Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
Plunging Oil Prices Set Off a Global Chess Game
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Norm Ornstein
All of America’s international relationships are affected by this remarkable change in oil prices, in complicated and interrelated ways. For Secretary of State John Kerry—already facing the challenges of crisis in Syria and Iraq over ISIS, the strains in Afghanistan as it faces the departure of American forces while the Taliban ratchets up its activities, the complicated negotiations with Iran, and the deeply strained relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government—it means he and his team will have to spend a lot of time figuring out moves in a multidimensional chess game, how to exploit these developments while keeping them from becoming a new set of major headaches or worse. All this as a newly empowered Republican Senate and a feisty Republican House will be demanding that he spend more and more of his time testifying about both the administration’s policy choices and things like Benghazi. My nominee for the toughest job in Washington: John Kerry, by a country mile.
GOP-Controlled Senate Expected to Oppose Obama Energy Policies
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Amy Harder
Next year’s GOP-controlled Senate is expected to come out strongly against President Barack Obama ’s most consequential energy and environment policies, with the likely majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, vowing to hold votes on the Keystone XL pipeline and legislation to pare back the administration’s proposed carbon emissions rules.
Obama: The Oil-and-Gas Boom Is Awesome. But Stop Bugging Me About Keystone.
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Ben Geman
Obama got a question during his Wednesday presser about a bill that ascendant Republicans plan to send him on approving the Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline. Obama didn’t say point blank whether he’d reject the bill, instead saying he would let the “process play out” with the ongoing State Department review. He added that his parameters for evaluating the project are whether it would be good for U.S. pocketbooks, would really create jobs, and would not worsen climate change. And then he started his push to change the conversation.
McConnell: Senate will use ‘purse’ to rein in EPA
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Alex Guillén
“I think it’s reasonable to assume that we will use the power of the purse to try to push back against this overactive bureaucracy,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters Wednesday at a news conference in Louisville, Ky.
Split Decision by Voters on Local Fracking Bans
NEW YORK TIMES
Clifford Krauss
The small city of Denton, Tex., voted to ban hydraulic fracturing in Tuesday’s election after a hard-fought battle between environmentalists and local oil companies in the heart of natural gas country. But nationwide, local initiatives to ban or restrict the oil and gas production process lost as many elections as were won. Voters in Youngstown, Ohio, a Rust Belt city sitting atop vast deposits of natural gas, sent a proposed ban to a landslide defeat.
Tom Steyer Claims Success In Very Expensive Effort To Make Climate Change A ‘Wedge Issue’
HUFFINGTON POST
Kate Sheppard
“I think it was money incredibly well spent. The fact of the matter is, we think this is the big issue facing the United States and the world,” said Steyer in an interview Tuesday, hours after Republicans routed Democrats in midterm elections around the country. “I am not regretting a dime.”
Technology
With its new majority, the GOP turns to redefining how you watch TV, get online and call mom
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
If you thought net neutrality was a big fight, you haven’t seen anything yet. Net neutrality is largely about a single policy being developed by the Federal Communications Commission, an independent agency. What Republicans want to do now is take aim at the law that created the FCC in the first place, along with all of its powers. It’s an ambitious project that could have far-reaching consequences, shaping the next two decades of tech policy. And you’re going to start hearing a lot more about it in the next Congress. Here’s everything you need to know about it, right now.
7 Colorado communities just secured the right to build their own broadband
WASHINGTON POST
Nancy Scola
Voters in seven cities and counties in Colorado voted Tuesday to free their local governments to offer Internet service. The votes marked a defeat for big, traditional Internet service providers such as Comcast that have successfully maneuvered to inject limits on municipal broadband into state regulations over the last decade. Now cities are figuring out ways to push back, including wiggling out from under laws the industry helped put in place.
Finance
Wall Street has a good election
POLITICO
MJ Lee
The industry is hopeful that these members can help keep a check on what Wall Street critics can achieve — diminishing the viability of proposals aimed at shrinking or reigning in big banks, for instance. The broader business community is also eager to see an emboldened GOP establishment better withstand pressure from tea party members on market-moving issues like funding the government and raising the debt ceiling. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who heads the Financial Services Roundtable lobbying group, said the financial services industry is eager to work with lawmakers of “depth” and “substance” in the new Congress.
Supreme Court Objects to Application of Sarbanes-Oxley on Commercial Fisherman
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Brent Kendall
The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to throw federal prosecutors overboard for applying the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance law to a commercial-fisherman accused of destroying evidence that he harvested undersized fish. “He could have gotten 20 years!” Justice Antonin Scalia said of the maximum jail term the fisherman faced for tossing undersized red grouper off his boat. “What kind of a sensible prosecution is that?”
GOP Senate Takeover Puts Fed on Hot Seat
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Victoria McGrane
Financial executives say a GOP-led Senate would ratchet up congressional scrutiny of the central bank’s interest-rate policies, as well as its regulatory duties as overseer of the nation’s largest financial firms. Republicans haven’t controlled the Senate since before the 2008 financial crisis and recession, which put a spotlight on the Fed and its powers.
Fed Completes Rule Limiting Banks’ Size
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Scott Patterson and Victoria McGrane
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday finalized a rule, mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law, that generally prohibits banks and other financial firms from buying or merging with rivals if the deal would result in the combined firm holding more than 10% of all liabilities in the financial system.
Regulator Wants Greater Use of Bank Monitors
WALL STREET JOURNAL
James Sterngold
New York state’s top financial regulator plans to expand his scrutiny of banks and other firms using a tool previously reserved for companies that were in legal trouble. Benjamin Lawsky , New York’s superintendent of financial services, said he is looking to expand the use of independent monitors at firms as a way to prevent bad behavior. Such compliance specialists are in place as part of settlements of legal cases covering issues as varied as allegations of U.S. sanctions violations and mortgage-servicing abuses.
Politics
Now We Can Get Congress Going
WALL STREET JOURNAL
John Boehner and Mitch McConnell
Americans have entrusted Republicans with control of both the House and Senate. We are humbled by this opportunity to help struggling middle-class Americans who are clearly frustrated by an increasing lack of opportunity, the stagnation of wages, and a government that seems incapable of performing even basic tasks. Looking ahead to the next Congress, we will honor the voters’ trust by focusing, first, on jobs and the economy. Among other things, that means a renewed effort to debate and vote on the many bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support, but were never even brought to a vote by the Democratic Senate majority. It also means renewing our commitment to repeal ObamaCare, which is hurting the job market along with Americans’ health care.
The first steps Republicans should take
WASHINGTON POST
George Will
Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. … Repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board. … Repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax on medical devices. … Improve energy, economic and environmental conditions by authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. … Mandate completion of the nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. … Pass the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act.
GOP crafts narrow agenda for new Congress, seeking unity, Democratic votes
WASHINGTON POST
Lori Montgomery and Robert Costa
First up: Action on long-stalled bills with bipartisan support, including measures to repeal an unpopular tax on medical devices and approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. After that: Pass a budget through both chambers of Congress for the first time since 2009, followed by the full array of government-funding bills. “There will be no government shutdowns,” said McConnell, who will soon become majority leader. Finally: Aim for the big score. Not repealing President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, though the conservative campaign to undermine the law will proceed in the background. Instead, Republicans dangled the prospect of fast-track trade agreements and sweeping tax reform as potential areas of agreement during Obama’s waning days in office.
A Growth and Reform Congress
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Republicans could start by no longer saying they must now “govern.” They can’t govern from Capitol Hill as long as Mr. Obama has the veto pen. Newt Gingrich learned that lesson in 1995, and Republicans shouldn’t promise Americans more than they can deliver. What they can do is demonstrate that they have a reform and growth agenda—some of which Democrats in Congress might support and Mr. Obama might accept. The hard part will be deciding what Republicans can unite around to put on Mr. Obama’s desk that is good policy and smart politics.
Obama should give Republicans time to make good on their promises
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
In the meantime, the president can pursue deals on trade, taxes, infrastructure and other policies on which there is authentic potential for agreement. The right response to the Republicans’ election victory is not a poke in the eye.
Obama seems numb to this latest ‘shellacking’ of Democrats
WASHINGTON POST
Dana Milbank
Yet when Obama fielded questions for an hour Wednesday afternoon, he spoke as if Tuesday had been but a minor irritation. He announced no changes in staff or policy, acknowledged no fault or error and expressed no contrition or regret. Though he had called Democrats’ 2010 losses a “shellacking,” he declined even to label Tuesday’s results. Obama declared that he would continue with plans for executive orders to expand legal status to undocumented immigrants — even though, minutes before Obama’s news conference, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that would be “like waving a red flag in front of a bull.” Obama repeated a familiar list of priorities — a minimum-wage hike, infrastructure and education spending, climate-change action — and brushed off various Republican proposals.
The Midterms Were Not a Revolution
NEW YORK TIMES
Frank Luntz
ON election night 1994, as Republicans recaptured the House for the first time in 40 years, I stood in the audience and watched my client Newt Gingrich, who would soon become speaker of the House, declare the beginning of the “Republican revolution.” I knew immediately that the smartest man I had ever worked for was making the worst rhetorical blunder of his career. Nobody voted Republican to start a revolution. They did so because they were fed up with a Democratic president overreaching on health care and a government seemingly incapable of doing even the smallest thing effectively. We all know what happened when Mr. Gingrich tried to turn his rhetoric into action.
In Red and Blue States, Good Ideas Prevail
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
The Democratic brand did not fare well, to put it mildly, in congressional and governors’ races on Tuesday. Most were contests of political blame, driven by ideological hatred for President Obama. But when the ballot offered a choice on an actual policy, rather than between candidates with a D or R next to their names, voters made notably liberal decisions in both red and blue states.
Vindication in the States
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
When the final votes are counted, Republicans likely increased their control of the 98 state legislative chambers to 67 from 59, which means they will run outright both the legislatures and governorships in 24 states. Democrats hold six. A reform moment is building and picking up converts, which means U.S. economic revival will be nurtured in the states, if not in Washington.
With Statehouse Victories, Republicans Are Poised to Enact Changes
NEW YORK TIMES
Adam Nagourney and Monica Davey
Republicans posted sweeping gains in state houses across the nation on Tuesday, taking control of the most state legislatures in nearly 100 years and approaching a record number of governors’ seats — a critical development at a time when most major policy has been coming out of states, rather than Washington.
Midterm disaster rips apart awkward ties between Obama and Senate Democrats
WASHINGTON POST
Paul Kane
Less than two months after their most joyous moment together, the relationship between the Obama White House and Senate Democrats went off track and has never recovered. Instead of basking in the victory glow of President Obama’s impressive 2012 reelection and an improbable two-seat gain for Democrats, they found themselves at the edge of the now infamous “fiscal cliff.”
What the GOP must do to win in 2016
WASHINGTON POST
Ari Fleischer
As the primary proceeds, the candidates need to keep their eyes on the prize. A conservative ideology will be a winning ideology if it’s presented in a manner that unifies and uplifts. Competition is healthy in all things, and that includes presidential politics. There is nothing wrong with a good ideological battle to vet and settle intra-party differences. But if Republicans engage in that fight in a manner that alienates large portions of a general electorate that will be out in full force in 2016, this week’s victory is sure to be fleeting. It’s good to block Obama. It’s better to lead America in a new direction.
