With Daniel Lippman NORFOLK SOUTHERN TAPS KLEIN/JOHNSON: Norfolk Southern tapped former aides to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) as momentum grows behind a bipartisan legislative response to the railroad’s toxic derailment in Ohio last month. — The company retained Izzy Klein, a former Schumer comms staffer, and Matt Johnson, Cornyn’s former chief counsel, on March 1 to lobby on rail and surface transportation issues, per a disclosure filing. Klein/Johnson Group’s Kate Lynch, Ian Rayder and Norm Lent will also lobby on the account. — Though the exact cause of February’s wreck has yet to be determined, officials in Washington have seized on the rail industry’s longstanding campaign to water down safety regulations, and multiple bills have been introduced to toughen safety rules for railroads. — One of those bills could be marked up as soon as next month. Schumer has thrown his support behind the bill, which among other things would raise the cap on maximum penalties for railroads and apply strict safety rules to more hazmat trains. — Other Republicans have aligned with railroads — including Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw in a hearing earlier this week — in calling for a more measured approach dependent on the findings of the NTSB’s investigation into the cause of the derailment. Schumer, meanwhile, has gone further — asking the NTSB to broaden its probe to examine systemic safety issues throughout the rail industry. — Norfolk Southern, which retains eight other outside lobbying firms, is the second major freight rail company to disclose additions to its lobbying firepower since the crash. As PI reported earlier this week, BNSF Railway brought on the former chief of staff to new House Transportation & Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) in the weeks following the Norfolk Southern derailment. TGIF and welcome to PI. Tips: coprysko@politico.com. Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. MORE NEW BUSINESS: TikTok has also continued to add new lobbying firepower amid growing calls to ban the video app. A new registration filed yesterday (beyond the 45-day statutory requirement for disclosing new clients) shows that Ankit Desai, a former aide in Joe Biden’s Senate office, began lobbying for the company at the end of January on issues related to the regulation of online platforms. — Desai’s firm AND Partners is the third firm brought on this year to help TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance beat back threats of a ban or forced sale. In February, TikTok re-hired Dentons’ Jeff Denham, an ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (and new co-worker of fellow former Rep. Joe Crowley). — TikTok also brought on the Democratic public affairs firm SKDK to supplement the platform’s charm offensive in Washington. That’s all on top of the nearly $5.4 million TikTok and ByteDance spent on lobbying last year, a record for the companies that do not appear to have reaped much of a return judging by Thursday’s bipartisan grilling of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. — Another delayed disclosure filing shows that both sides in the contentious carriage fight between satellite provider DirecTV and right-wing news network Newsmax turned to prominent conservatives on K Street to advance their cases. — The dispute over carriage fees ended this week with Newsmax’s return to the homes of DirecTV’s roughly 13 million customers. But as DirecTV fended off accusations of censorship from top Republicans in Washington, it had a paid ally in prominent conservative lawyer Mark Paoletta, according to lobbying disclosures filed today. — Paoletta, a former Trump administration attorney and longtime friend of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, began lobbying for DirecTV on “issues related to carriage agreements” on Feb. 8 — days after your host reported that Newsmax had retained former Rep. Jack Kingston of Squire Patton Boggs for aid in the dispute. COALITION AIMS TO SHUT DOWN CHINESE FAST FASHION BRAND: A new group that launched this week wants to put the Chinese fast-fashion behemoth Shein on the same rocky footing in the U.S. as TikTok. “Shein is the biggest national security threat you've never heard of,” said Chapin Fay, a managing director at Actum who is heading up the Shut Down Shein coalition. — Fay declined in an interview to name any specific members of the coalition, saying only that it includes “like minded” individuals, American brands and human rights groups determined to call the clothing company out for a variety of transgressions. “Nobody's asking these questions of Shein,” he argued. “It’s operating completely under the radar — TikTok is garnering all the attention.” — The company has attracted some attention on the Hill. A bipartisan group of senators demanded answers from Shein chief executive Chris Xu in February about a report that cotton used by the company had been traced back to China’s Xinjiang region, which is subject to a U.S. law meant to crack down on the widespread use of forced labor by Uyghur Muslims. Shein has denied accusations of forced labor in its supply chain, but has also faced broader questions about work conditions involved in the production of its ultra-cheap clothing. — The senators also asked Xu about the company’s exploitation of a trade loophole that critics say allows Shein to flood U.S. and European markets with cheap goods while avoiding both billions of dollars in tariff costs and stepped-up scrutiny of its products’ potential ties to forced labor. — The Shut Down Shein coalition is also raising alarms about the company’s popularity among young adults and teens, whose clothing haul videos litter social media platforms like TikTok — where Shein is a major advertiser. They also point to a 2021 report raising questions about Shein’s data harvesting practices, and note that an executive at one of Shein’s investors sits on TikTok’s board. — In response to the scrutiny, Shein has moved to expand its U.S. footprint and put an increased emphasis on sustainability. The company hired its first lobbyists last fall, bringing on former Rep. Benjamin Quayle and his firm as well as a team of lobbyists at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. — Shein “proudly provides customers with on-demand and affordable fashion, beauty and lifestyle products, lawfully and with full respect for the communities where we operate,” a spokesperson told PI, adding that the company categorically denies “these false and baseless claims, and will not hesitate to take swift action to protect the rights of our company.” — The denials aren’t deterring critics. The coalition has launched a digital ad campaign within the Beltway aimed at highlighting the coalition’s complaints and will be pressing lawmakers and the Biden administration to intervene and provide a more level playing field. DO YOU GET DÉJÀ VU?: “The Trump campaign has sent a warning shot to the Republican Party’s House campaign arm and some of its most prominent digital consultants,” POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt reports: “Stop using the former president’s image and likeness in your fundraising pitches or you will pay.” — “When you deceive the President’s donors and usurp his brand for your own profit, you drain him of the financial resources his campaign needs to defeat Joe Biden and Make America Great Again,” two of Trump’s top campaign deputies, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, wrote Thursday in a letter to the NRCC and 10 GOP consulting firms. — The pair warned that Trump could withhold his endorsement from candidates using firms that fundraised off his image without consent. Several of the firms on the receiving end of Trump’s threat, Alex notes, “are working for prospective GOP rivals to Trump,” in addition to a slew of down ballot candidates likely to want Trump’s backing. — If the move from Trump sounds familiar, you’re not mistaken: Trump’s lawyers in 2021 hit the RNC, NRSC and NRCC with cease-and-desist letters demanding they stop using his name and likeness in fundraising emails and merchandise.
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