Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
Little Green Machine
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Republicans are promising to push pro-fossil-fuel energy policy in Congress, including support for Keystone XL, fast-track approval for liquid natural-gas export terminals, opening more federal land and offshore areas to drilling, and reining in anti-coal regulations. Democrats who want to help create jobs, and perhaps save their own, may want to rethink their fealty to Tom Steyer’s checkbook.
Younger voters may make climate an issue in 2016
DES MOINES REGISTER
Donnelle Eller
The millions of dollars spent in Iowa and other states for candidates who support action on climate change had little effect on voters’ decisions Tuesday, experts say. “It’s not a huge priority for a lot of voters,” said Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. The question is whether environmental activists can make it a pivotal issue in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses in 2016.
White House not threatening veto of potential Keystone bill
POLITICO
Jennifer Epstein and Bob King
The White House declined to say Thursday whether President Barack Obama would veto legislation approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline. “We’ll consider any proposals that are passed by Congress,” press secretary Josh Earnest said at his daily briefing, just two days after the GOP’s sweep of the midterm elections gave the project supporters a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Republicans urged to reject wind tax credit in lame duck
FUEL FIX
Jennifer Dlouhy
More than 60 conservative groups are urging Republican leaders to hold firm against proposals to extend a wind energy tax credit. They are worried that wind industry leaders and their congressional allies, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will push to reauthorize the wind production tax credit before the end of the year, while Democrats are still in charge of the Senate.
Keystone foes relish showdown with new Congress
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Elana Schor
The environmentalists who spent years fighting the Keystone XL pipeline to a standstill are back in a familiar position: against the ropes, Washington abuzz with speculation about their imminent defeat.
Oil Price at $70 a Barrel Would Likely Trigger Cut in OPEC Output Ceiling
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Benoît Faucon, Summer Said and Mercedes Alvaro
OPEC would likely act to curtail the slide in oil prices once crude hits $70 a barrel, officials of the organization signaled Thursday. Some officials of the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries met informally this week, ahead of a full OPEC meeting on Nov. 27, facing the lowest oil prices in at least four years.
Technology
The Traveling GMO Roadshow
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Voters in Colorado and Oregon on Tuesday rejected ballot initiatives that would have required “produced with genetic engineering” labels on grocery store foods containing genetically modified ingredients, or GMOs. Score two for rational thinking, though fear-mongering about the agricultural innovation known as genetic modification will no doubt continue.
GOP results trigger Senate Commerce shakeup
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Tony Romm
With the arrival of the new GOP majority, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) is expected to assume the helm of the Commerce Committee. Under Thune’s leadership, the panel is guaranteed to pivot to longtime Republican priorities — from reexamining the nation’s guiding telecom law to scrutinizing the FCC and its controversial work on issues like net neutrality.
Republicans Want to Rewrite Tech Regulation—but They’ll Have to Make Peace With Net Neutrality First
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Sasso
With control of the Senate, top Republicans are going to work on an ambitious plan to overhaul government regulation of the Internet, television, and telephone industries. Their effort to rewrite the Communications Act could have broad implications for how we all communicate and consume information. But the whole plan could collapse amid partisan fighting over net neutrality.
FTC settles first case with alleged ‘patent troll’
THE HILL
Mario Trujillo
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday announced a settlement with a high-profile so-called “patent troll” that FTC officials say would prevent the company from making misleading claims and threatening lawsuits it has no intention of carrying out.
The tech community is abandoning ALEC
WASHINGTON POST
Nancy Scola
German software giant SAP has become the latest tech company to abandon the American Legislative Exchange Council, the 40-year old group known for quietly advancing business-centric, often conservative, bills through state legislatures.
Finance
Banks have become too complex to grasp
FINANCIAL TIMES (Subscribe)
Neil Collins
The top executives pretend they understand, but they do not. These institutions are simply too big and complex for the human brain to grasp, as chief executive Stuart Gulliver effectively admitted as he abandoned his cost efficiency target. At HSBC’s British rival, Standard Chartered, Peter Sands has found that even after seven years as CEO, he could not see what was coming in the eighth.
For Want of a Grouper
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
We knew the sprawling reach of Sarbanes-Oxley would eventually regulate untold corners of the Earth, but the law has now officially gone under water. This fiasco of government overreach is in the hands of the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments Wednesday about whether a fisherman can be prosecuted for “shredding” a fish in Yates v. U.S.
Chance for Tax Overhaul Is Seen in Shift of Power
NEW YORK TIMES
Jonathan Weisman
The president and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the presumptive next majority leader, immediately pointed to tax-code changes, international trade and budget policy as potential common ground for a divided government in Mr. Obama’s final two years in office. On Thursday, Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, listed a tax overhaul and the federal debt as the House’s top two priorities.
Fannie Mae Official Details Plans on Low-Down-Payment Mortgages
NEW YORK TIMES
Peter Eavis
On Thursday, the chief executive of Fannie Mae, the largest government mortgage entity, provided some crucial details on what the program would look like. In an interview, the executive, Timothy J. Mayopoulos, said that he expected Fannie’s low-down-payment mortgages to cost the borrower less than similar loans available under certain other government programs. But he also said that Fannie’s loans would require private mortgage insurance on top of the down payment, a stipulation that might, in theory, limit the size of the program.
Fannie, Freddie See Potential for Thaw in Mortgage Access
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Joe Light
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported sharply lower profits but still earned enough for a combined $6.8 billion payment to the U.S. Treasury, as the mortgage-finance companies also cited the potential for a thaw in home-loan access. Both companies said the decline in net earnings doesn’t signal problems with their underlying businesses.
The S.E.C. Should Copy the D.M.V.
NEW YORK TIMES
Joseph S. Fichera
Financial penalties alone will never achieve regulatory goals, but neither will harsh and arbitrary punishment. A point system is a time-tested and well understood tool. It would make Wall Street focus on its driving record instead of merely paying off the next traffic ticket, and let regulators focus on the repeat offenders.
Politics
Seize the day, control the agenda
WASHINGTON POST
Charles Krauthammer
The 2014 election has given the GOP the rare opportunity to retroactively redeem its brand. The conventional perception, incessantly repeated by Democrats and the media, is that Washington dysfunction is the work of the Party of No. Expose the real agent of do-nothing. Show that, when Harry Reid can no longer consign House-passed legislation to oblivion, Congress can actually work. Pass legislation. When Obama signs, you’ve shown seriousness and the ability to govern. When he vetoes, you’ve clarified the differences between party philosophies and prepared the ground for 2016.
The Governing Party
NEW YORK TIMES
David Brooks
If the party is to fully detoxify its image, something will have to pass next year. Midwestern Republican governors will have to develop a compelling governing model. And the volcanic effusions of the Palin era will have to look like 1970s neckties — inexplicable oddities from another age.
Senate Democrats plan a legislative rush before power shifts to the GOP
WASHINGTON POST
Lori Montgomery and Ed O’Keefe
Before ceding full control of Congress to the GOP in January, Senate Democrats are planning to rush a host of critical measures to President Obama’s desk, including bills to revive dozens of expired tax breaks and avoid a government shutdown for another year. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is also aiming to chip away at a backlog of presidential nominations to the federal bench and the State Department over the next month, although Democratic aides say they will be unable to process all of the hundreds of pending appointments before turning the chamber over to Republicans.
Obama’s fourth-quarter agenda for foreign policy
WASHINGTON POST
David Ignatius
“I’m . . . a practical guy,” Obama said Wednesday. Despite the overwhelming rejection of his party and policies in Tuesday’s elections, Obama has a practical foreign policy agenda. If he does the follow-through, it’s an achievable one.
Boehner Warns Obama Against Unilateral Action on Immigration
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Carol E. Lee and Peter Nicholas
“When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself,” Mr. Boehner said Thursday of possible unilateral immigration action by the president. “And he’s going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.”
Decision Time on Immigration
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
Now the election is over, and the only thing to say to the president is: Do it. Take executive action. Make it big.
Appeals court upholds bans on same-sex marriage for first time
WASHINGTON POST
Robert Barnes
A federal appeals court panel upheld bans on same-sex marriage in four states Thursday, a break with other federal courts that makes it almost certain the Supreme Court must take up the issue of whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The new Congress should revive a bill on ‘fast-track’ trade authority
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
NOW THAT Republicans have gained control of Congress, no policy area is riper for bipartisan action than trade. President Obama’s trade representative, Michael Froman, is deeply engaged in trade-expansion talks with 11 Asia-Pacific nations, including Japan. A bipartisan legislative framework for speeding passage of a finished agreement has already been written.
