• Enhancements to Farmer Mac's lending authorities in the farm bill reauthorization including elimination of the 2000-acre limitation, elimination of the cooperative lender origination requirement for energy and telecommunications loans, authority to support all USDA loan guarantee programs, and changes to collateral requirements for supply chain loans.

Duration: July 17, 2006 to present

General Issues: Agriculture, Banking, Telecommunications, Financial Institutions/Investments/Securities

Spending: about $2,224,000 (But it's complicated. Here's why.)

It can be tricky to figure out how much an organization spent on a particular lobbying engagement. The law only requires lobbyists to report the amount they were paid for federal lobbying each quarter rounded to the nearest $10,000—and if it's less than $3,000 in a given quarter (or less than $13,000 for organizations with in-house lobbyists), they don't have to disclose it at all. Plus, some organizations include spending that doesn’t belong in the report—for instance, money spent lobbying state governments or other legal work.

Agencies lobbied since 2006: U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, Farm Credit Administration, Agriculture - Dept of (USDA), Agriculture - Dept of (USDA),