Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.

Energy

The risk of tougher sanctions on Russia
WASHINGTON POST
David Ignatius
Russia’s energy weapon is potent, in the short run, but its impact will decline sharply over the next decade as U.S. production of shale oil and gas rises and the United States becomes a major energy exporter. By 2020, according to administration estimates, the United States could be able to export more than 90 billion cubic meters of LNG annually, or about half of the gas Russia now supplies to Europe. At that point, Moscow loses its chokehold. The trick for the United States and Europe will be navigating the next few years. This transition will be impossible without the dreaded buzzword of an “energy policy,” coordinated across the Atlantic, which gives private companies clarity and confidence to invest.

 

Australia’s Carbon Tax Message
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Mr. Abbott’s views reflect those of a public that cares about environmental matters but not at the expense of reducing economic growth. Australians also don’t want to bear inordinate costs for carbon reduction when they produce only 1.2% of the world’s emissions. The climate dogmatists denounce anyone who disagrees as “deniers” or worse, but Australia’s vote shows that the real obstacle to their dreams of controlling more of the world’s economy is democratic consent.

 

Environmentalists Denounce Repeal of Australia’s Carbon Tax
NEW YORK TIMES
Michelle Innis
Opposition politicians and environmentalists in Australia reacted with dismay Thursday to the country’s repeal of laws requiring large companies to pay for carbon emissions, saying that it made Australia the first country to reverse progress on fighting climate change.

 

Clean Power, Off the Grid
NEW YORK TIMES
David J. Hayes
The United States will take its turn next April as the chair of the eight-nation Arctic Council, a forum of the nations that border the Arctic. In setting the council’s agenda, the United States can make it a priority to bring practical and clean energy options to isolated northern communities.

 

Perciasepe’s departure adds to EPA brain drain
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Erica Martinson
The political-appointee vacuum at the top of EPA is set to grow with Thursday’s announcement that Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe is leaving for the nonprofit sector. And there’s little chance of the gaps being filled anytime soon.

 

Report: U.S. lags in energy efficiency
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Amy R. Sisk
The United States is falling behind other industrialized countries in improving its energy efficiency — and giving those nations an economic advantage, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. A new report from the advocacy group said the U.S. has been slow to improve its energy efficiency, and it ranked the U.S. 13th out of the world’s 16 largest economies in its scorecard, which examines buildings, industries, transportation and countries’ commitment to energy efficiency.

 

 

Technology

Taxman, Won’t You Please Spare The Internet?
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Senator John Thune and Commissioner Ajit Pai
We can’t let the government burden American families and businesses with new taxes and fees on Internet access. Higher taxes would only hurt demand for Internet access and discourage service providers from investing in next-generation infrastructure. It would also frustrate the FCC’s efforts to expand broadband deployment, particularly in rural America.

 

Technology’s double-edged economic sword
THE HILL
Blake Neff
Research from the Federal Reserve and other entities show job growth in the recovery has been concentrated in either high-skill or low-skill areas, leaving middle-skilled, middle-income jobs below their pre-recession numbers. Technology has played a persistent role, increasing productivity and making it easier for businesses to make profits but also allowing companies to slow their hiring.

 

No, Aereo isn’t a cable company, says the Copyright Office
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
Aereo’s latest plan to keep on living was already on iffy ground before the Copyright Office weighed in. Now, Aereo’s prospects look grimmer than ever.

 

Under Pressure, Twitter Tries to Resize Itself
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Yoree Koh
When it reports second-quarter earnings on July 29, the San Francisco company is expected to unveil as many as four new metrics that it hopes will illustrate its reach beyond the 255 million users that log in at least once a month, according to people familiar with the matter. The aim: to show Twitter isn’t just a diminutive Facebook Inc.

 

Microsoft to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Shira Ovide
The recently named Microsoft chief is cutting up to 18,000 jobs in the next year, or about 14% of the company’s workforce, the largest layoffs in its history. About two-thirds of the cuts would come from its phone and tablet staff, which bulged after former CEO Steve Ballmer agreed to buy Nokia Corp.’s handset business last fall.

 

Senators, tech industry take Congress to task on trade
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Eric Bradner
Senate Finance Committee members flogged Congress as a whole Thursday during a hearing devoted to the gains that tech companies like Intel could make if U.S. negotiators complete and lawmakers approve several free trade pacts.

 

 

Finance

Addicted to Inflation
NEW YORK TIMES
Paul Krugman
The first step toward recovery is admitting that you have a problem. That goes for political movements as well as individuals. So I have some advice for so-called reform conservatives trying to rebuild the intellectual vitality of the right: You need to start by facing up to the fact that your movement is in the grip of some uncontrollable urges. In particular, it’s addicted to inflation — not the thing itself, but the claim that runaway inflation is either happening or about to happen.

 

How not to improve the corporate tax structure
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
Bonus depreciation, a carve-out for specific sorts of capital investments, is the kind of loophole that could be reduced or eliminated to help finance a corporate tax rate cut. Embedding it in the tax code, by contrast, would cost $276 billion over a decade and would make it very hard to broaden the corporate tax base and lower the corporate tax rate.

 

Ignoring the Facts on Corporate Inversions
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Miles D. White
Inversions are legal. Not abuse. Not cheating. To those spouting the histrionic rhetoric in opposition to inversion, I would suggest that some consideration of the facts would better inform your judgment, which might be more productively directed at how to make the U.S. and U.S. companies more globally competitive, including thoughtful and balanced reform of the tax code.

 

An Unnecessary Fix for the Fed
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Alan Blinder
The House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on Federal Reserve reform on July 10. The hearing didn’t get much press attention. But it was remarkable. While the House can’t manage to engage on important issues like tax reform, immigration reform and the minimum wage, it’s more than willing to propose radical “reform” of one of the few national policies that is working well.

 

 

Politics

The Downing of MH17
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
This catastrophe brings to mind the Korean Air Lines plane shot down in 1983 by a Soviet military fighter, killing 269. President Reagan called the downing of KAL007 “an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate others.” It was a moral turning point in the Cold War. Perhaps the downing of MH17 will be a similar turning point in our post-post Cold War era. The Ukrainian crisis has been dismissed too often as a faraway battle in which the West has little stake, and in any case Ukraine is within Russia’s “sphere of influence.” The deaths of 298 innocents from many countries should put that to rest.

 

Moral clarity in Gaza
WASHINGTON POST
Charles Krauthammer
It’s to the Israelis’ credit that amid all this madness they haven’t lost their moral scruples. Or their nerve. Those outside the region have the minimum obligation, therefore, to expose the madness and speak the truth. Rarely has it been so blindingly clear.

 

Israel’s Gaza Offensive
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Israeli ground forces moved into the Gaza Strip Thursday, and it’s hard to see what other choices the country’s leadership had to defend its citizens from the terror group Hamas’s unrelenting missile attack.

 

Dem base: Fine with Hillary Clinton, pining for Elizabeth Warren
POLITICO
Katie Glueck
Their heads might be with Hillary Clinton, but their hearts are decidedly with Elizabeth Warren. As the high-profile annual confab of progressives called Netroots Nation kicked off here Thursday, it took no time for a consensus on 2016 to emerge. Interviews with more than a dozen attendees made clear the liberal base sees Clinton as a perfectly acceptable option — and probably their best shot at keeping the White House in Democratic hands. Yet they still pine for the unattainable — the crusading senator from Massachusetts — never mind that Warren has said every which way it’s not happening.