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Energy
Oil Boom a ‘Game-Changer’ on Trade Deficit
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Jeffrey Sparshott
Petroleum imports accounted for less than 20% of the nation’s trade deficit last year, down from more than 40% only five years earlier, according to figures for 2014 released Thursday. But the overall U.S. appetite for overseas goods didn’t diminish over the period, which started with the global economy’s first full year of expansion after the 2007-09 recession. Imports of just about everything else have surged as Americans substitute other goods for foreign oil, leaving a growing trade deficit.

Technology
FCC chairman: Internet rules will define congressional debate
THE HILL
Mario Trujillo
“The Congress makes our rules,” Wheeler said in an interview with PBS that aired Wednesday night. “I look forward to working with the Congress on these issues. I have talked to all the leadership of Congress in telecommunications in the last 24 hours and I said, ‘You know, these rules — by us putting out … these rules, it creates some certainty in terms of just what the debate is about, rather than these ethereal kinds of concepts that have been kicking around.’ ”

Net Neutrality Fight Likely Headed Back to Court
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Jacob Gershman
Those companies, [Northwestern University law professor James B.] Speta said, could claim that the FCC rules fail to meet the technical requirements of a telecommunications carrier under the Telecommunications Act. Such an argument rests on the idea that the Internet is more complex than a “dumb pipe” connection between two users — like a telephone network — and thus fall outside the scope of common-carrier regulation. … Speta said broadband carriers could also mount a broader policy attack against net neutrality. The argument would be that the FCC is making a radical change lacking the evidence that Internet carriers are exploiting their market power or that the Internet access marketplace isn’t competitive enough. A constitutional argument could also come up, the professor said. Broadband carriers could claim that they have a First Amendment right to decide what’s carried on their networks.

Why cable stocks surged after the FCC’s net neutrality proposal
WASHINGTON POST
Brian Fung
When I confessed to MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett that I couldn’t make heads or tails of what we were seeing, Moffett shrugged. “Nor do I,” he said. “I think it just shows you that the market doesn’t really understand these issues.”

Verizon Pulls Back From Wireline, Internet Businesses
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ryan Knutson
Verizon Communications Inc. is selling off about a quarter of its wireline telephone and Internet operations, taking a big step back from the more regulated, slower-growing businesses of its past.

Obama’s Favorite Internet Company
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
The Obama-Wheeler plan is being sold as a way to preserve “net neutrality,” the idea that broadband networks shouldn’t discriminate against particular customers. But the good folks at Cedar Falls Utilities aren’t seeing the problem that the President claims he intends to solve, and they don’t put much stock in his solution. The Register reports that Ms. Zeman “said her organization’s leaders ‘absolutely support Net neutrality. We practice it in the operation of our network; we do not prioritize or throttle any of our traffic.’”

Courage and Good Sense at the F.C.C.
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
The F.C.C. almost always faces stiff resistance when it tries to do something bold. Given the importance of the Internet, Mr. Wheeler should press forward with his rules.

How a Ragtag Band of Activists Won the Battle for Net Neutrality
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Brendan Sasso
Despite fierce opposition from the major Internet providers, the FCC is poised to seize expansive new regulatory powers.

Trade Groups Urge U.S. to Push Against Chinese Regulations
NEW YORK TIMES
Paul Mozur
United States trade groups gave the Chinese government an earful last week about new policies that could hamper the ability of major technology multinationals to do business in China. Now, the other shoe has dropped. In a letter addressed to key United States officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, 17 trade groups headlined by the United States Chamber of Commerce urged the government to push back against the Chinese policies, according to a copy of the letter viewed Thursday by The New York Times.

China suspected in major hacking of health insurer
WASHINGTON POST
Drew Harwell and Ellen Nakashima
The massive computer breach against Anthem, the nation’s second-largest health insurer, exposes a growing cyberthreat facing health-care companies that experts say are often unprepared for large attacks. … Security experts said health care has become one of the ripest targets for hackers because of its vast stores of lucrative financial and medical information. Health insurers and hospitals, they added, have often struggled to mount the kinds of defenses­ used by large financial or retail companies, leaving key medical information vulnerable.

Google panel backs limits on ‘right to be forgotten’
FINANCIAL TIMES (Subscribe)
Richard Waters
Google’s decision to limit censorship under Europe’s new “right to be forgotten” requirement to its search sites based there, rather than extend it globally, has won the backing of an independent group of experts.

Finance
A Poor Standard of Justice
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
The Justice Department’s $1.375 billion settlement with Standard & Poor’s is being hailed as a victory by both sides. The feds claim another corporate pelt related to the financial crisis, while S&P talked the fine down from $5 billion and didn’t admit guilt. This means the only losers are Americans who may never learn if the suit was a case of political retribution.

Global Debt Has Risen by $57 Trillion Since the Financial Crisis, Which Is Scary
NEW YORK TIMES
Neil Irwin
That’s what makes a new report from McKinsey, the global consulting firm, sobering. Researchers compiled data on the full range of debt that countries owe — not just their governments, but corporations, banks and households as well. The results: Since the start of the global financial crisis at the end of 2007, the total debt worldwide has risen by $57 trillion, rising to 286 percent of global economic output from 269 percent.

Fed fires back at Rand Paul
THE HILL
Kevin Cirilli
“Who in their right mind would ask the Congress of the United States — who can’t cobble together a fiscal policy — to assume control of monetary policy?” Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said during an interview with The Hill. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen has already vowed to fight the legislation, and President Obama would likely veto it.

Politics
Iowa Republicans See Renewed National Clout
NEW YORK TIMES
Trip Gabriel
In the early jockeying among presidential candidates, Iowa’s Republican leaders see signs that their state, which once seemed on the brink of political irrelevance, is back in the game.

Obama equates Islamic terrorism with ‘terrible deeds’ committed by Christians
WASHINGTON TIMES
Dave Boyer
“Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember, during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Mr. Obama said. “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often [were] justified in the name of Christ. It is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency, that can pervert and distort our faith.”

For Rand Paul, a rude awakening to the rigors of a national campaign
WASHINGTON POST
David A. Fahrenthold and Matea Gold
At times, he has seemed uninterested in — or unprepared for — the basic tasks of being a national politician.

Democrats Exercise ‘No’ Power in Senate to G.O.P.’s Dismay
NEW YORK TIMES
Jeremy Peters
Now that they control both houses of Congress, Republicans are beginning to learn the limits of their newfound power. For the third day in a row, Senate Republicans called a vote on a bill to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. And for the third time, it failed to clear a Democratic filibuster. The problems were old and new: political divisions within the party, difficulties over managing the expectations of conservative lawmakers, and the simple arithmetic of getting to the filibuster-proof threshold of 60 votes when there are only 54 Republican senators. The tactics that had served them well when they were in the minority were now being effectively exploited against them.

House, Senate on DHS impasse: ‘After you’
POLITICO
Burgess Everett and Jake Sherman
Three weeks before the Department of Homeland Security’s funding runs out, Congress is skipping town for a long weekend — and GOP leaders in both chambers are pointing fingers at each other on who must find a way out of the logjam. Some on the Hill are predicting a “prolonged fight” that may drag on even after the Feb. 27 funding deadline — a date that Republican leaders insisted on setting but have no clue how to meet.

House Dem seeks to save overnight delivery
THE HILL
Bernie Becker
A senior House Democrat is bringing back legislation that would ensure that the United States Postal Service restores overnight mail delivery. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) said that Congress had to act, given that the USPS is in the process of shuttering 82 mail processing centers. The Postal Service lowered delivery standards for letters and first-class mail earlier this year but is expanding its package services.