Apple steps up lobbying in Washington

Tim Cook recently traveled to an unfamiliar destination for an Apple Inc. (AAPL) chief executive officer: The U.S. Capitol.

During the trip last month, Cook posed for a photo with Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican taking over the Senate Finance Committee this year. It was one of the meetings Cook had while in town, which also included a stop at Apple's store in the Georgetown area.

Apple, which has come under increasing scrutiny as the world's most valuable company, is becoming more of a regular around Washington. While co-founder Steve Jobs shunned the nation's capital, Apple lobbied the White House, Congress and 13 departments and agencies from the Food and Drug Administration to the Federal Trade Commission in 2014 through the third quarter, according to OpenSecrets.org. In 2009, Apple lobbied only Congress and six agencies.

It's all part of a broader push by Cook, who took the reins in 2011, to make the Cupertino, California-based company more open while laying the groundwork for new products that naturally attract more government scrutiny. That includes Apple Watch, the smartwatch arriving in stores this year, which has applications that track user health data.

"They've learned what others before them have learned -- that Washington can have a great effect on their business," said Larry Noble, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based non-profit that scrutinizes money in politics.

Apple's spending in Washington remains small compared with other technology companies. Microsoft Corp., which faced an antitrust trial in the late 1990s, spent $6 million last year through the third quarter in Washington, according to OpenSecrets.org, a website that tracks spending. Google Inc. is the biggest technology spender after grappling with its own antitrust scrutiny, with $13.7 million in U.S. lobbying costs in 2014 through the end of September. In that same period, Apple spent $2.9 million. Apple's expenditures on Washington lobbying last year were on pace to top 2013's record $3.4 million, which was already twice as much as what the company spent five years ago, according to OpenSecrets.org.

As the company's Washington spending has risen, Apple has staffed up in the capital. Cook last year hired Amber Cottle, former chief of staff for the Senate Finance Committee, to head Apple's lobbying office. She replaced Catherine Novelli, who joined the State Department.

In 2013, Cook hired Lisa Jackson, former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to oversee the company's environmental initiatives. While Apple had been making efforts in that area under Jobs, it wasn't vocal about what it was doing.

"We understand that we need to talk about it," Jackson said this month during an appearance at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "We need to say to people, 'Stop saying it can't be done, here it is.'"

Apple also added law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP to its growing list of outside lobbying firms in October, according to a Senate filing. WilmerHale, which represented Apple in its patent fight with Samsung Electronics Co., was hired to lobby on issues of competition, intellectual property and technology, according to the filing. The firm joins five others listed as lobbying for Apple this year, totaling 23 people, according to OpenSecrets.

The increased activity follows several setbacks for Apple in Washington. The U.S. Justice Department won a case against Apple in 2013, in which the department sued the company for conspiring with publishers to fix ebook prices. The FTC last year accused Apple of unfairly billing parents for charges that they never consented to that were incurred by kids using apps, with the company agreeing to refund a minimum of $32.5 million to consumers to settle the complaint.

Cook himself testified for nearly two hours before Congress in May 2013 over Apple's use of offshore tax shelters, using the occasion to call for a simplified U.S. tax code.

"We have never had a large presence in this town," he told senators, before they peppered him with questions about the company's tax strategies that had left billions of dollars overseas.

Apple's increasing activities in Washington now offer a window into some of the company's plans. In December 2013, four Apple vice presidents -- including Jeff Williams, of operations, and Bud Tribble, of software technology -- met with FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and her staff about mobile medical applications. FDA officials told the Apple executives that they regulate based on the intended use of a device.