Dow Chemical has poured money into lobbying efforts over the last decade as other corporate giants have remained steady or even pulled back on their spending.
Lobbying expenditures by the company nearly tripled between 2008 and 2016, according to a Bloomberg BNA review of disclosure filings, from $5.2 million to $13.5 million annually.
The company is in the process of seeking Justice Department approval for a $79 billion merger with Dupont Co.
Collectively, companies involved in agrichemical mergers—Dow, Dupont, Bayer AG, Monsanto Co., and Syngenta AG—spent $1.6 million more in the first quarter of 2017 over the same period last year, and 2.7 times the expenditures for the first quarter of 2008.
A look at Dow’s year-on-year quarterly spending is even more impressive: resources for lobbying jumped nearly eightfold in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the first quarter of 2008. At $5.2 million, Dow is the seventh-biggest spender on lobbying for the first quarter of 2017, as revealed in forms filed with the Senate April 20 [2017].
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Spending for Bayer—which is planning a $66 billion buyout of Monsanto—has zigzagged between $4.2 million and $8.3 million per year since 2008. Dupont’s spending peaked in 2014 at $10.2 million—up from $4.2 million in 2008—but has since dipped back down to $5.5 million. Monsanto’s lobbying expenditures have dropped by half, from $8.8 million in 2008 to $4.6 million last year.
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