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Energy
The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Bjorn Lomborg
It is an indisputable fact that carbon emissions are rising—and faster than most scientists predicted. But many climate-change alarmists seem to claim that all climate change is worse than expected. This ignores that much of the data are actually encouraging. The latest study from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that in the previous 15 years temperatures had risen 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit. The average of all models expected 0.8 degrees. So we’re seeing about 90% less temperature rise than expected. Facts like this are important because a one-sided focus on worst-case stories is a poor foundation for sound policies.
The Keystone Contribution
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
The people who would build Keystone and benefit from its addition to world oil supply are average American workers and consumers. The most vociferous opponents of Keystone are wealthy liberals from San Francisco and New York who put the potential future risk from climate change above the current economic well-being of working people. One benefit of the Republican Senate is that it is finally making Mr. Obama show his real economic priorities, and they have little to do with the middle class.
Climate Change’s Bottom Line
NEW YORK TIMES
Burt Helm
The [Risky Business] committee started in June as a way to promote a study that it commissioned, “Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States.” But it has since evolved into a loose network of missionaries who publicize the report’s ominous data far and wide, in talks at the Clinton Global Initiative conference, briefings with the American Farm Bureau Federation and breakfast meetings with local chambers of commerce.
Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds
NEW YORK TIMES
Coral Davenport and Marjorie Connelly
An overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future. In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They were less likely to vote for candidates who questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming.
Technology
How FCC chair took control of Internet
POLITICO
Brooks Boliek, Alex Byers and Bill Duryea
Wheeler did not speak officially for this report. But interviews with FCC officials, industry executives and representatives of public interest groups reveal the origins of his dramatic pivot on this issue: an intense and relatively brief grass-roots lobbying campaign that targeted two people — him and President Barack Obama. “We [knew] that Tom Wheeler was going to make the decision on this,” said Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press, a liberal public interest group. “He was the guy with the most influence over the details, and the question becomes who has the most influence over him, and that is President Obama.”
The FCC is moving to preempt state broadband limits
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
Federal regulators are moving ahead with a proposal to help two cities fighting with their state governments over the ability to build public alternatives to large Internet providers. The Federal Communications Commission this week will begin considering a draft decision to intervene against state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that limit Internet access operated and sold by cities, according to a senior FCC official. The agency’s chairman, Tom Wheeler, could circulate the draft to his fellow commissioners as early as Monday and the decision will be voted on in the FCC’s public meeting on Feb. 26.
Tech looks for megaphone in trade negotiations
THE HILL
Julian Hattem
America’s biggest tech companies are eager to make sure they don’t get left out of the Obama administration’s trade plans. Companies are intensifying their focus on lobbying members of Congress so that server farms and Facebook pages are taken as seriously as prescription drugs and auto parts. “There’s certainly a coordinated effort to educate lawmakers of both parties on the value of digital trade to the U.S. economy,” said Noah Theran, a spokesman for the Internet Association. The group represents Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and other Internet companies in Washington.
A Question Over the Reach of Europe’s ‘Right to Be Forgotten’
NEW YORK TIMES
Mark Scott
In the judgment for Mr. Shefet, the French judge relied on a specific point of the recent privacy ruling that said a company’s local subsidiary could be held liable for the activities of its parent. The judge ordered Google’s French subsidiary to pay daily fines of roughly $1,100 until links to the defamatory content were removed from all searches worldwide.
A Future Segregated by Science?
NEW YORK TIMES
Charles Blow
Few women and minorities are getting STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees, although STEM jobs are multiplying and pay more than many other careers. This raises the question: Will our future be highly delineated by who does and who doesn’t have a science education (and the resulting higher salary), making for even more entrenched economic inequality by race and gender?
Finance
Campaign to audit the US Federal Reserve gathers pace
FINANCIAL TIMES
Sam Fleming and Barney Jopson
The US Federal Reserve is coming under the most political pressure it has faced since the financial crisis, as Republicans who say it lacks transparency attempt to subject its monetary policy deliberations to external audit.
As Regulators Focus on Culture, Wall Street Struggles to Define It
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Emily Glazer and Christina Rexrode
As they emerge from years of bruising fines, layoffs and losses, big banks are trying more than ever to monitor employee attitudes and values to avoid future problems. But they also have little choice: Senior officials with the Federal Reserve and other agencies in recent weeks have made it clear that they believe bad behavior at banks goes deeper than a few bad apples and are advising firms to track warning signs of excessive risk taking and other cultural breakdowns. Still, even regulators acknowledge culture is a difficult thing to measure.
White House to Request $1.7 Billion for SEC
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Andrew Ackerman
The Obama administration is expected to seek a modest funding increase for U.S. securities regulators charged with implementing and policing tough new rules for the financial industry. The Securities and Exchange Commission would see its funding levels rise about $200 million to $1.7 billion under the White House’s 2016 budget blueprint, according to people familiar with the matter.
Settling Case, Standard & Poor’s Backs Off Claims of Government ‘Retaliation’
NEW YORK TIMES
Ben Protess
Standard & Poor’s, the giant credit rating agency accused of inflating the subprime mortgage bubble, had long been convinced that a Justice Department lawsuit lacked merit. So convinced, in fact, that it portrayed the lawsuit as an act of “retaliation” for its decision to cut the credit rating of the United States in the summer of 2011. Now that S.&P. is poised to settle that case, as well as lawsuits from 19 state attorneys general across the country, the rating agency is walking back that claim.
A Smarter Way to Tax Big Banks
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Mark J. Roe and Michael Tröge
Revenue-neutral tax reform that lightened the burden on equity has some realistic chance to pass. Banks should not oppose it vociferously, or perhaps at all, as they would write the same-sized check to the tax authorities. Any major tax change generates opposition—but the tax deductibility of equity, aimed at stabilizing the banking system, has a bipartisan political chance and needn’t be dead on arrival.
Challenging what we know about the housing bubble
WASHINGTON POST
Robert J. Samuelson
If Wall Street’s bad behavior was the only problem, the cure would be stricter regulatory policing that would catch dangerous characters and practices before they do too much damage. This seems to be the view of the public and many “experts.” But the matter is harder if the deeper cause was bubble psychology. It arose from years of economic expansion, beginning in the 1980s, that lulled people into faith in a placid future. They imagined what they wanted: perpetual prosperity. After the brutal Great Recession, this won’t soon repeat itself. But are we forever insulated from bubble psychology? Doubtful.
Drug Patents Pose a Major Hurdle to Pacific Trade Deal
WALL STREET JOURNAL
William Mauldin
Disagreement over the international reach of drug patents has emerged as a significant challenge as the Obama administration tries to hatch a Pacific trade deal acceptable to U.S. companies, political factions in Congress and trading partners. The issue flared last week as half a dozen senators grilled U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman about his commitment to rules that would protect medicines called biologic drugs from imitation for up to 12 years.
Clinton Consults to Define Economic Pitch
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Peter Nicholas
Hillary Clinton has been consulting with an array of economists and academics—including liberal Joseph Stiglitz, former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and new faces outside the traditional orbit of Democratic policy experts—as she prepares for a likely presidential campaign that would make sluggish wage growth and middle-class prosperity a central focus.
Politics
Obama Aims to Change Tax System Many Call Worst of All Worlds
WALL STREET JOURNAL
John D. McKinnon
The administration proposal to tax foreign earnings of U.S. companies have parked offshore fills in important details of a plan that officials have been discussing in broad terms for several years. One prominent feature is that it would be mandatory. Instead of relying on ultralow tax rates to induce companies to bring their money home voluntarily, as some lawmakers have recently proposed, President Barack Obama wants to impose a 14% tax on those profits. He also would tax future foreign profits at 19%—far lower than his proposed 28% top rate for corporate profits and the existing 35% top rate, but still significant given the direction many other developed countries have taken.
Teacher Evaluation Plan Draws New Support
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Caroline Porter
A coalition of teacher-preparation groups came out at the last minute to support a controversial federal plan to track how well new teachers fare as they start teaching in the classroom. While the groups represent a small segment of the teaching profession—only about 80,000 teachers out of millions—the move sets up a showdown with traditional players in the field.
Iowa Dems high and dry as Hillary decides
POLITICO
Ben Schreckinger
Democrats are beginning to worry that Hillary Clinton is creating a drought in Iowa. A year out from the Iowa caucus, some party members fret that Hillary Clinton’s dominance in the Democratic field will leave the party high and dry as the campaign season intensifies. A lack of competition within the party may hurt fundraising and makes it hard to develop the new blood that often grows out of highly competitive races, some party activists say.
Jeb Bush’s conservative credentials
USA TODAY
Matthew Corrigan
Many commentators have focused on whether Bush will run for president. Too few have asked the more important question of what he might do if he won. Surely, his record as governor is the best indication. The record is much more conservative than has been portrayed by many. If his true record is examined, it might not be enough to win over the hard-core 1,500 Iowa conservatives who spent 10 hours listening to speeches on Jan. 25, but it could end up helping him with other voters who are willing to listen.
The Emerging Republican Advantage
NATIONAL JOURNAL
John B. Judis
The idea of an enduring Democratic majority was a mirage. How the GOP gained an edge in American politics—and why it’s likely to last.
