To File or Not to File?

When Congress passed lobbying and ethics reform legislation last year, several experts said the harsher criminal penalties in the new law could encourage some lawyers and lobbyists to avoid registering until they absolutely had to do so under the law.

But it appears that in some cases, it's having the opposite effect, with some lobbyists bending over backward to be careful. Patrick Raher, director of Hogan & Hartson's environmental group, filed a registration this week on behalf of The Clorox Company. Raher says the company has had meetings at the Environmental Protection Agency to comment on regulations that will govern the labeling of antimicrobial products, such as a hand disinfectant that Clorox manufactures for hospitals. A political appointee at EPA was included in the meetings, Raher says, so he registered — just in case — even though he viewed the meetings as relatively routine.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," he says. "This law is so new and no one knows how it will be interpreted in the future and I don't want to be the person who is involved in the interpretation."

Anyone else out there registering more quickly in cases such as these?