Facebook has added Susan Zook of Mason Street Consulting to its team of lobbyists working to sell lawmakers on its new Libra cryptocurrency. Zook is a former aide to Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which held a hearing on Libra last month. She’ll focus on lobbying Senate Republicans, she wrote in an email to PI.
Facebook, which has spent more than $7.5 million on Washington lobbying so far this year, has more than a dozen outside lobbying firms on retainer. The company has hired the Sternhell Group and the Cypress Group to work on Libra issues, as well as the law firm Davis Polk, as POLITICO’s Zachary Warmbrodt reported last month. Some of the lobbying firms Facebook already retained are also working on Libra issues, as are Facebook’s in-house lobbyists.
ANOTHER CHINESE COMPANY TURNS TO K STREET: Fuyao Glass Industry Group, a Chinese glass manufacturing concern, is the latest Chinese company to bring on Washington lobbyists as the Trump administration continues its trade war with China. Richard Burt, Jorge Guajardo and John Holden of McLarty Inbound will lobby for Fuyao on labor, manufacturing, tariffs and trade issues, according to a disclosure filing. Fuyao has problems beyond tariffs, though. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced last week that it would fine the company $724,380 for its “repeated failure to implement and enforce safety and health programs” at its plant in Moraine, Ohio.