House lawmakers target Pentagon plan to ramp up missile production for Ukraine

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee are making significant cuts to an ambitious Pentagon goal to ramp up production of missiles as it seeks to arm Ukraine while preparing for a potential conflict with China.

Appropriators exacted more than $2.5 billion in reductions to sections of their Pentagon spending bill that deal with missile procurement across the military services, according to a draft committee report obtained by POLITICO that includes funding tables to accompany the legislation.

The shift in funding to other accounts by the influential spending committee is a blow to a major pillar of President Joe Biden’s defense plans laid out in his most recent budget proposal. Billions of dollars worth of weapons poured into Ukraine, forcing military planners to reconsider how it buys munitions to be prepared for another conflict. The result was a first-ever request by the Pentagon for Congress to fund multiyear purchases of munitions in a bid to kick production into high gear to be ready for a future fight.

The move by the committee also sets up a potential fight with other panels in the House and Senate that may side with the Pentagon’s plans. Multiyear purchases of missiles have proved popular on Capitol Hill, where many lawmakers are taking an increasingly hawkish tack toward China and argue the U.S. must produce enough weapons to be ready for a potential conflict over Taiwan before the decade is out.

But appropriators cast doubt on the viability of the ambitious plans for some munitions, saying the Pentagon didn’t show its work to justify betting on the bold plan.

"The Committee is particularly concerned the Department [of Defense] cannot provide realistic cost estimates and has proceeded with these multiyear procurement requests without a firm understanding of each program's unit cost and production capacity," lawmakers wrote in their report.

Instead, the panel redirected money to bolster military training, maintenance and operations as well as Pentagon research and development efforts to field new technology and weapons. The shift in funding came as appropriators — facing a defense spending cap locked in by the debt limit deal — squeezed overall Pentagon weapons procurement spending. Procurement, typically a favorite for congressional increases, clocks in $3 billion lower than the Pentagon requested.

As part of the $2.5 billion missile cut, the spending panel trimmed much of a Pentagon push for $1.9 billion to support bulk purchases, blocking a large chunk of “economic order quantity” funding for missile programs. The designation is a mathematical device used to prove that buying at a higher volume will result in lower prices per missile, but the Pentagon was unable to provide adequate data.

The committee specifically denied multiyear procurement authority for Raytheon Technologies-manufactured Standard Missile-6 and the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles because appropriators do not believe the Pentagon has a clear understanding of unit costs and production capacity.

Having data to back up unit costs and production capacity estimates is required by law to initiate multiyear procurement authority, which the Pentagon already uses for ships and aircraft.

In their report, House appropriators said they agree with the need for "steady demand" so the defense industrial base can ramp up production, but they countered that the Pentagon "failed to show" how multiyear contracts would meet those legal standards.

When asked why the military did not provide adequate documentation in making a case for multiyear procurement authority, Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman said, “It would be inappropriate to comment on pending legislation.”

The committee did greenlight multiyear procurement authority for the Naval Strike Missiles, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancements, Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles.

Appropriators explained that several missile programs "are worthy of multiyear procurement consideration due to their enduring importance and steady production" as justification for permitting bulk buys of these munitions.

The move to trim the missile funding plans drew a rebuke from Democratic appropriators, who contend the $1.9 billion bulk proposal is needed to match threats posed by China.

The report, which will be made public next week, outlines the funding changes appropriators made to President Joe Biden’s defense budget. It explains the committee’s priorities in shaping the bill and items of interest or concern for appropriators.

The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up the fiscal 2024 funding bill Thursday after it was approved this week at the subcommittee level. Democrats are expected to oppose the legislation over spending differences with Republicans and a variety of conservative riders.

Defense policy legislation working its way through the House Armed Services Committee, largely approves of proposed missile spending, though the panel’s bill only authorizes funding, leaving allocating money to appropriators.

The bill cuts overall Pentagon procurement accounts by $4 billion from the administration’s budget request, driven in large part by reductions to missile programs. Overall weapons spending would still rise $2.8 billion from the current year’s level.

Other major accounts, however, would increase compared to the Pentagon’s submission. Operations and maintenance funding came in $3 billion above the request. Appropriators also tacked an extra $2 billion onto the administration’s research and development request.

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Good to be home: Biden touts economy labor ties at campaign-rally kick-off

In his first rally since announcing his reelection campaign nearly two months ago, President Joe Biden went to his happy place: a union event in Philadelphia.

“Folks, it feels good to be home,” Joe Biden told about 2,000 union members Saturday at an endorsement rally in his 13th trip to Philadelphia as president. “I look out in this crowd and I see a lot of old friends, a lot of folks, as they say in Claymont, Delaware, who brung me to the dance.”

Biden has essentially built his political identity around his connection to the labor movement as proof of his focus on middle-class families. He’s also leaned on unions for their organization and mobilization skills in the past. Those in Biden world say this reelection campaign will be no different.

“I’m more honored by your endorsement than you can imagine, coming this early. It’s going to make a gigantic difference in this campaign,” Biden said at the rally.

The campaign event comes just a day after the AFL-CIO endorsed Biden. The president’s address was similar in tone and content as earlier speeches on the economy: touting his reputation as the most “pro-union president in American history,” knocking Republicans for tax cuts and laying out his own economic accomplishments over the last two-and-a-half years.

“We’ve created 13 million new jobs since I became president. The unemployment rate is down to nearly a 50-year low. I’ve seen record lows for Black employment and Hispanic employment as well. We’ve created 800,000 manufacturing jobs,” Biden said. “Inflation has come down 11 months in a row and is going to continue to come down. Today it’s less than half of what it was a year ago. This didn’t just happen. We made it happen.”

But both administration and campaign officials know they still have a tightrope to walk on the economy and acknowledge it’s something they’ve struggled with in the past: touting what they’ve done without seeming out of touch or being accused of painting too rosy of a picture.

And for Democrats, who were getting antsy that the campaign wasn’t kicking into high gear, the event couldn’t come fast enough. It also showcased how the campaign plans to operate for the foreseeable future: keeping a heads-down approach with tentpole events to contrast with what is shaping up to be a chaotic and rhetorically nasty Republican presidential primary.

The rally is also the first of a slate of new campaign activity over the next weeks: Biden will head to California, Maryland and Chicago for big money events, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been doing most of the heavy lifting for fundraising, will be in New York City, Dallas and Maryland while the first lady is headed to Tennessee and Minnesota.

The events come as it gets closer to the end of the fundraising quarter, where campaigns will have to disclose how much money they have raised. Some Democrats have grumbled that the Biden campaign has yet to release fundraising numbers, giving the sense that the numbers aren’t impressive enough and continuing to fuel the narrative that there’s little excitement on the left for Biden’s reelection.

But those waiting for the Biden reelection shouldn't hold their breath. Some familiar with the effort said big campaign rallies may not begin in earnest until late this year or early 2024. What’s more likely are events like these tied to particular issues: gun control, abortion and the economy.

“I truly believe this country is about to take off. The investments we’ve made these past three years have the power to transform this country for the next five decades. And guess who's going to be at the center of the transformation? You. Unions, working people in this country,” Biden said.

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How Montana passed the strongest privacy law among red states

Montana’s data privacy law had all the ingredients to be another notch in a string of red-state victories for the tech industry against tough rules on how Americans’ personal data is mined and shared.

Yet Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte last month ultimately signed one of the most sweeping tech privacy laws for a GOP-controlled state: a suite of consumer protections restraining data collection online and limiting how the industry profits from people’s personal information.

What happened behind the scenes this spring in the Montana Legislature was a stark lesson in what can go wrong in American lobbying when an industry overplays its hand. And the degree to which tech companies fumbled on this legislation may force Silicon Valley to change its state-level tactics as it seeks to ward off a patchwork of regulations and new resistance in conservative territory like Texas.

In Montana, the bill’s Republican sponsor, Sen. Daniel Zolnikov, pivoted — hard — against them.

“I have four business degrees. I’m not an idiot, and you treating us in Montana like a bunch of rural backwoods folks is quite an insult as well,” Zolnikov recalled of the industry’s tactics in an interview.

He said Montana’s local tech lobbyists approached him last summer during the Governor’s Cup, an annual golf tournament where politicians, lobbyists and local business leaders mingle, exchange ideas and pitches. But matters quickly soured shortly after the new year once the national lobbying arms parachuted in.

Zolnikov, who also works as an energy developer, was known to propose privacy regulations during the nearly eight years he spent in the state House and has been concerned that someone’s personal data could be unfairly used against them. He successfully pushed legislation in 2013 requiring police officers to obtain warrants for GPS location data but also felt the sting of seeing lobbyists derail legislation limiting what data internet service providers can collect from customers.

At the Governor’s Cup, lobbyists asked Zolnikov if he was eyeing any data privacy bills since he had several models to choose from, including California’s, widely considered the toughest in the country. What the industry recommended was legislation mirroring a law in Utah, which follows the tech industry’s guidelines and the laissez-faire approach common in other Republican-led states.

Shortly after Zolnikov won his Senate race in November, a Montana lobbyist put him in touch with TechNet and the State Privacy and Security Coalition. Not only do those D.C.-based groups represent some of the industry’s biggest companies — like Google, Meta and Amazon, which make huge revenues from collecting, trading and selling user data — they’ve lobbied on virtually every state privacy bill in the U.S.

The lobbyists, in his recollection, presented themselves as groups looking to create privacy rights for citizens that businesses could easily comply with and he was initially open to their recommendations since lobbyists he’d worked with frequently had vouched for them.

But tech industry groups have played a central role in watering down bills in places like Virginia, where a data privacy measure was drafted by an Amazon lobbyist while being framed as creating new protections for constituents.

In Montana, they started making several recommendations to weaken the legislation in December and January — before Zolnikov even introduced his bill.

A key push was removing language for a universal opt-out — a provision that allows people to block all online tracking of their web browser by default. The lobbyists also wanted companies to always have a window of time to resolve privacy violations before enforcement actions can start, and sought to narrow the definition of “sale” so it only applied to data exchanged for money.

While Zolnikov had a strong relationship with the state’s local lobbyists, he said he never met any of the national lobbyists face-to-face. All of their recommendations came via email and phone calls and were presented as “technical” changes. And many undercut his goal of writing a strong privacy law that could serve as a model for other red states as the industry fans out to capitals amid a policy vacuum in Washington.

One issue that seemed very technical that the companies treated as extremely important: what counts as “selling” user data. The broader the definition, the harder it is for companies to trade in user information. The companies wanted the definition narrowed, pointing to privacy laws in Iowa, Utah and Indiana, which would effectively let them profit from their users’ data as long as they didn’t charge a dollar amount for it.

By the time Zolnikov introduced the Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act in February, tech lobbyists had convinced him to remove a lot of the teeth found in Connecticut’s law, which is considered to be a statute somewhere between California and red states like Utah.

The bill unanimously cleared the Senate in early March and was headed to the Montana House. The industry was on the verge of victory when its efforts would unravel in a matter of weeks. But the pivotal event, as it turned out, didn’t even happen in Montana.

In deep-blue Maryland, legislators were considering their own privacy bill when tech lobbyist Andrew Kingman, who works for the State Privacy and Security Coalition, told lawmakers that his group would have no issue if Maryland followed Connecticut’s model.

Three months earlier, according to Zolnikov, Kingman had been pushing him to abandon the Connecticut model, claiming it was too hard for the industry to comply with.

“This really pissed me off, because why does Maryland get to have the good Connecticut thorough bill, but Montana doesn’t deserve that?” Zolnikov said.

The strategy was clear to Zolnikov: For a blue state, Connecticut’s framework would be considered a compromise. In Montana, a libertarian, business-friendly state, the lobby would see it as a failure.

Asked about the discrepancy between his position in Montana and in Maryland, Kingman didn’t comment specifically but offered a statement saying the group backs “reasonable and interoperable state privacy laws” that are predictable.

Both TechNet and the State Privacy and Security Coalition said their lobbying efforts were intended to ensure that Montana’s privacy law works with other states’ regulations.

“We’ve worked with state lawmakers across the country, including in Montana, to ensure state privacy laws are workable, interoperable, and not overly burdensome for businesses while ensuring consumers can access, correct, and delete their data,” TechNet’s vice president of state policy and government relations David Edmonson said in a statement.

After watching Kingman’s testimony in Maryland, Zolnikov called Matt Schwartz, an analyst for Consumer Reports’ advocacy arm who had written a detailed critique of the bill, to devise a strategy before the legislation made it out of the House.

By April, some of Schwartz’s recommendations became amendments. The bill would get universal opt-out requirements, allowing Montanans to block all tracking with a single click.

Another amendment will allow the state attorney general to immediately begin assessing fines and other penalties for violating the law starting in April 2026, sunseting a provision that gave the industry time to remedy violations first.

Schwartz said one major loophole in the legislation involved an exemption for “pseudonymous data” that would’ve allowed companies to continue tracking people online even after they’ve opted out.

“We went from something that was very close to passing that would’ve been pretty weak — especially if that exemption had been left in there — to something that’s OK,” he said.

When the tech industry made one last attempt to regain control, Zolnikov said, they peppered him with calls and emails asking for changes. A lobbyist from Google, he said, told him a universal opt-out law would hurt Montana residents because someone could accidentally toggle the setting.

“To say that my state doesn’t deserve the right protections as four or five other states? That really didn’t bode well with me,” Zolnikov said.

Google didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The bill passed with unanimous bipartisan support in both chambers.

Sen. Shane Morigeau, a Democratic Montana lawmaker who advised on the bill, wasn’t surprised Zolnikov changed course and dug in.

“I feel like he’s a smart enough guy where he can catch those sorts of changes that people are trying to insert to undermine the intent of the legislation,” he said.

Zolnikov said Montana’s law shows a GOP-led state can remain business-friendly while providing strong privacy protections for residents — a dig at places like Indiana and Utah.

“These guys in these states get to pass a watered-down bill and celebrate that they did something when they didn’t complete the mission, and that’s pretty much the model that you see everywhere,” he said. “I’m just disappointed in my fellow Republican-led states because they could’ve done a much better job on the policies.”

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Sununu not leaning towards running for governor again

Chris Sununu just passed on running for president. Now he says he’s probably not running for governor of New Hampshire again, either.

The Republican told a regional sports radio show Friday that he’s “not leaning towards” seeking a record fifth term — partly because he could “make a real paycheck” by going back to the private sector.

“Could I win again? Of course. But it’s [public] service, and someone else needs to kind of take the mantle,” Sununu, who earns $146,522 per year as governor, said on “The Greg Hill Show” on WEEI. “I’ve got kids to put through college and all that sort of thing.”

One of the nation’s most popular governors, Sununu, 48, has been dropping hints for months that he might be looking to move on from the corner office. He recently told POLITICO that he intends to make his final decision this summer, after the state’s legislative session concludes at the end of June.

“Knowing that I’m in my fourth term, probably out of here in 18 months or so — I don’t know, I don’t think I’m going to run again,” Sununu said on WEEI. “But I’m really not sure.”

Sununu’s potential successors aren’t waiting for him to make up his mind. Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington is already running on the Democratic side, and Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig has formed an exploratory committee. On the Republican side, former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte and former state Senate President Chuck Morse have been laying the groundwork for potential campaigns should Sununu decide not to run again.

For Democrats who’ve been unable to unseat Sununu, the Republican stepping aside would be a best case scenario.

“If Sununu is so eager to get a ‘real job,’ we encourage him not to waste another day or taxpayer dollar and be honest with New Hampshire families that he no longer cares about fixing their problems as governor,” Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Izzi Levy said in a statement.

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Ozempic Wegovy-maker hires lobbying firm to push for Medicare coverage

Novo Nordisk, which makes the blockbuster weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, hired law and lobbying firm Arnold & Porter to try to convince policymakers to allow Medicare to cover anti-obesity medications.

The high-cost medicines exploded in popularity when videos on TikTok highlighted the many celebrities taking them to lose weight. But their access to a key market — older Americans — is limited, as Medicare is banned from covering weight loss drugs as part of the Part D program.

Bipartisan lawmakers introduced legislation last Congress that would offer Medicare coverage for these drugs, but they have not reintroduced it.

Recently retired Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), who sponsored the bill to allow for coverage, joined Arnold & Porter in February. However, ethics rules bar him from lobbying his former colleagues in Congress for one year.

The lobbyists working on the contract include Sonja Nesbit, who served as a senior HHS official during the Obama administration, and longtime GOP health care lobbyist Eugenia Pierson.

Novo Nordisk spent a total of $4.6 million on lobbying the federal government last year, and $1.3 million in the first three months of 2023. The company and its six outside lobbying firms listed lobbying on obesity medicine coverage this year in disclosure forms.

While both drugs contain the active ingredient semaglutide, Ozempic is only approved as a diabetes treatment, though it’s prescribed off-label as an anti-obesity drug. Wegovy is FDA-approved for weight loss.

Medicare Part D and most commercial insurers only cover Ozempic for the treatment of diabetes. Without coverage, the drugs can cost patients around $16,000 per year.

One study cited by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that coverage of weight loss drugs like Wegovy could lead to nearly $27 billion in additional Medicare Part D spending, should the 41 percent of Americans over 60 years old considered obese decide to take the drug.

Those estimates, however, do not include any savings Medicare might realize if obesity is reduced, which a USC Schaeffer Center paper from earlier this year found could be significant.

It’s the second lobbying registration so far this year to push for Medicare coverage of weight loss drugs. In January, Eli Lilly — which makes the diabetes drug Mounjaro, also prescribed off-label for weight loss — hired Todd Strategy Group to work on the issue.

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Democrats buy time in fight over New Hampshire primary

Top Democrats know they have a massive problem on their hands when it comes to the scheduling of the 2024 New Hampshire primary.

And when they convened this week to find ways to keep President Joe Biden from ceding the state’s early nominating contest to a fringe candidate, they settled on a tried and true resolution: putting it off to a later date.

The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted as expected on Friday to give New Hampshire until Sept. 1 to comply with the national party’s requirements to move its primary behind South Carolina’s in early February — or get kicked out of the official early state window for 2024.

“There’s some space between us and the folks in the state on this,” Minyon Moore, co-chair of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, said during Friday’s meeting in Minneapolis. “But as we’ve said all along, the president wants New Hampshire in the early state lineup. And this committee has long agreed that it is a critical state and should be part of the mix.”

But even as the committee gave New Hampshire another three months to get in line, there was little reason to expect a friendly resolution.

Biden pushed for changes to the party’s presidential nominating calendar for 2024 that stripped New Hampshire of its prized first-in-the-nation primary in an effort to reward South Carolina, which propelled him to the nomination in 2020. Under the DNC’s plan, New Hampshire would go second, on a shared date with Nevada.

But New Hampshire’s state law requires it hold the first primary a week before any other similar contest. And Republicans who control the governor’s office and state legislature are unwilling to change it. Nor are they willing to push through other voting-law changes the DNC is requiring for states in the early window for 2024.

So on Friday, Democrats were really buying themselves more time to decide whether and how they’re going to sanction New Hampshire Democrats if — and, most likely, when — the state goes rogue and holds the first primary, anyway. Under penalties the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee passed last year, the state could lose half its delegates if it breaks with the party’s calendar. But there was no mention of sanctions during the rules committee’s brief discussion on New Hampshire on Friday.

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley didn’t comment on the latest extension beyond saying he looks “forward to hearing” from the DNC.

Biden is unlikely to appear on the ballot if New Hampshire goes first, creating an awkward situation in which the president could lose an unofficial early contest to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson, both of whom have indicated they’re planning to compete in New Hampshire regardless of its status or sanctions. But Democrats could wage a write-in campaign for Biden, to help him avoid an early embarrassment en route to his inevitable renomination.

The president already isn’t getting the 2024 primary calendar he wants. Biden’s initial proposal had slated South Carolina for Feb. 6, New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 13, Georgia on Feb. 20 and then Michigan on Feb. 27. But Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger defied Democrats’ wishes and set his state’s presidential primary for March 12 — after Super Tuesday.

And Iowa continues to give Democrats trying to knock the state out of the early nominating window a headache. Iowa Democrats submitted a plan for a “reimagined” caucus system that would let people participate by mail. But the Rules and Bylaws Committee rejected that plan on Friday — sending Iowa back to the drawing board.

Holly Otterbein contributed to this report.

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DOJ finds patterns of excessive force racial discrimination at Minneapolis Police Department

A two-year-long Department of Justice investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department found a pattern of "excessive force, including unjustified deadly force," racial discrimination and civil rights violations, all of which created the conditions that led to George Floyd's murder, according to a report released Friday.

The DOJ launched the investigation in April 2021, after Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering Floyd the year prior by pinning his knee onto Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. The federal probe found “systemic problems” in the department, including the use of "unjustified deadly force" and unlawful discrimination against Black and Native American people.

"The patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible," Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a press conference Friday.

The investigation found "numerous incidents" in which officers responded to a person's claim that they were unable to breathe by telling them "some version of, 'You can breathe, you're talking right now,'" according to the report.

The report also details a pattern of violating the First Amendment rights of protesters and journalists and discrimination against people with behavioral health disabilities when responding to assistance calls, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Officials from the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department in a statement Friday affirmed their willingness to collaborate with the Department of Justice to shape a consent decree.

“These findings are a major step in reforming this department into one that provides a level of service that will be a model for law enforcement agencies across the country. Moving forward, we will continue the process of changing the culture of the Minneapolis Police Department to ensure the safety and wellness of our police officers and the residents of this city,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in the statement. “And paramount to this is the rebuilding of trust between this department and the people it serves.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the release of the report “an essential step forward for community trust and community safety.”

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