Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
Energy group: Midterm voters dislike EPA climate rule
THE HILL
Tim Devaney
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) climate rule is particularly unpopular in heavy coal production states that would be hit the hardest, a new industry-backed study finds. The poll from the Partnership for a Better Energy Future (PBEF) released Wednesday finds that more than half of voters around the country would not be willing to pay even $1 more in monthly household energy costs because of the climate rule. In fact, 40 percent would be less likely to vote for candidates who support the climate rule, according to the poll.
Fracking Companies Become Victims of Their Own Success
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Erin Ailworth
Natural gas in the Marcellus traded as low as $1.44 per million British thermal units in recent days, less than half the U.S. benchmark price, which has hovered around $4. The discount is good for manufacturers and consumers around Pennsylvania but is hurting producers.
Grid as a cautionary tale for cyber regs
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
David Perera
But for one sector of U.S. critical infrastructure — the bulk electric power system — federal regulation of cybersecurity is already a reality. It’s an example that has left few industries clamoring for a similar approach.
Technology
Google’s Campaign Spending Is Exploding, But Is It All Going to Democrats?
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Laura Ryan
But though Google’s top brass has ties to President Obama’s White House and the company has a reputation for leaning left, the tech giant’s campaign spending isn’t all heading to the left. In fact, Google’s aggregate giving is split practically evenly between Republicans and Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. But Google’s PAC spending is more evenly distributed than the overall breakdown of PAC giving, which is split 55-45 percent in favor of Republicans. Google’s top five candidate recipients are also all Democrats, but that ranking takes into account individual donations in addition to the PAC’s giving.
Why You Can’t Trust You’re Getting the Best Deal Online
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Elizabeth Dwoskin
A new study of top e-commerce websites found these practices—called discriminatory pricing or price steering—are much more widespread than was previously understood. The study, by a team of computer scientists at Northeastern University, tracked searches on 16 popular e-commerce sites. Six of those sites used the pricing techniques; none of the sites alerted consumers to that fact.
IBM’s big blues
WASHINGTON POST
Harold Mayerson
Not every company that has subordinated expansion and investment to shareholder payouts has suffered the fate of IBM, of course — and IBM itself remains big enough to fund more productive investments, especially since it has now abandoned Palmisano’s pledge. But its tale is nonetheless emblematic of a sad national story: how a nation that once made the world’s smartest machines opted instead to try to make the world’s smartest deals — many of which turned out to be abysmally dumb.
Finance
The Fed at the Crossroads
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
It is crucial, however, for the Fed to keep rates low as long as inflation is in check. If rates are raised too soon, growth would be slowed before pay raises and adequate credit are restored to workers and consumers. If that happens, the Fed effort to rescue the economy would, in the end, only further entrench inequality.
In Turnabout, Former Regulators Assail Wall St. Watchdogs
NEW YORK TIMES
Jesse Eisinger
The conference turned into a free-for-all of high-powered and influential white-collar defense lawyers hammering regulators on how unfair they have been to their clients, some of America’s largest financial companies.
SEC to Keep Veil Open on ETFs
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Daisy Maxey
The asset-management industry suffered a setback when regulators rejected a proposal by BlackRock Inc. to launch an exchange-traded fund that would have kept its holdings hidden from investors. The product, known as a “nontransparent ETF,” is a key part of the industry’s attempt to broaden its customer base beyond traditional index-tracking investments by selling more funds that are actively managed.
U.S. Loosens Reins, but Mortgage Lenders Want More Slack
NEW YORK TIMES
Peter Eavis
The government, in recent days, has been giving one set of bankers nearly everything they want. In this case, the lucky lenders are mortgage bankers, who for months had pressed federal agencies to loosen regulations on the home loan market. The regulators, eager to increase the flow of housing credit, seemed happy to make the adjustments. Just this week, they relaxed agreements that help shield taxpayers from losses on bad mortgages, and they watered down a regulation that aimed to set safe standards for home loans.
Regulators to Give More Guidance on Leveraged Loans
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Gillian Tan and Ryan Tracy
U.S. regulators are preparing to offer more public guidance for banks that provide loans for private-equity deals, after officials and financiers have tussled for months over acceptable practices. The Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. plan to publish a list of frequently asked questions about their guidance governing so-called leveraged loans, according to people familiar with the plans. The document could be made public as soon as next week, one of the people said.
Exporters Fear Credit Crunch
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Michael R. Crittenden and Adam Janofsky
A decision by Congress to extend the Export-Import Bank only temporarily is raising concern among business owners who say they rely on the credit agency to lower the risks of exporting.
No Picket Fence: Younger Adults Opting to Rent
NEW YORK TIMES
Dionne Searcey
Since 2008, the year Lehman Brothers collapsed and home prices dropped precipitously, there has been a steady increase in the number of people ages 18 to 34 renting instead of buying homes. About 875,000 more households are now made up of young adult renters than would have existed if the 2008-era trend had held steady, according to an analysis of census data by Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia, a real estate marketing website.
Education Department to Expand Access to Student Loans
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Josh Mitchell
Parents with damaged credit histories will gain greater access to federal student loans to help cover their children’s undergraduate costs under a plan finalized Wednesday by the Obama administration.
Low Inflation, Flatter COLA: Social Security Benefits to Get 1.7% Bump
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Eric Morath and Josh Mitchell
Tens of millions of elderly and disabled Americans will see a small bump in their government payments next year, another reflection of a sluggish economic recovery that has kept inflation low. The Social Security Administration on Wednesday announced a 1.7% annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for the nearly 64 million Americans who receive federal retirement or disability benefits.
Politics
What Women Want
NEW YORK TIMES
Gail Collins
Women are big this election season. No group is more courted. It’s great! The issues are important. Plus, we all enjoy the occasional pander.
Are Democrats Losing Their Touch With Women?
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Lauren Fox
The latest public polls in Arkansas, Colorado, and Kentucky reveal Democrats are on the verge of losing hotly contested Senate races with less than two weeks to go. And despite Democrats spending significant time back in Washington focused on issues like the Paycheck Fairness Act and a minimum-wage pitch carefully tailored to women—part of their strategy to paint Republicans as too extreme—all three Democratic Senate candidates in those states are either tied with or lagging behind their Republican challengers among women. In Kentucky, 35-year-old Alison Lundergan Grimes, once considered the Democrats’ best hope for unseating three-decade Republican incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell, is in a statistical dead heat with McConnell among the state’s female electorate.
Restoration of Senate’s dignity rides on Mitch McConnell
WASHINGTON POST
George Will
Beneath McConnell’s chilly exterior burns indignation about the degradation of the institution to which he has devoted much of his life. The repair of it, in the form of robust committee and amendment processes — and an extended workweek — will benefit Democratic members, too. Kentucky’s Senate election is 2014’s most important, for a reason rich in irony: Although Grimes considers McConnell the architect of gridlock, electing her to inevitably docile membership in Reid’s lockstep ranks would perpetuate this. But a reelected McConnell, with a Republican majority, would, he says, emulate his model of majority leadership — the 16 years under a Democrat, Montana’s Mike Mansfield. He, like McConnell, had a low emotional metabolism but a subtle sense of the Senate’s singular role in the nation’s constitutional equilibrium.
Economic anxiety dominates 2014
POLITICO
Ben White
In over a dozen interviews in Georgia and neighboring North Carolina, where incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan is struggling to hang onto her seat, undecided voters spoke of their disgust with Washington gridlock and their frustration over stagnant wages, limited job prospects and general dismay over the direction of the country. For now, this grim outlook mostly hurts Democrats who are tethered to an unpopular president with dismal ratings on the economy. Tight races in Colorado, Alaska, North Carolina and elsewhere appear to be trending away from Democrats in large part because of this abiding malaise.
The GOP’s 2016 tech deficit
POLITICO
Darren Samuelsohn
“There is a massive talent gap,” said Wesley Donehue, a South Carolina-based GOP digital strategist. “Half those campaigns will have digital staff that don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They’ll end up with some dude who plays on Facebook all day, which somehow makes him a digital expert.” Added another well-placed Republican digital campaign operative: “I’d say there’s only 10 people who are capable of overseeing a team and fighting with all the other departments for budget.”
These midterm elections will be the most expensive ever. Easily.
VOX
Andrew Prokop
Total spending on this year’s Congressional elections will likely top $3.9 billion, according to a new projection from the invaluable Center for Responsive Politics. This would make 2014 the most expensive Congressional election cycle in history, easily topping the $3.6 billion spent in 2010 and 2012:
Will Democrats’ ground game save their Senate majority? We asked an expert.
WASHINGTON POST
Philip Bump
Is there a possibility that Udall can make up a four-point difference by getting more people to the polls? And can Democrats who are worried about similarly small deficits in a series of tight Senate races bank on the much-hyped Bannock Street Project being their ace in the hole? To answer that, we turned to Columbia University Prof. Donald P. Green, who, with his long-time collaborator Alan Gerber has studied and quite literally written books on turnout.
McCarthy lays out agenda for next Congress
POLITICO
Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that streamlining government agencies will be a central goal in the new Congress. In a memo sent to House Republicans Wednesday morning, McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that “restoring competence in government” will be a major focus of the GOP in the 114th Congress, which begins in January.
A Verdict on Blackwater
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
The verdict on Wednesday brings a measure of justice for the innocent victims and their families and offers some assurance that private contractors will not be allowed to operate with impunity in war zones. What it does not do is solve the problem of an American government that is still too dependent on private firms to supplement its military forces during overseas conflicts and is still unable to manage them effectively.
