WHEREAS:  we believe in full disclosure of Altria’s direct and indirect lobbying activities and expenditures to assess whether Altria’s lobbying is consistent with its expressed goals and in shareholders’ best interests.

RESOLVED, the shareholders of Altria request the preparation of a report, updated annually, disclosing:

1. Company policy and procedures governing grassroots lobbying communications.
2. Payments by Altria used for (a) direct or indirect lobbying or (b) grassroots lobbying communications, in each case including the amount of the payment and the recipient.
3. Altria’s membership in and payments to any tax-exempt organization that writes and endorses model legislation.
4. Description of the decision-making process and oversight by management and the Board for making payments described in section 2 and 3 above.

For purposes of this proposal, a “grassroots lobbying communication” is a communication directed to the general public that (a) refers to specific legislation or regulation, (b) reflects a view on the legislation or regulation and (c) encourages the recipient of the communication to take action with respect to the legislation or regulation. “Indirect lobbying” is lobbying engaged in by a trade association or other organization of which Altria is a member.

Both “direct and indirect lobbying” and “grassroots lobbying communications” include efforts at the local, state and federal levels.

The report shall be presented to the Nominating, Corporate Governance and Social Responsibility Committee and posted on Altria’s website. 

Supporting Statement: Altria does not disclose its payments to trade associations and social welfare organizations, or the amounts used for lobbying at the federal and state level, including grassroots lobbying. Grassroots lobbying does not get reported at the federal level under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, and disclosure is uneven or absent in states.   

We are concerned Altria’s payments to third party groups are potentially being used for undisclosed grassroots lobbying. For example, the tobacco industry initiates ‘grassroots’ Facebook campaigns where “what appears to be a local group of concerned citizens is actually a lobbying campaign funded by Big Tobacco” https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-19-big-tobacco-grassroots-facebook-campaigns.html 

And Altria financially supports the California Coalition for Fairness, which is seeking a referendum on California’s ban of flavored cigarettes sales.  The American Heart Association has asked the California State Attorney General to investigate instances of illegal signature-gathering tactics, where “petition circulators for this referendum have approached voters and asked them to sign this petition under the pretense that signing the petition would support banning flavored tobacco,” whereas the  “referendum seeks to overturn the law prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-20/campaign-to-remove-california-flavored-tobacco-ban-accused-of-misleading

Altria also fails to disclose its payments to  the Americans for Tax Reform, Goldwater Institute, Rio Grande Foundation, R Street Institute and Independent Women’s Forum, which were signatories to a February 2019 letter to the President  criticizing the FDA’s “aggressive regulatory assault” on e-cigarettes. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/health/tobacco-e-cigarettes-lobbying-fda.html

We support transparency in Altria’s spending on lobbying to evaluate these costs and ensure sufficient internal accountability to safeguard the alignment of spending with company mission, values and ethics.

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