New online database details federal lobbying for reporters

Washington has a largely uncovered team that's fetching more than $2.4 billion a year for the contact made in its sport. But instead of hitting home runs or colliding with a catcher at home plate, the players on this team write many of America's laws, influence Congress and shape the regulations at more than 200 federal agencies.

Last year, this team of federal lobbyists billed more than the total salaries paid to all 30 Major League Baseball teams. Yet, unlike the athletes who achieve celebrity status in our sports sections, most of these players operate in relative anonymity - and they prefer it that way.

Though campaign finance records generally garner the attention of journalists covering Congress or the White House, federal lobbying records tell a far more compelling story. Despite that, for every article written about lobbying, ten mention contributions. In 2004, there were 2,475,030 stories on donations, even though special interests spend far more on Washington representation than they do giving to campaigns: Since 1998, spending on lobbyists is routinely double the total amount given to candidates, PACs, and the political parties.

Often, campaign finance reporting suffers from the number of inferences that must be made. Because companies can't directly contribute, because Federal Election Commission records don't require a donor to list the reason he or she is contributing, reporters cannot conclusively state that any given $2,000 check was an attempt to influence specific legislation. But lobbyists, who are paid directly by the interests that employ them, disclose the bills and issues and even the very agencies they are paid to influence. Every dollar spent on lobbying is spent to influence our country's laws and regulations.

One reason for the disparity in coverage is that there has never been a publicly available resource that organizes lobbying records in an easy-to-use, one-stop-shopping format. For years, the U.S. Senate has compiled 14-cubic-feet of filings every six months that detail exactly how special interests pay these lobbyists billions to influence the government. But these documents often just gather dust. Only during the past few years have these documents been put online, but the Senate Web site that does so is cumbersome to use.

Therefore, as a public service to journalists and citizens, the Center for Public Integrity has compiled a comprehensive two-million-record database that includes every federal lobbying document filed since 1998. This free online database will allow reporters and citizens to search and receive profile pages with relevant financial information for each of the following:

? 3,000 lobbying firms;
? 16,000 companies and organizations lobbied;
? 77 federal issues lobbied;
? 220 federal agencies lobbied;
? 56 states and U.S. territories' clients;
? 101 foreign countries of clients.

In addition, the database also includes the names and connections behind the nearly 2,000 revolving-door lobbyists who left Capitol Hill and the federal government to work on K Street.

But we didn't want to just create another "money in politics" database to send out into the ether of the Internet. This database was designed to transcend federal politics by creating a new resource for state and local reporters, international reporters, bloggers and everyone in between.

With the click of a mouse, you can find out all of the special interests from your state that are lobbying the federal government, how much they are spending, the issues that they are lobbying and who they lobbied. You can find out similar information about foreign companies who are lobbying Congress from France, China, or Saudi Arabia.

What may prove most useful about the site is that it allows reporters to search issues and agencies. When lobbyists submit their disclosure forms every six months, they have to list all of the topics that they tried to influence from a list of 77 designated by the U.S. government. They include issues that correspond to almost every beat at a newspaper ranging from health to science and technology; from environment to religion; and even gambling to sports.

While lobbyists are known for their efforts to sway legislation before Congress - it is often overlooked how they lobby every federal agency in the U.S. government. Such influence permeates Cabinet-level departments like Defense to Energy; affects regulation with watchdogs like the Federal Election Commission and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and even touches small agencies like the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the U.S. Botanical Garden. In short, lobbyists can affect almost every aspect of American lives.

Finally, while other money-in-politics Web sites display only a limited number of records in their online databases, the Center's database was made to be a resource that would give everyone unfettered access to our data. We even put in features that will export data into spreadsheets like Excel so that everyone from a blogger to a New York Times reporter can use the information.

We are hoping that this will be a good resource for all reporters. We wanted it to be useful to every beat - not just the political ones.