I got that email too, Mech. Sort of on the nose, but better late than never.
As far as the various assumptions as to what they knew and when they knew it - I don't see the answer as necessarily obvious.
First of all, even had it applied to them this bill wouldn't be that big of a deal to large manufactures. The compliance overhead and additional cost would be peanuts compared to the rest of their costs. As with most legislation, this bill really hurts the little guys the most.
Secondly, the members have worked with this lobbyist for years. Up until this broke, they may have trusted him to take care of things. Not all companies are really hands-on with their lobbyists (especially when it is one shared by a group) and in a case where the law would be at worst a minor impact to the members I'm doubting the membership spent very many clock cycles micromanaging.
All told, while it is certainly possible that Springfield and RRA were aware of and approved of the lobbyist's decisions, it is equally if not more plausible that their interaction with him this session was limited to: "What's on the docket this year? Okay, that's not great. See what you can do about it."