WASHINGTON, DC — The Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance (ECA) Legislative Action Week, a virtual lobbying event for the business events industry, taking place June 6-10, will focus on three key priorities: Senate passage of two bills, one to provide relief to small businesses and one to reinstate the Employee Retention Tax Credit; the return of communicable disease coverage under event cancellation insurance; and the easing of visa wait times for international business travelers.
The Legislative Action Week will bring together advocates and leaders from across the business events industry to meet with their members of Congress. It is led by Tommy Goodwin, ECA’s government affairs manager. “It’s remarkable how Capitol Hill has not only heard our message, but is starting to reflect it back to us. That’s when you know they’ve really internalized it,” Goodwin said in the first of a series of videos ECA is creating in preparation for the Legislative Action Week. “It all goes back to the work of so many people who have been involved in Go Live Together, Exhibitions Mean Business and ECA’s advocacy efforts over the last two years. It’s really had a huge impact.”
This year, ECA advocates will focus on the Senate version of the Small Business Covid Relief Act of 2022 (passed by the House in April), which allocated $2 billion to the event industry. The Employee Retention Tax Credit Restoration Act, introduced in the Senate in February, also restores the Employee Retention Tax Credit, which was established to compensate employers whose businesses were hit hard by the pandemic for wages paid to employees.
The second area of focus for ECA’s Legislative Action Week will be pandemic insurance. “We need Congress to help restore communicable disease coverage for event cancellation insurance. Right now, that’s impossible,” said David DuBois, CMP, CAE, FASAE, CTA, president and CEO of the International Exhibition and Events Association and co-chair of ECA (with Hervé Sedky, president and CEO of Emerald Holding Inc.). “So we need to find a solution, with our coalition of more than a dozen groups that represent more than 70 million jobs in the United States.”
The third challenge will be easing the process of entering the United States. “Processing visa applications is a huge challenge,” DuBois said. “In 2019, 15 to 20 percent of our participants were outside the United States. Can you imagine someone having to wait 300-plus days to get an interview?” Yet that’s what many people, including one of his own board members from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, have to endure.
Check out the ECA website for a series of videos leading up to the launch of the Legislative Action Day on June 6.
Register here for the Legislative Action Day.
Contact Tommy Goodwin at (703) 672-0780 or [email protected] ;
David DuBois at (972) 687-9204 or [email protected]
LINKS
ECA Small Business Advocacy Week Highlights Need for Additional Help
2021 Legislative Action Day a Resounding (Virtual) Success
Tommy Goodwin, ECA Vice President of Government Affairs, advocates for industry