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Energy
Portman, Shaheen Keep Hope Alive on Energy-Efficiency Bill
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Ben Geman
Ohio Republican Rob Portman and New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen are either gluttons for punishment or close to picking the political lock that often keeps even widely supported legislation out in the cold. The coming months could bring the answer. On Wednesday the duo is reintroducing major energy legislation to cut energy use in commercial buildings, manufacturing plants, and homes, a measure the senators have floated in one form or another since 2011.
Obama embraces Keystone skepticism
THE HILL
Timothy Cama
President Obama has increasingly sided with the most negative assessments of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, leading both opponents and supporters to believe that he’ll reject the contentious project’s permit.
Technology
Tom Wheeler’s Apology Tour
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Holman Jenkins
Mr. Wheeler is the U.S. Federal Communications Commission chief who just found that telecom operators are actually dangerous monopolists in need of old-style utility regulation. Well, he actually said no such thing. He gives little reason why this step was urgent or necessary. Since applying Title II utility regulation to the Internet, he’s spent most of his time apologizing for his action, insisting why, against all historical precedent, the FCC will nonetheless protect investment and innovation in the vibrant, rapidly changing industry. Like the Munchausen mommy, Mr. Wheeler has given us Title II so he can protect us from Title II.
Europe’s Net Neutrality Sense
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
You know Washington is on the wrong track with a regulation when even Brussels has a better idea. Witness the latest net-neutrality proposal from European Union leaders, which is smarter than the 300-page blobfish recently imposed by President Obama’s Federal Communications Commission.
Senators bring back online sales tax bill
THE HILL
Bernie Becker
A bipartisan group of senators is taking another crack at online sales tax legislation. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) rolled out the Marketplace Fairness Act on Tuesday, which would give states more power to collect sales taxes from businesses that don’t have a physical location within their borders.
Finance
Obama plans to make it easier to pay your student loans
WASHINGTON POST
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
The new presidential memorandum, entitled the Student Aid Bill of Rights, calls for the Education Department to create a new Web site by July 2016 to give borrowers a simple way to file complaints and provide feedback about federal student lenders, servicers, collection agencies and even their schools. The portal is supposed to help the department to quickly respond to complaints. Much of the president’s plan involves improving the way borrowers interact with student loan servicers, the middlemen who collect and apply loan payments. Obama will require companies, including Navient and Nelnet, to alert borrowers when their loans are transferred to another firm or if they fall behind on payments.
Ending Federal Loan Fraud
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
This year’s congressional budget outline can move Washington toward more honest accounting by creating new rules for the Congressional Budget Office. President Obama ’s signature isn’t required, and since budget resolutions can’t be filibustered, reformers don’t need Democratic votes. A great place to start is the accounting for federal lending programs which deliberately understates their risks.
Regulators vs. Your Local Banker
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Camden R. Fine
The steady piling of regulations on community banks has brought Washington to a crossroads. Policy makers can either reform the system to ensure regulations proportional to bank size and complexity, or they can continue toward a future of fewer, larger and riskier financial institutions. Left unchecked, regulatory overkill threatens the very survival of America’s local banking industry and the local entrepreneurs who depend on it.
Unions to Fight Trade Pact by Freezing Political Donations
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Melanie Trottman
Dozens of major labor unions plan to freeze campaign contributions to members of Congress to pressure them to oppose fast-track trade legislation sought by President Barack Obama , according to labor officials. The move is part of the unions’ campaign against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which the Obama administration is negotiating with 11 nations around the Pacific Ocean. The unions worry the trade agreement could send more jobs to low-wage countries, including Vietnam and Malaysia.
Fannie Mae recklessness risks future financial crises and taxpayer losses, watchdog warns
WASHINGTON TIMES
Phillip Swarts
The Federal Housing Finance Agency inspector general said its latest concerns involve Fannie Mae’s “haphazard” decision to fill a critical auditor position with an employee who lacked proper qualifications and suffered from a conflict of interest. … The watchdog also had harsh words for the FHFA, the federal agency that oversees Fannie Mae, saying its own leadership failed to act on concerns about the hiring of the auditor position, choosing instead to stay silent.
Politics
A Clinton Email Defense That Turned Defensive
NEW YORK TIMES
Maggie Haberman
But Mrs. Clinton’s attempt to put a whirlwind of questions and critical news reports behind her — and to get back to mustering enthusiasm ahead of her expected announcement that she will make another run at the White House — devolved, over the course of 21 minutes, into an exchange of sharp-toned questions and increasingly defensive responses, both in what she said and in her demeanor in saying it.
Hillary Clinton had a duty higher than convenience
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
In the end, it is clear Ms. Clinton was acting in a gray zone, one created in part by the rapid pace of technological change. But it is also apparent that her decisions on her e-mail were based on what was best for her — what was “convenient”— and not so much for the public trust.
Jeb Bush and the Iowa Trap
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Tim Alberta
“If we lose Iowa, we’re fine,” one senior Bush adviser said. “If Walker loses Iowa, he’s done.”
Jeb Bush, Scott Walker emerging as front-runners for GOP nod — and rivals
WASHINGTON POST
Ed O’Keefe and Robert Costa
It started with a subtle poke at Jeb Bush almost two months ago, when Scott Walker suggested that Republicans need “a new, fresh approach.” Since then, Walker has continued jabbing, casting himself as the “son of a preacher” — instead of, say, a president — and warning Republicans against “looking to the past.” With each provocation amid Walker’s fast rise, the Bush camp has grown increasingly agitated — not just by the attacks but also by what they see as a lack of scrutiny of the Wisconsin governor’s record.
Is It Sheldon Adelson’s World?
NEW YORK TIMES
Thomas L. Friedman
The most important bonds between Israel and America always emerged from the bottom up — a mutual respect between two democracy-loving peoples. Money can’t buy those bonds, but it can threaten them by going to excess — by taking Israel’s true good will in America and using it to help one party “stick it” to the president, one big donor drive his extreme agenda, one party appear more pro-Israel than the other for electoral reasons or one Israeli politician win re-election. People who go “all the way” like this will one day go over a cliff. They will regret it. So will the rest of us.
In wake of GOP letter to Iran, battle erupts over blame for dysfunction
WASHINGTON POST
Greg Jaffe and Juliet Eilperin
“If you are a country in the Middle East or Asia relying on Washington, this raises questions about America’s predictability,” said Richard Haass, who is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and served in the George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush administrations. “I hear this all the time. I just know it makes others around the world more uncomfortable and contributes to a more dangerous and disorderly world.”
Tom Cotton’s grandstand play
WASHINGTON POST
Kathleen Parker
No one is jockeying for a bad deal, plainly. And everyone at the table and beyond knows that the United States and Israel will not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. Period. Thus, an attempt at a diplomatic agreement is more than a hedge against the unthinkable — a nuclear-armed Iran. It is a message to the world that, if and when we do take military action, it will be as a last resort.
GOP to Stick to Sequester Spending Limits in 2016 Budget
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Kristina Peterson and Nick Timiraos
Republican leaders are expected to unveil House and Senate budgets next week that will hew to spending curbs enacted four years ago, even though many GOP lawmakers believe the limits are harming the nation’s military readiness.
