Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
Obama to announce new climate plans
USA TODAY
David Jackson
President Obama plans to announce Tuesday he will require federal agencies to factor the impact of climate change into the design of international development programs and investments. The new executive order will be part of Obama’s address to the United Nations Climate Summit, kicking off a week of UN activities for the president.
Mr. Obama’s hot flash on global warming
WASHINGTON TIMES
Editorial
The wealthy West preaches the need to make carbon sacrifices to Mother Earth so that, once satisfied, she will bestow cold weather on us. The world leaders, who aren’t dumb, will say whatever it takes to get aid money, but many of them rightly recognize that giving up affordable energy sources that emit carbon dioxide — that’s the same stuff that everybody exhales — kills all hope of achieving prosperity. It makes as much sense as giving a man dying of thirst a salty cracker when what he needs is a cup of water.
Manufacturers Back Road Tax Changes
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Bob Tita
Crumbling and congested U.S. roadways are driving up costs for U.S. manufacturers as late deliveries and unreliable transportation undermine hard-fought gains in production efficiency, according to U.S. manufacturing executives. … A new report due out Tuesday from the National Association of Manufacturers … estimates overall spending on public infrastructure fell 10.5% between 2003 and 2012. Spending on highways and streets by federal, state and local governments, dropped a higher 19% during that same period, according to the study. The group is calling for an about $100-billion-a-year increase in funding for roads, mass transit, airports, waterways and ports and water plants in each of the next three years.
How to Measure Success at the Climate-Change Summit
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Ben Geman
A parade of more than 120 heads of state—including President Obama—will pledge their commitment to tackling rising greenhouse emissions at Tuesday’s United Nations climate-change summit. But the impact of the giant meeting will be tough to measure—and it might take awhile.
About 100 climate protesters arrested in march on Wall Street
REUTERS
Sebastien Malo
About 100 protesters were arrested on Monday in New York City during a demonstration that at one point blocked streets near the stock exchange to denounce what organizers say is Wall Street’s contribution to climate change.
Behind the Chevron Case
NEW YORK TIMES
Joe Nocera
When I spoke to [Steven] Donziger on Monday, he conceded that he may have made some mistakes, but nothing as egregious as Chevron’s “horrendous actions in Ecuador.” He told me that he was proud of the way he had acted, and that he still stands by the ghostwritten expert’s report. “I am a big boy,” Donziger said. “I can take responsibility for what I did or did not do.” But that’s just the problem. He can’t. And he hasn’t.
Human Role in Warming of Northwest Played Down
NEW YORK TIMES
Michael Wines
A new and most likely controversial analysis of Pacific Ocean weather patterns concludes that a century-long trend of rising temperatures in the American Northwest is largely explained by natural shifts in ocean winds, not by human activity.
Technology
Congress to push Internet sales tax after midterm elections
THE HILL
Bernie Becker
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) put the online sales tax legislation at the top of his priority list, when he shared his post-November to-do list before leaving Washington to campaign. “That is long, long overdue,” Reid said of the online sales tax bill, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA). He said he’d do “whatever it takes to get that done.” Supporters have seen their efforts fall short before. But they believe they’ve found the perfect vehicle for getting a bill across the finish line this year — linking it to an extension of a widely supported law that bars local taxes on Internet access, the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA).
Tech’s surveillance hopes stopped in their tracks
POLITICO
Tony Romm
Silicon Valley had high hopes for surveillance reform this year — but that was before Congress headed for the midterm exits amid talk of increased global terrorist threats. … The developments mark another setback for the tech industry, which went into 2014 aiming for surveillance reform and other priorities, like an immigration overhaul — and is now barreling toward a total political shutout in the lame-duck session.
The FCC Wants to Get Creative on Net Neutrality
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Sasso
The Federal Communications Commission is spitballing some creative new ideas for protecting net neutrality. In a blog post Monday, Julie Veach, the chief of the agency’s Wireline Bureau, said Chairman Tom Wheeler is looking at a “rainbow of policy and legal proposals” rather than being confined to “monochromatic” options.
Mobile industry makes the pro-goodies case for non-neutral networks
WASHINGTON POST
Nancy Scola
Meredith Attwell Baker is the president and CEO of the wireless industry group CTIA. And in prepared remarks at Monday’s GSMA Mobile 360 event in Atlanta, she declared that mobile Internet service providers aren’t backing away from the idea that key to surviving in the wireless marketplace is, increasingly, the digital bonuses they offer — goodies that could be prohibited under strong net neutrality rules.
New Level of Smartphone Encryption Alarms Law Enforcement
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Devlin Barrett and Danny Yadron
Moves by Apple Inc. and Google Inc. to put some smartphone data out of the reach of police and the courts are raising alarms inside U.S. law-enforcement agencies, current and former officials say. Several officials in Washington said they were bracing for a confrontation with Silicon Valley on the issue, the latest fallout from the revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about government surveillance.
Google Must Improve Search Settlement or Face Charges, EU’s Almunia Says
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Tom Fairless
Google Inc. must improve its proposal to settle European Union concerns over its search practices or face formal antitrust charges, the EU’s competition chief Joaquin Almunia said Tuesday. In a sometimes heated debate with European lawmakers, Mr. Almunia defended his agency’s handling of its four-year-old investigation of Google, and insisted he hasn’t been swayed by mounting political pressure.
Finance
US in sweeping tax inversions crackdown
FINANCIAL TIMES (Subscribe)
Barney Jopson and Robin Harding
The new rules will stop non-US subsidiaries of inverted companies from making loans to their new foreign parent as a way to avoid paying US tax. They will also stop the new parents from buying overseas subsidiaries to free that cash from US tax. The Treasury is also making it harder for a US company to meet the current rules for inversion, which require shareholders of the foreign partner to own more than 20 per cent of the new company.
The Muni Bond Lobby
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
What happens if states and cities with rising pension obligations have trouble finding investors for their bonds? The local politicos needn’t worry because Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) is leaning on federal regulators to ease their fiscal pain. Mr. Schumer has launched his campaign in response to a new federal rule that does not force big banks to lend to municipalities. … The point of this new liquidity rule is to make sure that in times of market stress big banks have on hand instruments they can easily convert into cash to meet their obligations. In the past banks generally haven’t considered muni paper to be of the highest quality, and with good reason.
Behind the Fed’s Dovish Turn on Rates
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Alan Blinder
One way to make sense of all this is to say, as some have, that the Fed may wait a little longer but then raise rates more rapidly once it starts. Perhaps. Another interpretation is that the Fed is projecting faster rate hikes because it is underestimating how strongly bond traders will push long-term interest rates up once Fed hikes begin. The central bank has underestimated market reactions before.
Two Known as Dissenters Plan to Retire From Fed
NEW YORK TIMES
Binyamin Appelbaum
Two Federal Reserve officials who have warned loudly and persistently that the Fed is overreaching in its economic stimulus campaign plan to retire next year after completing terms on the Fed’s policy-making committee. Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia since 2006, said on Monday that he would retire in March. Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas since 2005, is required to step down by the end of April.
Pursuit of Individuals in Corporate Misconduct Still Arduous
NEW YORK TIMES
Peter J. Henning
Despite three saber-rattling speeches by Justice Department leaders, however, prosecutors looking to file charges against executives for wrongdoing will face significant hurdles. Not the least is the basic requirement in the criminal law to prove a defendant’s culpable intent, which is no easy task when executives are far removed from daily operations.
BlackRock Urges Overhaul of Corporate Bond Trading
NEW YORK TIMES
Nathaniel Popper
BlackRock, one of the largest bondholders in the world, said in a paper released Monday afternoon that the market for trading corporate bonds was “broken” in a way that hurts ordinary investors and companies borrowing through the market.
Politics
U.S. airstrikes in Syria signal a new battlefield
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The United States will need a concerted and ambitious approach to Syria if Mr. Obama’s announced goal of degrading and destroying the Islamic State is to be realized. Airstrikes alone will not be sufficient, but they are necessary. And if, in the near term, they can save the Syrian Kurds from a situation described as “urgent” and “dire” by their deputy commander in an interview with the BBC on Monday, they will be eminently justifiable.
Afghan Resolution
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Afghanistan’s presidential runoff in June was so messy that no one knows who won, and the bickering in the aftermath threatened a civil war. So the power-sharing deal struck in Kabul Sunday, although it begins life in an ICU, is the best outcome under Afghan circumstances.
Democrats relying on big donors to win
POLITICO
Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti
Democrats love to cast Republicans as the party of big money, beholden to the out-of-touch billionaires bankrolling their campaigns. But new numbers tell a very different story — one in which Democrats are actually raising more big money than their adversaries.
The GOP’s tall order for broader appeal in 2016
WASHINGTON POST
Michael Gerson
The typical argument between the Republican establishment and the conservative movement is pretty much irrelevant here. An establishment candidate who reinforces the perception of an elitist, out-of-touch, ethnically homogeneous party is not the answer. Neither is a candidate of conservative purification who has little appeal beyond core constituencies. The RNC autopsy is an establishment document calling for a revolution against the image and message of an establishment party — a plea to reach beyond the base before the GOP is overwhelmed by economic, cultural and demographic change.
Snap Out of It
NEW YORK TIMES
David Brooks
Politics is generally the same old tasks. Rejuvenating ailing institutions. Fighting barbarians to preserve world order. Today is nothing new. Instead of sliding into fatalism, it might be a good idea to address our problems without exaggerating our plight.
A Pro-Family, Pro-Growth Tax Reform
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sens. Mike Lee and Marco Rubio
Two simple income-tax brackets: 15% and 35%. End the marriage penalty and increase the child tax credit.
The Hooters Precedent
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Now comes a paper in which attorneys at the Holland & Knight law firm note a disturbing NLRB trend of condoning profanity and insubordination among U.S. workers. They’re warning employers about a pattern of board decisions “that attack sensible, long-standing management standards of conduct.”
