737 Max crisis tests Boeing’s influence in Washington

Bloomberg

Boeing Co has spent decades spreading big money around Washington. Now the aerospace giant will need to lean on its network of lawmakers and lobbyists as it grapples with one of the worst crises in its history.
The company has almost tripled its spending on US politicians and political committees in the past decade. It’s also shelled out $15 million to
$21 million annually in the same period on lobbying in Washington — topping spending by rivals Lockheed Martin Corp, United Technologies Corp and other corporate giants such as Amazon.com and Comcast Corp.
Such expenditures have helped make the aviation company one of the most powerful influence brokers in the nation’s capital. Its carefully cultivated relationships — including one with President Donald Trump — are being tested as lawmakers, regulators and federal prosecutors scrutinise the company’s coziness with the Federal Aviation Administration following two catastrophic crashes of its 737 Max 8 aircraft.
An Ethiopian Airlines Max jet crashed March 10 after taking off from Addis Ababa, five months after a Lion Air Max plane went down outside Jakarta, Indonesia. Both crashes killed everyone aboard.
Planes Grounded
Senators and representatives from both parties called for the planes to be grounded, and Trump himself announced the decision to ban the Max planes from flying March 13 after the FAA wavered. The Transportation Department has ordered a full audit of the FAA’s 2017 certification of the Max and the Justice Department is also investigating.
A Senate panel is hearing from government officials that oversee commercial aviation next week and also intends to call Boeing executives, pilots and other aviation industry groups in the near future.
“Everyone has pretty much turned on them,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for corporate watchdog Public Citizen.
Boeing said in a statement that its government operations team is “focussed on sharing the most accurate and up-to-date information possible with members of Congress, their staff and the relevant agency officials.”
Tim Keating, a former legislative director for the Clinton White House who heads Boeing’s lobbying team in Washington, is well-known for working on both sides of the political spectrum. He’ll need to leverage those relationships now.
Much of the lobbying outlay by Chicago-based Boeing — the second-largest US government contractor — is related to defense spending, not commercial aviation.
Boeing ranked 11th among the nation’s top influence spenders by the Center for Responsive Politics for the $15.1 million it spent in 2018. The US Chamber of Commerce was first at $94.8 million.
Boeing has some high-profile figures on its team, including former Representative Norm Dicks, a Democrat from Washington State who served as chairman and ranking member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in his final years in office. Dicks lobbied on two of the company’s projects for the Pentagon, the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the KC-46A tanker plane, disclosures show.
Last year the company employed 98 lobbyists, including 31 in-house, who contacted Congress and 24 federal agencies and offices on its behalf, according to federal disclosures.