From yesterday’s Des Moines Register: “Energy, Water Forum to Feature Presidential Hopefuls” – Learn more about the upcoming forum co-hosted by InsideSources and the Des Moines Register, and sponsored by America’s Power.
Energy
For Environmentalists, Reid an Ally Unlikely to Be Replaced
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Clare Foran and Ben Geman
While Reid may not highlight environmental priorities as much as some of the most progressive members of his party, he has unquestionably used his position of power to call for action on climate change, push clean energy, and criticize the Keystone pipeline. Chuck Schumer, a top strategist for Senate Democrats and the front-runner to succeed Reid, has not made climate change a heavy focus of his work in the Senate even as the topic has moved to the top of the green movement’s agenda.
Wind power or hot air? Foes question Christie’s shift on clean energy.
WASHINGTON POST
Joby Warrick
Just off this city’s famous coastline is one of the windiest stretches of the Mid-Atlantic, where constant breezes can fill a sail or — in theory — turn the blades of a wind turbine. It’s a place the state’s Republican governor invoked in 2010 in pledging to make New Jersey a wind superpower. … Five years later, there are no ocean turbines in sight here and no firm plans for starting construction. The company created to install the first wind farm off Atlantic City has been repeatedly blocked by a Christie-appointed regulatory panel, and the governor has all but ceased talking about the subject.
Technology
Net neutrality’s revolving door
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Brooks Boliek
The revolving door between the FCC and the industries it regulates, which has been a quiet fixture of Washington for years, is likely to come into sharper focus in the coming weeks as the telecom sector mounts a court challenge to the FCC’s new net neutrality rules.
FCC chairman: Net rules will withstand court challenge
USA TODAY
Mike Snider
After running the gauntlet of Congressional hearings over the last two weeks, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler remains confident that the net neutrality rules the agency passed last month will survive upcoming challenges in court. He made the prediction Friday speaking at the Ohio State University. Moritz College of Law as part of a “Future of Internet Regulation.”
Harry Reid’s retirement could give tech companies a huge leg up in the Senate
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
If Schumer rises to minority leader, it would have big implications for the tech industry. The senator has taken on a great number of tech issues in recent years, from arguing for clearer drone regulations to advocating for stricter corporate privacy policies.
Senate Dems wooed on cyber bill
THE HILL
Cory Bennett
The Senate Intelligence Committee overwhelmingly approved a major cyber bill, but leaders still face a tough task: winning over critical Democrats. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), whose support could be crucial, told The Hill he is pleased with many of the changes made during a markup, but wants to keep working with the Intel panel’s heads as the bill moves to the floor in April.
After Kleiner Trial, Expect Less Shooting From the Hip in Silicon Valley
NEW YORK TIMES
David Streitfeld and Conor Dougherty
John Doerr really needed a win, and late Friday the esteemed venture capitalist got one of the biggest of his career: a jury’s complete dismissal of gender discrimination claims against his firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. But success in the courtroom is a tricky thing, and Kleiner’s victory contains perils that his company will still have to overcome, such as its image as a boys’ club. There is a less obvious one, too, which is how the details that came out during the trial may upend perhaps the most celebrated aspect of venture capitalism: investing on instinct, almost impulsively.
Pro-discrimination ‘religious freedom’ laws are dangerous
WASHINGTON POST
Tim Cook
This isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This is about how we treat each other as human beings. Opposing discrimination takes courage. With the lives and dignity of so many people at stake, it’s time for all of us to be courageous.
Finance
On Wall Street, Dem shake-up puts party at crossroads
THE HILL
Peter Schroeder
Harry Reid’s decision to not seek reelection could open another front in the battle for the direction of the Democratic Party, and its complicated relationship with Wall Street. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) emerged as the immediate favorite to take over as the chamber’s top Democrat, but his rise could further intensify an already heated debate about the party’s approach to the financial sector, one of his home state’s biggest industries. Led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), liberals with a harsh perspective on Wall Street have seen their voice and influence within the Democratic Party grow of late.
Tax Proposals Would Move U.S. Closer to Global Norm
WALL STREET JOURNAL
John D. McKinnon
U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle increasingly are finding appeal in an ambitious concept for overhauling the nation’s income-tax system: a tax based on consumption, a tool long used around the world. The tax-writing Senate Finance Committee is giving new consideration to the consumption-tax idea with the hope that its promised boost to economic growth would ease the way to a revamp.
Progress on Payday Lending
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took the most important step in its brief four-year history this week when it issued a preliminary proposal aimed at protecting the working poor from the payday lending industry, which bills itself as a source of “easy” short-term loans but earns its profits by luring borrowers into debt traps. If finalized, rules based on this proposal would protect millions of people from deceptive, predatory loans that can wreck their already fragile finances. The bureau could better protect consumers by closing one loophole that would allow some lenders of relatively small amounts to keep making high-cost loans.
Payday lending is ripe for rules
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
And, indeed, what the bureau proposes would be a new way of doing business: Basically, it mandates the kind of underwriting that payday lending characteristically avoids. This could go a long way toward ending, or at least reducing, payday-lending horror stories. But this benefit will probably come at the cost of precluding some mutually advantageous transactions that would otherwise have occurred. Lenders will exit the business. Here and there families will curtail consumption — which is a plus, insofar as it encourages them to live within their means, or a minus, if they have to skip meals. Just as inevitably some high-interest, short-term lending that now occurs legally will be driven into the underground economy. The proposed regulation now enters a review period, where, we hope, its true costs and benefits will get a thorough discussion.
Citigroup’s Argentine Unit Suspended From Trading in Local Capital Market
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Taos Turner
Amid the battle between a small group of hedge funds and the Argentine government, Argentina on Friday suspended Citigroup’s local unit from trading in the country’s capital market after the bank made a deal with the hedge funds that have sued Argentina in a U.S. court.
Politics
Jeb Bush and Scott Walker Point G.O.P. to Contrary Paths
NEW YORK TIMES
Jonathan Martin
The first votes of the primary season will not be cast until the Iowa caucuses next February, but Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, and Mr. Walker are fast becoming the most prominent exponents of two dueling visions of how the Republican Party can retake the White House in 2016 — by extending its reach, or by energizing more of the sorts of people who have sided with Republicans in the past. The two men share many policy positions, but offer strikingly divergent messages and are pursuing very different electoral strategies. And their political approaches seem inextricably linked to their biographies.
Stealth Assault
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Alex Roarty
Republicans are quietly strategizing to delete gay marriage from the party’s 2016 platform.
Marco Rubio Makes Plans for 2016 Run as Rivals Also Set to Race
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Peter Nicholas and Patrick O’Connor
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) is laying plans to announce his presidential bid in two weeks, a step that, along with other recent activity among likely contenders, shows the early sparring and positioning in the 2016 race for the White House is about to accelerate. Mr. Rubio has made tentative arrangements to announce his White House bid on April 13 at the historic Freedom Tower in Miami, a Rubio adviser said, though aides haven’t yet made final the location and timing.
Nevada Becomes Hot 2016 Senate Contest
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Alejandro Lazo
With Mr. Reid’s announcement Friday that he won’t seek re-election in 2016, the GOP finds itself in an unusual position in Nevada. Republicans potentially can field a deep bench of candidates against a comparatively shorter list of Democrats, in what suddenly has become the first high-profile, toss-up Senate race of the 2016 cycle.
NLRB to weigh in on high-stakes McDonald’s labor dispute
THE HILL
Tim Devaney
A high-stakes legal dispute pitting McDonald’s Corp. against labor unions is set to enter a crucial phase this week, when the National Labor Relations Board takes up consideration of a case with major implications for franchise businesses. An NLRB administrative law judge on Monday will begin weighing whether McDonald’s should be responsible for what employees say are poor working conditions and low pay at many of its franchise restaurants.
Iran Backs Away From Key Detail in Nuclear Deal
NEW YORK TIMES
David E. Sanger and Michael R. Gordon
With a negotiating deadline just two days away, Iranian officials on Sunday backed away from a critical element of a proposed nuclear agreement, saying they are no longer willing to ship their atomic fuel out of the country. For months, Iran tentatively agreed that it would send a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia, where it would not be accessible for use in any future weapons program. But on Sunday Iran’s deputy foreign minister made a surprise comment to Iranian reporters, ruling out an agreement that involved giving up a stockpile that Iran has spent years and billions of dollars to amass.
