Uber Has Spent Almost $1 Million On Lobbying This Year

Travis Kalanick, co-founder and CEO of Uber Technologies Inc., speaks at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live ( WSJDLive ) conference at the Montage hotel in Laguna Beach, California October 20, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Mike Blake / Reuters

In the first three quarters of this year Uber has spent nearly $1 million lobbying Congress, traffic safety regulators and other federal agencies, the most the company has every spent, according to lobbying disclosures filed Thursday and throughout this year. The ride hailing company has already doubled its lobbying spending from all of 2015, which totalled $470,000. So far, Uber has recorded more than $300,000 in spending every quarter in 2016, bringing its tally to $970,000, and if it continues its spending trend for next quarter, will easily clear the $1 million mark.

Uber's lobbying spend continues to dwarf that of ride-hail rival Lyft, which spent about $100,000, bringing its 2016 tally to $140,000. Last year Lyft spent just $30,000.

Meanwhile, Google led the tech industry in Beltway expenditures, spending almost $4 million lobbying the House and Senate on encryption, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and transparency related to government surveillance, in addition to a host of other tech policy issues. Google was the 2nd biggest spender of any corporation, behind only AT&T. While the search giant consistently outspends its tech industry peers, it has allocated more in the 3rd quarter in previous years. And in 2016 Google is unlikely to match its record highs of spending more than $16 million, which it has done the past two years.

Amazon and Microsoft came next. With a lobbying spend of more than $2,700,000, Amazon ranked 10th out of any company. NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration were among the agencies Amazon lobbied on issues related to commercial drone operations and drone shipping. Amazon also met with the Commerce Department and the Federal Trade Commission to talk drone privacy, data breach notification, and encryption. Microsoft was the 3rd biggest spending tech company and the 18th overall, dolling out $2,220,000. Facebook and Oracle were the next biggest spenders in the tech industry, ranking fourth and fifth, respectively. They both spent just over $2 million and were the 25th and 26th biggest corporate lobbyists.

Further details to follow.

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