Dan H. Renberg

In recent years, Dan has represented numerous corporate clients, trade associations, and nonprofit organizations on a wide variety of public policy matters, including securing federal funds, and has assisted clients in resolving issues before Congress and Executive Branch agencies. Dan has worked with clients who need innovative strategic planning and tireless advocacy in the nation’s capital on issues that include health policy, tax policy, energy, Medicare reimbursement, transportation infrastructure, biomedical research, and economic development. Leaders of hospital systems, universities, publicly traded corporations, small businesses, trade associations, and financial institutions regularly depend on Dan’s assistance in achieving their diverse policy goals in a time of divided government. In addition, Dan advises US and foreign clients on trade finance and project finance transactions and assists clients in expanding into foreign markets.

Dan’s client work emphasizes strategic guidance and advocacy for large and small organizations in nearly every sector — education, health care, energy, manufacturing, service, transportation, technology, and financial. He helps clients achieve their policy and business objectives by advocating on their behalf with relevant decision makers.

Dan’s recent successful client matters include:

• Serving as lead lobbyist for the Committee to Restore Dealer Rights, a nationwide coalition of terminated General Motors and Chrysler dealers that secured hundreds of cosponsors for legislation which would help restore their dealerships, and ultimately obtained unprecedented bipartisan legislation in December 2009 establishing an arbitration process by which they could seek reinstatement. His work included communicating on an almost daily basis with hundreds of auto dealers, helping prepare them for a major fly-in and Capitol press conference attended by the House Majority Leader, and working on the media campaign, including guidance regarding the coalition’s website content. More than 700 dealerships were reinstated as a result of the Committee’s advocacy campaign. Arent Fox’s effort on behalf of the Committee to Restore Dealer Rights was selected as one of the “Top 10 Lobbying Triumphs of 2009” by The Hill, the highly respected Washington, DC newspaper dedicated to covering the US Congress.
• Assisting associations and individual clients such as hospitals and universities in helping them develop and execute strategies to advocate for increased funding for priority programs or to forestall significant funding reductions in the proposed federal budget or during the appropriations process. In 2016, issues included higher education/student aid, medical profession training, scientific and technological research, economic development and tax incentives, among others.
• Assisting hospital clients in securing health care-oriented report language in the committee reports accompanying the FY14, FY15, and FY17 National Defense Authorization Acts in the House and Senate. Similarly, we assisted a client in securing committee report language for 2014 legislation reauthorizing autism programs in the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
• Assisted a medical device distributor in overcoming a CMS reimbursement policy decision that distorted the previously level playing field for three similar types of products (and which immediately halved the company’s sales). Through a coordinated effort involving Members of Congress who represent the company, as well as support from the Congressional Vision Caucus leadership, we obtained a rescission of the CMS reimbursement policy decision in the 2016 HOPPS rule.
• Members of the Government Relations, Health Care, and Litigation practice groups  collaborated to help preserve the viability of a medical device distribution company faced with an erroneous bureaucratic decision that revoked the company’s participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, putting more than 150 jobs in jeopardy. In addition to the traditional procedures for seeking reconsideration of the decision by an outside contractor to CMS, Arent Fox developed a legislative strategy to establish a parallel track to seek reinstatement. Working with colleagues in the Health and Litigation groups, who prepared the filing that clarified why the contractor had no grounds for the revocation, the Government Relations group immediately implemented a strategy that relied upon the client’s Congressional delegation to press CMS to ensure expedited review of the reconsideration request. Arent Fox also reached out to the Governor of the client’s state to help raise the matter with the Congressional delegation. Within 11 days, CMS reported to the client that the contractor had agreed with the Arent Fox filing and there was no disruption to the company’s sales or to the shipments to its customers, many of whom are part of an at-risk population that requires a stable supply of products from our client.
• Convened a first-of-its-kind Capitol Hill Day for the Woodmark Foundation, a nonprofit hospital-oriented organization, including speeches by multiple Senators and Congressmen and a series of advocacy meetings.
• Collaborating with attorneys in the corporate and regulatory practice groups to develop and implement political and legislative strategies to improve a draft rule being considered by the Federal Trade Commission for a consumer products company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Dan and his colleagues also assisted the company in developing congressional support for its positions and in generating congressional action on this issue, including obtaining an opportunity for a corporate official to testify before the House Small Business Committee.
• Working with a major pediatric-focused hospital in the eastern US to advocate for legislation and policy that will improve access to quality health care for children, in areas such as pediatric auto safety and state-of-the-art medical simulation. Assisted in securing enactment of a multi-year reauthorization bill for children’s hospitals graduate medical education.
• Assisting a client in developing and implementing a Congressional and Executive Branch strategy for obtaining beneficial modifications to federal clean energy tax incentives and reducing obstacles for increased utilization of such incentives, including successfully advocating for a provision in the Senate Finance Committee’s version of the EXPIRE Act in 2014.
• Assisted a medical device manufacturer in advocacy before Congress and Executive Branch related to Medicare reimbursement (Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System annual rulemaking), including numerous meetings with key Members of Congress, committee leadership, trade associations, and other stakeholders.
• Assisted in securing significant funding line items for Florida light rail project in FY15 Department of Transportation Budget and appropriations bill, including advocacy before senior Executive Branch officials and Congress.
• Forming a coalition of Pennsylvania-based nonprofits, “Pennsylvania Gives,” to advocate on issues related to the federal charitable tax deduction.
• Assisting a US manufacturer in obtaining a $5 million working capital line of credit to support its exports.
• Serving as primary Washington counsel in support of a regional passenger rail project in Pennsylvania, including helping obtain nearly $20 million in appropriations over several years for engineering and design work, advising on issues before the Federal Transit Administration, and working on legislation authorizing the final construction phase.
• Working through the US Congress and with various government agencies, assisting an association in the wound care industry to resolve regulatory issues, intervene on Medicare coverage decisions, and support advocacy on matters regarding diabetes care.
• Advising hospitals on the implementation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, legislation enacted as part of the economic stimulus law that created an incentive payment program to cover partially the costs of transitioning to electronic health records system.
• Representing Americans Standing for the Simplification of Estate Tax (ASSET), a tax coalition dedicated to reforming and simplifying the estate tax, including drafting legislation and supporting advocacy materials and working with key Members of Congress and their staff.
• Assisting a Community Development Financial Institution in implementing its federal strategy, including building relationships with Congress and senior officials at executive branch agencies.
• Assisting the Society of Nuclear Medicine in preserving $12 million for a Department of Energy nuclear medicine research program, which faced elimination in the federal government’s fiscal year 2012 budget.
• Assisting a nonprofit research foundation devoted to facilitating the development of early prostate cancer detection systems, including drafting and obtaining unanimous passage of a House resolution calling for increased federal funding for prostate imaging research and advocating in support of bipartisan legislation that would establish a new prostate detection and treatment initiative involving the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. In prior years, Dan assisted this client in obtaining nearly $7 million in federal funding.
• Advising a major publicly-traded automotive supplier on developing its successful application for a multimillion dollar conditional loan commitment from the US Department of Energy to develop fuel efficient components for alternative fuel vehicles through the Alternative Technology Vehicle Loan Program.
   

Dan also is a sought-after presenter to leading nonprofit organizations that seek his insights on policy and legal developments critical to their missions. Recent presentations have included the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, the Blair County, PA Chamber of Commerce, and the Woodmark Group (children’s hospitals nonprofit organization), where he has led discussions on topics that include developments in Congress relative to the federal budget and appropriations, entitlement reform, tax reform, the charitable tax deduction, and other policy issues central to such organizations.

Dan is also a frequent speaker and moderator at conferences on export finance throughout the United States, including several appearances at the National District Export Council Conference on topics such as Environmental Export Strategies.

Dan often works with the firm’s Automotive industry practice group on legislative and regulatory matters, a group that was selected in 2011 as one of the “Top Five Practices in California” by the Daily Journal.

Dan’s publications include two books: A House of Ill Repute (editor); 1987, and Congress in the Information Society (author); 1986, and several law journal articles.

Dan has been listed in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 editions of The Best Lawyers in America.