Source: Politico
By Theodric Meyer
April 2, 2020
TRAVEL INDUSTRY URGES TREASURY, FED TO HURRY: The U.S. Travel Association, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the Asian American Hotel Owners Association and the International Franchise Association are pressing the Trump administration to move faster to help their industries. “Given the substantial job and economic losses across all sectors of the travel industry, we strongly urge the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to establish a dedicated program for travel-dependent businesses that provides direct loans, loan guarantees and a wide range of financial tools authorized under the Act,” the trade groups wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday, which was obtained by PI.
— The letter is another example of how lobbyists have shifted from convincing Congress to include their priorities in the bill to asking that it be implemented in the way they want. As the Treasury Department and the Fed scramble to design rules to govern the $454 billion relief program for big and medium-sized businesses laid out in the bill, “certain sectors that have been hit so hard, like travel and tourism, need to be prioritized,” Tori Barnes, the U.S. Travel Association’s top lobbyist, said in an interview.
