Blank Rome filed their report for the 3rd quarter today showing they received an additional $30,000 income from ACL, I noted they were down to two lobbyists from the five used in the 2nd quarter and they added HR 5978 (Coast Guard and Maritime Amendments Act of 2016) HR 5394 (A various agencies appropriations Act) and S. 2844 (Consolidated Appropriations Act) to the activity issues list. They continue to show increased effort to stop the exemption from getting passed as an add-on to another bill and keep the pressure up to stop the exemption from happening.
S. 1717 passed the Transportation Committee in late June but it is still not scheduled for floor vote/debate. The Senate is on break until after the elections so don't expect any activity until after November 14th when they reconvene.
Please continue to call and write your Senators and Representatives asking them to support the exemption bills and those of you in Kentucky call Senator McConnell's office and ask to schedule the vote. With everyone's effort we’ll get the Queen operating again.
Just curious if there is any bill they aren't targeting? I still can't believe someone can be so greedy as to try to stop the DELTA QUEEN from running. How sad!
I'm pretty sure that ACL is now just paying a quarterly fee for them to keep track of any potential attachments and work against it. Blank Rome probably is getting word from someone's Congressional staff.
Here is the latest on Blank Rome / ACL that Mike Washenko has found for us:
The 1st quarter 2017 lobbying report for Blank Rome was filed yesterday showing they received $30,000 from ACL during the quarter. Details were they utilized 5 lobbyists on HR 619 and S. 89. Although it doesn't specifically say the position in the report it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they were not supporting the bills.
Blank Rome was first retained by ACL in 2013 and have now received a total of $470,000 to stop the exemption from SOLAS for the Delta Queen to start cruising again.
Thanks to the support of Senator McCaskill we've beat them in the Senate and with your support we can beat them in the House. If you haven't done so yet please call your Representative and ask for them to support HR 619 and better yet become a co-sponsor. Please SHARE so others know where the problem is