BUSINESS GROUPS RATCHET UP PLEAS TO AVERT RAIL STRIKE: Washington trade associations are once again pleading for Congress to intervene in negotiations between rail workers and employers that are once again raising fears of a potential strike that could come at the height of the holiday shopping season. — The largest freight rail union out of a dozen that must approve a proposed contract with carriers announced Monday that its members had voted to reject the tentative agreement ahead of a Dec. 4 deadline to avoid a work stoppage. The White House intervened to broker the proposal in September, staving off a potential strike with hours to spare . — Suzanne Clark, the president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, asked Congress today to impose the deal negotiated by President Joe Biden, railroads and union leaders or risk "substantially" worsening inflation. Unions rejecting the deal, she said, "are going back on their word and threatening to be the grinch who stole Christmas by forcing a national rail strike." — The Consumer Brands Association warned in a letter Monday to congressional leadership and the top lawmakers on two labor and transportation committees that a strike could be "catastrophic," cutting off "consumers' access to everyday essentials" while costing as much as $2 billion per day. — The group asked Congress to step in sooner rather than later to "head off supply chain catastrophe, protect American consumers and lay the groundwork for much needed operational continuity." That call was echoed by leaders at the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association. — The American Chemistry Council, which warned that its members' products impacting everything from water treatment to energy and food production would face restrictions as soon as a week before a strike, has begun circulating an internal analysis showing a stoppage would result in a spike in consumer prices and a one percentage point decrease in GDP. ICYMI MONDAY — HOW THE SAUDIS ARE FIGHTING FOR OIL DEPENDENCE: Saudi Arabia has developed an "aggressive long-term strategy to keep the world hooked on oil for decades to come and remain the biggest supplier as rivals slip away," according to The New York Times' Hiroko Tabuchi, an effort that manifested most recently in a successful Saudi push at last week's United Nations climate summit "to block a call for the world to burn less oil." — In addition to the government-run oil company Saudi Aramco pouring money into research and higher education in the U.S. and abroad, the kingdom has also invested heavily in U.S. lobbying efforts, including "building alliances in American Corn Belt states that produce ethanol — a product also threatened by electric cars." — The Iowa-based lobbying firm LS2group "has reached states including the Dakotas, Texas, Iowa and Ohio" on behalf of Saudi Arabia. "For a retainer of more than $125,000 a month, LS2group targeted local radio hosts, academics, event planners, sports-industry officials, a former football player and a ski and snowboard club owner, according to filings with the Justice Department." — "Much of that campaign has been on general topics, like the history of close relations with the United States. However, states like Iowa, the nation's top ethanol producer, could be fertile ground for the Saudis' view on electric vehicles, said Jeff M. Angelo, a former Iowa state senator who now hosts a talk show and was approached by Saudi representatives." — "'Ethanol producers here in Iowa are saying the same thing: "Isn't it terrible that the Biden administration is forcing you to buy an electric car when we could be producing biofuels right here in Iowa, and making money, and supporting our farmers, and being energy independent?"' he said." ETHICS WATCHDOG ASKS FOR PROBE OF STOCK TRADES: "A nonpartisan group that monitors government ethics filed a series of legal complaints alleging the federal government is failing to adequately enforce conflict-of-interest rules," The Wall Street Journal's Brody Mullins and Rebecca Ballhaus report. — "The Campaign Legal Center called on the executive-branch agency that oversees ethics rules to investigate what it called deficiencies in enforcement at several agencies. The group also requested that internal investigators at four federal agencies examine whether their ethics programs complied with federal rules." — "The legal filings were prompted by a series of articles in The Wall Street Journal revealing that thousands of federal employees at 50 federal agencies held stock in companies that were regulated by the agencies where those employees worked." — "The agencies 'have repeatedly allowed senior officials to own and trade stock in companies that appear to create conflicts of interest with their official duties,' the complaint said. 'An investigation can determine whether the scope and severity of deficiencies in the ethics programs' guidance on financial conflicts of interest is greater than currently publicly known.'" — CLC has filed complaints "with the inspectors general for the Environmental Protection Agency, Defense Department, Federal Trade Commission and Health and Human Services Department, in addition to the Office of Government Ethics."
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