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Energy
New Sea Drilling Rule Planned, 5 Years After BP Oil Spill
NEW YORK TIMES
Coral Davenport
The Obama administration is planning to impose a major new regulation on offshore oil and gas drilling to try to prevent the kind of explosions that caused the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, administration officials said Friday. The announcement of the Interior Department regulation, which could be made as soon as Monday, is timed to coincide with the five-year anniversary of the disaster, which killed 11 men and sent millions of barrels of oil spewing into the gulf. The regulation is being introduced as the Obama administration is taking steps to open up vast new areas of federal waters off the southeast Atlantic Coast to drilling, a decision that has infuriated environmentalists.
Washington’s ‘Beyond Coal’ Blackout
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Several federal agencies were forced to shut down Tuesday amid a power outage in Washington, and while most of the country might not care, the role of anti-coal crusaders deserves more attention.
The fall of coal
POLITICOPRO (Subscribe)
Erica Martinson
It’s a scene playing out around the country, as dozens of coal-burning plants prepare to close amid a barrage from cheap natural gas, green opposition and President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations. The biggest Obama environmental rule to take effect so far — an EPA measure to curb power plants’ mercury pollution — kicks in on Thursday. An even bigger set of limits on greenhouse gases is due this summer.
The Dirty Secret of Obama’s Carbon Plan
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Warner Baxter
Americans don’t give much thought to whether their electricity will be there when they need it. You flip a switch, the lights go on. Your phone charges up. The medical equipment in the emergency room does its job. Yet electric reliability, long a bedrock of this country’s prosperity and high standard of living, does not come as easily as its steady presence might suggest.
Appalachian Communities Scraping By as Coal Taxes Drop
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Kris Maher
The decline of coal-related revenue in a region that has often struggled economically even when production was high bodes ill for the future of local communities.
Ready for Warren Prepares to Launch Climate Activist Coalition
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Clare Foran
Ready for Warren, a group pushing the senator to enter the presidential race, plans to soon unveil “Environmental Activists for Warren,” National Journal has learned. The launch expected to take place later this month is the latest sign that environmentalists fear that Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic frontrunner who announced her candidacy on Sunday, won’t take a strong stand on the issues they care most about.
Technology
Formal Charges May Be Next in Europe’s Google Antitrust Inquiry
NEW YORK TIMES
James Kanter and Conor Dougherty
Margrethe Vestager, the European commissioner overseeing antitrust issues, on Wednesday will make her first trip to Washington to participate in two antitrust conferences. The visit has raised expectations that she could announce the next move in what might be the biggest and most vexing case on her docket. Ms. Vestager could take the one step her immediate predecessor, Joaquín Almunia, tried to avoid by filing a set of formal charges, called a statement of objections, which could raise pressure on Google to settle in order to avoid a finding of wrongdoing and a potentially huge fine. She could also recommend further study or even offer the company a last shot at a negotiated settlement.
Finance
Middle-aged capitalism
WASHINGTON POST
Robert Samuelson
In several studies, economists Robert Litan and Ian Hathaway of the Brookings Institution found that start-ups (firms less than a year old) had fallen from 15 percent of all businesses in 1978 to 8 percent in 2011. Meanwhile, older firms (16 years or more) had jumped from 23 percent of businesses in 1992 to 34 percent in 2011. Their share of jobs was even higher, almost three-quarters of all workers. What emerges is a portrait of business that, though strikingly at odds with conventional wisdom, is consistent with poor productivity growth.
The Fed Can Be Patient About Raising Interest Rates
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Alan S. Blinder
To be sure, the Federal Reserve will not maintain near-zero interest rates and a $4.5 trillion balance sheet forever. Monetary policy will eventually begin to normalize. But not in June, and maybe not in September. Timing, they say, is everything. This is a time for patience.
Puerto Rico, Investors Enlist Ex-IMF Officials
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Matt Wirz and Aaron Kuriloff
The Puerto Rico government and the hedge funds that own its bonds are turning to former International Monetary Fund officials to help resolve a growing debt crisis that may require a restructuring more akin to Greece than a troubled city like Detroit.
Politics
Hillary Clinton Starts to Detail Rationale for Run as Campaign Begins
NEW YORK TIMES
Amy Chozick
“Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top,” she says in the highly polished production, whose release just after 3 p.m. on Sunday after a drawn-out buildup seemed to stop a nation of tweeting political obsessives in their tracks. “Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.”
The Hillary Machine
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
Most liberals have resigned themselves to Mrs. Clinton because they believe the Electoral College demographics are in their favor and the Clinton strategy of deny, dissemble and attack will overcome any opposition. Barring a health scare or some bombshell, they’ll make due with Mrs. Clinton’s joyless, grind-it-out campaign.
We deserve better than Hillary Clinton
USA TODAY
Reince Priebus
Unlike the Democrats, Republicans will have a real competition to choose our nominee. Voters will actually have a say in the process, and candidates will have to make their cases. There will be no coronation. There will be a real exchange of ideas.
Marco Rubio Builds Political Career on Defying Establishment and Odds
NEW YORK TIMES
Michael Barbaro and Ashley Parker
Mr. Rubio, now 43, has built a remarkable career around big, even foolhardy, political bets that inflamed party elders, defied polls and, at times, went against his own gut instinct. On Monday, when he declares his presidential candidacy in downtown Miami, it will be by far his boldest gamble yet: giving up a coveted seat in the Senate to challenge a crowded field of rivals, many of them with deeper résumés, higher profiles and bigger campaigns.
Wealthy donors on left launch new plan to wrest back control in the states
WASHINGTON POST
Matea Gold
A cadre of wealthy liberal donors aims to pour tens of millions of dollars into rebuilding the left’s political might in the states, racing to catch up with a decades-old conservative effort that has reshaped statehouses across the country. The plan embraced by the Democracy Alliance, an organization that advises some of the Democrats’ top contributors, puts an urgent new focus on financing groups that can help the party regain influence in time for the next congressional redistricting process, after the 2020 elections. The blueprint approved by the alliance board calls on donors to help expand state-level organizing and lobbying for measures addressing climate change, voting rights and economic inequality.
Paul touts education issues in public, not on Hill
POLITICO
Maggie Severns
Sen. Rand Paul has touted school choice in Milwaukee and Chicago and goaded former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush about the Common Core on cable news. But he’s rarely seen working on education policy in the one place he could have a direct effect: the Senate.
Senate Wrangles Over Medicare-Payments Fix
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Siobhan Hughes
Backers of legislation to set up a new system of Medicare payments to doctors and other providers are seeking to settle a flurry of last-minute skirmishes that threaten its quick passage in the Senate when Congress returns from a two-week recess Monday. The main concern is from conservatives who are frustrated that two-thirds of the measure’s $214 billion cost would be financed through higher deficits and are looking at ways to pay for the measure without resorting to borrowing.
New Wrinkle for Health Law
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Stephanie Armour
For more than 20 years, federal law has allowed states to recover almost all Medicaid costs if recipients are 55 or older when they die. This now applies to many of the 11 million people who joined Medicaid since the health law’s expansion of the state-federal insurance program. The upshot: Some families are discovering they may have to sell a home or other assets of a deceased relative to reimburse the government.
Corker tries to thread needle on Iran bill
POLITICO
Burgess Everett
As he moves forward this week with legislation that could undermine an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker is seeking to balance concessions he makes to Democrats with Republican demands for strict congressional oversight.
