No Discounts for Lobbying for Home Depot and Lowe's on Capitol Hill

Home Depot and Lowe's continue to spend big bucks to lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Big Orange spent $245,000 in the first quarter to lobby the federal government on organized retail crime; metal theft; retail sales tax; tariffs on goods originating in ...
May 10, 2010

Home Depot and Lowe's continue to spend big bucks to lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Big Orange spent $245,000 in the first quarter to lobby the federal government on organized retail crime; metal theft; retail sales tax; tariffs on goods originating in China; efforts to stabilize the housing market; the weatherization program; and other issues. That's up 2 percent from the $240,000 Home Depot spent in last year's first quarter and up 9 percent from the $225,000 it spent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Home Depot 1Q lobbying

Lowe's spent $215,000 in the first quarter to lobby the federal government on rebates for energy-efficient products; the elimination of a secret ballot in unionization elections; carbon-dioxide monitors in the home; a suspension of tariffs on imported ceiling ans, zero percent financing credit programs; and other issues. That's down 68 percent from the $680,000 Lowe's spent in last year's first quarter, and more than triple the $65,000 it spent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Lowe's 1Q lobbying

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Jim Lucy Blog

Chief Editor

Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.