For the third straight year, spending on K Street is down, with only a handful of industries spending more on lobbying in 2013 than they did in 2012.

Overall total spending on federal lobbying dropped 2.9 percent, from $3.31 billion in 2012 to $3.21 billion in 2013, according to a new analysis by OpenSecrets.org — even though K Street was paid $805.7 million in the fourth quarter of the year, an increase over the third quarter’s total of $779 million. Still, spending even in those three months was less than in the same period a year earlier. First the good news

Of the 92 industries that OpenSecrets.org tracks, 40 increased their spending.Topping the list, percentage-wise, were a handful of liberal-leaning interest groups. Gun control interests were No. 1, spending 824 percent more than they did, as a group, in 2012. That number is deceptive, however, since the interest group spent so little — just $240,000 — in 2012. In 2013, that jumped to $2.2 million.

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But their counterparts, gun rights groups, were No. 3 on the list of those showing the most growth in their spending, and spent far more to begin with. In 2012, gun rights advocates spent $6.1 million on lobbying, and in 2013, they spent $15.1 million, for an increase of 147 percent.

Two other industry groups with big increases in their spending on lobbying were liberal/Democratic and pro-abortion rights interests; they increased their outlays 437 percent and 55 percent, respectively. The liberal/Democratic groups went from $938,000 in 2012 to just over $5 million in 2013. Much of that increase was driven by the Advocacy Fund, a nonprofit group with ties to liberal organizations that essentially takes donations to lobby on specific issues.

In terms of dollars spent, the food processing and sales industry saw the biggest jump. In 2012, the industry spent $29.3 million lobbying and in 2013, it spent $39.5 million.

Dropping off

Business associations led the list of biggest declines in dollars spent, cutting back about $64 million between 2012 and 2013. Much of that drop is due to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . As we noted last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the top spender on K Street, but it had a spectacularly “off” year in 2013, plummeting to $74.7 million in 2013, compared to $136.3 million in 2012.

Electric companies notched the second-biggest drop, cutting back spending on lobbying from $145.9 million in 2012 to $129.6 million last year.

Behind the Chamber, the biggest dollar decline for an individual organization was oil and gas giant Shell , which dropped from $14.4 million to $9 million between 2012 and 2013. Norfolk Southern sank $4.3 million between years (from $7.2 million to $2.9 million) and Abbott Laboratories dropped $4 million ($6.2 million to $2.2 million). Rounding out the top five biggest declines was the Association of American Railroads , which cut back $3.7 million, from $10.2 million in 2012 to $6.5 million in 2013.

Once again, the total number of lobbyists employed at the federal level also declined, reaching its lowest point since 2002. According to the lobbying disclosures, there were 12,283 registered lobbyists in 2013, down from 12,436 in 2012 — a 1.2 percent decline. The number of lobbyists peaked in 2007 at 14,838 and has been on a slide ever since. Last year’s total is a 17.2 percent decline since that peak.



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