Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.
Energy
Oil exports push meets chill on the Hill
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Elana Schor
Republicans may be the party of free markets and “drill baby drill,” but the party’s presidential hopefuls and congressional leaders are seriously divided on whether the U.S. should start exporting its gusher of domestic oil.
States, utilities try to decipher EPA’s carbon plans
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
States are trying “to look at where we think we would be absent this regulation and where this regulation takes us and what the gap is,” said David Thornton, assistant commissioner at Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency. “And we’re still sorting through a lot of these details, because quite frankly, EPA’s proposal isn’t clear on how it treats a lot of things.”
EPA chief says to expect ‘changes’ in final climate rule
THE HILL
Laura Barron-Lopez
There will be “changes” made in the Obama administration’s proposal to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Gina McCarthy. “People who know me well enough know there are going to be changes between proposal and final because we listen,” McCarthy said on Thursday.
Google Kills Birds
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Perhaps Google figured it could gain political benefit by joining the liberal smear campaign against ALEC. But Mr. Schmidt shouldn’t disguise his company’s mercenary motives behind false and trendy appeals to green political virtue.
EPA chief’s climate pitch ignores rising electric prices
WASHINGTON TIMES
Ben Wolfgang
Gina McCarthy argued Thursday that her home state of Massachusetts is proof you can cut greenhouse gas emissions while fostering economic prosperity, but the Environmental Protection Agency administrator failed to mention the apparent trade-off for consumers: dramatically higher electricity prices.
Top Industry Group Backs Testing of Crude Oil Carried by Train
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Russell Gold
The American Petroleum Institute, a Washington, D.C., organization that lobbies on behalf of the nation’s big oil companies and sets industrywide standards, on Thursday issued its first-ever set of recommended practices for testing oil for rail transport. The recommendations come as rail shipments of crude have soared and highly-volatile crudes have been cited as a danger in oil-train derailments.
Making Headway Against Climate Change
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ban Ki-Moon
Governments and the private sector increasingly understand that fighting climate change need not impede economic growth and business success. Indeed, the competition to seize the opportunities can be a boon to citizens, businesses and economies around the world. I urge all finance, business and government leaders to take inspiration from the many bold new announcements at the Climate Summit. Climate change demands an urgent solution. We must scale up action and reach an agreement in Paris that matches the seriousness of the challenge.
Gas prices headed below $3 a gallon
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jonathan Fahey
Gasoline prices typically decline in autumn, and this year they are being pulled even lower by falling global oil prices. By the end of the year, up to 30 states could have an average gasoline price of less than $3 a gallon.
Technology
Golden Hammer: Chattanooga chokes on too much fiber
WASHINGTON TIMES
Drew Johnson
Chattanooga’s government-owned fiber optic cable, telephone and high-speed Internet scheme has been hailed as a revolutionary example of publicly-funded broadband. The Internet service, which officials claim can reach speeds of a gigabit-per-second, even led Chattanooga officials to attempt to rebrand the town as “Gig City.” But critics are already calling the effort, known as The Gig, a “socialist-style boondoggle” that has allowed a taxpayer-funded government electric utility to compete against private, existing cable, satellite, telephone and Internet providers. The results, skeptics say, have given federal taxpayers and Chattanooga residents little cause for celebration.
The FTC was built 100 years ago to fight monopolists. Now, it’s Washington’s most powerful technology cop.
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
“The Federal Trade Commission is becoming, for better or for worse, the Federal Technology Commission,” said Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law and Economics, at a recent Washington conference. On Friday, the FTC turns 100 years old. Here’s the story of how it became Washington’s go-to technology fixer.
Tech on PR push about privacy battles
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Alex Byers
Many of the tech sector’s biggest names — caught in legal battles over the troves of information they have on users and whether the government should get a peek — are now promoting their privacy fights. Call it policy as public relations.
In mega-deal shadows: AT&T and DirecTV
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Brooks Boliek
A deal that would combine the nation’s biggest telephone company and the nation’s biggest satellite TV provider seems like it would generate a lot of noise from public interest groups because it eliminates a major player in the pay-TV marketplace. But critics of industry consolidation are instead directing their ire at Comcast’s $45 billion play for Time Warner Cable.
Ride-Sharing Services Face Legal Threat From San Francisco, Los Angeles
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Douglas Macmillan
The district attorneys of San Francisco and Los Angeles on Thursday accused Sidecar Inc. of violating California business law and threatened an injunction on its service following a joint investigation, according to a letter sent to Sidecar and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Similar letters were also hand-delivered to Sidecar’s larger rivals in San Francisco, Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., according to a spokeswoman for the San Francisco district attorney’s office. She declined to comment further.
Drone Exemptions for Hollywood Pave the Way for Widespread Use
NEW YORK TIMES
Brooks Barnes
The Federal Aviation Administration, responding to applications from seven filmmaking companies and pressure from the Motion Picture Association of America, said six of those companies could use camera-equipped drones on certain movie and television sets. Until now, the F.A.A. has not permitted commercial drone use except for extremely limited circumstances in wilderness areas of Alaska.
FBI blasts Apple, Google for locking police out of phones
WASHINGTON POST
Craig Timberg and Greg Miller
FBI Director James B. Comey sharply criticized Apple and Google on Thursday for developing forms of smartphone encryption so secure that law enforcement officials cannot easily gain access to information stored on the devices — even when they have valid search warrants.
Finance
Why the next pick for U.S. Attorney General has huge implications for the housing industry
WASHINGTON POST
Dina ElBoghdady
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.’s departure – or more precisely his replacement – is an issue with huge implications for the housing sector, and a former White House official bluntly explained why. Jim Parrott, a former housing advisor in the Obama White House, cast much of the blame for today’s tight mortgage lending on the Justice Department’s aggressive enforcement actions in the wake of the housing bust, including the record multi-billion settlements reached with big banks in recent years.
FDIC’s Hoenig Keeps Wall Street on Edge
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ryan Tracy
One month before he assumed the No. 2 post at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Thomas Hoenig sat before a group of global bankers in Tokyo and told them he believed their firms ought to be broken apart. “Holy mackerel,” a U.S. bank lobbyist who was in the audience that day in October 2012 recalls thinking. “Thank goodness he’s not the chairman.”
U.S., Europe Hit Impasse Over Rules on Derivatives
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Andrew Ackerman, Katy Burne and Viktoria Dendrinou
U.S. and European policy makers have hit a snag in their postcrisis efforts to coordinate on international rules for derivatives, which played a central role in the 2008 meltdown. The two sides are at loggerheads over the regulation of clearinghouses—entities that are supposed to help prevent a market-wide collapse by ensuring either party in a derivatives transaction would get paid if the other side falters.
The Bipartisan ‘Inversion’ Evasion
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Michael J. Graetz
The truth is that for tax reform to be effective in making the United States the place where businesses want to locate their jobs, their investments and their corporate headquarters, we need a tax reform that is considerably bolder than either Congress or the president is now contemplating. Unfortunately, this no doubt will require both a different president and a different Congress.
Buoyant Dollar Recovers Its Luster, Underlining Rebound in U.S. Economy
NEW YORK TIMES
Landon Thomas Jr.
The United States dollar, after one of its most prolonged weak spells ever, has now re-emerged as the preferred currency for global investors. Across trading desks in New York, London and elsewhere, analysts are rushing to raise their dollar forecasts based on the resurgence in the American economy.
A Murky Process Yields Cleaner Professional Records for Stockbrokers
NEW YORK TIMES
Susan Antilla
Expungement hearings are not open to the public. Robert S. Banks Jr., the lawyer who represented the investor in the case, provided a copy of the recorded hearing to The New York Times, and it offers a rare window into the process of expungement requests. Finra, which has been under increasing pressure from investor advocates to rein in arbitrators who they contend were rubber-stamping expungement requests, has been reminding arbitrators in emails and on its website that such requests should be granted only in “extraordinary” circumstances.
Wall Street Still Needs a Leader on Reform
NEW YORK TIMES
William D. Cohan
On Oct. 20, at its gorgeous Italianate headquarters downtown, the New York Fed will hold a “workshop” on “reforming culture and behavior” on Wall Street. No doubt there is a burning need for that. But will anything of substance come from the workshop that might lead to meaningful change on Wall Street? The potential is certainly there. After all, the New York Fed is one of Wall Street’s most important regulators, and if it demanded changes to its compensation system or the way it finances itself, you can be sure that it would happen. On the other hand, the New York Fed has never been known as a tough Wall Street taskmaster.
Politics
Republicans Need a Direction
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Peggy Noonan
Some feel a vague list of general stands might solve the problem and do the trick. They think it’s probably too late to do more than that. But there are 6½ weeks before the election, and plenty of voters would be asking for more information and open to changing their minds. In such circumstances, explicit vows are more likely to be taken seriously than airy sentiments. Republicans need to say what they’re for. They need to make it new and true—not something defensive but something equal to the moment.
Liberal base sours on Obama
THE HILL
Justin Sink
President Obama’s poll numbers are plummeting in deep-blue states such as New York and California, with core liberal supporters who have stuck with him through thick and thin beginning to sour on his leadership. Obama’s decisions to punt on immigration reform, defend government surveillance and attack fighters in the Middle East have all alienated parts of the coalition that elected him twice to the White House.
Attorney general confirmation process is fractious even before it’s begun
WASHINGTON POST
Paul Kane and Juliet Eilperin
President Obama has yet to reveal his choice to succeed Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., but already the Senate confirmation process has begun its march toward contentiousness. With Nov. 4 midterm elections potentially tipping the balance in the Senate, some Republicans immediately called for a delay in the hearings and votes on the new attorney general until January, when the possibility of a GOP majority in the Senate might give Republicans almost total control of the outcome.
Congress should pass an authorization for using force against the Islamic State
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
Domestically, too, Mr. Obama’s legal case probably won’t be seriously contested by Congress or the courts. That, however, doesn’t mean that the president’s legal rationale is satisfying. Numerous experts have pointed out that, in citing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force against al-Qaeda, Mr. Obama is using a 13-year-old statute that he himself has said should be narrowed and eventually repealed. Though the law authorizes action against “associated forces” of al-Qaeda, the White House is applying it to a group that split with al-Qaeda and has been repudiated by it.
Republicans See Money Drying Up in Final Weeks
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Alex Roarty
GOP campaigns, political committees, and—above all—the party’s outside groups are scrambling to raise money, worried that Democrats and their allied groups are poised to heavily outspend them on TV ads in the final weeks before Election Day. Concerns run deepest about October, when Democratic groups are on track to pour millions of dollars into a handful of races that will determine which party controls the Senate. In some of those same races, Republicans have reserved little or no airtime.
GOP preps for battle after Election Day
POLITICO
Anna Palmer and Manu Raju
Top Republican strategists are quietly preparing to pour money into Louisiana after November, even reserving hotel rooms and millions of dollars’ worth of ad time. If Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu doesn’t win more than half the vote in the general election, she would very likely be forced into a one-on-one runoff with Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy.
Bloomberg can’t find enough anti-gun candidates to support
WASHINGTON TIMES
David Sherfinski
Former New York Mayor MichaelR. Bloomberg’s gun control group announced a round of candidate endorsements this week, but his plan to pour $50 million into gun control efforts appears to be struggling to find campaigns to back in nationally watched races.
