LegiStorm

FTI Consulting's slowly dwindling lobbying arm has won over a longtime GOP Senate staffer.

John Steitz recently started managing director for government affairs for the business-advisory firm. FTI terminated several of its most lucrative lobbying contracts over the last few months and is on track to bring in about $2 million in lobbying revenue this year, down from a high of $8 million in 2015.

Steitz comes from the office of Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), where he was deputy chief of staff for policy. He's also worked for the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, then-Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

A private Earth-imaging company has added a longtime GOP staffer to its Washington team.

Hilary Ranieri is now director of government affairs and national security at Planet Labs. The San Francisco-based company, which operates 200 observation satellites, made news today for its widely circulated aerial images of the Kabul International Airport.

Ranieri most recently worked for Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) as a senior adviser to the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress and as deputy chief and legislative director in Timmons' personal office. She's also held positions with Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.).

Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) failed to report in a timely way that his wife and children purchased as much as $600,000 worth of stock at the depths of the pandemic stock market crash.

Meuser finally made the disclosure on Wednesday with the House Clerk's office, more than a year after the law requires. The disclosure indicates that between March 26 and March 31, 2020, Meuser's dependent children purchased between $107,023 - $555,000 worth of stock in Visa Inc., Walt Disney Co., Microsoft Corp. and Google's parent Alphabet Inc., while Meuser's wife purchased between $3,003 - $45,000 worth of Visa, Microsoft and Alphabet stock on March 26 of that year.

All of the stocks have soared since then, most notably Alphabet. As of Thursday's closing, Alphabet's stock has increased more than 150 percent since initially purchased by Meuser's family. The Alphabet purchase alone could have netted the family as much as $150,000 or more, but broad ranges provided in the disclosures make it impossible to know how much. 

Meuser joins a list of other members who have recently failed to disclose their financial transactions within the reporting window specified in the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, better known as the STOCK Act. They include Reps. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) and August Pfluger (R-Texas), as well as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala), according to disclosures they recently filed with Congress.

Rep. John Joyce's (R-Pa.) new chief of staff goes with the flow.

Dante Cutrona joined Joyce's office from the American Flood Coalition. As government-relations director, he was the coaltion's main lobbyist and worked on issues including sea-level rise, defense infrastructure and flood mapping.

Before his time as a flood lobbyist, Cutrona was chief of staff to Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.). He's also worked for former Reps. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.) and David Dreier (R-Calif.).

A clean-energy advocate has taken her first Hill job.

Jenna Marinstein comes from the American Clean Power Association, where she was a federal-affairs manager. Before that, she worked for the American Wind Energy Association, the ACPA's predecessor. She did not register as a lobbyist for either organization.

Marinstein is now a legislative assistant to Rep. Susan Bonamici (D-Ore.).