Please help InsideSources continue to grow. Ask your friends and colleagues to signup for InsideAlerts.
Energy
After years of debate, New York State will ban fracking
VOX
Brad Plumer
The announcement came after New York’s Health Department released a long-awaited report on the health risks from fracking, which cited the risks of drinking-water contamination (among other things). “We don’t have the evidence to prove or disprove the health effects.,” Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said.
EPA’s coal ash rule will probably leave greens deflated
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Erica Martinson
The agency’s new rule on coal ash, due by Friday under a court order, is expected to fall short of the type of environmental protection greens are seeking. It is unlikely to require cleanups of the ancient, massive lagoons where utilities store the waste generated by burning coal, which the industry had feared would be a costly mandate.
Canadian PM Says Country Will Get Crude Oil to Markets Other Than U.S.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Paul Vieira
Canada will get its landlocked crude oil to foreign markets other than the U.S., although the marketplace will ultimately decide the fate of pipeline projects to run through the country, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday.
Obama shift on Cuba won’t mean big oil boom in Gulf of Mexico
FUEL FIX
Jennifer Dlouhy
President Barack Obama’s decision to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba may lead to more commercial opportunities for Americans within the island nation. But don’t expect U.S. oil producers to move swiftly to take advantage of them. Although geologists believe billions of barrels of crude may be lurking off Cuba’s coast in the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies have had a hard time finding that black gold.
How Cheaper Oil Is Shaping the World
NEW YORK TIMES
Room for Debate
Will lower prices further destabilize the world? As the U.S. increases production, will oil-producing states suffer? And lastly, what will it mean for our efforts to fight climate change?
Coal, an Outlaw Enterprise
NEW YORK TIMES
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Coal is an outlaw enterprise. In nearly every stage of its production, many companies that profit from it routinely defy safety and environmental laws and standards designed to protect America’s public health, property and prosperity.
Technology
Profiles in Hollywood Courage
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Capitulating to the threats of North Korea’s department of global propaganda—and the U.S. government now believes Pyongyang was behind the Sony attack—will not be remembered as a profile in Hollywood courage, and will set a precedent for further bullying of a notably weak-kneed industry.
Phone Companies Have a New Regulator to Worry About
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Sasso
The telecom industry has a new cop on its beat. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Sprint on Wednesday for “cramming” consumers’ phone bills with bogus third-party charges. The lawsuit demands that Sprint provide tens of millions of dollars in refunds to consumers.
Tech to flow under new Cuba policy
THE HILL
Julian Hattem
The Obama administration’s historic move to ease U.S. restrictions on Cuba will lead to an increase in technology and communications equipment flowing to the island nation. One aspect of the administration’s new approach aims to increase the number of Cuban people who have access to the Internet and other forms of communication.
Finance
Wall Street prepares Dodd-Frank assault
THE HILL
Peter Schroeder
Banks and financial institutions are planning an aggressive push to dismantle parts of the Wall Street reform law when Republicans take control of Congress in January. Fresh off a victory in the government funding debate that liberals decried as a giveaway to Wall Street, advocates for the financial sector aim to pursue additional changes to Dodd-Frank that they say would lighten burdens created by the 2010 law. Among the top items on the wish list: easing new requirements on mortgages, loosening restrictions on financial derivatives and overhauling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Poll Shows Broad Impact of Cyberattacks
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Danny Yadron
Just fewer than half of Americans say that a retailer, bank or credit-card company has told them or a household member that their payment card details were stolen in a data breach, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. That figure has contributed to what many retail analysts are calling “breach fatigue,” in which consumers stop worrying about cyberattacks because they appear in the news so frequently.
Fed Says It Will Be ‘Patient’ on Interest Rate Timing
NEW YORK TIMES
Binyamin Appelbaum
“The committee considers it unlikely to begin the normalization process for at least the next couple of meetings,” Ms. Yellen said at news conference after a two-day meeting of Fed policy makers. In response to a question, she said she meant two meetings, ruling out scheduled sessions in January and March.
Businesses Urge Passage of Terror Insurance Program
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Peter Grant and Michael R. Crittenden
Business leaders warned Wednesday of disruptions in the insurance and commercial real-estate markets after Congress adjourned without extending the federal government’s terrorism insurance program. They expressed hope, however, that the new Congress would deal with the issue early next year, a sentiment echoed by House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who said the House “will act very quickly in the new Congress to reauthorize this program.” A spokesman for incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Congress would complete work on the measure next year.
‘Bonus depreciation’ is an unnecessary subsidy in a flawed tax bill
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
In short, bonus depreciation provides only modest benefit as a temporary stimulus measure and none at all as a de facto permanent part of the code, which is what the extenders are. If Congress does nothing else to the tax code next year, it must purge it of this provision.
Elizabeth Warren, other Democrats raise concerns about free-trade pact with Asia
WASHINGTON POST
David Nakamura
Warren (D-Mass.), fresh off her break with the White House on the budget last week, said in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could erode U.S. financial safeguards designed to “prevent future financial crises.” “We cannot afford a trade deal that undermines the government’s ability to protect the American economy,” Warren said in the letter, also signed by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). The Washington Post obtained a copy.
Regulators Are a Proxy Adviser’s Best Friend
WALL STREET JOURNAL
James K. Glassman
What investors, large and small, care about is a return on their investment. But rising stock prices is not the aim of proxy advisory firms—enforcing a particular corporate-governance ideology is. If the staff bulletin isn’t enough to wipe out the current proxy advisory system, then the SEC itself must take stronger action by rescinding the decade-old staff letters that caused the trouble in the first place and forcing funds to assume liability for all of their proxy decisions.
Politics
Obama gives the Castro regime in Cuba an undeserved bailout
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The Vietnam outcome is what the Castros are counting on: a flood of U.S. tourists and business investment that will allow the regime to maintain its totalitarian system indefinitely. Mr. Obama may claim that he has dismantled a 50-year-old failed policy; what he has really done is give a 50-year-old failed regime a new lease on life.
Obama’s Cuban Détente
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
By offering so much for relatively little, Mr. Obama may calculate that an American gesture now will lead to a larger opening once the aging Castro brothers finally go to their eternal punishment. He may also hope that by acting now he can prepare the way for a triumphant visit to Havana before the end of his Presidency. Mr. Obama came to office in 2009 promising a new era of engagement with U.S. adversaries, and engage he has. Perhaps his Cuban “reset” will turn out better than have his efforts with Russia, Syria, North Korea and Iran.
Mr. Obama’s Historic Move on Cuba
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
Following months of secret negotiations with the Cuban government, President Obama on Wednesday announced sweeping changes to normalize relations with Cuba, a bold move that ends one of the most misguided chapters in American foreign policy.
A Victory for Oppression
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sen. Marco Rubio
The announcement by President Obama on Wednesday giving the Castro regime diplomatic legitimacy and access to American dollars isn’t just bad for the oppressed Cuban people, or for the millions who live in exile and lost everything at the hands of the dictatorship. Mr. Obama’s new Cuba policy is a victory for oppressive governments the world over and will have real, negative consequences for the American people.
One-sided deal rewards Cuba regime
USA TODAY
Sen. Robert Menendez
In Cuba today, an untold number of ordinary people yearning for democracy remain imprisoned by the exact same tormentors who punished Alan Gross. They, along with all Cubans, deserve a free and liberated homeland. That vision is less of a reality today than it was yesterday.
How Republicans could stop Obama’s Cuba play
POLITICO
Lauren French
On the list: deny Obama funds to reopen an embassy in Havana, stall the nomination of a potential ambassador, vote down a bill to open up travel more widely and ignore requests from the White House to lift a decades-old embargo.
Change in Policy, Like Shift in Demographics, Could Alter Florida’s Political Map
NEW YORK TIMES
Ashley Parker and Jonathan Martin
The surprise announcement by President Obama on Wednesday that the United States and Cuba will move to restore full diplomatic relations could complicate one of the most enduring fault lines in American politics and reshape the fight to win the presidential battleground state of Florida. For more than a generation, Republicans have offered a consistent hard-line anthem against the Communist nation, endearing themselves to the politically potent bloc of Cuban-Americans who have been crucial in deciding elections in the state. But those animosities have given way as younger voters with family ties to Cuba but no direct memories of the island under Fidel Castro have been more willing to support Democrats.
The politics of the increasingly Democratic Cuban vote
WASHINGTON POST
Philip Bump
Florida is home to three-quarters of the country’s Cuban population; Cubans make up one-fifth of the state’s foreign-born population, according to five-year estimates released by the Census Bureau in 2013. And as Pew Research found in June, the Cuban population in the United States has shifted to the left politically. When the organization polled in 2000, nearly two-thirds of Cubans identified as Republican, in part a function of the party’s strong history of criticizing the regime of Fidel Castro. Since, that has shifted dramatically.
Where the 2016 crowd stands on Cuba
POLITICO
Kendall Breitman
Here’s where some of the top potential 2016 contenders stand…
GOP gives feds’ college rating plan an F
POLITICO
Stephanie Simon and Allie Grasgreen
The Obama administration will soon publish its plan to rate more than 6,000 colleges nationwide based on the value they provide to students and to society. … “They’re getting involved in something they have no business getting involved with,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), a former college administrator. “Absolutely, it’s overreach.” Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) plans to lead an effort to cut off funding for the ratings initiative. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has said he’ll do the same in the Senate. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is among many prominent voices denouncing the concept as profoundly flawed.
The Right’s Plan to Beat the Republican Establishment: Act Like the Republican Establishment.
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Andrea Drusch
A half-decade after the anti-Obama (and anti-Obamacare) revolution, the resurgent right flank of the Republican Party is growing up, displaying a new willingness, even an eagerness, to adopt the same tactics the establishment has used against them. For one, they’re attacking incumbents early and often, even before they have a preferred candidate of their own. It’s what the establishment did to the right flank during the 2014 elections
