267, Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act H.R. 3924, Real Stimulus Act of 2009 H.R. 3126, Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009 H.R. 6038, Financial Industry Transparency Act of 2010 H.R. 4173, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, all issues pertaining to Title X, the Consumer Protection Bureau H.R. 5777, To foster transparency about the commercial use of personal information, provide consumers with meaningful choice about the collection, use, and disclosure of such information, and for other purposes (BEST PRACTICES Act) H.R. 1346 / S. 540, Medical Device Safety Act of 2009

S. 139, Data Breach Notification Act S. 43, Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act of 2009 S. 773, Cybersecurity Act of 2009 S. 1490, Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2009 S. 1192, Mobile Wireless Tax Fairness Act of 2009 S. 788, m-SPAM Act of 2009 S. 1597, Internet Poker and Game of Skill Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act of 2009 S. 3155 / H.R. 4962, International Cybercrime Reporting and Cooperation Act S. 3480, Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 S. 3386, Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act S. 3742, Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2010 S. 3579, Data Security Act of of 2010

Legislation Regarding Offline and Online Privacy (draft released by Rep. Boucher)

What impresses me is the sheer range of issues on which the Chamber is lobbying. The Chamber has the resources to make sure that every time a piece of legislation comes up that touches on some aspect of the broader business community, it can get in to see the right folks to explain why a particular piece of legislation would be good or bad for business, and help people on the Hill to “improve” legislation in a way that the Chamber approves of. There’s something to be said for being ubiquitous, I’m sure.

General Electric, third on the list, also has a similarly expansive quarterly lobbying report at 35 pages, covering an impressive range of issues. Again, pulling from the Center for Responsive Politics, here are the areas on which General Electric lobbied in 2010:

Issues

Yes, General Electric is a major conglomerate and an important part of the American economy. But again, one can’t help but be impressed by the range of issues on which GE is lobbying. It clearly wants to be part of the debate on just about everything.

Institutions like the Chamber, GE, and others are permanent parts of the Washington policymaking community. They are not part of a gold rush, and they are certainly not going away.

More broadly, if you look at the top 20 spenders on lobbying for 2010, it turns out that they represent $524 million in expenditures, or about 15 percent of all lobbying expenditures. There are about 15,000 organizations that have hired lobbyists in Washington, but the distribution of expenditures is highly skewed: a handful of large organizations (mostly companies and business groups) dominate.

From this vantage point, lobbying in 2010 looks a lot like lobbying in 2009: Mostly dominated by a handful of large important companies and business lobbying groups who want to have a say on a wide range of issues, and more broadly, to ensure that any conversation that might impact on them does not happen without them.