• Gather ideas/perfom research for development of synthetic biology legislation. Met with congressional staff to discuss proposed legislation to support synthetic biology research and biosecurity.

Duration: August 27, 2010 to June 30, 2011

General Issues: Science/Technology

Spending: about $105,000 (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 2010: House of Representatives, U.S. Senate,, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Health & Human Services - Dept of (HHS), Natl Institutes of Health (NIH), Natl Bioethics Advisory Commission