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Business Looks to Republicans to Block Rules, Taxes By Mark Drajem Bloomberg Nov 3, 2010
The Republican gains in Congress mean U.S. companies from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Wellpoint Inc. may be able to weaken or block what they consider President Barack Obama’s anti-business policies on health care, the environment, taxes and financial reform.
Republicans will use their perch as the new majority in the House of Representatives to try to eliminate funding for parts of Obama’s health care bill opposed by business as well as curb regulations and government spending, Jay Timmons, senior vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based lobbying group, said in an interview before the election.
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More-ambitious goals sought by some lawmakers and businesses, such as completely overturning Obama’s health-care overhaul, probably will remain out of reach for Republicans. Obama still wields veto power, and Democrats retained control of the Senate, though Republicans cut into their lead.
High-profile objectives, like repealing the health-care measure, won’t progress past “symbolic, messaging votes,” said Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber.
The Washington-based Chamber, which led the fight against Obama on health care and financial regulation and budgeted a record $75 million promoting pro-business candidates, says it hopes the acrimony of the election campaign can be put aside and Republicans can work with Obama to cut the deficit, promote nuclear power and energy efficiency, and pass long-stalled free trade agreements.
Other items may gain support from both the administration and Congress, such as scaling back business taxes imposed by the health-care bill, providing highway funding, creating renewable- energy standards and boosting nuclear power, he said.
“There is a potential here for some bipartisan movement,” Josten said.
Following are assessments of what the new Congress means for selected industries and issues.
FINANCE
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Republicans’ new power gives them the ability to shape more than 240 rules that may be needed to implement the Dodd-Frank law, including regulations establishing the direction and independence of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Rulemaking by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other agencies on bank capital standards, derivatives and proprietary trading also will draw increased scrutiny.
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The regulatory oversight and ability to weaken rules may benefit banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Bank of America Corp., all of which lobbied against elements of the Dodd-Frank law, saying they would hurt profits.
On housing, Republicans including Hensarling say they want a free-market approach that would phase out federal support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies taken over by the government after their losses soared.
A legislative stalemate may be fine with financial companies as well as investors, said Alison Williams, a Bloomberg Research analyst. “In general, investors just want gridlock so the government will be less of a threat,” she said.
HEALTH CARE
House and Senate Republicans have written at least 30 bills that would roll back provisions of the health-care overhaul Obama signed into law in March.
Such efforts may help Wellpoint and rival health insurers escape regulations on how much they spend on patient care and let Boston Scientific Corp. and other medical-device makers dodge $20 billion in tax increases over the next decade.
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DEFENSE
House Republicans have pledged to cut $100 billion in domestic discretionary spending, the outlays set by Congress on a yearly basis that aren’t mandated by law.
Don’t look for them to take the ax to defense spending very soon, though.
Wary of the growing military might of China, Republicans are likely to be more aggressive in spending in ways that respond to that country’s capabilities in naval warfare, ballistic missiles and air power, even if the overall U.S. defense budget doesn’t increase.
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That would entail devoting more money to weapons programs benefiting contractors making sea-based, anti-missile systems, such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Raytheon Co., said Loren Thompson, defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia.
Also standing to gain are ship- and submarine-makers Northrop Grumman Corp. and General Dynamics Corp., said James McAleese, a consultant to defense companies.
New Republican House defense leaders will also try to protect military contractors in lawmakers’ districts, Thompson said.
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ENERGY
On energy policy, the first order of business for Republicans will be to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to limit carbon emissions.
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Electricity producers such as NRG Energy Inc. may benefit as Republicans push to include nuclear power in such a standard along with the wind turbines and solar panels favored by environmentalists, said David Crane, chief executive officer of Princeton, New Jersey-based NRG.
TRANSPORTATION
Airlines such as United Continental Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. may gain from the shift in congressional power because Republicans oppose proposals to limit the outsourcing of maintenance work abroad and to subject global airline alliances to antitrust regulation.
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The shift in House lawmakers shaping transportation policy may benefit FedEx Corp., operator of the world’s largest cargo airline, by ending Democratic efforts to ease union organizing at the company’s Express unit.
Rival United Parcel Service Inc. and the Teamsters Union backed the provision sponsored by Democratic Representative James Oberstar of Minnesota, who will lose the chairmanship of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee when Republicans take control in January.
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TRADE
Republican control of the House may provide the best chance to pass free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama since they were approved by President Bush in 2007. Obama has shied away from pushing the deals in Congress as drafted amid high unemployment and opposition from some fellow Democrats and labor unions.
“This is one area where Republicans and Democrats can work together,” said William Lane, government relations director for Caterpillar Inc., the world’s biggest construction-equipment maker, which favors free trade.
For companies such as Caterpillar, UPS, Boeing Co. and Citigroup Inc., getting the agreements passed would broaden access to markets abroad, with the South Korean deal alone boosting U.S. exports by $10.9 billion a year, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission.
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The South Korean accord, the most important of the three pending pacts in volume of goods affected, may draw especially strong bipartisan support. “Korea has broader implications,” said Laura Lane, senior vice president of international government affairs at New York-based Citigroup, said in an interview.
With almost $68 billion in two-way trade, the deal would be the U.S.’s largest free-trade pact since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and may be critical to helping Obama meet his goal of doubling American exports in five years.
TAXES
International Business Machines Corp., Microsoft Corp., Blackstone Group LP and Occidental Petroleum Corp. all have lobbied against the Obama proposals to increase taxes on overseas profits. The election gives them some important allies.
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Republican control of the House may make it impossible for Obama to succeed in his bid to boost taxes on profits companies make overseas. And the gridlock that may result from a divided legislature would also stave off separate changes proposed by the administration that would cost oil companies, including Occidental, tens of billions more a year by raising taxes on their non-U.S. operations.
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Besides blocking prospective increases, businesses may find a ripe political environment for getting some long-sought tax benefits through Congress. Companies such as San Jose, California-based Cisco Systems Inc. may find new support for a temporary tax holiday on their foreign earnings that was rejected by the Senate in 2009.
Businesses “are not going to be seen as a pool of funds to be pillaged by Congress anymore,” said Curtis Dubay, a senior tax policy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a research institution that often sides with Republicans on tax issues.
IMMIGRATION
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Republican lawmakers, who will lead the debate on the issue in the House, plan to focus on border security and cracking down on illegal immigration first. They say they will consider the measures sought by business only after fewer illegal immigrants are coming across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican slated to head the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration policy, says he opposes lifting visa caps for lower-skilled foreign workers because that would depress U.S. worker wages. He would support increasing visas for higher-skilled workers only if they meet criteria to boost the U.S. economy.
That means they should be young, well-educated and able to speak English, King said. “That’s the indicator of whether they can assimilate into the broader society.”
Intel and other technology companies such as EBay Inc. and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. want Congress to lift the cap on H-1B visas for skilled workers.
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Corporations say they hope the importance of the Latino vote in the 2012 presidential elections will cause congressional Republican leaders to support a broad bill.
“It will be an uphill battle, but it could be that the Republicans would see that it’s to their advantage to get this issue behind them,” said Randy Johnson, vice president for labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
LABOR
Organized labor faces tougher times on Capitol Hill.
“The election profoundly reshapes labor’s agenda,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor of labor relations at University of California at Berkeley.
Unions face little chance of achieving legislative goals envisioned from a Democratic-majority Congress, such as easier organizing rules, mandatory paid sick leave, and bigger fines for workplace safety violations, he said.
Labor leaders are now likely to scale back their legislative ambitions and increase efforts to make gains through regulatory agencies. Unions may still have enough supporters to make it difficult for business to achieve anti-union legislation, particularly in the Senate.
“On labor issues, it’s going to be very difficult to move the ball in either direction,” said Glenn Spencer, who handles labor matters at theChamber of Commerce.
The biggest short-term impact may be for unions representing construction-trades and public-sector workers. Republicans have generally opposed union-backed federal stimulus spending, such as measures that created construction jobs and saved jobs of teachers, police officers and other public-sector workers.
Organized labor is counting on Obama to use his veto power should anti-union legislation emerge from Congress.
“As hard as the Republicans might try, it’s doubtful legislation attacking workers’ rights would make it to the White House,” said Bill Samuel, the top lobbyist for the AFL-CIO labor federation. “And if it did, I can’t foresee a situation where President Obama would sign it.”