Your daily briefing for all the top news in Energy, Technology, Finance, and Politics.

Energy

Greens take 2014 fight to states
POLITICO
Darren Goode and Andrew Restuccia
Seeing no end to gridlock in Congress, national environmental groups are trying a new strategy for winning battles on climate change and green power: pouring record amounts of money into legislative races in a handful of states. The multimillion-dollar push by groups like the League of Conservation Voters and liberal billionaire Tom Steyer’s super PAC aims to secure friendly majorities in the legislatures of states such as Oregon, Washington and Colorado. Victories there could help blunt their grim prospects in D.C., where the all-but-paralyzed U.S. Senate may be in Republican hands after November.

 

Hillary Clinton to Headline Environmental Group’s Annual Dinner             
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Amy Harder
If Hillary Clinton decides to run for president—a move that observers say is increasingly likely—the topics she’s choosing to speak about indicate she would take a progressive view on energy and climate change. Just months before she’s expected to announce whether she’s running, the former secretary of state will deliver a speech to a room full of environmentalists at the League of Conservation Voters’ annual dinner in New York City on Dec. 1.

 

Obama’s faulty climate-change solutions
WASHINGTON TIMES
Bob Carter and Tom Harris
It is a remarkable fact that virtually all governments now view climate change and energy supply as closely related policy issues. Climate change issues are concerned with environmental hazards, though, whereas energy policy is concerned with supplying cheap and reliable electricity supplies to industry and the populace. Where is the relationship?

 

US poised to become world’s leading liquid petroleum producer
FINANCIAL TIMES (Subscribe)
Ed Crooks and Anjli Raval
The US is overtaking Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of liquid petroleum, in a sign of how its booming oil production has reshaped the energy sector.

 

A U-Turn for a Terminal Built in Texas to Import Natural Gas
NEW YORK TIMES
Clifford Krauss
The giant Golden Pass natural gas import terminal here, meant to bring Middle Eastern gas to energy-hungry Americans, sits eerily quiet these days, a sleepy museum to a bygone era. … Qatar Petroleum, the state oil company, is now requesting permission to export American gas, proposing with its partner Exxon Mobil an audacious conversion of the facility to export from import. The additional estimated cost: $10 billion, if not more.

 

 

Technology

Microsoft’s top boss learning D.C. ropes
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Tony Romm
Nadella has trained his sights on the nation’s capital, but he hasn’t written a single check to federal candidates — unlike Ballmer, who has regularly raised big bucks for President Barack Obama. During Nadella’s first big trip as CEO to Washington earlier this year, he didn’t even meet with congressional lawmakers. Ballmer, by contrast, was a familiar face for federal regulators and the White House.

 

The FCC May Redefine ‘Television’ to Include the Internet
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Sasso
The Federal Communications Commission is considering whether to treat certain online video services the same way it treats cable and satellite TV providers. The move would help the online services get cheaper access to major network programming and could allow them to become stronger competitors to the dominant pay-TV providers like Comcast. … The proposal would apply only to online services that offer streams of prescheduled programming. So the rules wouldn’t cover Netflix, which allows subscribers to watch videos whenever they want.

 

One Vision of a Non-Neutral Internet
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Gautham Nagesh
But now, a different kind of non-neutral Internet is emerging on wireless networks, as mobile companies offer low-cost plans that only give users access to certain popular apps like Facebook. Such plans, known as “zero rating,” don’t comport with net neutrality, the principle that all traffic should be treated equally. And in these cases there is transparency – the user is fully aware of what’s going on because it’s a plan he or she has chosen.

 

The FTC doubles down on its net neutrality ambitions
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
It’s the second time in as many weeks that the FTC has complained about the possible loss of authority under the FCC’s net neutrality rules. Speaking on C-SPAN (and to The Washington Post), Republican FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen said that despite the “possibility” that Internet service providers would abuse their ability to control access to consumers, reclassifying broadband under Title II would put ISPs beyond the legal reach of the FTC, one of the nation’s technology regulators.

 

Cisco: The Internet Needs More Control
NEW YORK TIMES
Quentin Hardy
Cisco Systems is making an unusual case for itself: The Internet must be subject to a higher amount of control, and big companies will work with governments to make that possible. The message came in an announcement on Monday, rich in corporate partners and allies, that was intended to show Cisco’s progress in creating its so-called Intercloud, a proposed network of cloud computing systems with high performance, security and control.

 

FCC Asks Media Firms for Details of Comcast Contracts
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Amol Sharma and Gautham Nagesh
The Federal Communications Commission is pushing for media companies to submit details of their programming agreements with Comcast Corp., as it reviews the cable giant’s proposed $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable Inc. … Media companies, though, are pushing back. Though many of them would like to see the FCC put in place strict conditions on a deal to restrain Comcast’s market power, they don’t want to reveal details of their contracts with the cable giant, fearing that would give competitors an advantage.

 

F.C.C. Appears Poised to Loosen Sports Blackout Rule, Despite Protests by the N.F.L.
NEW YORK TIMES
Edward Wyatt
For decades, football fans in various markets wondered whether, come Sunday, they would be able to watch their lamentable but beloved team on television. If tickets to that week’s game were not sold out, the National Football League could keep the game off television in the local market as a way to protect gate receipts. But the Federal Communications Commission appears ready to loosen some of those restrictions on Tuesday, allowing cable and satellite providers to show the game regardless of the number of tickets sold — and upsetting the N.F.L. in the process.

 

 

Finance

Judge Holds Argentina in Contempt of Court in Bond Payment Case
NEW YORK TIMES
Alexandra Stevenson
Speaking firmly, Judge Griesa indicated that the Republic of Argentina had gone a step too far in seeking to sidestep his injunction that forbids the government from paying only the bondholders it chooses. “What has happened is the Republic, in various ways, has sought to avoid, to not attend to, almost to ignore this basic part of its financial obligations,” Judge Griesa said on Monday.

 

Fed Rate Policies Aid Foreign Banks
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ryan Tracy and Jon Hilsenrath
Banks based outside the U.S. have been unlikely beneficiaries of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policies, and they are likely to keep profiting as the Fed changes the way it controls borrowing costs. Foreign firms have received nearly half of the $9.8 billion in interest the Fed has paid banks since the beginning of last year for the money, called reserves, they deposit at the U.S. central bank according to an analysis of Fed data by The Wall Street Journal. Those lenders control only about 17% of all bank assets in the U.S. Moreover, the Fed’s plans for raising interest rates make it likely banks will see those payments grow in coming years.

 

As SEC Enforcement Cases Rise, Big Actions Are Sparse
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Jean Eaglesham
“When the chairman testifies before Congress…she will have nice numbers to cite,” said Thomas Gorman, a partner at law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP. “But she’s not going to have the really good cases that the SEC made its reputation on.”

 

Drug Patents Held Overseas Can Pare Makers’ Tax Bills
NEW YORK TIMES
Andrew Pollack
Take the case of Gilead Sciences, which has come under severe criticism for the high cost of its in-demand new hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi, which sells for $1,000 a pill, or $84,000 for a typical course of treatment. Although Gilead, the developer of Sovaldi, is an American company based in Foster City, Calif., the patent rights have been transferred to an Irish subsidiary. So Gilead’s profits from the booming sales of Sovaldi are taxed at Ireland’s rate, which is well below the American one.

 

 

Politics

Many Missteps in Assessment of ISIS Threat
NEW YORK TIMES
Peter Baker and Eric Schmitt
By late last year, classified American intelligence reports painted an increasingly ominous picture of a growing threat from Sunni extremists in Syria, according to senior intelligence and military officials. Just as worrisome, they said, were reports of deteriorating readiness and morale among troops next door in Iraq. But the reports, they said, generated little attention in a White House consumed with multiple brush fires and reluctant to be drawn back into Iraq. “Some of us were pushing the reporting, but the White House just didn’t pay attention to it,” said a senior American intelligence official.

 

The Obama-Military Divide
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Seth Cropsey
Senior officers must accept their commander in chief’s judgment and carry out orders. But they and like-minded advisers have another option: resigning. Not to embarrass the administration or cause a constitutional crisis, but to indicate the gravity of the ISIS threat. Until stopped, ISIS or its collaborators are likely to mount an attack against the U.S. homeland with the aim of equaling or surpassing al Qaeda’s 9/11 success. A military commander’s resignation, accompanied by a clear and respectful explanation, would prompt a needed debate over U.S. strategy to achieve the president’s goal “to degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS.

 

Obama’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ moment
WASHINGTON POST
Marc A. Thiessen
On “60 Minutes” Sunday, Obama said the intelligence community “underestimated” the threat posed by the Islamic State. The truth is it was Obama who underestimated the threat — not because of bad intelligence, but because he was blinded by his own ideological insistence on withdrawal. He did not want to hear that a mortal danger was gathering in Iraq, because it conflicted with his plan to cement his legacy as the president who brought every U.S. soldier home from Iraq and Afghanistan before he left office.

 

Obama on Faulty Intelligence
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
The failure to confront ISIS sooner wasn’t an intelligence failure. It was a failure by policy makers to act on events that were becoming so obvious that the Iraqis were asking for American help for months before Mosul fell. Mr. Obama declined to offer more than token assistance.

 

Obama’s Pass-the-Buck Presidency
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Josh Kraushaar
In attempting to downplay the political damage from a slew of second-term controversies, President Obama has counted on the American people having a very short memory span and a healthy suspension of disbelief. The time-tested strategy for Obama: Claim he’s in the dark about his own administration’s activities, blame the mess on subordinates, and hope that with the passage of time, all will be forgotten. Harry Truman, the president isn’t. He’s more likely to pass the buck.

 

Republicans Hold the Advantage in Senate Races
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Charlie Cook
Republicans are virtually certain to pick up three open Democratic-held seats in Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia. The GOP is now increasingly favored to hold on to at least two of the party’s three endangered seats: the open seat in Georgia and that of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Sure, it is possible that either Michelle Nunn in Georgia or Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes could prevail, but polls indicate that GOP nominee David Perdue and McConnell are starting to build leads that don’t seem likely to be reversed at this point. The Wizard of Oz race in Kansas, however, is a different story. In this contest, it’s just easier to say, “Who the heck knows what will happen?” and instead focus on races where the dynamics are more recognizable and, therefore, understandable.

 

Democrats Are Spending More on the Ground in Key Senate Races
NEW YORK TIMES
Derek Willis
With a strong possibility that Democrats could lose control of the Senate in the midterm elections, they are investing heavily in voter turnout efforts. In states too close to call like Alaska, Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina, Democrats are making much greater investments in the ground game than Republicans.

 

GOP aims for gains in legislatures
POLITICO
Steven Shepard
For Republicans at the state level, 2014 isn’t just about maintaining the gains they’ve made in governorships. The GOP also hopes to increase its share of the nation’s state legislative chambers — potentially increasing its foothold on the levers of power to set policy.

 

Incumbent governors fear wipeout
POLITICO
James Hohmann
As many as a dozen incumbent governors are fighting for their political lives five weeks out from Election Day — a list that includes the chief executives of states as red as Kansas and as blue as Connecticut as well as several top presidential battlegrounds. The unsettled gubernatorial landscape has drawn a fraction of the attention of the seesawing battle for the Senate. Yet the state of play is dramatic in its own right: The fate of big-name Republicans such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Florida’s Rick Scott and Michigan’s Rick Snyder are all on the line, and Democrats such as Colorado’s John Hickenlooper and Illinois’ Pat Quinn are locked in tough reelection races that could go either way.

 

Bill Gates plugs Common Core, Arne Duncan
POLITICO
Stephanie Simon
Gates described the state of education before Common Core was introduced as “a cacophony” because every state had different standards. Many of those standards, he said, didn’t align well with exams. “Common Core is, to me, a very basic idea that kids should be taught what they’re going to be tested on and that we should have great curriculum material,” he said.