New Senior Adviser for Obama Campaign Lobbied for Keystone Pipeline, Comcast Merger by Jon Collins

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/25-5

President Obama’s 2012 campaign has a new senior adviser — a former lobbyist for the company pushing the Keystone XL pipeline, who also lobbied for Comcast throughout the period that the media conglomerate was seeking approval for its merger with NBC-Universal.

The campaign hired Broderick Johnson of the lobbying firm Bryan Cave LLP this week. According to U.S. House of Representatives records, Johnson lobbied to “support submission of a presidential permit for Keystone XL pipeline” in the final quarter of 2010.

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“President Obama ran for office in 2008 promising that the days of lobbyists setting the agenda in Washington were over, yet now he’s hired a top oil pipeline lobbyist into his campaign,” Huynh said. “This is a deeply troubling development. A lobbyist who has taken corporate cash to shill for this dirty and dangerous pipeline now has even more opportunity to whisper into the President’s ear.”

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Johnson was also a lobbyist in Comcast’s massive effort to influence the Federal Communications Commission to approve a merger with NBC-Universal, which made it one of the biggest media conglomerates in American history, as the Minnesota Independent reported. Sen. Al Franken was a prominent critic of the merger, which consumer advocates said would reduce options and increase costs for customers.

More at the link --