Tech Companies Spending Big Money in Washington

The fact that a lot of money is spent by big companies in Washington to try to influence the outcome of pending legislation is well known. Big companies also try to talk lawmakers and agency officials out of regulating one thing or another with money. The exact amount of money spent by these big companies is however surprising.

Lobbying expenditures during the third quarter have been released in the latest batch of disclosure reports. The facts contained in these disclosures are being summarized by the Associated Press.

$3.83 million was spent by Verizon at numerous branches of the federal government. These include the White House, Congress, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Trade Commission. The lobbying expenses were for several issues like taxes and texting while driving. A year ago, Verizon (News - Alert) had spent $2.96 million in the same period.

As compared to $3.18 million last year, this year AT&T spent $3.47 as lobbying expenses. Legislation on calling cards, broadband buildouts and distracted driving were the items included on AT&T’s agenda.

$1.6 million was spent by Hewlett-Packard (News - Alert) this year for taxes, immigration and how government agencies use technology in the areas of health care and law enforcement. The money was spent on members of Congress and officials at the Department of Justice and the Commerce Department.

The Congress, the Pentagon and the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security were visited by Microsoft (News - Alert). Microsoft spent $1.63 million talking about computer security, how the government buys software and the competitive state of online advertising. The Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality was also lobbied by Microsoft. The top lobbying spender for the first nine months of the year was Microsoft.

While the spending of Oracle (News - Alert) went up from $1.3 million last year to $1.6 million this year, Yahoo spent $540,000 as compared to the last year’s $510,000. Similarly $1.2 million was spent by Google in the third quarter. The most influential company in consumer technology, Apple (News - Alert) however spent relatively little on lobbying efforts. The company spent only $340,000.

While talking about transportation, the power grid, funding for research and the military, IBM spent $1 million on visits to Congress and the Departments of Transportation, Defense, and Health and Human Services.