The Hill: Environmental and energy experts become ever more sought after commodities on K St.

The Hill
Business and Lobbying
Environmental and energy experts become ever more sought after commodities on K St.
By Ian Swanson
September 25, 2007

Competition among several Washington associations to secure a team of environmental experts from a disbanding electronics group reflects the increasing importance of energy and environmental issues for the high-tech world.

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC) announced last week it had won the services of the Electronic Industries Alliance’s (EIA) Environmental Issues Council (EIC). The deal did not involve the exchange of any money or resources, but it means that EIC President Rick Goss and four other employees are joining ITIC’s environmental coalition.

ITIC President Rhett Dawson said Goss and his team began work at ITIC last week. He hailed the deal as bringing EIC’s “unparalleled reputation” on environmental issues within the high-tech industry to ITIC.

Other Washington groups also wooed EIC. Three other trade associations — the American Electronics Association, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and the Telecommunications Industry Association — bid for EIC in a two-stage beauty contest. ITIC won a final runoff with TIA after the first two associations were knocked out, according to sources.

“It’s a very big deal because these issues will continue to grow as public policy gets more complex,” said EMC2 Director of Government Affairs Steve Hartell, whose company is a member of ITIC. He said the acquisition of the group is “invaluable” in helping ITIC develop consensus positions within the high-tech field. These positions, in turn, will provide guidance to agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency on issues affecting member companies.

Dawson said the ECI team’s presence should help his organization build a profile on issues such as energy legislation.

While the importance of such issues for high-tech companies has been great for decades, it seems only likely to grow as Congress considers climate change issues, several high-tech lobbyists said.

Hartell notes that one of the first things House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did this year was set up a special House committee on global warming. The panel was seen as a challenge to Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the veteran lawmaker who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

“You have a lot of industry groups who want to have an industry voice in this discussion,” Hartell said.

Hartell said the level of interest groups had in acquiring the EIC team could also reflect the Democrats’ interest in green technologies and global warming.

In December, Congress approved energy legislation that called on the EPA to file a report assessing data center energy use as a percentage of power use in the country. Issued over the summer, the report estimated that data centers, which cover any computer and server-heavy businesses, account for 1.5 percent of total electricity consumption.

To put that in perspective, it’s more than the total electricity used by the nation’s transportation sector, according to Hartell.  

The interest is also reflected in the acquisition of other EIA assets. In a separate move last week, TIA acquired EIATRACK, a Web service that tracks environmental compliance issues around the world. It also acquired EIA’s E-cycling center, a database that helps vendors and consumers find information on recycling electronic products.

“For us, I do feel it strengthens our position from an environmental standpoint, which we really wanted to do because our members are interested in it,” said Ian Martinez, TIA’s communications manager.

Dawson said the acquisition of EIC is also a giant step toward consolidation in the Washington high-tech association world.  

For years, journalists, lobbyists and members of Congress have been confused about differences and similarities among the dozens of associations representing high-tech firms, which all have acronyms, making them difficult to tell apart.

When EIA announced it would disband, observers said it represented a unique opportunity for consolidation in the sector, something longtime high-tech leaders such as Dawson and Phil Bond of ITAA for years have said is necessary.

“We’re a driving part of the economy, yet we can be out-lobbied by any one of a dozen sectors,” Bond said in an interview last month.

AEA Senior Vice President John Palafoutas said he was interested in EIC partly because of the opportunity to consolidate its environmental work with AEA’s activities in that area. In addition, “we share a lot of members with EIC,” Palafoutas noted.

AEA has offices in Brussels and Beijing that monitor regulatory changes affecting high-tech companies in Europe and China. It also has a program focused on the regulatory actions of states, a growing area of concern for high-tech groups since states can end up creating a complicated quilt of differing regulatory environments.

Martinez said TIA expects high-tech firms to accelerate their push on Washington to enact a single federal regulatory framework for issues such as the disposal of goods.

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