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Energy

Senate Keystone debate to delve into climate, oil exports
POLITICO
Elana Schor
The Senate’s Monday vote to start the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline bill has opened the legislative floodgates for the new GOP Congress, with members on both sides of the aisle set to unleash a torrent of politically sensitive energy amendments on issues such as crude oil exports and climate change. The climate amendment, backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is designed to pin down senators’ views about the connection between humans’ greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is pushing the measure to end the four-decade-old ban on exporting U.S. oil, an effort that’s opposed by a majority of voters.

 

Bid to end oil export ban runs into pump politics
POLITICO
Andrew Restuccia
Proponent of ending the ban reject the notion that the move could cause a spike in gas prices. A spokesman for Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has urged President Barack Obama to kill the export ban, derided the gas price argument as “fear mongering” that was being perpetuated by a poll from a group that’s opposed to lifting the export restriction. Still, the Murkowski spokesman, Robert Dillon, said winning support for any effort to overturn the ban was “an ongoing process.” “You don’t want to throw legislation out there and have everybody panicked. You want them to be comfortable,” he said.

 

Moderate Republicans believe in climate change. There just aren’t many moderate Republicans.
WASHINGTON POST
Jaime Fuller
The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication debuted a new study on Monday detailing what different factions of the Republican Party think about climate change. Their conclusion? “Republican voters are actually split in their views about climate change. A look at public opinion among Republicans over the past few years finds a more complex — and divided — Republican electorate.”

 

How low can oil prices go? Welcome to the oil market’s old normal
WASHINGTON POST
Steven Mufson
How low could oil prices go? It’s anybody’s guess. The price of oil fell to its lowest level in five and a half years Monday, with both Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale lowering their projections.

 

Oil States’ Budgets Face Crude Awakening
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ana Campoy, Mark Peters and Erica E. Phillips
Energy-producing U.S. states are paring budget forecasts and planning spending cuts amid a plunge in prices that is testing their reliance on revenue from the oil patch. From Texas to North Dakota, states that benefited from a surge in domestic oil production in recent years are now bracing for reduced collections of extraction levies known as severance taxes and royalties as prices fall and companies cut back on drilling. In turn, income- and sales-tax growth could slow as producers cut jobs.

 

 

Technology

Obama calls for new cyberprotections
USA TODAY
David Jackson, Gregory Korte and Elizabeth Weise
The president asked Congress to pass a law requiring companies to inform customers within 30 days if their data have been hacked. Obama called for a law that would prohibit companies from selling student data to third parties or otherwise using information about students for profit. Citing recent high-profile hackings at Sony and other major companies, Obama said business owners should inform consumers as soon as possible when there has been a data breach. A federal standard would replace a “patchwork” of different state laws throughout the country, he said in proposing the Personal Data Notification and Protection Act.

 

Why Businesses Love Obama’s Push for Security Regulation
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Sasso
Business groups and Republicans are used to railing against President Obama’s calls for stronger regulation, warning that government mandates will only stifle economic growth. But they’re cheering a new data-security plan the president outlined Monday. … Companies are enthusiastic about the proposal because they already have to notify consumers about data breaches due to laws in 47 states plus the District of Columbia. The laws vary from state to state, so compliance can be a major headache for national chains like Target.

 

POLITICO Pro Q&A: FTC’s Ashkan Soltani
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Katy Bachman
Ashkan Soltani, an oft-quoted authority on privacy and data security, has been deeply involved in tech policy debates since 2009 — when he and other colleagues at UC Berkeley discovered a tracking technology consumers couldn’t disable. He went on to become a contributor to The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the NSA based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Now, as the FTC’s chief technologist, his opinions and observations will carry even more clout.

 

ISIS Is Cited in Hacking of Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube Accounts
NEW YORK TIMES
Helene Cooper
Hackers claiming to be working on behalf of the Sunni militant group known as the Islamic State took over the Twitter and YouTube accounts of the United States Central Command on Monday, sending out a series of posts far different from the American military’s standard fare. “In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the CyberCaliphate continues its CyberJihad,” one post on Twitter said. “American soldiers, we are coming, watch your back,” said another.

 

 

Finance

Facing Opposition, Nominee for Treasury Under Secretary Withdraws
NEW YORK TIMES
Jonathan Weisman
Antonio Weiss, a senior investment banker at Lazard, withdrew his name from consideration to be a senior Treasury Department official in the face of liberal opposition Monday, and will instead serve as a counselor to the secretary of the Treasury, Jacob J. Lew. … “Given his tremendous expertise and shared passion for helping working families, I asked Antonio to join Treasury in a different role — as a counselor to me — and he accepted,” Mr. Lew said in a statement Monday evening.

 

Congress Again Clashes Over Financial Regulation
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Michael R. Crittenden
The two parties are expected to again skirmish over the issue this week as the House takes up tweaks to the law that Democrats blocked last week. Democrats say they are just trying to ensure that Republicans don’t bundle significant Dodd-Frank repeal language into legislation that is billed as necessary changes. Republicans say Democrats are seeking political gain by unreasonably objecting to needed adjustments in the law.

 

Fee Cut, Lower Rates Could Boost Mortgage Refinancings
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Joe Light
Last week, President Barack Obama said the Federal Housing Administration would reduce its annual mortgage-insurance premiums beginning on Jan. 26. The move, combined with a decline in mortgage rates of almost a full percentage point since the beginning of 2014, could allow more than three million current FHA borrowers to save money by refinancing, according to Satish Mansukhani of BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research, though only a fraction of them likely would choose to refinance.

 

S.&P. Nears Settlement With Justice Dept. Over Inflated Ratings
NEW YORK TIMES
Ben Protess
On television and in the courtroom, Standard & Poor’s has waged war against a Justice Department lawsuit. But behind the scenes, the giant bond-rating agency wants nothing more than to buy peace. After S.&P. mounted a two-year campaign to defeat civil fraud charges — portraying them as retaliation for cutting the credit rating of the United States — the ratings agency is now negotiating with the Justice Department to settle the case, according to people briefed on the matter.

 

 

Politics

Romney moves to reassemble campaign team for ‘almost certain’ 2016 bid
WASHINGTON POST
Robert Costa, Philip Rucker and Karen Tumulty
Mitt Romney is moving quickly to reassemble his national political network, calling former aides, donors and other supporters over the weekend and on Monday in a concerted push to signal his seriousness about possibly launching a 2016 presidential campaign. … In the conversations, Romney said he is intent on running to the right of Bush, who also is working vigorously to court donors and other party establishment figures for a 2016 bid. Romney has tried to assure conservatives that he shares their views on immigration and tax policy — and that should he enter the race, he will not forsake party orthodoxy.

 

The selling of Mitt 3.0
POLITICO
Maggie Haberman and James Hohmann
Shortly after Election Day in 2012, a Mitt Romney supporter moaned to POLITICO about the failed GOP nominee’s performance: “We had no message, and we gave it to the worst communicator in the world.” Two years later, Romney is mulling another campaign for the White House, and this time, he says, things will be different.

 

Paul Ryan rules out presidential run
THE HILL
Cameron Joseph
“After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided not to run for president. Our work at the House Ways and Means Committee over the next few years will be crucial to moving America forward, and my job as Chairman deserves undivided attention,” the party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee said in a statement.  “It’s clear our country needs a change in direction. And our party has a responsibility to offer a real alternative. So I’m going to do what I can to lay out conservative solutions and to help our nominee lead us to victory,” he said.

 

Scott Walker and Right to Work
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Scott Walker is heading to Iowa this month as part of his consideration of a run for the White House, but in the meantime he’s starting a second term as Governor in which he presumably wants to accomplish something. So it’s unfortunate that he’s ducking a chance to make Wisconsin the country’s 25th right-to-work state.

 

Nominee for Attorney General Less an Activist Than Holder
NEW YORK TIMES
Matt Apuzzo
But while Ms. Lynch shares Mr. Holder’s views on issues such as the strained relations between the police and minorities, her friends and colleagues describe someone cautious and comfortable staying in the background who sees her role as that of a traditional prosecutor and not a civil rights advocate. Those differences are likely to become clear when confirmation hearings on her nomination begin in the Senate in the next few weeks.

 

French Disconnection
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
On Monday a reporter asked Mr. Earnest about a counterterrorism summit the White House is convening next month in the context of “the battle against Islamist extremism.” Mr. Earnest corrected that the conference would discuss “all forms of violent extremism,” the White House’s preferred euphemism. Like Mr. Obama’s Paris no-show, this reveals a startling and dangerous failure to be honest about radical Islam.

 

Louisiana’s Common Core Debacle
POLITICO
Kyle Spencer
Whether the 39-year-old [John] White can squash the rebellion in his own state is no small matter. It may well indicate whether other progressive reformers—less politically skilled than he—have any shot at salvaging the standards in their own states, and whether Louisiana and other low-performing states really have the stomach for widespread school reform after all.

 

Education Secretary Outlines Central Federal Role in Policy
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Caroline Porter and Siobhan Hughes
Annual testing, new prekindergarten options and more funding topped Mr. Duncan’s agenda during a speech at an elementary school in the District of Columbia. In addition, he said that President Barack Obama is aiming for an additional $2.7 billion in his budget for schools, including $1 billion for the nation’s most vulnerable schools. The 2015 federal budget allotted $23.3 billion for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which had a total appropriation of $67 billion.

 

Obama’s Dead-End Community College Plan
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Michelle R. Weise
Community college is great if it helps you get a bachelor’s degree, but only one in five students attending these institutions goes on to earn the degree within six years according to federal data. In addition, only 21% of first-time, full-time students earn an associate’s degree within three years, and tuition is not the main obstacle to the completion of a degree for low-income students.

 

The risks of the new dynamic scoring rule
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The rule’s practical impact may be small, limited to a few pet GOP bills that will be vetoed by President Obama anyway. But there would be reason to worry about “dynamic scoring” if it were to become the dominant method, even if it were done in good faith — without the cherry-picking of which the Democrats preemptively accuse the Republicans. The U.S. economy is so complex, and the assumptions that must be built into any model of its workings so inherently subject to educated guesswork, that it’s not clear that dynamic scoring actually would add precision to imprecise budget estimates. Conversely, to the extent analysts try to be cautious in their assumptions, the more they would simply replicate existing procedures.