Spending on Lobbying Doubled From 2000 to 2008

In addition to campaign contributions to elected officials and candidates, companies, labor unions, and other organizations spend billions of dollars each year to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Some special interests retain lobbying firms, many of them located along Washington's legendary K Street; others have lobbyists working in-house. We've got totals spent on lobbying, beginning in 1998, for everyone from AAI Corp. to Zurich Financial.

You can use the options below to search through our database in several ways: search by name for a company, lobbying firm or individual lobbyist; search for the total spending by a particular industry; view the interests that lobbied a particular government agency; or search for lobbying on a general issue or specific piece of legislation.

Total Lobbying Spending

1998 $1.44 Billion 1999 $1.44 Billion 2000 $1.56 Billion 2001 $1.64 Billion 2002 $1.82 Billion 2003 $2.05 Billion 2004 $2.18 Billion 2005 $2.43 Billion 2006 $2.62 Billion 2007 $2.86 Billion 2008 $3.30 Billion 2009 $1.63 Billion

Number of Lobbyists

1998 10,661 1999 13,237 2000 12,704 2001 12,046 2002 12,327 2003 13,134 2004 13,365 2005 14,355 2006 14,670 2007 15,159 2008 14,838 2009 12,572

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