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Energy
Barack Obama’s green gambit
POLITICO
Edward-Isaac Dovere
President Barack Obama is quietly but steadily working behind the scenes on what could become one of his signature achievements: A global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What he’s seeking out of the December U.N. climate talks in Paris would create the broadest, farthest-reaching deal in history, reworking environmental regulations for governments and corporations around the world and creating a framework for global green policy for decades. Republicans in Congress, sensing what he’s up to, are already saying no. And Obama’s already preparing to sign on without them.

New fracking rules coming in ‘days’
FUEL FIX
Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Obama administration is poised to impose new rules for hydraulic fracturing on public lands. The mandates are aimed at boosting the integrity of wells on public lands to ensure oil, gas and other fluids are contained within them. The rules will also require recovered water and other fluids to be safely stored at the sites.

Jewell outlines administration’s plans for energy on public lands
FUEL FIX
Jennifer A. Dlouhy
America’s public lands should be enlisted in the fight against climate change even as they sustain conventional oil and gas development, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Tuesday. “I am determined to help make energy development safer and more environmentally sound in the next two years,” Jewell said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

Republicans Push Climate Change Cuts at CIA, Defense Department
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Clare Foran
If Republicans get their way, the CIA and the Defense Department could soon have a lot less cash for climate research. The House GOP budget unveiled on Tuesday calls for cuts to CIA and DOD programs devoted to the study of global warming, despite the fact that the military has identified climate change as a major national security threat and a key priority.

Technology
FCC Chairman Says Obama’s Net Neutrality Statement Influenced Rule
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Ryan Knutson
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler acknowledged that President Barack Obama influenced the agency’s effort to set new “net neutrality” rules when he called in November for the utility approach, known as Title II. But Mr. Wheeler said he was more influenced by the market’s lack of reaction to Mr. Obama’s statement. Stocks of Internet service providers didn’t tank, companies bid nearly $45 billion for wireless licenses in an auction that closed in January, and carriers like Sprint Corp. said a Title II approach wouldn’t harm investment.

Harry Reid’s Top Aide Told White House to ‘Back Off’ on Strong Net Neutrality
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Sasso
In an email to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler on May 15, 2014, David Krone, Reid’s chief of staff at the time, wrote that he “spoke with the WH [White House] again last night and told them to back off Title II [of the Communications Act].” The section of the 1934 law would give the FCC broad powers and allow it to treat Internet providers more like heavily-regulated phone companies. “Went through once again the problems it creates for us,” Krone wrote.

GOP: The FCC’s inspector general has launched an investigation into net neutrality
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), who heads the House Oversight Committee, said Tuesday that the FCC Inspector General had launched an investigation “in the last couple days.” … The probe, said Chaffetz, will focus on the FCC’s rulemaking process leading up to the agency’s recent, historic vote to apply strict rules on Internet providers. Republicans have accused the FCC of improperly collaborating with the White House on the so-called “net neutrality” rules, which ban providers of high-speed Internet access such as Verizon and Time Warner Cable from blocking Web sites they don’t like or auctioning off faster traffic speeds to the highest bidders.

Read the e-mails that Republicans say show Obama meddled in net neutrality
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
GOP lawmakers led by Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, are releasing previously redacted e-mails between FCC officials and members of the White House staff, lobbyists and others in an attempt to show evidence of undue influence.

Netflix Is the Culprit
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Holman Jenkins
In the Abilene Paradox (look it up), a group drives to Abilene for lunch because each thinks the others think it’s a good idea. Net-neut politics has now witlessly deposited the country in Abilene. It will be an expensively bought lesson for Google, Apple and others who flunked their civic responsibility to participate in an important public debate. And their schooling isn’t over.

Government Is Crashing the Internet Party
POLITICO
Sen. Marco Rubio
The Internet, more than any invention in history, brings together a perfect storm of free market forces: low barriers to entry, unencumbered contact between consumers and providers, and instant feedback for new ideas. It has become a thriving exhibition of the power of free people operating in a free market to create prosperity and opportunity. Predictably, the federal government wants to crash the party.

Finance
Republicans Aren’t Treating Dodd-Frank Like Obamacare, and It’s Working
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Eric Garcia
The House Republican budget proposal released Tuesday would (again) wipe the health care law from the books, but it takes aim at only a few provisions in Dodd-Frank. In the GOP budget, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would be made subject to congressional appropriation instead of receiving its funding from the Federal Reserve. The document also proposes repealing what is known as “Orderly Liquidation Authority,” where the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation helps resolve a failing financial institution.

As Argentina and Hedge Funds Battle, Citigroup Bows Out
NEW YORK TIMES
Alexandra Stevenson
The nasty battle between Argentina and a group of New York hedge funds has claimed another victim: Citigroup. The bank said on Tuesday that it would shut its custody business in Argentina after a federal judge in New York last week rejected its request to lift an order that prevented the bank from making interest payments to investors holding $2.3 billion in Argentine notes.

Fannie, Freddie to Alter Some Loan Modifications
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Joe Light
Mortgage-finance companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae on Tuesday said they are changing the way they modify some loans in anticipation of an influx of borrowers struggling to make payments on loans with rising interest rates.

S.E.C. Chief Voices Support for Higher Advice Standard for Brokers
NEW YORK TIMES
Michael J. de la Merced
The chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission announced on Tuesday that she planned to explore setting a higher standard for brokers in dispensing investment advice, putting the agency in the middle of a potential fight between the Obama administration and the financial industry.

House Republican Bloc Poses a Threat to Pacific Trade Deal
WALL STREET JOURNAL
William Mauldin
Most Democrats in Congress and nearly all unions oppose President Barack Obama’s quest to win a major trade deal with 11 other Pacific countries. That has put pressure on Republican lawmakers and business groups, who widely support the deal. But some 50 to 60 House Republicans are expected to buck GOP leadership on trade policy, say supporters and opponents following the battle.

Politics
Bibi wins big
POLITICO
Michael Crowley
As votes were counted Tuesday night, Netanyahu claimed a dramatic comeback victory. “Against all odds: A great victory for the Likud. A major victory for the Israeli people,” he posted on Facebook.

The GOP’s Budget Test
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
The Republican Congress is starting to debate its budget outline for fiscal 2016, and it’s not too soon to call it a test of whether this gang can shoot straight. The budget sets a broad policy direction that ought to unify Republicans, if they can overcome their parochial passions.

The GOP’s fiscal phonies
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
We give the GOP credit for floating controversial structural reforms to costly medical programs (though its premium-support plan for Medicare would only take effect a decade from now). Kudos to them as well for aiming at far more deficit reduction than is called for in Mr. Obama’s budget, which avoided entitlement reform almost as assiduously as the Republicans ducked the need for more revenue. The fatal flaw in their plan, however, is its assumption that the U.S. government already collects the optimum amount of taxes given its foreseeable responsibilities.

Rep. Aaron Schock to resign amid spending scandal
USA TODAY
Paul Singer
Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., a charismatic rising star in the Republican Party and top GOP fundraiser, announced his resignation Tuesday after weeks of news reports about questionable spending on everything from airplane flights to his office decor.

In states with the first 2016 primaries, Democrats ask: Where’s Hillary?
WASHINGTON POST
Philip Rucker
In Iowa, Democrats want to see Hillary Rodham Clinton mingling in their neighborhood coffee shops, answering their questions and sharing laughs. In New Hampshire, they expect her on their living-room couches, listening to their tales of struggle. In South Carolina, they’re eager to hold hands with her and pray together. And in each of the early presidential primary and caucus states, Democratic activists are asking the same question: Where is Hillary?

Jeb Bush, 20 Years After Conversion, Is Guided by His Catholic Faith
NEW YORK TIMES
Michael Paulson
Twenty years after Mr. Bush converted to Catholicism, the religion of his wife, following a difficult and unsuccessful political campaign that had put a strain on his marriage, his faith has become a central element of the way he shapes his life and frames his views on public policy. And now, as he explores a bid for the presidency, his religion has become a focal point of early appeals to evangelical activists, who are particularly important in a Republican primary that is often dominated by religious voters.

U.S.-Cuba Talks on Restoring Diplomatic Ties End Abruptly
NEW YORK TIMES
Randal C. Archibold
The United States and Cuba have ended their third round of talks on re-establishing diplomatic relations as abruptly as the meeting was announced, with no breakthrough on sticking points and in an atmosphere of rising tension over Venezuela.