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Energy

Texas congressman introduces bill to end export ban
FUEL FIX
Jennifer Dlouhy
A top House Republican is introducing legislation to end the nation’s longstanding ban on crude exports, as the oil industry campaigns for the freedom to sell the fossil fuel around the world. Although Congress is unlikely to make big changes to the trade restrictions any time soon, the move by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, sets the stage for debate later this week and stretching into next year.

 

Protests Slow Pipeline Projects Across U.S., Canada
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Amy Harder
Using Keystone XL as a template, national environmental groups are joining with local activists in a strategy aimed at prolonging government reviews of proposed pipeline routes and their environmental impact. As a result, six oil and natural-gas pipeline projects in North America costing a proposed $15 billion or more and stretching more than 3,400 miles have been delayed, a tally by The Wall Street Journal shows. At least four other projects with a total investment of $25 billion and more than 5,100 miles in length are facing opposition but haven’t been delayed yet.

 

Where Coal is King
POLITICO
James Higdon
There is no red Kentucky or blue Kentucky. There is only charcoal black. And Kentucky politics is a coal miner’s daughter. With roughly 61,000 jobs directly or indirectly linked to the industry and some $4 billion in annual revenue, the state’s devotion to coal is all but carved in stone.

 

With Compromises, a Global Accord to Fight Climate Change Is in Sight
NEW YORK TIMES
Coral Davenport
But the key to the political success of the draft — and its main shortcoming, negotiators concede — is that it does not bind nations to a single, global benchmark for emissions reductions. Instead, the draft puts forward lower, more achievable, policy goals. Under the terms of the draft, every country will publicly commit to enacting its own plans to reduce emissions — with governments choosing their own targets, guided by their domestic politics, rather than by the amounts that scientists say are necessary.

 

North Dakota Energy Regulator Mandates Steps to Reduce Oil Volatility
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Chester Dawson
In an unprecedented step that comes amid growing concern about the hazards of oil trains moving across the U.S. and Canada, the North Dakota Industrial Commission said it will mandate that well operators strip explosive gases from crude-oil that shows a high vapor-pressure reading. The state regulation will go into effect on April 1, 2015. It requires that companies operating in North Dakota process their crude-oil through equipment at or near well sites that heats up the liquid to burn off volatile gases.

 

 

Technology

Funding bill boosts cybersecurity spending
THE HILL
Cory Bennett
Passage of the larger bill, called the “cromnibus,” would fund cybersecurity at consistent or increased levels through fiscal 2015. “The cyber dollars keep going up, which is appropriate,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) early Tuesday, when asked about the bill before its released. Whitehouse chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.

 

Fifty U.S. cities bond together to home-grow broadband
WASHINGTON POST
Nancy Scola
There is a club of U.S. mayors fixated on improving the way broadband Internet works in their cities. And, while it’s new, it’s growing. Called Next Century Cities, the group added Medina County, Ohio, this week and now numbers 50 cities (and the occasional county). That makes 50 municipalities now turning their attention to understanding how to best bring broadband to their citizens, whether that’s figuring out how to build out Internet connections to historic buildings or passing bonds to pay for new fiber networks.

 

America’s clumsy regulation of drones stirs up frustration, confusion
WASHINGTON POST
Matt McFarland
“I can fly all I want over my fields as a hobbyist because you know, as long as I’m keeping it in line of sight, as long as I’m not going over 400 feet and I’m not operating within the range of an airport,” said Idaho farmer Robert Blair. “However I am now commercial when I use that same airframe, same cameras but use that data to make management decisions. That doesn’t make sense.”

 

 

Finance

With New Capital Rule, Fed Nudges Big Banks to Shrink
NEW YORK TIMES
Peter Eavis
The Federal Reserve, fearing complacency six years after the financial crisis, moved on Tuesday to preserve the efforts that have strengthened large banks. The Fed proposed a rule that would increase capital requirements for the nation’s eight largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. By increasing the requirements, the Fed aims to make large banks more resilient to shocks. A bank with higher capital depends less on borrowed money, which may cease to be available in times of stress.

 

Wall Street Seeks to Tuck Dodd-Frank Changes in Budget Bill
NEW YORK TIMES
Ben Protess
A flurry of legislative deal-making surrounding the federal budget has opened a window of opportunity for bank lobbyists to challenge the Dodd-Frank Act, the sweeping regulatory overhaul passed in response to the financial crisis. … The fight has centered on elements of Dodd-Frank that address the culprits of the financial crisis, including the sort of derivatives trading that helped push the insurance giant American International Group to the brink of collapse in 2008. One bill would amend the so-called Volcker Rule, a centerpiece of Dodd-Frank. Another bill that lawmakers plan to include in the government funding plan was essentially written by lobbyists for Citigroup.

 

Terrorism insurance talks break down
POLITICO
Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Zachary Warmbrodt
Talks to resolve an impasse over the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act have broken down as House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) insists on changes to Dodd-Frank, a 2010 banking regulatory law. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the chief Democratic negotiator, is resisting those revisions. Now, House Republicans will send the TRIA extension with changes to Dodd-Frank as a standalone bill. If the Senate and House had found agreement, it would’ve been wrapped into the must-pass funding bill to keep the federal government open past Thursday.

 

U.S. House Reaches Bipartisan Agreement on Pension Legislation
WALL STREET JOURNAL
John D. McKinnon, Dan Fitzpatrick and Laura Stevens
House lawmakers on Tuesday announced an agreement on legislation to avert a crisis that threatens pensions of hundreds of thousands of retirees. Sponsors of the bill were aiming to get it added as an amendment to a spending bill by the House Rules Committee on Wednesday.

 

Jeanne Shaheen joins opposition to Antonio Weiss
POLITICO
Ben White
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, on Wednesday plans to announce her opposition to the nomination of Antonio Weiss, a senior banker at Lazard, for Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance, the number three slot at the department. A Shaheen aide told POLITICO that the senator is “troubled by [Weiss’s] experience helping corporations move overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, as she believes these corporate inversions put more of a tax burden on small businesses and middle class families.” The aide added that “as a result she is not convinced that Mr. Weiss is the right person for the job.”

 

 

Politics

Ex-CIA Directors: Interrogations Saved Lives
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Former CIA Directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden; and former CIA Deputy Directors John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland and Stephen R. Kappes
Between 1998 and 2001, the al Qaeda leadership in South Asia attacked two U.S. embassies in East Africa, a U.S. warship in the port of Aden, Yemen, and the American homeland—the most deadly single foreign attack on the U.S. in the country’s history. The al Qaeda leadership has not managed another attack on the homeland in the 13 years since, despite a strong desire to do so. The CIA’s aggressive counterterrorism policies and programs are responsible for that success.

 

Spooks of the Senate
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
So once again our politicians whipsaw the CIA, asking it to protect us from relentless killers only later to object when the political mood shifts. Frank Church and the left did this in the 1970s, and CIA needed years to recover. Now it’s the Obama Democrats. The CIA isn’t above accountability, but it deserves better than the partisan hindsight of this Senate report.

 

The horrors in America’s ‘dungeon’ should never have happened
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
Any reckoning of outcomes has to account for the severe blow dealt to America’s global reputation by the inevitable exposure of these techniques, harm which the country is still trying to repair. But to our mind, the argument over practical outcomes is mostly beside the point. Torture is wrong, whether or not it has ever “worked.” As an Obama administration official said Tuesday, “The reason we prohibited these techniques is because they are contrary to our values.”

 

Forrest Gump, Ph.D.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Maybe it’s easier to get tenure at MIT than we thought. At least that’s our reaction to the Forrest Gump routine put on Tuesday before Congress by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who sounded for all the world as if he knew nothing more about politics and health care than the lovable bumpkin who always showed up when history was being made.

 

Budget bill shows GOP’s new muscle
POLITICO
David Rogers
Capping weeks of backroom talks, House Republicans filed a $1.1 trillion year-end spending bill Tuesday night— a giant package that’s both a last marker for this Congress and first step toward GOP control in the next. … Already, the abundance of policy riders—backed by trucking, mining and securities interests—-show the GOP’s new clout. But the giant measure also reflects a genuine give-and-take with Senate Democrats in hopes of averting a government shutdown veto fight with President Barack Obama.

 

Spending bill increases limits on campaign funds
THE HILL
Megan Wilson
Beginning on page 1,599 of the 1,603-page document – under a heading entitled “Other Matters” – the legislation details the creation of three additional accounts to help fund party conventions, the building or renovation of party headquarters, the relief of legal debts and election recount costs. … While national party committees have a contribution limit of $32,400 per year for each donor, the three new accounts would have their own separate, higher contribution limits — up to $97,200 each per year.  In effect, that means that an individual could give a total of up to $648,000 to the National Republican Committee or the National Democratic Committee during each two-year election cycle.

 

Reid, in Diminished Role, Vows Fight With G.O.P.
NEW YORK TIMES
Jeremy W. Peters
“They want to eviscerate Clean Air, Clean Water, E.P.A.,” Mr. Reid said, referring to the landmark environmental laws that established new pollution standards and created the Environmental Protection Agency. “Is there enough they can do to help Wall Street? I don’t think so. Big banks? I don’t think so,” he said, adding, “That’s where the new battle is going to be.” Mr. Reid said he was not ruling out compromise, but he had no plans to be the kind of minority leader who just cuts deals for the sake of racking up legislative accomplishments. “I’m happy to work with them,” he said of Republicans. “But I’m not going to throw middle-class America overboard.”

 

Law Students: We Can’t Take Exams Because of Ferguson
BUSINESSWEEK
Akane Otani
Students at Harvard, Columbia, and Georgetown Law School are demanding their schools postpone exams because they say they were traumatized by grand jury decisions made in Ferguson, Mo., and New York that failed to indict white police officers who killed black men. “This is more than a personal emergency. This is a national emergency,” Harvard Law School students wrote in a letter to the school’s administration over the weekend

 

Can conservative women be feminists?
WASHINGTON POST
Kathleen Parker
Why should smart, conservative women essentially be blackballed by liberals based on this single issue? Please, this is a purely rhetorical question. Bottom line: As a litmus test, whether one is pro-choice is ultimately counterproductive. With women at each other’s throats, the patriarchy can pop another brew and hang on to the remote.

 

Rick Perry, hungry for redemption, says he’s a ‘substantially different’ candidate
WASHINGTON POST
Philip Rucker
Rick Perry is trying to show that he is not the Rick Perry you remember. Gone, it seems, is the blustery bravado, the empty rhetoric, the cowboy boots — and, yes, the “oops” moments. This Perry comes across as studious, contemplative and humble. He said he is at peace with his 2012 presidential campaign, in which his shoot-first-aim-later approach proved catastrophic, but is hungry to redeem himself.