Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
Commerce Dept. should allow exports of U.S. crude
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The export ban was a desperate ploy in the 1970s to control commodities markets amid spikes in oil prices induced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Keeping it in place now is an economically incoherent policy, particularly when removing it would encourage an industry that is transforming the fortunes of large swaths of the nation. Congress should lift the ban entirely. Until then, Commerce should allow as much oil as it can to flow through the ban’s exceptions.
Compelling case for exporting crude oil and LNG
THE HILL
Toby Mack
America , along with its oil and gas producers, energy supply chain companies, and millions of American workers, are quite literally “missing the boat” as a result of the federal government-imposed ban on crude oil exports, and severe limits on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Eliminating these restrictions would set the stage for dramatically more rapid growth in energy production and for the supply chain businesses that support energy operations.
Nearly 4% of the world’s oil supply is offline due to conflict
VOX
Brad Plumer
The world’s oil prices have stayed high since 2010 — bouncing around $100 per barrel— for two basic reasons. Oil demand keeps rising, and production is struggling to keep up. But why is production struggling to keep up? One big factor has been geopolitical conflict. Wars, unrest, and sabotage have increasingly plagued oil producers like Iraq, Libya, and Syria since 2011. The US and EU sanctions on Iran’s oil industry have also removed a lot of oil from global markets. All told, some 3.3 million barrels of oil per day — equivalent to nearly 4 percent of global supply — are currently offline due to “unplanned outages”:
Technology
Why Your Phone Isn’t as Smart as It Could Be
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Scott Gottlieb and Coleen Klasmeier
Today, only about 100 mobile medical apps have been reviewed and approved by the FDA. That’s a fraction of what’s possible. The problem isn’t merely a regulatory regime ill-suited for reviewing these innovations. It’s the products that are never created because mobile-tech entrepreneurs choose to direct their talents elsewhere.
In Amazon’s shopping cart: D.C. influence
POLITICO
Tony Romm
The Seattle-based company this year has boosted its political machine, hiring a crop of new lobbyists and writing bigger checks to members of Congress. It recently retained a powerhouse firm in Washington, D.C., to lobby the Federal Aviation Administration on delivery drones and has flexed its muscle to win a key government technology contract. Bezos, meanwhile, raised his Beltway profile through his personal purchase of The Washington Post in 2013.
GOP chases youth vote with Uber
POLITICO
Byron Tau and Kevin Robillard
Republicans see it as the perfect opportunity to help sell the GOP’s free-market, lower-regulation message to a younger generation of voters they’ve struggled to win over in the past few elections and who often feel alienated by the GOP’s social conservatism. On Wednesday, the Republican National Committee pounced, launching a petition to support Uber saying “taxi unions and liberal government bureaucrats are setting up roadblocks, issuing strangling regulations and implementing unnecessary red tape to block Uber from doing business in their cities.”
Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split
NEW YORK TIMES
Claire Cain Miller
The Pew Research Center published a report Wednesday based on interviews with 2,551 people who make, research and analyze new technology. Most agreed that robotics and artificial intelligence would transform daily life by 2025, but respondents were almost evenly split about what that might mean for the economy and employment.
Is Big Data Spreading Inequality?
NEW YORK TIMES
Room for Debate
Social media companies depend on selling information about their users’ clicks and purchases to data brokers who match ads to the most receptive individuals. But the Federal Trade Commission and the White House have called for legislation that would inform consumers about the data collected and sold to companies, warning of analytics that have “the potential to eclipse longstanding civil rights protections.”
Why regulators are the big winners in the failed Sprint-T-Mobile deal
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
For months, the FCC has been sending signals that it viewed the merger skeptically. Now, with Sprint having backed off of T-Mobile, the commission stands to benefit as it prepares for a major auction of wireless spectrum — the airwaves that carry mobile data and cellphone calls — next year. In the auction, the FCC will take spectrum from TV broadcasters looking to sell, and then turn around and sell it back to wireless carriers. More carriers means more competition in the auction — and that’s good for the agency, which hopes to use the event as a fundraiser of sorts.
Finance
Dodd-Frank Goes 0 for 11
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
The failures, two years after the initial “living will” drafts were submitted, raise questions about whether it will ever be possible for such large institutions to write their own funeral arrangements. In that sense Tuesday’s failing grades represent most of all a failure of the Dodd-Frank vision for bank regulation. … Our view is that it would be a brave Treasury Secretary, of either party, willing to shut down one of these banks without taxpayer help if they fail. That means the only way to prevent a bailout is with a large enough capital buffer to make failure less likely, or by writing a special provision of the federal bankruptcy code for these large institutions that removes political discretion. Until that happens, the living wills will be a fiction no matter what regulators say.
Banks’ Failure on ‘Living Wills’ Frays Relations With Regulators
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Victoria McGrane and Ryan Tracy
Bank officials were surprised by the public rebuke. A senior executive at one of the banks noted his firm got a 19-page memo less than three hours before the public release by the Federal Reserve and FDIC. The executive said there was no communication with regulators beforehand. “This widens the gap” of trust between banks and their regulators, something that the banks are working desperately to close, he said.
The Tax Dodge Goes On
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
An ideal solution would be for American and European leaders to forswear competition based on relative tax advantages as bad for everyone. Unfortunately, that would require a level of cooperation and leadership that is nowhere to be found. In the meantime, Congress could stop today’s most egregious tax avoidance tactics if a majority of members wanted to.
Obama’s Tax Law Rewrite
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
So now we have a President in an election year looking for a way to raise taxes on corporations after he couldn’t get Congress to agree. Has anyone asked Treasury’s career lawyers or the Office of Legal Counsel? Someone should. And when the next President arrives in 2017, one of his first acts should be to release publicly all of the OLC memos making the legal case for Mr. Obama’s many illegal acts, assuming there are any.
Firms Warn Inversion Crackdown Carries Risks
WALL STREET JOURNAL
John D. McKinnon
Talk of cracking down on U.S. corporations that move offshore is making some other companies nervous—notably, foreign-owned concerns, which are warning of cuts to their U.S. employment or investment if they’re caught in the cross hairs.
The Muddled Road to Overhauling Corporate Taxes
NEW YORK TIMES
Patricia Cohen
Businesses complain that the high federal tax rate of 35 percent on corporations is what propels them to exploit every opportunity to shave their tax bill. And Washington is listening: Lowering that nominal rate in exchange for pruning the crop of special-interest deductions is a principle embraced by President Obama and Paul D. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the House Budget Committee. But the truth, explains Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who has introduced two bills aimed at preventing American firms from merging with a foreign company to avoid paying taxes, is that “businesses all want to get rid of the other guy’s tax deductions — and reduce rates.”
Portugal’s Banking Disaster
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
A government rescue of one of Portugal’s largest lenders is an object lesson in regulatory failure and the haphazard manner in which European officials have gone about fixing their troubled banking system.
Bank of America set to settle mortgages case for $16bn-plus
FINANCIAL TIMES (Subscribe)
Kara Scannell and Camilla Hall
Bank of America has reached an agreement in principle to pay more than $16bn in cash and consumer relief to US authorities to resolve allegations of misselling mortgage-backed securities, people familiar with the matter said.
Politics
Is the race for control of the Senate over already?
WASHINGTON POST
Dan Balz
The midterm contest is almost over and the Republicans are winning. That, at least, is the impression left by some modelers and other analysts. But three months out from November, many questions remain before the ballots can be counted.
How the Senate Races Are Breaking
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Karl Rove
Unlike 2010, when the big story was the epic gains of Republicans in the House, this year’s midterms will mostly be about the Senate. And this summer has been unkind to Democrats hoping to keep the upper chamber.
Male-Female Split on Economic Issues Promises to Shape Midterm Elections
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Janet Hook and Nick Timiraos
This week’s Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that women are more in sync with Democrats on a range of economic issues, including minimum wages and concerns about growing income inequality. With Republicans holding substantial advantages this year, the Democrats’ appeal among women could provide a bulwark against a political drubbing.
State abortion restrictions fuel fight for Senate
POLITICO
Paige Winfield Cunningham
The 2014 campaign hasn’t had the equivalent of Todd Akin’s infamous rape comments driving the abortion debate. Instead, Democrats and Republicans are using a slew of new state abortion restrictions as weapons in the tight battle for control of the Senate. The fight this year centers on the dozen or so states that have banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy under so-called fetal pain laws, as well as on the renewed push in a few states for personhood legislation, which confers full legal rights to an embryo from the moment of conception.
To Beat Putin, Support Ukraine
NEW YORK TIMES
Michael A. McFaul
Mr. Putin could end this war now. In a speech on national television, he could praise the so-called rebels for securing greater autonomy for eastern Ukraine and then ask them to stop fighting, and for the Russian citizens to come home. This path to peace is quick, but unlikely. In its absence, the West’s best option is to redouble its support for a sovereign, prosperous and democratic Ukraine.
$11 Billion Later, High-Speed Rail Is Inching Along
NEW YORK TIMES
Ron Nixon
High-speed rail was supposed to be President Obama’s signature transportation project, but despite the administration spending nearly $11 billion since 2009 to develop faster passenger trains, the projects have gone mostly nowhere and the United States still lags far behind Europe and China.
