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Energy
A Reagan approach to climate change
WASHINGTON POST
George P. Schultz
First, let’s have significant and sustained support for energy research and development. More of that is going on right now than in any previous period. The costs to the federal budget are small — little more than a rounding error — and a serious government effort would attract private capital from investors who want to know what’s new and want to contribute. … Second, let’s level the playing field for competing sources of energy so that costs imposed on the community are borne by the sources of energy that create them, most particularly carbon dioxide. A carbon tax, starting small and escalating to a significant level on a legislated schedule, would do the trick. I would make it revenue-neutral, returning all net funds generated to the taxpayers so that no fiscal drag results and the revenue would not be available for politicians to spend on pet projects.
McConnell Can’t Pick, Choose Which Laws to Follow
POLITICO
Christine Todd Whitman
I was brought up to believe that following the law isn’t optional. If you do not like one of those laws, you work to change it. This is why public service is so important — we have to trust our leaders to make the right laws, and if we feel they are not meeting that goal, we have to be willing to engage in the civic process. To have one of our country’s leaders call on states to flout EPA’s appropriate regulation is in direct contradiction to the oath of office that he took.
Climate debate turns nasty
THE HILL
Timothy Cama
The fight over climate change has always featured some sharp arrows in Washington, but the debate has taken on a nastier, sometimes personal tone in 2015.
The costliest EPA rule yet
WASHINGTON TIMES
Margo Thorning
In the history of an agency known for costing businesses dearly, the new ozone proposal stands out. If adopted, it will likely become the most expensive EPA regulation ever imposed in terms of impact on the U.S. economy. The most unfortunate part of the scenario is that the proposed rule isn’t needed.
Oil execs push White House on crude export ban
THE HILL
Timothy Cama
Oil drilling executives met with White House and Capitol Hill officials this week to lobby for the United States’ ban on exporting crude oil to be lifted.
Technology
FCC chief heads into Hill storm
THE HILL
Alex Byers and Kate Tummarello
On the heels of the FCC’s vote last month to treat broadband like a utility, Wheeler will appear before five congressional committees over the next two weeks, facing off with Republicans in both chambers who have accused him of bending to the will of President Barack Obama and seizing regulatory control of the Internet.
Will the FCC Decide How Much You Pay for Internet?
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Sasso
The Federal Communications Commission has a new way to oversee how much companies can charge for Internet access, but swears it won’t use it. Can it be trusted? That’s the potential billion-dollar question. Internet providers already don’t like last month’s FCC net neutrality decision, saying it will lead to intrusive government meddling in their businesses. But as they raise the alarm about the FCC’s action, they are pointing to language they say could result in government price controls.
Obamanet’s Regulatory Farrago
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Gordon Crovitz
The Federal Communications Commission last week finally revealed the specifics of its plan to micromanage the Internet as a monopoly utility. In his dissent, Republican commissioner Ajit Pai explained the agency’s rejection of the open Internet after 20 years of bipartisan support: “Why is the FCC turning its back on Internet freedom? Is it because we now have evidence that the Internet is not open? No. Is it because we have discovered some problem with our prior interpretation of the law? No. We are flip-flopping for one reason and one reason alone. President Obama told us to do so.”
More and Better Telecom Options
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
Even before the Federal Communications Commission adopted strong net neutrality rules last month, some Republican lawmakers were saying that what the country really needed was an update to the nation’s main communications law. It is old, they argued, and does not address the ways in which people use the Internet today. Congress should certainly review the law, but it should be careful not to undermine a statute that has contributed to the success of the Internet and wireless telecommunications.
The legal case against Internet rules
THE HILL
Mario Trujillo
On Thursday, the public got its first look at the actual text of the net neutrality order, two weeks after it was approved. The rules would reclassify broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communication Act. The new designation will give the commission increased authority to enforce rules barring Internet service providers like Verizon or Comcast from prioritizing any piece of Internet traffic above another. Here are four legal arguments already being lobbed against the new rules.
Robots in the workplace
WASHINGTON POST
Robert Samuelson
This is the crux of the matter. If the new skills demanded by robots cannot be easily supplied by America’s workers, then there will be a fateful break from history. The question is, can we adapt? The past gives cause for confidence but no ironclad guarantee.
Facebook Clarifies Rules on What It Bans and Why
NEW YORK TIMES
Vindu Goel
On Monday, the company will clarify its community standards to give its users more guidance about what types of posts are not allowed on the service. Facebook walks a delicate line when it tries to ban violent or offensive content without suppressing the free sharing of information that it says it wants to encourage. Its audience is vast, with a huge variance in age, cultural values and laws across the globe. Yet despite its published guidelines, the reasoning behind Facebook’s decisions to block or allow content are often opaque and inconsistent.
Finance
Do unions have the oomph to stop Obama’s trade agenda?
POLITICO
Brian Mahoney and Doug Palmer
The AFL-CIO’s bold announcement last week that it would withhold contributions to congressional Democrats in advance of votes on fast-track trade promotion authority thrilled labor supporters and annoyed many Democrats. But it remains to be seen whether the move will impede the Obama administration’s trade agenda — or merely become the latest illustration of unions’ declining clout.
The U.S. Needs Two More Federal Reserve Banks
WALL STREET JOURNAL
John R. Dearie
Thirty-seven cities applied to be the headquarters of a Reserve Bank, and politics no doubt played a role in the selection. James A. Reed of Missouri, a prominent Senate Banking Committee member, managed to locate two in his state, in Kansas City and St. Louis. Still, the placement of the 12 Reserve Banks decided upon by the Reserve Bank Organization Committee generally reflected the distribution of the population and economic activity at the time. The result was a system with a decidedly Eastern tilt. Eight of the 12 regional Reserve Banks are either on or east of the Mississippi River, and six were within 600 miles of Washington—while 1,700 miles separate the San Francisco Reserve Bank from the next closest in Dallas.
S.E.C. Wants the Sinners to Own Up
NEW YORK TIMES
Gretchen Morgenson
For decades, the Securities and Exchange Commission has allowed companies and individuals to make settlements without admitting any wrongdoing. Even a company committing an egregious sin that cost investors millions of dollars could walk away from the proceedings without ever acknowledging its role. But in mid-2013 the agency declared that it was doing an about-face.
Politics
In 2016 race, an electoral college edge for Democrats
WASHINGTON POST
Chris Cillizza
[Nathan] Gonzales notes that if you add up all of the states that are either “safe” for the eventual Democratic nominee or “favor” that nominee, you get 217 electoral votes. (A candidate needs to win 270 to be elected president.) Do the same for states safe or favoring the Republican standard-bearer, per Gonzales’s rankings, and you get just 191 electoral votes. That Democratic advantage becomes even more pronounced if you add to the party’s total the states that “lean” Democratic, according to Gonzales. Put Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Iowa (6) and Nevada (6) into the Democratic column and the party’s electoral vote count surges to 249 — just 21 votes short of winning a third straight presidential race. (Gonzales doesn’t rate any states as “lean Republican.”)
2016 candidates build new financing system. Are they mocking the rules?
WASHINGTON POST
Dan Balz
What’s taking place in these early weeks of the 2016 cycle reflects the emergence of a new model for financing presidential campaigns. With it has come a flagrant disregard for the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. Politicians who are already hiring staffs, raising money, attending cattle calls and visiting the early states pretend, sometimes in tortured language, that they are not actual candidates.
Jeb Bush wonks out in New Hampshire
POLITICO
Ben Schreckinger
In remarks shot through with policy details and optimism about the potential for growth and innovation to solve the country’s problems, Bush emphasized the conservative sides of his positions on education and immigration and called for severe limits on the federal government’s role in fighting climate change at a half-house party, half-media circus at the home of former state Republican Party chairman Fergus Cullen late Friday. New Hampshire Republicans tend to be more moderate than the party’s conservative base, which has recoiled at Bush’s immigration proposals and support for the Common Core educational standards, but with dozens of reporters crowding the event, the former Florida governor called for limiting the federal government’s role in education and for spending more money to secure the border.
Evangelicals Aim to Mobilize an Army for Republicans in 2016
NEW YORK TIMES
Jason Horowitz
One afternoon last week, David Lane watched from the sidelines as a roomful of Iowa evangelical pastors applauded a defense of religious liberty by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. That night, he gazed out from the stage as the pastors surrounded Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana in a prayer circle. For Mr. Lane, a onetime Bible salesman and self-described former “wild man,” connecting the pastors with two likely presidential candidates was more than a good day’s work. It was part of what he sees as his mission, which is to make evangelical Christians a decisive power in the Republican Party. “An army,” he said. “That’s the goal.”
Federal agencies stiff-arm FOIA requests
USA TODAY
Editorial
On his first day in office in 2009, President Obama promised that transparency would be one of the “touchstones of this presidency.” … Too bad the message got lost in the mail. Or the e-mail. Even six years later, many federal agencies haven’t gotten it.
Chasm Grows Within G.O.P. Over Spending
NEW YORK TIMES
Jonathan Weisman
The congressional push this week to secure the first Republican budget plan in nearly a decade is revealing a chasm between fiscal hawks determined to maintain strict spending caps and defense hawks who are threatening to derail any budget that does not ensure an increase for the military.
Let’s Ensure That Every Girl Can Learn
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Michelle Obama
This week I will travel to Tokyo to join Akie Abe, the wife of Japan’s prime minister, as the United States and Japan announce a new partnership to educate girls across the globe. As part of this effort, the U.S. government has launched an international initiative, called “Let Girls Learn,” to help girls in developing countries go to school and stay in school.
Obama’s Iran Jam
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
One unfortunate side effect of last week’s letter from 47 GOP Senators to Iran is that it has helped the White House and its media friends obscure the far more important story—the degree to which President Obama is trying to prevent Congress from playing any meaningful role in assessing his one-man Iran deal.
McConnell: No Loretta Lynch confirmation until vote on human trafficking bill
WASHINGTON POST
Michelle Ye Hee Lee
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Sunday that the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general may hinge on whether Congress works out its gridlock over a human trafficking bill.
Bouncing the ‘Doc Fix’
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Conservatives are supposed to understand that price controls distort markets and don’t work. So much the better if reasonable Republicans and Democrats can agree to commit the SGR to the glue factory.
A costly farm bill
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
Remember how backers of the 2014 farm bill promised that it would reform costly and wasteful agriculture subsidies and save taxpayers money? And remember how the critics of the bill said it was basically a scheme to repackage and perpetuate the old system, potentially at a higher cost? Well, it turns out that the critics were right, according to the first comprehensive estimate of the bill’s impact.
