Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.

Energy

A Mystifying Obama Climate Slap at a U.S. Ally
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Greg Sheridan
How on earth could the White House think that blindsiding Mr. Abbott is a good idea? If the Obama White House cannot be bothered to manage the relationship with a close ally like Australia, how can it deal with the world’s real difficulties? As some congressional Democrats recently learned, the only thing fraught with more danger than being Mr. Obama’s enemy is being his friend.

 

Business boiled over EPA’s water rule
THE HILL
Timothy Cama
Business groups are joining with local government representatives and conservative lawmakers to criticize the Environmental Protection Agency’s water jurisdiction proposal, imploring the Obama administration to rescind it. Opponents of the proposed rule say the EPA’s effort to redefine its authority over creeks, ponds and wetlands is written so broadly that it could put millions of new miles of rivers and streams under federal control, along with ditches, puddles and dry creek beds. Such a change would be a major impediment to commerce, as businesses could suddenly need permits for all manner of routine activities like building fences or digging ditches, they charge.

 

Keystone stuck at 59 votes
THE HILL
Laura Barron-Lopez
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and other supporters of the Keystone XL oil pipeline are stuck at 59 votes — one vote shy of the supermajority they need to move their bill forward on Tuesday. Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said Monday that they would vote against moving forward with the legislation, making it unclear whether supporters had a path to the magic number of 60.

 

Keystone’s just another pipeline
USA TODAY
Editorial
Keystone is not an existential issue. It’s a 1,179-mile oil pipeline in a nation already crisscrossed by more than 150,000 miles of such pipelines. It’s long past time to say yes.

 

The greening of Barack Obama
POLITICO
Darren Samuelsohn
During his earlier years in office, Obama never pushed the environment to the forefront of the national agenda. The economy took precedence. Then health care. At one point, toward the end of Obama’s first term, environmentalists counted the months between presidential uses of the term “climate change.” But now, Obama is aiming to make global reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions one of the signature achievements of his presidency — with his “historic agreement” with China last week just the start of a series of administrative actions aimed at combating climate change.

 

The US hasn’t produced this much oil since 1986
VOX
Brad Plumer
The US is now producing more crude oil than at any point since 1986, according to new data from the Energy Information Administration. That amount stood at 8.6 million barrels per day in August 2014.

 

Coal Rush in India Could Tip Balance on Climate Change
NEW YORK TIMES
Gardiner Harris
India’s coal mining plans may represent the biggest obstacle to a global climate pact to be negotiated at a conference in Paris next year. While the United States and China announced a landmark agreement that includes new targets for carbon emissions, and Europe has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent, India, the world’s third-largest emitter, has shown no appetite for such a pledge.

 

 

Technology

NSA Reform That Only ISIS Could Love
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Michael V. Hayden and Michael B. Mukasey
There is no immediate or emergency need for this piece of legislation. Current surveillance authorities do not expire at the end of this year, which is fortunate given the current threats we face at home and abroad. The USA Freedom Act should await the attention of the Congress that will actually oversee it. A change to national-security procedures is not something to be rushed through in a lame-duck session.

 

A Crucial Vote on the Surveillance Bill
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
The Republican Party is so badly fractured that it is impossible to tell what steps it will take on domestic surveillance once it assumes control of Congress in January. Its rising libertarian wing wants to crack down on abuses of Americans’ privacy, but many of its leaders express full support for any action the intelligence agencies want to take. That’s why it’s important that the Senate break a filibuster on the USA Freedom Act, which would reduce or end the bulk collection of telephone records, in a vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

 

The Senate should approve a bipartisan proposal to reform the NSA
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
THE SENATE is set to vote Tuesday on the USA Freedom Act, the most promising National Security Agency reform proposal before Congress. Neither national security hawks nor civil libertarians get everything they want from the legislation, which means it could fail to get the 60 votes it needs to advance, or it could get pulled too far in one direction or another during an open amendment process after that. Either road to demise would be unfortunate: The bill deserves to be approved, reconciled with a House-approved version and sent to President Obama.

 

Net neutrality puts lens on W.H., FCC ties
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Alex Byers and Brooks Boliek
President Barack Obama’s push for strong net neutrality rules is shining a spotlight on the FCC’s decision-making process and the extent of the independent agency’s immunity to White House pressure.

 

Net neutrality playing differently from coast to coast
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Tony Romm
Around the country’s tech capital, the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Yelp have almost nothing to say after President Barack Obama last week endorsed strong net neutrality rules that would treat broadband as a utility. Even net neutrality supporters, who quickly celebrated the White House’s new endorsement, have been inclined to roll their eyes at the bitter partisan saber rattling that has once again gripped their counterparts on the opposite coast.

 

A backdoor tax on the Internet
WASHINGTON TIMES
Ed Feulner
So let’s see: We’d pay more — for less. Sounds like a government plan, all right. Here’s a better idea: Leave “net neutrality” junked on the shoulder of the information superhighway instead.

 

Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker voices support for net neutrality principles
WASHINGTON POST
Nancy Scola
“I think that what was really important were the principles that the president put out,” said the secretary. “As you know, the president has supported net neutrality since he was a candidate in 2008. And really what we’re focused on, and what has been our role, we have had a seat at the table in terms of making sure that these principles were well-articulated, which is really no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization, and increased transparency throughout the connectivity that goes into the effectiveness of the Internet.”

 

Kentucky vs. Comcast
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Shalini Ramachandran
Local governments have the ability to approve or deny the transfer of a cable company, if that is stipulated in the “franchise” agreement between the parties. In about half of U.S. states, state-level bodies have that power, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But in other states, including Kentucky, city governments get the final say. Tensions between cities and cable companies have a rich history. Cable companies are ripe political targets and local politicians have long used cable transactions as vehicles to negotiate improvements on service.

 

 

Finance

The Fed Needs Governors Who Aren’t Wall Street Insiders
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin
We joined the Senate Banking Committee to try to make the banking system work better for American families. That’s why we’re concerned that the Federal Reserve—our first line of defense against another financial crisis—seems more worried about protecting Wall Street than protecting Main Street. Fortunately, this is one problem the Obama administration can start fixing today by nominating the right people to fill the two vacancies on the Fed’s Board of Governors.

 

Jack Lew, Irish Hero
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Ireland-based drug company Actavis on Monday announced a $66 billion agreement to buy California’s Allergan, maker of the Botox anti-wrinkle treatment. News of the cash-and-stock transaction triggered a rally that made the shares of both companies look prettier. But the deal highlights how desperately U.S. tax policy needs a makeover.

 

Federal Housing Administration in the Black for First Time Since 2011
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Joe Light
The Federal Housing Administration is projected to be in the black for the first time since 2011. But the FHA’s independent annual audit also found the pace of recovery remains slow, potentially complicating the agency’s efforts to help strengthen the housing recovery.

 

Small Towns Go to Bat for Wall Street Banks
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Deborah Solomon and Ryan Tracy
A Federal Reserve plan that could stop big banks from owning oil pipelines, metals warehouses and other physical-commodity assets is sounding alarm bells hundreds of miles from Wall Street. Small-town officials from Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina and other states are warning of unintended consequences from the Fed’s proposal, telling lawmakers and regulators it could prevent municipalities from delivering natural gas to tens of thousands of customers.

 

U.S. Mobile Payments Market to Boom by 2019, Research Firm Says
NEW YORK TIMES
Mike Isaac
Mobile-based payments in the United States are expected to reach $142 billion in volume in 2019, according to a report from the research firm Forrester, from about $50 billion currently. In the study, which will be released on Monday morning, the firm spoke to a dozen payments industry companies, including PayPal, Verifone and Visa. They indicated that the shift to mobile commerce was growing quickly.

 

Mega-Mergers Popular Again on Wall Street
NEW YORK TIMES
David Gelles
“The fact that we’re getting all these deals suggests that C.E.O.s are feeling pretty good about things,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It reflects the economy, and it also portends better times ahead. Deals don’t get done unless people feel pretty good about the future.”

 

Justice Department Is Weighing Civil Suit Against Angelo Mozilo
NEW YORK TIMES
Matthew Goldstein
Federal prosecutors are wrestling with whether to file a civil fraud lawsuit against Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, which was at the center of the subprime mortgage boom and bust, people briefed on the matter say.

 

 

Politics

Obama in Winter
NEW YORK TIMES
David Brooks
Whatever it is, it’s been a long journey from the Iowa caucuses in early 2008 to the pre-emptive obstruction of today. I wonder if, post-presidency, Mr. Obama will look back and regret that he got sucked into the very emotional maelstrom he set out to destroy.

 

For Obama, Executive Order on Immigration Would Be Turnabout
NEW YORK TIMES
Michael D. Shear
President Obama is poised to ignore stark warnings that executive action on immigration would amount to “violating our laws” and would be “very difficult to defend legally.” Those warnings came not from Republican lawmakers but from Mr. Obama himself.

 

In Mr. Obama’s own words, acting alone is ‘not how our democracy functions’
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
Mr. Obama may find a constitutional way to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws. But in his frustration with democracy, he is likely to prove his point: Unilateralism will not make the system work.

 

GOP seeks creative ways to avert a shutdown
POLITICO
Jake Sherman and Manu Raju
Republican leaders have intensified their planning to prevent a government funding showdown, weighing legislative options that would redirect GOP anger at Barack Obama’s expected action on immigration and stave off a political disaster, according to sources involved with the sessions.

 

Health Care Law Recasts Insurers as Obama Allies
NEW YORK TIMES
Robert Pear
As Americans shop in the health insurance marketplace for a second year, President Obama is depending more than ever on the insurance companies that five years ago he accused of padding profits and canceling coverage for the sick. Those same insurers have long viewed government as an unreliable business partner that imposed taxes, fees and countless regulations and had the power to cut payment rates and cap profit margins. But since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in their Medicaid enrollment.

 

Purity politics, Democrat-style
WASHINGTON POST
Dana Milbank
I’ve heard this argument before, coming from tea party activists who said that they would rather have a smaller but reliably conservative caucus than a large majority full of RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — who aren’t reliable votes. The emerging purists on the left aren’t nearly as strong as the tea party was (and they won’t be, as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House), but it’s noteworthy that Democrats are becoming more willing to purge those who aren’t ideologically pure.