Please help InsideSources continue to grow. Ask your friends and colleagues to signup for InsideAlerts.
Energy
GOP amendment would let the states opt out of EPA climate rule
THE HILL
Timothy Cama
Senate Republicans are proposing a budget amendment that would let states opt out of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) controversial climate rule for power plants. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) proposed the amendment Tuesday on behalf of Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who is up for reelection in 2016. Under the amendment, a state’s governor or legislature would be able to opt out of the rule’s requirements for a variety of reasons.
An EPA rule on power plant hazardous air pollutants is ‘appropriate’
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
One can understand why critics of the Obama administration are angry about the so-called mercury rule, an Environmental Protection Agency clean-air regulation that they will ask the Supreme Court on Wednesday to quash. The EPA did not conduct a cost-benefit analysis when it decided to regulate hazardous air pollutants, such as mercury, from power plants. When the agency did consider costs, the balance ended up looking good only because the rule would coincidentally reduce another type of pollution. But this minor regulatory sleight-of-hand doesn’t mean the rule is misguided. It will save lives at an acceptable cost. Certainly there is no basis for Supreme Court intervention.
Technology
Google Makes Most of Close Ties to White House
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Brody Mullins
Google’s access to high-ranking Obama administration officials during a critical phase of the antitrust probe is one sign of the Internet giant’s reach in Washington. Since Mr. Obama took office, employees of the Mountain View, Calif., company have visited the White House for meetings with senior officials about 230 times, or an average of roughly once a week, according to the visitor logs reviewed by the Journal. One top lobbyist at Google, Johanna Shelton, has had more than 60 meetings at the White House. In comparison, employees of rival Comcast Corp., also known as a force in Washington, have visited the White House a total of about 20 times since Mr. Obama took office.
Budget could be used as weapon against FCC
THE HILL
Julian Hattem
“Congress should forbid the commission from using any appropriated funds to implement or enforce the plan the FCC just adopted to regulate the Internet,” said Pai, who voted against issuing the regulation and has been one of its biggest critics. “Heavy-handed regulation does not come cheap,” he added. “The FCC has already wasted millions of dollars developing these regulations, and we are on course to waste millions more.”
Congress moving on long-sought legislation to thwart cyberattacks
WASHINGTON POST
Ellen Nakashima
The House Intelligence Committee introduced bipartisan legislation Tuesday to grant legal immunity to firms that pass cyberthreat data to the government, as lawmakers expressed cautious optimism that there is finally enough support to pass a bill that the president will sign.
Netflix, Amazon and Hulu No Longer Find Themselves Upstarts in Online Streaming
NEW YORK TIMES
Emily Steel
Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have suddenly found themselves playing a new role: the establishment. After years of waging an assault on the traditional television business, these companies now must defend their turf on the battleground of the future, Internet streaming. HBO, Apple, Sony, Dish and other companies that were once challenged by services like Netflix have stormed onto the field in recent weeks, making a splash with new streaming offerings and bold pronouncements on reinventing the way people watch and pay for television.
Wall St. Stars Join Silicon Valley Gold Rush
NEW YORK TIMES
Nathaniel Popper and Conor Dougherty
One of the country’s largest banks, Morgan Stanley, is losing its chief financial officer to Google in the most visible example yet of the flow of talent from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Ruth Porat, Morgan Stanley’s chief financial officer since 2010, has been one of the most powerful women in a financial industry that has struggled to promote and hold on to its female executives. She is going to Silicon Valley while it is facing its own issues about gender balance.
Why Wall Streeters’ Defections to Silicon Valley Are Good News for the Economy
NEW YORK TIMES
Neil Irwin
Ms. Porat and the Harvard Business School grads choosing Silicon Valley over Wall Street may be responding to the direct incentives in front of them rather than responding to that logic. But the fact that those types of moves are happening is a promising sign that in the post-crisis world those incentives will serve the overall economy better than the old way.
Finance
Republicans grill SEC chief over financial adviser regs
THE HILL
Kevin Cirilli
Republican lawmakers pressed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairwoman Mary Jo White Tuesday to better coordinate with the Department of Labor (DOL) as the two agencies craft financial regulations for financial advisers.
House Republicans demand FDIC punish ‘Operation Choke Point’ operators
THE HILL
Peter Schroeder
House Republicans accused banking regulators of failing to properly address concerns stemming from a contentious effort to curb risky banking activity in certain industries. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) called on a top banking regulator to fire top employees or step down himself after certain businesses saw their accounts shuttered as part of a government program known as “Operation Choke Point.”
Politics
Look Before Leaping
NEW YORK TIMES
Thomas Friedman
I can think of many good reasons to go ahead with the nuclear deal with Iran, and I can think of just as many reasons not to. So, if you’re confused, let me see if I can confuse you even more.
A struggle worth having for students
WASHINGTON POST
Kyle Schwartz
Some of my peers predicted that Common Core would be a flash in the pan, yet another silver bullet soon to be abandoned in favor of the next shiny new approach to closing the achievement gap. After teaching under the Common Core standards for two years, I have a different view. The more I teach under Common Core, the more I love it. The initial confusion over the meaning of the Common Core standards turned out to be a blessing. The discussions that my colleagues and I had while parsing their meaning made us better teachers.
Democrats to dial up some tough votes for GOP’s 2016 contenders in Senate
WASHINGTON POST
Sean Sullivan and Mike DeBonis
The Republican senators eyeing the presidency in 2016 are facing some political peril this week on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are trying to force them to take tough votes that could harm them in the future. The basic idea is to force the GOP White House hopefuls to choose between appeals to the conservative primary electorate and more moderate general-election voters.
Bipartisan Deal on Health Care Issues Hits a Snag Among Senate Democrats
NEW YORK TIMES
Jennifer Steinhauer and Robert Pear
The deal is as politically remarkable as it is substantive: a long-term plan to finance health care for older Americans, pay doctors who accept Medicare and extend popular health care programs for children and the poor. It was cobbled together by none other than House Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the leader of House Democrats, who rarely agree on anything, with the apparent blessing of a majority of their respective members. Then along came a surprising impediment: Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, along with other Senate Democrats, objected to abortion restrictions in the bill and limits to an extension of a health insurance program for children.
House GOP smells victory in budget battle
POLITICO
Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Seung Min Kim
After weeks of stumbling through one embarrassing crisis after another, GOP leadership and the rank and file — for once — seem surefooted about their strategy to pass a 2016 budget resolution and fix a Medicare physician formula that’s long bedeviled Congress.
Barack Obama names two new top aides
POLITICO
Edward-Isaac Dovere
President Barack Obama will name Shailagh Murray, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporter, to serve as his new senior adviser, and has tapped Jason Goldman, a Silicon Valley veteran, to become the White House’s first-ever chief digital officer.
