Idaho Surveying Firm Ends Lobbying Relationship With Farley Law After a Year of Zero Activity

Sawtooth Land Surveying LLC, a small land surveying company based in Emmett, Idaho, filed an LDA termination in Q1 2026, ending its lobbying relationship with Farley Law PLLC. The engagement, which was registered in January 2025, reported $0 in lobbying expenditures across every quarterly disclosure — and listed no lobbying activity for three of its four quarters.

Why the LDA Termination Matters

It doesn't, much — at least not in dollar terms.

Sawtooth Land Surveying lobbying disclosures show the company never reported spending a single dollar on federal advocacy during the entire engagement. Across five filings — a new client registration, three quarterly reports, and the lobbying disclosure termination — the reported amount was $0 each time.

For Farley Law PLLC, the loss is similarly negligible on paper. The firm does not appear to have a large roster of clients generating disclosed lobbying revenue, and Sawtooth was not a revenue driver based on the available filings.

There is no evidence that Sawtooth Land Surveying has hired another firm to continue federal lobbying work. No other lobbying registration termination or new registration has appeared in disclosure records linking the company to a different firm.

What Sawtooth Was Lobbying On — Briefly

The only substantive detail in the entire lobbying history came from two filings: the initial registration in Q1 2025 and the Q1 2025 quarterly report.

Both listed Transportation (TRA) as the issue area. The specific issues described were:

  • "FHWA and DOT Contracting" (registration filing)
  • "Reverse discrimination in government contracting for federal highways" (Q1 2025 report)

The sole lobbyist listed on those filings was Brent Merrill Farley, the firm's namesake. No congressional staffer experience was found for Farley in available records.

By Q3 2025, the filings went blank — no issues, no lobbyists, no activity. The Q4 2025 report was similarly empty. Then came the termination.

No legislation was cited in any of the filings. No bills were tracked. No hearings mentioned the company. No members of Congress referenced Sawtooth Land Surveying in public communications over the past year.

Broader Context: Federal Highway Contracting and Small Business

Sawtooth's brief lobbying footprint touched on federal highway contracting — an area that affects thousands of small firms that do surveying, engineering, and construction work on federally funded transportation projects.

The company's Q1 2025 disclosure specifically referenced "reverse discrimination in government contracting for federal highways," pointing to concerns about how the Federal Highway Administration and Department of Transportation handle contracting preferences and set-asides.

This is a live policy area. The Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program, which governs contracting preferences on federally funded transportation projects, has been the subject of ongoing legal and political debate. But without any bills tracked or hearings cited in the Farley Law PLLC lobbying filings, there is no direct thread connecting Sawtooth's advocacy to specific legislative action.

Sawtooth Land Surveying is a roughly $5.7–$6 million annual revenue company that operates in Idaho and Oregon. Idaho is approximately 62% federally managed land, making firms like Sawtooth dependent on federal infrastructure spending and land management policy. The company is a member of the Idaho Associated General Contractors and provides services including construction surveying, 3D scanning, and civil engineering consulting.

Bottom Line

This lobbying registration termination is about as quiet as they come. The engagement between Sawtooth Land Surveying and Farley Law appears to have been registered, briefly activated around federal highway contracting concerns in early 2025, and then went dormant before being formally closed in early 2026.

No money changed hands in disclosed filings. No legislation was targeted. No replacement firm has been hired. The LDA lobbying compliance filing is effectively an administrative closing of a registration that produced one quarter of described activity and nothing after.

For anyone tracking Farley Law PLLC lobbying activity or small-business advocacy around DOT contracting policy, this is a data point — but a thin one.