Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
Taking Oil Industry Cue, Environmentalists Drew Emissions Blueprint
NEW YORK TIMES
Coral Davenport
Over the next two years the lawyers, David Doniger and David Hawkins, and the scientist, Daniel Lashof, worked with a team of experts to write a 110-page proposal, widely viewed as innovative and audacious, that was aimed at slashing planet-warming carbon pollution from the nation’s coal-fired power plants. On June 2, President Obama proposed a new Environmental Protection Agency rule to curb power plant emissions that used as its blueprint the work of the three men and their team. It was a remarkable victory for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the longtime home of Mr. Doniger and Mr. Hawkins and, until recently, of Mr. Lashof.
Grid Terror Attacks: U.S. Government Is Urged to Takes Steps for Protection
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Rebecca Smith
Two research groups urged the federal government to take action to protect the electric grid from physical attacks, rather than leave security decisions in the hands of the utility industry.
‘Watershed moment’ for fracking foes?
THE HILL
Timothy Cama
Opponents of fracking are feeling emboldened by a ruling in New York’s highest court that found towns can outlaw the controversial drilling practice.
Congress’s head-in-the-sand approach to climate change
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
“Hope is not a strategy,” Mr. Paulson said to us. But that is the strategy that Congress, in its perpetual inaction, is taking: Hoping that the scientists are dramatically wrong — or at least that the country can deal with the problem later. If Congress were the board of a large company, ignoring such a serious risk would give shareholders ample reason to fire every head-in-the-sand director. Voters might want to contemplate the analogy this November.
Climate of Conformity
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
As loyal left-wingers go, Caleb Rossiter is a trouper. He’s supported every left of center cause going back to the Cold War, but lately he’s become a partial dissenter against the new religion of climate change. And now he’s been put out in the cold. The Institute for Policy Studies terminated Mr. Rossiter’s fellowship two days after he wrote a May 5 op-ed for these pages.
Technology
Critics Fault Court’s Grip on Appeals for Patents
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ashby Jones
More than 30 years ago, Congress granted a single court the power to hear nearly all the nation’s patent appeals. But amid a boom in high-stakes patent lawsuits driven by tech giants and zealous smaller players alike, a growing number of patent experts are calling for lawmakers to revisit that move.
Principles Are No Match for Europe’s Love of U.S. Web Titans
NEW YORK TIMES
Mark Scott
Across Europe, love — or at least acceptance — often wins out in the love-hate relationship with American tech companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google. Despite their often vocal criticism of these behemoths, people in the region are some of the most active and loyal users of American social networks, search engines and e-commerce websites. They are often even more hooked on the services than Americans are.
AT&T has had a target on municipal broadband
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Tony Romm and Alex Byers
The wireless giant is among a collection of telecom companies, including Comcast and Time Warner Cable, that have labored for years to battle back municipal broadband programs or enact laws that ban them outright. On their own, or as part of groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, the companies have deployed their vast lobbying resources from the Carolinas to California, hoping to ensure that private networks don’t have to compete with government-facilitated alternatives.
Silicon Valley pins hopes on Obama for immigration win
THE HILL
Julian Hattem
The tech industry is looking to President Obama for an immigration win now that reform legislation has flamed out in Congress. While advocates say they aren’t giving up on a comprehensive bill, some industry insiders say executive actions from Obama are now their last, best hope.
Teachers threaten to derail Wi-Fi push
THE HILL
Kate Tummarello
Educators are threatening to derail the Obama administration’s proposals to boost wireless Internet in schools over fears districts could be left with inadequate funds or cuts to other services.
In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are
WASHINGTON POST
Barton Gellman, Julie Tate and Ashkan Soltani
Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else. Many of them were Americans.
Finance
Playing Semantic Games With Fannie and Freddie Investors
WALL STREET JOURNAL
William M. Isaac
For the past two years, the federal government has violated both the letter and the spirit of the law by illegally seizing the profits of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Filings by the Obama administration in court and troubling public statements by its senior officials demonstrate a profound lack of adherence to the government’s duty as conservator of these government-supported mortgage institutions and to the rule of law.
Immigrants From Latin America and Africa Squeezed as Banks Curtail International Money Transfers
NEW YORK TIMES
Michael Corkery
As government regulators crack down on the financing of terrorists and drug traffickers, many big banks are abandoning the business of transferring money from the United States to other countries, moves that are expected to reverse years of declines in the cost of immigrants sending money home to their families.
Unemployment is down, and we still have work to do
WASHINGTON POST
Jason Furman
In June, the United States enjoyed its 52nd consecutive month of private-sector job growth, the longest such streak in U.S. history. That serves as evidence that our current policies have helped sustain job growth — but it also stands as a challenge to do more.
NEW YORK TIMES
Paul Krugman
You might wonder why monetary theory gets treated like evolution or climate change. Isn’t the question of how to manage the money supply a technical issue, not a matter of theological doctrine?
What Obamacare means for your investment portfolio
WASHINGTON POST
Jonnelle Marte
As the Affordable Care Act takes hold in the daily lives of Americans, the law has removed long-standing barriers keeping people from buying health insurance, changed the ways doctors and hospitals are compensated and — as of this year — required that most Americans get health insurance or pay a penalty. And it’s overhauling the business of health care — for hospitals and insurers, doctors and patients. For investors, that means tracking a new roster of winners and losers across the industry.
Puerto Rico’s Borrowing Bubble Pops
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Here we go again: Another big-government paradise is running out of other people’s money—to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher. This time it’s the commonwealth of Puerto Rico that has borrowed too much and is now signaling that it might not be able to pay it all back. The only question that remains is who will eat the losses.
Politics
Hillary Clinton Begins to Move Away From Obama Ahead of 2016
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Peter Nicholas
Hillary Clinton has begun distancing herself from President Barack Obama, suggesting that she would do more to woo Republicans and take a more assertive stance toward global crises, while sounding more downbeat than her former boss about the U.S. economic recovery.
Obamacare’s next threat: A September surprise
POLITICO
Edward-Isaac Dovere
Most state health insurance rates for 2015 are scheduled to be approved by early fall, and most are likely to rise, timing that couldn’t be worse for Democrats already on defense in the midterms.
Forget Hobby Lobby—This Case Could Wreck Obamacare
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Sam Baker
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is expected to rule any day now in a lawsuit that aims to block the law’s insurance subsidies in more than half the country. If the challengers ultimately prevail, the Affordable Care Act’s complex framework could begin to unravel as millions of people lose financial assistance. … The Halbig challenge argues that the Obama administration—specifically the IRS—is breaking the law by offering those tax subsidies in all 50 states. It relies mainly on the text of the statute, which authorizes subsidies in “an exchange established by the State.”
Bloomberg’s gun group to start 2014 midterms strategy by surveying candidates
WASHINGTON POST
Philip Rucker
The gun-control group founded by former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) will begin surveying all federal candidates in the 2014 midterm elections on gun issues Monday as it tries to become a political counterweight to the National Rifle Association.
