That's an awfully emotionally charged way to phrase "lobbied in the same way that everyone else does". When a matter of geopolitical interest that's consuming a significant fraction of the national economy is being impeded by the current regulations it seems entirely expected that the government would start making changes. If anything refusing to make changes under those circumstances would be truly bizarre.
Sure at present they also have a substantially more sympathetic admin than usual but that's the current climate that everyone is working in.
It's impossible to pretend like any agencies are functioning in any way as normal, are using objective scientific expert based assessments to govern.
This is pure spoils. In a way America has never remotely seen ever before. Utter rankest most foul spoils, nothing but pure politics, with essentially no moderators.
Government contracts have been awarded to people with connections since forever. It's absolutely nothing new. There's just no fog leaf now, Trump skips the part where he's pretending it was a fair bidding process.
Maybe there is a 0.0001% resemblance to the past? But trying to chase whether it's 4, 6, or 11 orders of magnitude (based on the billions thrown around I think it's actually more orders of magnitude by a lot) is obfuscating that this is a colossal step change that looks nothing remotely in any way like the past and that we had rules and some checks and balances through bipartisan non-president controlled institutions in the past, through administrator appointments that were somewhat bipartisan.
The bad hasn't even really hit yet. The Supreme Court just made this so much worse, with a president able to fire administrators, to the degree where they lack required concensus the operate at all, but where it's not possible for a congress without dual majority to get people in to office. You need both the president and all Congress to govern, but anyone can de-govern & tear down institutions freely. A Republican Project 2025 wet dream, to destroy the state & never let it regenerate at all. What scum. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/07/supreme-court-do...
If you think the ruling class isn't making money coming and going I've got a bridge to sell you.