Please help InsideSources continue to grow. Ask your friends and colleagues to signup for InsideAlerts.
Energy
New Report Urges Western Governments to Reconsider Reliance on Biofuels
NEW YORK TIMES
Justin Gillis
Western governments have made a wrong turn in energy policy by supporting the large-scale conversion of plants into fuel and should reconsider that strategy, according to a new report from a prominent environmental think tank. Turning plant matter into liquid fuel or electricity is so inefficient that the approach is unlikely ever to supply a substantial fraction of global energy demand, the report found.
Finally, an Energy Issue Everybody (Mostly) Likes
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Clare Foran
As they bicker over the Keystone XL oil pipeline, House and Senate lawmakers are taking up measures to encourage more natural-gas exports. The White House has said the bills are unnecessary because they duplicate efforts already underway, but that’s not the same as a veto threat. In fact, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has talked with Republicans about how to craft the legislation.
Senate set for Thursday Keystone vote
POLITICO
Elana Schor
The Senate is set to greenlight its Keystone XL bill on Thursday, just 48 hours after Democrats forced Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to postpone victory on the oil pipeline he has made the GOP’s first priority for 2015. The final Keystone vote comes after a Wednesday voting marathon and brings Republicans to the edge of success on their first bill of the year. But it’s only an incremental step in their years-long battle with President Barack Obama over the $8 billion pipeline.
Obama’s split personality on oil
POLITICO
Darren Goode
Obama’s approach has infuriated greens, baffled the oil industry, and confused Republicans who find themselves praising him and condemning him on energy policy — sometimes within the same week. Critics on the right say Obama shouldn’t get credit for the oil gusher, and critics on the left say his environmental record is still incomplete.
Technology
Sources: FCC following Obama lead on net neutrality
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Brooks Boliek
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s net neutrality proposal will seek to regulate broadband like a public utility, matching a vision laid out by President Barack Obama, according to three commission sources briefed on the plan.
Thune looks to overhaul communications laws
THE HILL
Mario Trujillo
Thune said the current debate at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about reclassifying broadband Internet like a utility stems from an obsolete legal framework — and is being pushed by “an increasingly imperious president.” “With the FCC poised to reclassify broadband due to a lack of clear statutory authority, we can readily see the consequences of that obsolescence and the need for action,” Thune told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute.
Republicans Try to Pre-empt the F.C.C.
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
The good news is that even if Republicans in Congress, who receive big donations from telecommunications companies, can push through Mr. Thune’s and Mr. Upton’s legislation, President Obama would almost surely veto it. In November, the president called on the F.C.C. to reclassify broadband. But Republicans could try to get the proposal through by attaching it to unrelated bills the president would find difficult to veto. Democrats in Congress and President Obama should be ready to defend the F.C.C.
White House preps expansive online privacy bill
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Tony Romm
The White House is preparing to send a sweeping online privacy proposal to Congress that would restrict how companies like Google and Facebook handle consumer data while greatly expanding the power of the Federal Trade Commission to police abuses — ideas that are likely to incite strong opposition in Congress.
The FAA should strike the right balance on drone regulation
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
Some people intend to be national security threats. Others are just drunk. In the case of Monday’s drone crash on the southeast corner of the White House grounds, the immediate problem seems to have been an inebriated pilot. But the underlying issue is that the federal government poorly regulates the booming drone industry. The right response is not overreaction but rather tightening rules and procedures in some ways — and loosening them in others.
Drone age takes flight, and FAA’s not ready
USA TODAY
Editorial
The FAA is charged with regulating the nation’s airspace, but so far it seems overwhelmed by the challenge of fitting drones into the plan. While the agency dithers, thousands of hobbyists and businesses are figuring it out on their own, some safely, some not. With a drone down on the White House lawn, everyone should get the message that it’s time to speed things up.
Finance
Mr. Obama’s economic optimism ignores the ongoing battle with federal debt
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
In short, the fiscal triumph Mr. Obama touts is cyclical, not structural. It reflects the economic recovery, which has brought an increase in tax revenue and a decline in spending on programs that swell during recessions, including food stamps and unemployment insurance. There have been no permanent reforms to the major entitlement programs, which the CBO identifies as the main drivers of future deficits. And given the political deadlock between Mr. Obama and the Republican-majority Congress, there probably won’t be any such reforms before January 2017.
As New Leadership Takes Over in Washington, Fiscal Battles Resurface
NEW YORK TIMES
Jonathan Weisman
With the era of falling budget deficits coming to an end, President Obama and Congress are hurtling toward a clash over spending as the White House and Democrats press for an easing of fiscal austerity just as Republicans redouble efforts to balance the budget. While both sides say they are trying to help the squeezed middle class, the divide between the two parties on actual fiscal policy may be as stark as at any time since Bill Clinton’s first term and the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996. Since then, Washington policy makers have been focused on issues like national defense, financial crises and recession, or at least on professing a common goal of balanced budgets and fiscal rectitude.
Building Toward Another Mortgage Meltdown
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Edward Pinto
Congress should put an end to this price war before it does real damage to the economy. It should terminate the ill-conceived GSE affordable-housing mandates and impose strong capital standards on the FHA that can’t be ignored as they have been for five years and counting.
A Push for a Greater Government Role in Housing Finance
NEW YORK TIMES
Jesse Eisinger
But there is another side: That the top-down, dominant government role works. Melvin L. Watt, the Obama appointee who now heads of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, seems to hold a lonely position in this camp. He is pushing Fannie and Freddie to expand credit, widening the types of mortgages they will back from the private sector. In doing so, he is reversing direction from his predecessor, Edward J. DeMarco. Mr. Watt is staking out the position that the government can be a responsible steward for most of the housing market. In recent months, Mr. Watt has pushed through changes to allow Fannie and Freddie to buy loans made to borrowers who made lower down payments on houses, loosened up the mysterious “credit box” at the giant mortgage companies and lowered fees.
FDIC attempts to end Operation Choke Point with letter, action
WASHINGTON TIMES
Kelly Riddell
In an effort to put an end to Operation Choke Point — a financial task force that was created by the Obama administration to “choke out” businesses it finds objectionable like gun shops — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a letter Wednesday saying all banks should examine their customer relationships on a case-by-case basis and not by industry operational risk.
Federal Reserve Won’t Raise Interest Rates Before June, at Earliest
NEW YORK TIMES
Binyamin Appelbaum
The Federal Reserve kept its options open on Wednesday, signaling that it would not raise short-term interest rates any earlier than June, while leaving unresolved how much longer it might be willing to wait before lifting its benchmark rate from near zero, where the central bank has held it for more than six years.
Politics
‘Policy cliff’ deadlines test US Congress
FINANCIAL TIMES (Subscribe)
Barney Jopson
Republicans and the White House face a ticking clock on a series of legislative deadlines that will test their ability to find common ground following a fractious start to the year. The five so-called “policy cliffs” require Congress to vote on whether to renew government support in areas including domestic security, infrastructure and export financing or, instead, to allow some federal operations to shut down.
Obama’s Tax Proposals Unlikely to Boost Middle-Class Incomes
WALL STREET JOURNAL
John D. McKinnon
A new analysis suggests that President Barack Obama ’s recent tax proposals would do little to boost incomes for middle-class households, and actually could wind up raising taxes on many, at least by some measures. The analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, tends to undercut recent administration statements that its plan is aimed at helping middle-class families get ahead and stimulate the economy.
What to Watch in the GOP Jockeying for 2016
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Karl Rove
For most of this year, national polls showing head-to-head matchups among potential Republican presidential candidates will be interesting but hardly predictive. Opinion in states with February 2016 contests won’t really gel until late autumn, when polls begin to show the true state of the race in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. So what’s worth paying attention to in early polls?
They’re back! The new tea party surge
POLITICO
Alex Isenstadt
Congress hasn’t even been in session a month and a raft of Republicans are already being threatened with primaries in 2016. The reasons run the gamut, from backing John Boehner for speaker to objecting to an anti-abortion bill. One congressman is under fire for failing to amass clout that would help his district on a key issue. It’s the latest proof that divisions within the GOP are very much alive, despite the triumph of the establishment GOP wing over the tea party in last year’s midterms.
Exclusive: Secret tapes undermine Hillary Clinton on Libyan war
WASHINGTON TIMES
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro and Kelly Riddell
Top Pentagon officials and a senior Democrat in Congress so distrusted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2011 march to war in Libya that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime in an effort to halt the escalating crisis, according to secret audio recordings recovered from Tripoli. The tapes, reviewed by The Washington Times and authenticated by the participants, chronicle U.S. officials’ unfiltered conversations with Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s son and a top Libyan leader, including criticisms that Mrs. Clinton had developed tunnel vision and led the U.S. into an unnecessary war without adequately weighing the intelligence community’s concerns.
GOP Split Over Expected Obama Request for More Defense Outlays
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Kristina Peterson and Julian E. Barnes
After pledging to use their new congressional majority to rein in federal spending, many Republicans are likely to criticize Mr. Obama’s plan to ignore the curbs known as the sequester on nondefense spending. But on military spending, GOP lawmakers are divided over whether the Pentagon should absorb more cuts.
‘I will be Loretta Lynch’
POLITICO
Seung Min Kim
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) — asking her in jest, “You’re not Eric Holder, are you?” — told Lynch that the outgoing attorney general’s six-year record at the Justice Department was weighing heavily on lawmakers’ minds. He asked her: How will senators know you will not be another Holder? “If confirmed as attorney general, I will be myself. I will be Loretta Lynch,” the veteran federal prosecutor responded. “And I would refer you to my record as United States attorney on two occasions as well as a practicing lawyer to see the independence that I have always brought to every particular matter.”
Nation’s per-pupil K-12 funding fell for second consecutive year in 2012
WASHINGTON POST
Emma Brown
After more than a decade of increases in per-pupil funding for K-12 public schools, the nation’s per-pupil spending dropped in 2012 for the second year in a row, according to data released Thursday by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Failing Up in ObamaCare
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Only days after the Internal Revenue Service announced that it would throttle back tax-season customer service in retaliation for modest budget cuts, the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee discovered that the agency had an active $4.46 million contract with CGI Federal. You may recall that company as the same outside website-builder-for-hire that was the lead designer for the ObamaCare website rollout fiasco of 2013.
