UPDATE—InsideSources broke a story on Sunday taking note of lobbying by Netflix that made it the big winner in the debate of Net Neutrality. Netflix is set to profit from shifting of expenses and regulation of ISP practices that Netflix itself employs. Now, new reports reveal Netflix CFO David Wells is claiming the company is unhappy with Title II regulation. Meanwhile, the company struck a deal in Australia for zero-rating, which violates Net Neutrality principles. Read the InsideSources report here.
Energy
McConnell Urges States to Defy U.S. Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas
NEW YORK TIMES
Coral Davenport
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority leader, is urging governors to defy President Obama by refusing to implement the administration’s global warming regulations. In an op-ed article published Wednesday in The Lexington Herald-Leader with the headline, “States should reject Obama mandate for clean-power regulations,” Mr. McConnell wrote: “The Obama administration’s so-called ‘clean power’ regulation seeks to shut down more of America’s power generation under the guise of protecting the climate.” He added, “Don’t be complicit in the administration’s attack on the middle class.”
The EPA’s not-so-green emissions plan
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The Environmental Protection Agency is mandating cuts in the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. But dozens of environmental scientists from Princeton to Baton Rouge to Berkeley warned last month that the way the agency is writing the rules threatens to sharply increase forest clearing, undermining the EPA effort. The culprit is a familiar obstacle to good policymaking in Washington: bioenergy.
The Political Assault on Climate Skeptics
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Richard S. Lindzen
Where all this will lead is still hard to tell. At least Mr. Grijalva’s letters should help clarify for many the essentially political nature of the alarms over the climate, and the damage it is doing to science, the environment and the well-being of the world’s poorest.
EPA chief: ‘Climate change is not a religion’
WASHINGTON TIMES
Ben Wolfgang
President Obama is guided solely by science when it comes to fighting global warming, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy told a Senate panel Wednesday, rejecting claims the administration is doing the bidding of left-wing environmental groups and urging Congress to approve a 6 percent budget increase to help fund the agency’s ambitious climate change agenda. … “Climate change is real. It is happening. It is a threat. Humans are causing the majority of that threat … the impacts are already being felt,” she said. “Climate change is not a religion. It is not a belief system. It’s a science fact. And our challenge is to move forward with the actions we need to protect future generations.”
Technology
The CEOs Behind the Obamanet
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Last week, before the FCC decision, [Tumblr CEO] Karp appeared on CNBC to promote the cause. That didn’t turn out too well. In a few awkward minutes the executive confessed that he didn’t “entirely understand” the Internet-service market and that it was not his “area of expertise.” We doubt that’s what he told the President at that fundraiser. The point here is not to make fun of Mr. Karp, who was talking what he thinks is his book. The episode underlines that the process of enacting the new FCC rule has been the antithesis of the independent and open deliberation for which expert agencies were created.
Netflix Exec Says It Didn’t Actually Want FCC to Regulate Broadband So Heavily
VARIETY
Todd Spangler
Netflix CFO David Wells, in comments at an industry conference, said the company’s preference was that broadband Internet service should not be regulated by the U.S. government as a telecommunications utility — appearing to backtrack on Netflix’s previous stance on the issue, although the company later said that its position remained unchanged.
GOP pursues Dems on net neutrality bill
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Kate Tummarello
As Republicans push forward with net neutrality legislation to replace what they see as the FCC’s heavy-handed rules, they’re intensifying efforts to court moderate Democrats who could add bipartisan momentum to a bill.
How New U.S. Net Neutrality Rules Are Shaping the Internet Worldwide
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Kaveh Waddell
New U.S. net neutrality rules are affecting Internet governance worldwide, reshaping the debate over Internet regulations as some major world powers near fork-in-the-road decisions about how they’ll govern their own stretch of cyberspace. But while there’s consensus that the U.S. decision will have impacts on Internet freedom worldwide, there’s sharp disagreement over whether the new rules will help or hurt.
Finance
Washington Strips New York Fed’s Power
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Jon Hilsenrath
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, once the most feared banking regulator on Wall Street, has lost power in a behind-the-scenes reorganization at the nation’s central bank. The Fed’s center of regulatory authority is now a little-known committee run by Fed governor Daniel Tarullo , which is calling the shots in oversight of banking titans such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. The new structure was enshrined in a previously undisclosed paper written in 2010 known as the Triangle Document.
Sen. Richard Shelby eyes Fed reforms
THE HILL
Kevin Cirilli
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) doesn’t want to the audit the Federal Reserve, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t eying legislation to reform the central bank. Shelby told The Hill in an interview Wednesday that he’s “holding hearings to determine where legislation is needed.”
Fed worries over Warren – 2009 edition
POLITICO
Jen Liberto
Federal Reserve officials were worried about Elizabeth Warren back before most Americans knew who she was. In early 2009 Warren had just taken the helm of a watchdog panel appointed by Congress to monitor bailouts. And one Fed official worried aloud that she might investigate the fall-out of a program aimed at shoring up the credit markets, according to a transcript of a Fed conference call held on Feb. 7, 2009 released today by the central bank.
In Eye of Economic Storm, the Fed Blinked
NEW YORK TIMES
Binyamin Appelbaum
Transcripts the Fed released on Wednesday of its 2009 policy meetings show that Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues had a relatively clear understanding of the depth of the nation’s economic problems. But they were hobbled by doubts about the Fed’s ability to do more and by concerns about the potential political and economic consequences.
Payday lenders brace for federal crackdown
THE HILL
Lydia Wheeler
Payday lenders are pushing back against forthcoming rules for quick-cash loans, contending that a federal crackdown on the much-maligned industry would also harm consumers. The regulations, a top priority for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are expected to be unveiled as soon as this month. Though the agency has not revealed the scope of the proposal, observers say it is likely to target short-term loans, including those requiring a borrower’s car title as collateral.
Fate of Obama’s Trade Agenda May Rest on Oregon Senator
NEW YORK TIMES
Jonathan Weisman
Mr. Obama’s ambitious trade agenda — once seen as the best chance for bipartisan accomplishment in an otherwise rived Congress — appears to rest on the narrow, somewhat wobbly shoulders of Mr. Wyden, a position acknowledged by both parties and the White House with some trepidation. “I’m not going to offer some self-promotional comment,” Mr. Wyden said, happy to be in the spotlight but shuffling nervously in the glare on his tall, thin frame. “But as the ranking Democrat, what I’ve tried to do is work closely with all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to put in place what I call ‘trade done right.’”
Politics
At Least One Justice Is in Play as Supreme Court Hears Affordable Care Act Case
NEW YORK TIMES
Adam Liptak
In a pleasant surprise for the administration, however, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who was in dissent in 2012, made several comments indicating that his vote was in play. “Perhaps you will prevail in the plain words of the statute,” he told a lawyer for the challengers. But, he continued, “there’s a serious constitutional problem if we adopt your argument.”
Federalism and ObamaCare
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Liberals are invoking faux federalism at this late hour to appeal to Justice Kennedy’s separation-of-powers instincts and persuade the Court to sanction both federal and state subsidies under a doctrine known as “constitutional avoidance.” That means the courts abstain from interpreting statutes in ways the produce unconstitutional results. But they cannot use this doctrine to rewrite laws in which the statutory language is as clear and consistent as the Affordable Care Act on the distinction between federal and state exchanges. The Supreme Court has already rewritten ObamaCare once in order to save it. If the Justices really want to vindicate federalism, they should uphold the law as written and force Congress to confront the consequences of its reckless legislating.
Rein in the IRS
WASHINGTON POST
George Will
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether the IRS’s lawlessness has extended to its role in implementing the Affordable Care Act. The act says that federal subsidies shall be distributed by the IRS to persons who buy insurance through exchanges “established by the State.” The act’s logic and legislative history, as well as a forceful statement by one of its architects, professor Jonathan Gruber of MIT, demonstrate that this clear language was written to “squeeze” — Gruber’s word — the states into establishing exchanges. But when 34 states did not establish them, the IRS began disbursing billions of dollars through federal exchanges. The court probably will rule that the IRS acted contrary to law. If so, the IRS certainly will not have acted contrary to its pattern of corruption in the service of the current administration.
Likely 2016 GOP hopefuls recast immigration views
THE HILL
Jonathan Easley
Prospective Republican presidential hopefuls are going to great lengths to recast their immigration pasts. Many, like Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, are fully repenting on their past support for plans to grant legal status to illegal immigrants.
Democrats in Congress Give Obama Breathing Room on Nuclear Talks With Iran
NEW YORK TIMES
Julie Hirschfeld Davis
In a reprieve for President Obama, Democrats in Congress who support legislation that gives Congress the authority to review his emerging nuclear deal with Iran pledged Wednesday to wait to press their case until after a March 24 negotiating deadline between the two nations.
Chris Van Hollen to run for open Mikulski seat
POLITICO
Kyle Cheney
Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen on Wednesday became the first formal Democratic entrant in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski.
