Edward L. Jaffee

Dodging the Bullet: an Inside Washington Look at High-stakes Lobbying Against an Oil Giant Edward L. Jaffee

What do you do when an oil industry giant, on whom you have depended for sixteen years to provide your company's largest plant with natural gas, suddenly tries to use federal legislation as a way to increase its price by more than ten times over what the contract calls for?

As DODGING THE BULLET recounts, you pull together a coalition of companies in the same bind as yours. And if your opponent has used the personal attorney to a powerful U. S. Senate figure to help draft the legislation that would abrogate their contract with you, you respond by hiring the best-known lobbying law firm in Washington and working side-by-side with them every step of the way. And you soon realize that the battle will involve a series of ups and downs.

The story unfolds in 1983-84, a time when fax machines were in their infancy and their were no personal computers, cell phones, iPads or any of the other communications shortcuts we depend on so much today. The lobbying involved old-fashioned shoe leather, face-to-face meetings with members of Congress and their staff, and countless phone calls and strategy sessions. DODGING THE BULLET puts you right in the middle of the fray and shows you what high-level lobbying is really like, and what it is not.

For anyone interested in knowing the ins and outs of Congress and the rules of lawmaking, this book is a must read.