Editors Note:

In October 2008, National Journal supported my idea to create Under The Influence as a way for me and my colleagues to bolster our in-depth magazine work with daily news and analysis of the advocacy and lobbying community.  Over the past two years, we built a following of thousands of readers and I am grateful for your support. Thank you to my colleagues Peter Stone, Julie Kosterlitz, Alexis Simendinger, Jim Barnes, Eliza Krigman, Eliza Newlin Carney, Amy Harder, Sara Jerome, Gregg Sangillo and editors Bob Gettlin, Randy Barrett, Lucas Grindley and Kevin Friedl for helping to make this blog so successful.

National Journal this summer is undergoing a restructuring as it implements a new digital strategy and merges newsrooms. As part of that plan, National Journal has decided it will not continue to support the Under the Influence blog or its online forum.

Thank you again to all of our readers and stay tuned. While I will be leaving the company on July 30, National Journal's coverage of lobbying will continue but in a different format.

-- Bara Vaida

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "A lively mix of regulars and families with small children ate lunch at a kosher pizzeria in northwest Baltimore on Wednesday, and several said they have no problem with the restaurant's new employee: ex-Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

As the recession has pounded the travel industry over the past year, its chief lobbying group, the U.S Travel Association was in a search for funds, so it came up with a clever way to raise money: an online auction tied to travel products donated by the association's members.

"We called it a kind of bake sale," said Geoff Freeman, senior vice president of public affairs for U.S. Travel.

Twenty six of the group's largest members, including travel companies, airlines, hotels, resorts, and convention centers, donated dozens of packages. Between May 4 and June 4, visitors to the group's DiscoverAmerica website could bid on trips like a Las Vegas vacation for two that included airfare, limo service, four nights at a hotel, concert tickets, dinners, a shopping spree, helicopter ride, a celebrity makeover and a spa treatment. The association asked for a starting bid of $5,500, which was snapped up in about a half hour.

Through the auction of the packages, the organization raised more than $1 million that it can use for lobbying and public policy efforts to support the travel industry. The effort was so successful that U.S. Travel will likely have another round of auctions in December, tied to the holidays.

"The benefit of this program is that it simultaneously addressed the needs of the organization in terms of resources and it was great for the marketing of travel too," said Freeman.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• The Federal Communications Commission "came under fire Tuesday from public-interest groups demanding that the agency -- which regularly trumpets its openness -- disclose its private meetings with telecommunications industry lobbyists," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "A handful of Members of Congress have accepted more than $100,000 worth of free international travel from the religious organization affiliated with the 'C Street house,' a Capitol Hill townhouse linked to recent Congressional sex scandals," Roll Call (subscription) reports.

• "The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama's closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an 'increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation,'" the Washington Post reports.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Non-profit groups and special interests spent 73% more in the first three months of the year jetting members of Congress on domestic and foreign trips, a USA TODAY review of records compiled by CQ MoneyLine shows," USA Today reports.

• "Companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are hiring a bevy of high-priced Washington lobbyists and consultants to help them weather the crisis, as investigations heat up and calls for policy changes intensify," the Washington Post reports.

• "Business and advocacy groups eagerly await the release of the government's first-ever strategic plan for intellectual property enforcement, as a Senate panel prepares to assess the performance of the post tasked with coordinating enforcement efforts and drawing up the plan," The Hill reports.

• "As Congress rushes this week to complete the most far-reaching financial reform plan in decades, the banking industry is mounting an 11th-hour end run," the New York Times reports.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "The labor federation Change to Win today is launching a group called U.S. Chamber Watch, a new organization to put pressure on one of labor's top opponents, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce," Roll Call (subscription) reports.