WASHINGTON-Despite poor market conditions, telecom and high-tech industries continue to spend money on lobbying at record levels.
PoliticalMoneyLine, a Web-based service that tracks political money, said telecom and tech sectors ranked second in lobbying expenditures for the last six months of 2002. The $113.3 million spent on in-house and out-sourced lobbying during that period was $5 million more than the first six months of last year.
At the head of the telecom class is BellSouth Corp.-spending $5.4 million, up from $1.8 million-co-owner of Cingular Wireless L.L.C. Other big spenders include Sprint Corp. ($3.7 million), parent of Sprint PCS; AT&T Corp. ($3.4 million); Verizon Communications Inc. ($3.3 million), parent of No. 1 mobile-phone carrier Verizon Wireless; and SBC Communications Inc. ($3 million), a co-owner of Cingular Wireless.
On the tech side, top-dollar lobbying was recorded by Mircosoft Corp. ($3.3 million), Intel Corp. ($3.3 million), IBM Corp. ($2.3 million) and Oracle Corp. ($1.3 million).
Lobbying by all industry sectors accounted for $925 million in the second half of 2002, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which averages out to $154 million a month.
