Comparison of Foreign Lobbying Registrations

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO compared the number of registrations filed for foreign and foreign-affiliated clients under lobbying disclosure laws before and after the enactment of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (LDA), focusing on the: (1) number of such registrations that were filed in 1995 under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) or the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act (FRLA), and filed in 1996 under FARA and/or LDA, in order to determine whether there had been an overall increase or decrease in foreign registrations from 1995 to 1996; (2) number of those 1996 LDA registrations that were new and of those that had been filed in the previous year under FARA or FRLA; and (3) registration actions after December 31, 1995, of those that had been registered under FARA in 1995.