Tax lobbyists "see a tax bill train leaving the station and they want their particular pet project to be on it," said Reinsch. "Whether it has anything to do with coronavirus or economic recovery, it doesn't matter. They'll say it does and see what happens."

Other examples abound.

"The oil and gas industry is pushing the administration for [Strategic Petroleum Reserves] purchases, faster drilling permits on federal lands, royalty relief and increased deductions for drilling expenses," said Dan Eberhart, an energy executive and major Republican donor.

Aside from the suggestion that the administration buy oil for the petroleum reserve as a way to help oil producers - which Trump announced he would do on Friday - the other measures have been part of the industry's wish list for years.

A drone industry group, called the Small UAV Coalition, meanwhile, asked the Trump administration this month to rush through consideration of waiver requests for drones to be operated at night, above people and beyond the operator's line of sight, arguing that they could be used for deliveries of medical supplies or samples.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been working on rules governing such flights, but the industry had been frustrated at the slow rate of progress.

"The Coalition believes that [drones] may help deliver needed medicines and other medical supplies, as well as to deliver samples being used to develop a vaccine, even before a vaccine is developed for public use," the group wrote in the letter.

The pharmaceutical industry successfully convinced Congress earlier this month not to include price control provisions in the initial coronavirus relief bill, after battling lawmakers' attempts to pass broader limits on drug prices for months.

"In no way are we trying to shift the conversation," said Brian Newell, a spokesperson for the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a biopharmaceutical industry trade group. "We continue to work with policymakers to address the coronavirus, as well as to lower what patients pay out of pocket for prescription drugs."

And the National Pork Producers Council warned on Wednesday that coronavirus could exacerbate chronic labor shortages on farms and meatpacking plants. The trade group asked for foreign worker visas to be expedited in response - furthering the industry's longtime goal of bringing in more foreign workers.

"The specter of market-ready hogs with nowhere to go is a nightmare for every pork producer in the nation,"Howard Roth, the trade group's president, wrote in a letter to Congress and the administration.

Arshi Siddiqui, a former aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who's now a lobbyist, said companies and trade groups have to walk the line between making sure they're not left out of legislation that benefits other companies or industries and avoiding the appearance of taking advantage of a crisis.

"Let's make sure that if there's something happening it doesn't create winners and losers in the same industry," she said, describing such companies' thinking. The same reasoning holds true for entire industries: If one sector hit hard by the coronavirus slowdown gets help, similar industries don't want to be left out.

Perhaps no industry is more sensitive to the downsides of government help during a crisis than Wall Street, which is still trying to repair its reputation after the 2008 bailouts, This time around, the banks have already been chastised for appearing opportunistic as the virus has spread.

The Bank Policy Institute, which represents big banks such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, drew criticism after it published a blog post earlier this month that suggested deregulation could help banks provide credit to the economy.

The banks have seemed to avoid making asks of Congress and the administration since the misstep. In interactions with Capitol Hill and the administration in the ensuing weeks, the banks and their trade groups have tried to emphasize that they have plenty of capital and are ready to provide credit to consumers affected by the pandemic.

At a meeting of Wall Street executives at the White House on Wednesday, Citigroup's chief executive, Michael Corbat told Trump "the banks and the financial system are in sound shape and we are here to help."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spends more on lobbying than any other trade group in Washington, has said it would welcome moves by the administration to cut tariffs. But Neil Bradley, the Chamber's executive vice president and chief policy officer, said the trade group was primarily focused on securing assistance for people and businesses affected by the crisis.

"We're not really in the business of kind of trying to leverage the current moment to do things that we were otherwise trying to do anyway," he said.

Sarah Owermohle, Zachary Warmbrodt, Sam Mintz, Megan Cassella, Catherine Boudreau, Ben Lefebvre and Doug Palmer contributed reporting.
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