• Building a consensus in Congress and the federal agencies to authorize and appropriate funds to build a desalinization plant to provide for the water needs for the future of San Antonio and the surrounding area of Texas.

Duration: May 10, 2011 to May 6, 2015

General Issues: Clean Air & Water (Quality)

Spending: about $750,000 (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 2011: U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, Army - Dept of (Corps of Engineers), Bureau of Reclamation, Army - Dept of (Other), Army - Dept of (Corps of Engineers)