Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
Greens launch pro-Republican push
POLITICO
Darren Goode
The Environmental Defense Action Fund is rolling out a seven-figure ad campaign to aid green-minded Republicans in the midterm elections, part of a longer-term effort to find GOP partners on priorities like climate change. If it works, it would offer a break from the growing partisan split that green issues have encountered in recent years — not to mention the aggressively pro-Democratic efforts of groups like the League of Conservation Voters and billionaire Tom Steyer’s super PAC.
Electrical Workers vs. the EPA
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Edwin D. Hill, President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
The EPA’s Clean Power Plan is a classic example of federal tunnel vision—focusing on a single goal with little heed for the costs and dangers. The Obama administration and Congress need to put aside partisan bickering and develop a plan for the nation’s energy future that utilizes all of America’s abundant sources of power, encourages the development of renewable energy on a large scale and replaces the inevitable lost jobs with new opportunities for a trained, skilled workforce.
A Climate Crusader’s Comeuppance
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Kimberley Strassel
In a high-stakes midterm every race matters and every dollar counts. And so Mr. Steyer’s millions—a fair amount of which is going to Democratic political groups that are more effective than his own—still matter. But his NextGen meltdown is a lesson for liberal Democrats and activists looking to impose an anti-energy agenda on the country. The public isn’t buying it.
Traders Profit as Power Grid Is Overworked
NEW YORK TIMES
Julie Creswell and Robert Gebeloff
What no one here knew that day, May 30, 2013, was that the investment company, DC Energy, was reaping rewards from the swelter. Within 48 hours the firm, based in Vienna, Va., had made more than $1.5 million by cashing in on so-called congestion contracts, complex financial instruments that gain value when the grid becomes overburdened, according to an analysis of trading data by The New York Times.
Oil Industry Threatens to Take Its Underwater Air Guns and Go Home
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Ben Geman
The Interior Department, over the protests of environmentalists, said in July that it would allow the oil industry to use seismic air cannons to search for oil and gas underneath federal waters in the Atlantic. But industry trade groups, in new comments to Interior, say that decision means little unless regulators signal that the industry will actually be able to drill for oil if they find it. Otherwise, what’s the incentive to look?
No matter what happens in 2014, the Keystone XL pipeline is still Obama’s decision
WASHINGTON POST
Philip Bump
With control of the Senate hinging on November, it’s worth remembering how much Senate control could influence what happens to the pipeline. And that is: Almost none. On Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014 — even on Jan. 31, 2015, the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline will still be in Obama’s hands.
Oil’s Devastating Legacy in Nigeria
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
Three years after the United Nations Environment Program issued a comprehensive assessment of shocking levels of pollution in the oil-producing region of Ogoniland in Nigeria, little appears to have been done. The 2011 report said that it would take 30 years to repair the damage. Last week, Amnesty International joined other groups in issuing a damning follow-up by accusing the Nigerian government and the Shell Oil Company of essentially ignoring the entire problem.
Technology
With patent debate over, lobbyists cut loose
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Erin Mershon
In recent weeks, companies and industry groups involved in the debate have dropped a number of outside lobbying firms brought in to press Congress to curb “patent trolls.” The terminations are a sign not only that the issue has receded in Congress — but that one of this year’s most reliable sources of work for tech lobbyists in Washington may be drying up.
Web Trolls Winning as Incivility Increases
NEW YORK TIMES
Farhad Manjoo
The Internet may be losing the war against trolls. At the very least, it isn’t winning. And unless social networks, media sites and governments come up with some innovative way of defeating online troublemakers, the digital world will never be free of the trolls’ collective sway.
T-Mobile Wants a Consolation Prize for Its Dead Merger
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Fasso
The cell-phone provider is asking the Federal Communications Commission to come up with new rules that will give it access to more airwaves, which will mean better cellular service for its customers. T-Mobile’s implicit argument is that it deserves an additional leg up over its competitors after the government killed its hopes of being bought by Sprint.
Finance
Bypassing the Bankers
THE ATLANTIC
William D. Cohan
The matching of individual lenders with borrowers on Lending Club’s Web site takes place anonymously (lenders can see would-be borrowers’ relevant characteristics, just not their name), but each party gets what it wants. Many borrowers can shave a few percentage points off the interest rate on the debt they refinance, and lock in the lower rate for three to five years. But that interest rate is still more than the lenders could earn on a three-year Treasury security (about 1 percent), or a typical “high yield” or “junk” bond (averaging about 5 percent). Lending Club claims that its loans have so far yielded an annual net return to lenders of about 8 percent, after fees and accounting for losses. It’s worth noting, however, that what lenders gain in yield, they lose in safety: the loans are unsecured…
Why a Rule on Loan Losses Could Squeeze Credit
NEW YORK TIMES
Floyd Norris
No bank loses money on every loan, at least not if it is going to stay in business. But the world’s accounting rule makers have decided that banks should immediately post a loss every time they make a loan on the theory that some percentage of loans will inevitably go bad. Requiring an immediate reporting of losses, long before a borrower has missed even one payment deadline, “could have serious unintended consequences,” one accounting expert warned two years ago.
Fight Brews on Changes That Affect Derivatives
NEW YORK TIMES
Peter Eavis
Financial regulators are pushing for an arcane but crucial modification to the contracts that stand behind the $700 trillion global market for derivatives. The change is part of the regulators’ efforts to avoid the sort of systemic chaos that occurred after Lehman Brothers crashed. Large banks and investment firms, however, are concerned that the adjustment — which would affect how trades are treated when a bank fails — could weaken their legal rights and may even make the market for derivatives riskier.
The Forever Slump
NEW YORK TIMES
Paul Krugman
The good news is that Janet Yellen, the Fed chairwoman, understands the danger; she has made it clear that she would rather take the chance of a temporary rise in the inflation rate than risk hitting the brakes too soon, the way the E.C.B. did in 2011. The bad news is that she and her colleagues are under a lot of pressure to do the wrong thing from the too-muchers, who seem to have learned nothing from being wrong year after year, and are still agitating for higher rates.
Cristina Kirchner Threatens RR Donnelley With Criminal Charges for Layoffs
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ken Parks
Argentine President Cristina Kirchner said late Thursday that her government will press criminal charges against the local subsidiary of U.S. printing company RR Donnelley for allegedly trying to destabilize the country’s struggling economy by firing hundreds of workers. Mrs. Kirchner’s threat to invoke a controversial antiterrorism law for the first time comes two weeks after the country defaulted on some of its debt in a dispute with a small group of hedge-fund creditors in a U.S. court.
Politics
We Must Demilitarize the Police
TIME
Sen. Rand Paul
If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.
Ferguson police fumbled protests
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The next steps must include the deescalation that leaders are promising, a full and fair investigation into the shooting and a thorough review of Ferguson’s and St. Louis County’s police training and staffing policies. The Obama administration deserves credit for pushing its investigation forward. It should not hesitate to pressure local leaders further if they continue to fumble.
The Ferguson Exception
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Ferguson may now show that racial healing and comity are possible even amid great strain. That task belongs above all to the citizens of Ferguson, and it won’t be made any easier if it is exploited by national actors who are able to pack up and leave once the rioting stops.
No Maliki, No More U.S. Excuses
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Nouri al-Maliki performed a belated service to his country Thursday by resigning as Prime Minister. His decision spares Iraq from a crippling and potentially violent confrontation with his anointed successor, Haider al-Abadi, and offers Baghdad a fresh chance to confront the jihadist insurgency. It also removes President Obama’s main excuse for failing to come to Iraq’s aid.
The U.S. needs a comprehensive plan for combatting the Islamic State
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The limits Mr. Obama has placed on U.S. action make little sense in the context of this extremist entity and the interconnected conflicts across the region. Mr. Obama was right to rescue the tiny Yazidi minority, which was threatened with genocide, but why not also defend Syrians and Lebanese under threat of massacre by the Islamic State? It’s a vital U.S. interest to protect Kurdistan, a relatively stable and pro-Western enclave, but it’s also critical that moderate Syrian opposition forces under siege in Aleppo not be destroyed by the Islamic State or the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
