Deregulation

---see DEREG 2 for age of TrumpSEE 3 719derg tag 520==

SEE ALSO PRIVATIZATION

promoted to primary 8/15 as it is important source of Moderation, and besieged

These are privatization, financialization, militarization, and criminalization, which together are producing a steadily creeping authoritarianism—a new authoritarianism—to fit our times. Let’s call them the Four Plagues, or if we wish, “The Four Horsemen of Our Apocalypse,” from the Book of Revelations

=nuke: booted in a coup?<span class="title" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: proxima-nova, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(53, 53, 53);"><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?456771-1/gregory-jaczko-confessions-rogue-nuclear-regulator" style="text-decoration-line: none; font: inherit; color: rgb(52, 152, 219); outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s;">Gregory Jaczko, Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator</a><span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; line-height: inherit; font-family: proxima-nova, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; color: rgb(53, 53, 53);">Gregory Jaczko recounted his time with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,…<span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; line-height: inherit; font-family: proxima-nova, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; color: rgb(53, 53, 53);">booktv 1/19<span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; line-height: inherit; font-family: proxima-nova, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; color: rgb(53, 53, 53);">
<span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;"><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?456771-1/confessions-rogue-nuclear-regulator" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.c-span.org/video/?456771-1/confessions-rogue-nuclear-regulator</a>WASHINGTON -- Four pro-industry members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, along with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), launched a public assault on the panel's chairman Friday, accusing him of mismanagement and heavy-handedness. Although the fight is framed by the commission members as personal, it is at root political and ideological, a dueling <a href="http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/MarkeyReport.pdf" target="hplink" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">report put out Friday night by Rep. Ed Markey</a> (D-Mass.) shows. Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko is a longtime proponent of reforming safety standards at nuclear power plants and was the first chair to win the seat without the support of the industry. The other four members were all strongly backed by the nuclear industry when they were nominated and confirmed.In early December, the four other commission members wrote a letter to White House Chief of Staff William Daley <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70228.html" target="hplink" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">accusing Jaczko</a> of "increasingly problematic and erratic" behavior....<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-teams-rolling-back-regulations-led-by-hires-with-deep-industry-ties">https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-teams-rolling-back-regulations-led-by-hires-with-deep-industry-ties</a><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">President Trump entered office pledging to cut red tape, and within weeks, he ordered his administration to assemble teams to aggressively scale back government regulations.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">But the effort — a signature theme in Trump’s populist campaign for the White House — is being conducted in large part out of public view and often by political appointees with deep industry ties and potential conflicts.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Most government agencies have declined to disclose information about their deregulation teams. But ProPublica and The New York Times identified 71 appointees, including 28 with potential conflicts, through interviews, public records and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Some appointees are reviewing rules their previous employers sought to weaken or kill, and at least two may be positioned to profit if certain regulations are undone.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The appointees include lawyers who have represented businesses in cases against government regulators, staff members of political dark money groups, employees of industry-funded organizations opposed to environmental rules and at least three people who were registered to lobby the agencies they now work for.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">At the Education Department alone, two members of the deregulation team were most recently employed by pro-charter advocacy groups or operators, and one appointee was an executive handling regulatory issues at a for-profit college operator.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">So far, the process has been scattershot. Some agencies have been soliciting public feedback, while others refuse even to disclose who is in charge of the review. In many cases, responses to public records requests have been denied, delayed or severely redacted.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The Interior Department has not disclosed the correspondence and calendars for its team. But a review of more than 1,300 pages of handwritten sign-in sheets for guests visiting the agency’s headquarters in Washington found that appointees had met regularly with industry representatives.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Over a four-month period, from February through May, at least 58 representatives of the oil and gas industry signed their names on the agency’s visitor logs before meeting with appointees.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The EPA also rejected requests to release the appointment calendar of the official leading its team — a former top executive for an industry-funded political group — even as she met privately with industry representatives.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">And the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security provided the titles for most appointees to their review teams, but not names.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">
Meghan Burris, a spokeswoman there, said: “As previous administrations have recognized, it’s good government to periodically reassess existing regulations. Past regulatory review efforts, however, have not taken a consistent enough look at regulations on the books.”When asked for comment about the activities of the deregulation teams, the White House referred reporters to the Office of Management and Budget.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">With billions of dollars at stake in the push to deregulate, corporations and other industry groups are hiring lawyers, lobbyists and economists to help navigate this new avenue for influence. Getting to the front of the line is crucial, as it can take years to effect regulatory changes.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">“Competition will be fierce,” the law firm Clark Hill, which represents businesses pitching the Environmental Protection Agency, said in a marketing memo. “In all likelihood, interested parties will need to develop a multi-pronged strategy to expand support and win pre-eminence over competing regulatory rollback candidates.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Jane Luxton, a lawyer at the firm, said she advised clients to pay for economic and legal analyses that government agencies, short on staff, could use to expedite changes. She declined to identify the clients.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">“You may say this is an agency’s job, but the agencies are totally overloaded,” Luxton said.<hr style="width: 207.891px; height: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 1.75em auto; text-align: center; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">On a cloudy, humid day in March, Laura Peterson, a top lobbyist for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/business/scientists-loved-and-loathed-by-syngenta-an-agrochemical-giant.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; color: rgb(34, 98, 204); text-decoration-line: none;">Syngenta</a>, arrived at the headquarters for the Interior Department. She looped the letter “L” across the agency’s sign-in sheet.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Her company, a top pesticide maker based in Switzerland, had spent eight years and millions of dollars lobbying the Obama administration on environmental rules, with limited success.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">But Peterson had an in with the new administration.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Scott Cameron, newly installed at the Interior Department and a member of its deregulation team, had just left a nonprofit he had founded. He had advocated getting pesticides approved and out to market faster. His group counted Syngenta as a financial partner.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The meeting with Peterson was one of the first Cameron took as a new government official.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Neither side would reveal what was discussed. “I’m not sure that’s reporting information I have to give you,” Peterson said.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">But lobbying records offered clues.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Syngenta has been one of several pesticide manufacturers pushing for changes to the Endangered Species Act. When federal agencies take actions that may jeopardize endangered animals or plants, they are generally supposed to consult with the Interior Department, which could raise objections.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">For decades, the EPA largely ignored this provision when approving new pesticides. But recently, a legal challenge from environmental groups forced its hand — a change that affected Syngenta.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Pesticide lobbyists have been working behind the scenes at agencies and on Capitol Hill to change the provision. Companies have argued that they should be exempt from consulting with the Interior Department because they already undergo EPA approval.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Along with spending millions of dollars on lobbying, they have funded advocacy groups aligned with their cause. Cameron’s nonprofit, the Reduce Risks From Invasive Species Coalition, was one such group for Syngenta.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The organization says on its website that its goals include reducing “the regulatory burden of the Endangered Species Act on American society by addressing invasive species.” One way to do that is to use pesticides. The nonprofit’s mission includes creating “business opportunities for commercial products and services used to control invasive species.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Because donations are not publicly reported, it is unclear how much Syngenta has contributed to Cameron’s organization, but his group has called the pesticide company one of its “<a href="https://www.rrisc.org/featured/rrisc-holds-its-second-annual-congressional-reception-and-awards-ceremony/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; color: rgb(34, 98, 204); text-decoration-line: none;">generous sponsors</a>.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Cameron also served on a committee of experts and stakeholders, including Syngenta, that advised the federal government on decisions related to invasive species. At a committee event last July, he said that one of his priorities was “getting biocontrol agents to market faster,” according to meeting minutes.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Paul Minehart, a Syngenta spokesman, said: “Employees regularly engage with those in government that relate to agriculture and our business. Our purpose is to balance serving the public health and environment with enabling farmers’ access to innovation.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">A spokeswoman for the Interior Department did not respond to questions about how Cameron’s relationship with Syngenta might influence his review of regulations.<hr style="width: 207.891px; height: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 1.75em auto; text-align: center; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Under the law, members of the Trump administration can seek ethics waivers to work on issues that overlap with their past business careers. They can also formally recuse themselves when potential conflicts arise.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">In many cases, the administration has refused to say whether appointees to Trump’s deregulation teams have done either.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">One such appointee is Samantha Dravis, the chairwoman of the deregulation team at the EPA, who was a top official at the Republican Attorneys General Association. Dravis was also president of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, which brought together energy companies and Republican attorneys general to file lawsuits against the federal government over Obama-era environmental regulations.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The Republican association’s work <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html?_r=0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; color: rgb(34, 98, 204); text-decoration-line: none;">has been criticized</a> as a vehicle for corporate donors to gain the credibility and expertise of state attorneys general in fighting federal regulations. Donors include the American Petroleum Institute, the energy company ConocoPhillips and the coal giant Alpha Natural Resources.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The Republican association also received funding from Freedom Partners, backed by the conservative billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch. Dravis worked for that group as well, which recently identified <a href="http://freedompartners.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/removing_barriers.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; color: rgb(34, 98, 204); text-decoration-line: none;">regulations it wants eliminated</a>. Among them are EPA rules relating to clean-water protections and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Liz Bowman, an EPA spokeswoman, declined to say whether Dravis had recused herself from issues dealing with previous employers or their backers, or had discussed regulations with any of them.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">“As you will find when you receive Samantha’s calendar, she has met with a range of stakeholders, including nonprofits, industry groups and others, on a wide range of issues,” Bowman said.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Bowman said the calendar could be obtained through a public records request. ProPublica and The Times had already filed a request for records including calendars, but the agency’s response did not include those documents. (An appeal was filed, but the calendar has not yet been released.)<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">“We take our ethics responsibilities seriously,” Bowman said. “All political staff have had an ethics briefing and know their obligations.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Addressing the agency’s regulatory efforts, she said, “We are here to enact a positive environmental agenda that provides real results to the American people, without unnecessarily hamstringing our economy.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">At the Agriculture Department, the only known appointee to the deregulation team is Rebeckah Adcock. She previously lobbied the department as a top executive both at CropLife America, a trade association for pesticide makers, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, a trade group for farmers.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The department deals with many issues involving farmers, including crop insurance and land conservation rules, but it would not disclose whether Adcock had recused herself from discussions affecting her past employers.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">At the Energy Department, a member of the deregulation team is Brian McCormack, who formerly handled political and external affairs for Edison Electric Institute, a trade association representing investor-owned electrical utilities.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">While there, McCormack <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DycMpg-Kkg4" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; color: rgb(34, 98, 204); text-decoration-line: none;">worked with</a> the American Legislative Exchange Council, an industry-funded group. Both organizations fought against rooftop solar policies in statehouses across the country. Utility companies lose money when customers generate their own power, even more so when they are required to pay consumers who send surplus energy back into the grid.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Though the Energy Department does not directly regulate electrical utilities, it does help oversee international electricity trade, the promotion of renewable energy and the security of domestic energy production. After joining the department, McCormack helped start a review of the nation’s electrical grid, according to an agency memo.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Clean-energy advocates fear the inquiry will cast solar energy, which can fluctuate, as a threat to grid reliability. Such a finding could scare off state public utility commissions considering solar policies and serve as a boon for electrical utilities, said Matt Kasper, research director at the Energy and Policy Institute, an environmental group.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Disclosure records show that while McCormack was at Edison, the trade group lobbied the federal government, including the Energy Department, on issues including grid reliability.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The department would not answer questions about McCormack’s involvement with those issues.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Across the government, at least two appointees to deregulation teams have been granted waivers from ethics rules related to prior jobs, and at least nine others have pledged to recuse themselves from issues related to former employers or clients.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Some of the recusals involve appointees at the Small Business Administration and the Education Department, including Bob Eitel, who leads the education team and was vice president for regulatory legal services at an operator of for-profit colleges.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Another recusal involves Byron Brown, an EPA appointee who is married to a senior government affairs manager for the Hess Corporation, the oil and gas company.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Hess was fined and ordered to spend more than $45 million on pollution controls by the EPA during the Obama administration because of alleged Clean Air Act violations at its refinery in Port Reading, N.J. Disclosure records show that Brown’s wife, Lesley Schaaff, lobbied the EPA last year on behalf of the company.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">An EPA spokeswoman declined to say whether Brown or Schaaff owned Hess stock, though an agency ethics official said Brown had recused himself from evaluating regulations affecting the company.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The agency declined to say whether Brown would also recuse himself from issues affecting the American Petroleum Institute, where his wife’s company is a member. The association has lobbied to ease Obama-era natural gas rules, complaining in a recent letter to Brown’s team about an “unprecedented level of federal regulatory actions targeting our industry.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Before being selected to lead the deregulation team at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Maren Kasper was a director at Roofstock, an online marketplace for investors in single-family rental properties. Financial disclosure records show Kasper owned a stake in the company worth up to $50,000.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Changes at HUD could increase investor interest in rental homes, affecting a company like Roofstock. The agency, for example, oversees the federal government’s Section 8 subsidies program for low-income renters.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Ethics officials allowed Kasper to keep her stake, but she pledged not to take actions that would affect it. (A spokesman for HUD said Kasper’s tenure on the deregulation task force has since ended.)<hr style="width: 207.891px; height: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 1.75em auto; text-align: center; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">One by one, scientists, educators and environmental activists approached the microphone and urged government officials not to weaken regulations intended to protect children from lead.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The forum, run by the EPA in a drab basement meeting room in Washington, was part of the agency’s push to identify regulations that were excessive and burdensome to businesses.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Few businesspeople showed up. As public hearings on regulations have played out in recent weeks, many industry and corporate representatives have instead met with Trump administration officials behind closed doors.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Still, the EPA has asked for written comments and held about a dozen public meetings. The agency has received more than 467,000 comments, many of them critical of potential rollbacks, but also some from businesses large and small pleading for relief from regulatory costs or confusion.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">After a quiet moment at the meeting to discuss lead regulations, the owner of a local painting company, Brian McCracken, moved to the microphone.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">McCracken was frustrated by what he described as costly rules that forced him to test for lead-based paint in homes before he could begin painting. Each test kit costs about $2, and he may need six per room. If a family then declines to hire him, those costs come out of his pocket.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">“I don’t think anyone is sitting here saying that lead-based dust does not hurt children,” he said. “That’s not what we are talking about. What the contractor needs is a better way to test.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">His voice quavered: “Why do I have to educate the general public about the hazards that generations before me created? It doesn’t make sense at all.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Trump is not the first president to take on such frustrations.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">President Bill Clinton declared the federal government was failing to regulate “without imposing unacceptable or unreasonable costs on society.” He assigned Vice President Al Gore to collect agencies’ suggestions for rules that should go. One rule dictated how to measure the consistency of grits.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">President George W. Bush’s regulatory overhaul focused more on how new regulations were created. The administration installed a political appointee inside each agency who generally had to sign off before any significant new rule could be initiated. At the EPA for a time, that official came from an industry-funded think tank.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">President Barack Obama ordered regular updates from each agency about the effectiveness of rules already on the books.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">
Like Bush, Trump has empowered political appointees. Though some agencies have included career staff members on their review teams, an executive order from Trump creating the teams does not require it — nonpolitical employees are generally believed to be more wedded to existing rules. And like Obama, Trump has imposed regular reporting requirements.“When you raise the profile, when it’s clearly an executive priority, it gets attention,” said Heather Krause, director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office, the main auditor of the federal government. According to the auditor’s analysis, the effect under Obama was mostly to clarify and streamline rules, not eliminate them.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">But Trump, who spent his business career on the other side of government regulations, has put an emphasis on cutting old rules.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">The same day he signed the executive order initiating the review, he addressed a large crowd of conservative activists at a Maryland convention center.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">“We have begun a historic program to reduce the regulations that are crushing our economy — crushing,” Trump said. “We’re going to put the regulations industry out of work and out of business.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">Amit Narang, a regulatory expert at the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, said Trump’s decision to create teams of political appointees — formally known as regulatory reform task forces — should make it easier for the White House to overcome bureaucratic resistance to his rollback plans.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;">“To the extent there’s a deep state effect in this administration,” Narang said, “the task force will be more effective in trying to get the agenda in place.”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;">The New York Times’ Kitty Bennett contributed reporting to this story.<div class="note note-related" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; line-height: 1;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1;">If you know anything about these task forces, contact us at <a href="mailto:taskforce@propublica.org" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; color: rgb(34, 98, 204); text-decoration-line: none;">taskforce@propublica.org</a> or via Signal at 213–271–7217. <a href="http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/task-force" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; line-height: 1; color: rgb(34, 98, 204); text-decoration-line: none;">See who we know about and who we don’t</a>.</div>carter teddy airline<a href="http://www.alternet.org/labor/how-liberals-deregulated-airline-industry">http://www.alternet.org/labor/how-liberals-deregulated-airline-industry</a>
 jason smith missourihttps://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr1155The Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome (SCRUB) Act (H.R. 1155 / S. 1683) would would establish a new “regulatory review” commission funded at taxpayer expense, charged with the identifying duplicative, redundant or so-called “obsolete” regulations to repeal. It would do nothing to identify the numerous gaps, shortfalls and outdated regulatory standards that leave the public vulnerable to the next public health tragedy.
This commission would only consider the costs to affected industries while ignoring the benefits of oversight. The commission’s goal to achieve a 15 percent reduction in the cumulative cost of regulations would result in the repeal of critical health, safety and environmental safeguards — even when the benefits of these rules are significant, appreciated by the public and far outweigh the costs.
In addition, the bill would create a “cut-go” system that requires any agency issuing a new regulation to remove an existing regulation of equal or greater cost. If the science finds that a substance widely used in commerce is harmful to infants, regulators would have to find some other protection to cut before protecting young children. The bill would make it impossible for agencies to bypass “cut-go” procedures, no matter how urgent the circumstances might be.push back?http://www.globalpossibilities.org/wave-of-regulation-looms-in-2016/<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Obama is preparing to unleash a wave of new regulations in 2016 as he looks to shore up his legacy on public protection issues during his final year in office.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Labor are all expected to finalize major federal rules that critics say are long overdue. The regulations include a final rule from the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law that will force companies to compare the paychecks of their top executives with company performance, final rules for cigars and electronic cigarettes proposed well over a year ago, and a final regulation to protect constructions workers from deadly silica dust.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Here’s a look at the top regulations expected to come from the administration in 2016.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Pay for performance<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to finalize its “pay for performance” rule that will require publicly traded corporations to disclose how much their top executives are paid and compare that to the companies’ overall financial performance.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The agency, which first proposed the rule in May, set an October 2016 deadline for the final rule last month. The SEC contends it will allow shareholders to make more informed decisions when electing directors.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Arbitration<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Regulatory experts are expecting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to propose new rules in 2016 to protect consumers’ right to file or join a class-action lawsuit against a financial company.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">More and more companies are adding arbitration clauses to contracts that prevent consumers from resolving a dispute through the court system. Instead, the language, which can often be found in credit card and cellphone contracts, typically states that disputes about a product can only be resolved by privately appointed individuals or arbitrators.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Dodd-Frank directed the CFPB to do a study of arbitration agreements and issue a report of its findings to Congress. After the agency completed the report in March, it announced plans to proceed with a rulemaking.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">E-cigarettes<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Industry and health groups may not agree on the rules, but both are exasperated by the delay in first-ever regulations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for cigars and electronic cigarettes.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Health groups were frantic in the days leading up to the release of the $1.1 trillion government spending deal earlier this month, fearing that industry had successfully lobbied for a change that would have exempted many e-cigarette and cigar products from the restrictions.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Industry groups, however, came up empty-handed and will now wait to see if attempts to lobby the White House for last-minute changes paid off. Those organizations are most concerned about a provision in the proposed rule that would require all products that hit store shelves after Feb. 15, 2007, to apply retroactively for approval, a process that companies say would put them out of business.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The FDA originally said the final rules would be out last summer but changed the deadline to November. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is reviewing the final rule, was still meeting with industry and health groups last week.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Silica dust<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The Department of Labor is in the process of finalizing a years-in-the-making rule to protect workers from silica dust.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s safety and health director, said the labor group has been awaiting the rule since 1997. Exposure to silica dust, common at construction worksites and shipyards, can cause an irreversible lung disease known as silicosis.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The Labor Department sent the final rule to the OMB last week for final review, a process that can take up to 90 days.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">“I’m sure they will give it a thorough review and it’ll be issued sometime, we hope, in the first quarter of the year,” Seminario said.<div class="yj6qo ajU" style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Workplace injuries</div><p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The DOL is gearing up for a busy year, with plans to also finalize a rule that will require employers to report and keep records of workplace injuries and illnesses. Seminario said the draft of the final rule went to OMB in October. Labor groups are hoping to see a final rule in the first quarter.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Overtime pay<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Perhaps the most sweeping action to in the new year will be a final rule to extend overtime pay to nearly 5 millions white-collar workers. The Labor Department proposed the rule in June as a result of an executive order President Obama issued in May. Under the rule, any worker earning up to $50,000 annually would be eligible for overtime.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Department spokesman Jason Surbey said the agency is reviewing the more than 270,000 comments it received.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">“We’re on track to issue a final rule by July 2016, with an effective date sometime after that,” he said.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Predatory lending<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The CFPB is planning a February rollout of its proposed rules to crack down on predatory payday lenders.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The agency released a framework for the rules in March that considered forcing lenders to ensure a borrower’s ability to repay a loan, limiting short-term credits to 45 days or less and establishing a 60-day “cooling-off” period for borrowers who take out three loans in a row.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Payday lenders have already balked at the rules, calling them unnecessary and damaging for consumers who have nowhere else to turn for their short-term lending needs.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Food safety<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The FDA is expected to issue final requirements in March for the sanitary transportation of animal and human food.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The rules, which were are mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011, establish requirements for shippers, carriers and receivers to use sanitary practices to ensure that that food does not become contaminated when being transported. The final rules were originally expected to be released in April 2015.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Financial advisers  <p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The Labor Department is also expected to issue a final rule in 2016 that would require financial advisers to disclose more information to their clients about the compensation they receive.   In October, under mounting pressure from business groups, Labor Secretary Tom Perez said the department planned to make some changes to the contentious regulations — commonly called the “fiduciary rule” — but would not detail what those changes would be.<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Methane<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to finalize new rules to limit methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The rule would require drillers to use new technologies to track and block both accidental and purposeful leaks when producing and transmitting oil and gas. The EPA has set a June deadline for the release of this final rule.enron crash was dress rehearsal/ precursor to Gt recession, both caused by Gramm dereg:
<div>=</div><div>http://www.citizen.org/cmep/article_redirect.cfm?ID=7104</div><div>
</div><div>Blind Faith: How Deregulation and Enron's Influence Over Government Looted Billions from Americans  Sen. Gramm, White House Must Be Investigated for Role in Enron's Fraud of Consumers and Shareholders  December 2001  Public Citizen'sCritical Mass Energy & Environment Program<hr style="height: 1px; line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="1" /><div style="line-height: 18px;">Summary of Findings </div><div style="line-height: 18px;">
</div><ul style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; line-height: 14px;"><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">The combination of unregulated state wholesale electricity markets and federal deregulation of commodity exchanges has removed accountability and transparency from the energy sector, allowing corporations to manipulate price and supply of electricity and natural gas through the exercise of significant market power. California's recent energy crisis and Enron's bankruptcy would have been impossible under a regulated system.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Enron developed mutually beneficial relationships with federal regulators and lawmakers to support policies that significantly curtailed government oversight of their operations.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Enron's business model was built entirely on the premise that it could make more money speculating on electricity contracts than it could by actually producing electricity at a power plant. Central to Enron's strategy of turning electricity into a speculative commodity was removing government oversight of its trading practices and exploiting market deficiencies to allow it to manipulate prices and supply.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Dr. Wendy Gramm, in her capacity as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), exempted Enron's trading of futures contracts in response to a request for such an action by Enron in 1992. At the time, Enron was a significant source of campaign financing for Wendy Gramm's husband, U.S. Senator Phil Gramm.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Six days after she provided Enron the exemption it wanted, Wendy Gramm resigned her position at the CFTC. Five weeks after her resignation, Enron appointed her to its Board of Directors, where she served on the Board's Audit Committee. Her service on the Audit Committee made her responsible for verifying Enron's accounting procedures and other detailed financial information not available to outside analysts or shareholders.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Following Wendy Gramm's appointment to Enron's board, the company became a significant source of personal income for the Gramms. Enron paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in salary, attendance fees, stock option sales and dividends from 1993 to 2001. The value of Wendy Gramm's Enron stock options swelled from no more than $15,000 in 1995 to as much as $500,000 by 2000.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Phil Gramm is the second largest recipient in Congress of Enron campaign contributions, receiving $97,350 since 1989.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Days before her attorneys informed Enron in December 1998 that Wendy Gramm's control of Enron stock might pose a conflict of interest with her husband's work, she sold $276,912 worth of Enron stock. [accidentally insulated from losses?] </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Enron spent $3.45 million in lobbying expenses in 1999 and 2000 to deregulate the trading of energy futures, among other issues.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">In December 2000, Phil Gramm helped muscle a bill through Congress without a committee hearing that deregulated energy commodity trading. This act allowed Enron to operate an unregulated power auction -- EnronOnline -- that quickly gained control over a significant share of California's electricity and natural gas market.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Phil Gramm's legislation was in conflict with the explicit recommendations of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, which is composed of representatives from the Department of Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Working group expressly recommendedagainst deregulating energy commodity trading because the traders would be in strong positions to manipulate prices and supply.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">From June 2000 through December 2000 -- prior to the bill's passage -- California experienced significant price spikes but only one Stage 3 emergency (requiring "rolling blackouts"). After passage of Gramm's energy commodity deregulation bill in December 2000, Stage 3 emergencies increased from one to 38 until federal regulators helped end the crisis by imposing price controls in June 2001. Phil Gramm's legislation, for which Enron was the primary lobbyist, allowed Enron's unregulated energy trading subsidiary to manipulate supply in such a way as to threaten millions of California households and businesses with power outages for the sole purpose of increasing the company's profits.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Because of Enron's new, unregulated power auction, the company's "Wholesale Services" revenues quadrupled -- from $12 billion in the first quarter of 2000 to $48.4 billion in the first quarter of 2001. This remarkable revenue increase came on top of the record revenue gain that Enron posted from 1999 to 2000, when full-year "Wholesale Services" revenues increased from $35.5 billion to $93.3 billion -- a 163 percent increase.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Investigations by state and federal officials concluded that power generators and power marketers intentionally withheld electricity, creating artificial shortages in order to increase the cost of power.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Enron took advantage of lax oversight following deregulation and formed a complicated web of more than 2,800 subsidiaries -- more than 30 percent (874) of which were located in officially designated offshore tax and bank havens.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">President Bush's presidential campaign received significant financial support from Enron ($1.14 million).  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Upon assuming office in 2001, Bush promptly scrapped plans put into place by former President Bill Clinton to significantly limit the effectiveness of these countries as tax and bank regulation havens. This action came at the height of high West Coast energy prices, probably allowing Enron to siphon billions to its offshore accounts.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">At the same time, the Bush administration and certain members of Congress waged a legislative and public relations campaign against the imposition of federal price controls in the Western electricity market. Such price controls remove the ability of companies exercising significant market share to price-gouge by effectively re-regulating the market. Bush's opposition to price controls unnecessarily extended the California energy crisis and cost the state billions of dollars.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">When federal regulators finally imposed strict, round-the-clock price controls over the entire Western electricity market on June 19, 2001, companies operating power auctions (like Enron) no longer had the ability to charge excessive prices and no longer had incentive to manipulate supply.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">While price controls clearly saved California, Enron suffered because it could no longer manipulate the market and price-gouge consumers. With no significant asset ownership to offset its losses, Enron's unregulated power auction quickly accumulated massive debts. At the same time, the curtailed revenue flow made it more difficult for executives and members of the Board to conceal the firm's accounting gimmicks. Amid the turmoil, CEO Jeff Skilling resigned in August. But shareholders and federal regulators did not learn of the severity of Enron's financial trouble until November 2001. At this time, Enron's top executives continued to receive significantbonuses.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">Due to Wendy Gramm's position on Enron's Audit Committee, she had intimate knowledge of Enron's financial structure and had access to sensitive financial information not available to Wall Street analysts or average shareholders. It is therefore probable that she knew of Enron's possibly fraudulent practices for some time and that her husband would have known as well. Enron's 874 tax haven subsidiaries allowed Enron to funnel billions of dollars to offshore accounts.  </li><li style="list-style: none; padding-left: 10px; line-height: 18px; background-image: url(" view.image="view.image" id="429" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">The Gramms' close involvement with Enron's corporate and legislative activities, the Gramms' possible knowledge and/or connection to criminal misconduct relating to Enron's collapse, and the effects of Enron's layoffs and other economic impacts on Senator Gramm's constituents may have been the leading factor in Gramm's decision on September 4 not to seek re-election to the Senate in 2002.</li></ul><hr style="height: 1px; line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="1" /> Public Citizen Recommendations  </div><div></div>
<div class="main-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 28px;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="container" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 1280px;"><div class="field-item even first" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="body-copy-inner" itemprop="articleBody" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 410px 0px 250px; border: 0px; width: 1280px;">Efforts to deregulate the nation's electricity market began with the 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, which allowed private investments in the power generation sector. But the enactment of PURPA, as it was known, was only a small beginning, as the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA), which broke up the trusts that had owned utilities in the 1920s and gave companies local monopolies and a guaranteed, if small, profit in exchange for serving the entire community, continued to govern the electricity market.After the deregulation of the air travel industry in the 1970s, independent power producers and consumer groups began calling for the repeal of PUHCA and overhaul of the nation’s power markets.Enron joined that bandwagon at the beginning of the ’90s, and the company was in the forefront of the restructuring debate. The Houston-based energy powerhouse, which started as a gas marketing company, did not have any significant generation or transmission capacity when it began lobbying for deregulation. But it saw in deregulation an opportunity to expand its business and gain new markets by selling power—using the transmission grids owned by giant utilities—to industrial, residential and other customers.In its push for deregulation, Enron was joined by other independent energy producers, consumer groups and some conservative free market advocacy organizations. But few lobbied as aggressively and vocally as Enron, which began campaigning on the issue in Washington in 1990, according to the company’s lobbying disclosure reports.Enron sought a total repeal of PUHCA and modifications to PURPA. At a meeting of the Coalition of Northeastern Governors in Vermont in December 1996, Jeffrey Skilling, then-CEO of Enron Capital and Trade Resources, sounded almost impatient. “Every day we delay [deregulation], we’re costing consumers a lot of money,” he said. “It can be done quickly. The key is to get legislation done fast.”However, the battle on Capitol Hill was not won definitively by Enron and its allies. Since passage of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, [c boyden gray?] a number of bills have been introduced in the House and the Senate. But none of these measures became law, despite support from successive administrations. Both the Clinton and Bush White House backed restructuring and released their own versions of deregulation legislation.The groups that lobbied against deregulation, mainly utilities, had been waging an even more brutal and successful lobbying campaign to block Enron’s preferred plans. Players on both sides of the issue have so far spent more than $50 million in lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.Backers of deregulation were, however, more successful in states. Virtually every state considered deregulation at some point, and, so far, nearly half the states have restructured their power markets to varying degrees.According the Department of Energy, 18 states and the District of Columbia have restructured their power market.Enron won contracts worth several million dollars in many of these states.Deregulation would have been more successful in states and even at the federal level had it not been for the California power crisis of 2000 and 2001. When electricity prices and public outrage shot up in California as a result of an artificial shortage, several states began revisiting the issue, and some either stalled or slowed down their deregulation plans.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5.6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(50, 50, 50);">Similar strategy</h4>In the states, Enron tried to shape the debate on restructuring by following a strategy similar to the one it adopted at the federal level—that is, working with other large companies and trade groups, and hiring well-connected lobbyists.Across the country, Enron coordinated its lobbying efforts and public campaigns with other groups. It worked with New York Energy Providers Association in New York, Alliance for Lower Electric Rates Today in Louisiana, Direct Access Alliance in California, the North Carolina Coalition for Customer Choice in Electricity, South Carolinians for Competitive Electricity and the Competitive Power Coalition in Massachusetts.As in Washington, it hired a number of former legislators, regulators and other state officials to lobby state capitols. For instance, in Texas, it hired former state House Speaker Gib Lewis as a lobbyist. Sue Nord, a former Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, lobbied for Enron in that state, and so did Tom Rutherford, a former New Mexican state senator. Max Yzaguirre, head of Texas Public Utility Commission, once worked for Enron.At the height of the deregulation debate, Enron had lobbying presence in nearly all the states. The Center database on lobbying interests in states, released early last year, revealed that in early 2000 Enron had registered to hire lobbyists in at least 37 states.The company tried to gain access to legislators and other decision-makers in a variety of ways to ensure that the restructuring package was favorable to it. In August 1997, when the New Mexico legislature was debating deregulation, Enron took a dozen state legislators who were attending the Council of State Governments-West conference for a cruise around San Francisco Bay, theAlbuquerque Journal reported.The same year, Enron Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay wrote a letter to North Carolina House Speaker Harold Brubaker requesting a seat on a study panel for an Enron employee, who is connected to the Republican Party. “As you may know, I have been very active in Republican politics and served as Chairman of the Host Committee for the 1992 Republican National Convention held here in Houston,” Lay wrote. Despite the letter, Enron’s employee did not get a seat.As states passed legislation to restructure their power markets, Enron capitalized by striking a series of power deals. For instance, in California, it won a five-year deal, worth $300 million, to supply electricity to the 31 campuses of the University of California.The company also had stakes in cities that were privatizing electricity and also fought for privatization of power in military bases.A 1988 law had banned the military from buying power from anyone other than local utilities. After a sustained lobbying campaign by Enron and other groups, the legislation was overturned. Subsequently, Enron won a contract worth $25 million to supply electricity to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York. The man who spearheaded the Enron’s lobbying campaign was Thomas L. White, who later became the Army secretary.The cities and regions Enron targeted include Peterborough, in New Hampshire, Anaheim, Fresno and San Francisco.In 1997, the company won a pilot program in Peterborough after waging an aggressive lobbying campaign that included holding picnics, lobbying town selectmen, and donating $25,000 for town improvements, according to the trade publication Electric Perspectives.But Enron did not get everything it wanted from the states. Restructuring legislation passed by some states did not contain many of the provisions it had lobbied for, and some adopted plans that Enron’s opponents advocated.</div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="container" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 1280px; line-height: 28px;"><div class="calais-tags-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 28px 250px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; float: left;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5.6px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; color: rgb(50, 50, 50);">More stories about</h4><div class="calais-tags node-3161" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><div class="first" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Enron" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Enron</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Enron-scandal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Enron scandal</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Kenneth-Lay" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Kenneth Lay</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Jeffrey-Skilling" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Jeffrey Skilling</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Deregulation" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Deregulation</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/California-electricity-crisis" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">California electricity crisis</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Public-Utility-Holding-Company-Act" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Public Utility Holding Company Act</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Public-Utility-Regulatory-Policies-Act" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Enron-Capital" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Enron Capital</a>, <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/news/Houston" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: red;">Houston</a></div></div></div></div>==

<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/06/phrma-companies-push-hard-on-house-bill-to-ease-testing-of-new-drugs">http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/06/phrma-companies-push-hard-on-house-bill-to-ease-testing-of-new-drugs</a>

==

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 19.2000007629395px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Financial crisis and the bailout</h2>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Role in the crisis</h3>

In 1975, the SEC’s trading and markets division ruled that investment banks must maintain a debt-to-net capital ratio of less than 12 to 1. In 2004, following extensive lobbying by the investment banks, the SEC under chairman Christopher Cox authorized five investment banks to develop their own net capital requirements. This enabled investment banks to push borrowing ratios to as high as 40 to 1.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Merrill_Lynch#cite_note-4" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[4]</a> These five investment banks were Goldman Sachs, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Morgan_Stanley" title="Morgan Stanley" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Morgan Stanley</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lehman_Brothers" title="Lehman Brothers" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Lehman Brothers</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bear_Stearns" title="Bear Stearns" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Bear Stearns</a>, and Merrill Lynch. This very high debt-to-reserves helped lead to the financial crisis of 2008 by weakening the ability of these institutions to recover from losses incurred when the risky CDO and CDS bets failed.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Merrill_Lynch#cite_note-5" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[5]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Merrill_Lynch#cite_note-6" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[6]</a>

Lee A. Pickard, who had been Director of the SEC’s Division of Market Regulation when the 1975 12-1 rule was ordered, said of the change, "The SEC modification in 2004 is the primary reason for all of the losses that have occurred."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Merrill_Lynch#cite_note-7" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[7]</a>

==

<div class="yiv406723445item-hed" style="line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; outline: none; zoom: 1; font-weight: bold;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://click.lists.propublica.net/?qs=8d6ba8ef34fe3ad21cbc3f664348e8ed9ca1763cec85bdd044a072f8ff9fcd5a" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(13, 53, 118); line-height: 1.2em; outline: none;">When Regulation Threatens, Bankers Predict Doom For Main Street</a></div>

<div class="yiv406723445item-hed" style=" margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; outline: none; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://click.lists.propublica.net/?qs=8d6ba8ef34fe3ad21cbc3f664348e8ed9ca1763cec85bdd044a072f8ff9fcd5a">http://click.lists.propublica.net/?qs=8d6ba8ef34fe3ad21cbc3f664348e8ed9ca1763cec85bdd044a072f8ff9fcd5a</a></div>

<div>

</div>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

==

see MEDIA

last vestige of free media is ownership, but b2 changed. clear ch and cumulus (dixie chicks) Michael Powell gave waivers to overages. corp get up to 45% of

nation viewers and can have paper, tv and radio in same city 187

rules done in secrt w/ only 1 public mtg led to protest (2.4 mil ltrs) . sen voted to halt, house about to but delay and lobbyists blocked vote; fed ct

rejected b/c of lack of "reasoned analysis"

===

To celebrate what they called “Stop Government Abuse Week,” the Republican majority in the House <a href="http://wunc.org/post/house-approves-anti-regulatory-bills-eye-elections" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">passed a series of bills</a> Thursday to muck up the regulatory process. Collectively, these bills would have an enormous negative impact on the EPA. Among all the other environmental regulations they would inhibit, they would prevent the forthcoming <a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/epa-chief-tells-grist-what-coal-will-have-to-do-to-survive-in-a-carbon-constrained-future/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">CO2 rules for power plants</a> from being anywhere near as strong as they otherwise could and should be. Republicans don’t want to go on record voting to repeal the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, as that would be unpopular, so instead they would render the laws meaningless. Environmental groups such as Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council are <a href="http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/house-approves-reckless-package-of-anti-regulatory-bills" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">horrified</a>. Before the bills even passed, they signed <a href="http://sensiblesafeguards.org/assets/documents/house-bills-weaken-safeguards-022514.pdf" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">a letter</a> of protest in coalition with labor unions such as the AFL-CIO and consumer advocate groups like Public Citizen.

Here is a brief summary of what each of the bills would do to impede agencies from enforcing laws Congress has already passed:

1. All Economic Regulations are Transparent (ALERT) Act.Would institute a bunch of time-wasting reporting requirements on agencies as they promulgate rules. For example: “Prohibits a rule from taking effect until the information required by this Act is posted on the Internet for not less than six months.”

2. Regulatory Accountability Act. Would require agencies to conduct estimates of all the “indirect” costs and benefits of a proposed rule and to choose the least costly rule possible. It would then allow industry groups to sue if they think the rule was not the least costly. “The legislation has no definition of what constitutes an indirect cost, or doesn’t, so there are no bounds,” says Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate at Public Citizen. “Agencies would be on a goose chase because of that ambiguity.” This could lead to some pretty perverse and anti–free market outcomes. For example, if a rule incentivizes companies to shift their regulatory compliance paperwork online, that could be construed as imposing an indirect cost on paper companies that would lose business. This, of course, is technically true but completely at odds with a free-market approach that accepts there will be winners and losers from technological innovation. The least-costly provision could lead to rules so weak as to be utterly toothless. “Courts have found that the least costly manner of regulating asbestos could mean just providing warnings of the dangers of asbestos as opposed to actually removing it,” notes Narang. “Based on the history of adopting the least costly regulations to industries, they end up being the most costly to public safety and the environment.”

<a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr1062">https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr1062</a>

<a class="name" href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/scott_garrett/400145" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.4285717010498px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(243, 241, 233); background-position: 0px 0px;">Rep. Scott Garrett [R-NJ5]</a>

==

3. Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act. Would expand the Small Business Administration’s mandate to review proposed regulations. Currently that mandate applies to rules by the EPA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would affect a large number of small businesses. Under this bill, it would apply to all regulations produced by almost all regulatory agencies. Proposed rules would have to go before a Small Business Review panel, where the playing field is tilted in the industry’s favor and no outside experts or environmental advocates are present — a process that would delay and water down regulations. Ironically, while Republicans purport to oppose wasteful bureaucracy, this would erect a massive new bureaucratic process.

<dl>

<dt style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 21.4285717010498px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 1em; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(254, 250, 246);">Cosponsors</dt>

</dl>

<div title="17 Republicans, 2 Democrats" style=" box-sizing: border-box;">19 cosponsors (17R, 2D) (<a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2542#" onclick="if (!$('#cosponsors').is(':visible')) $('#cosponsors').slideDown(); else $('#cosponsors').slideUp(); return false;" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">show</a>)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/john_barrow/400628" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Barrow, John [D-GA12]</a></div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/howard_coble/400076" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Coble, Howard [R-NC6]</a></div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/sam_graves/400158" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Graves, Sam [R-MO6]</a></div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/jim_matheson/400255" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Matheson, Jim [D-UT4]</a></div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/todd_rokita/412426" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Rokita, Todd [R-IN4]</a></div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/lamar_smith/400381" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Smith, Lamar [R-TX21]</a></div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/john_duncan/400116" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Duncan, John “Jimmy” [R-TN2]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jun 28, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/richard_hanna/412454" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Hanna, Richard [R-NY22]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 08, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/tim_huelskamp/412429" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Huelskamp, Tim [R-KS1]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 08, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/chris_collins/412563" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Collins, Chris [R-NY27]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 10, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/jaime_herrera_beutler/412486" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Herrera Beutler, Jaime [R-WA3]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 10, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/steve_chabot/400071" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Chabot, Steve [R-OH1]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 16, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/kevin_cramer/412555" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Cramer, Kevin [R-ND0]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 16, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/jason_smith/412596" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Smith, Jason [R-MO8]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 16, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/darrell_issa/400196" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Issa, Darrell [R-CA49]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 24, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/blaine_luetkemeyer/412292" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Luetkemeyer, Blaine [R-MO3]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 30, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/scott_tipton/412405" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Tipton, Scott [R-CO3]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Jul 30, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/billy_long/412445" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Long, Billy [R-MO7]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Aug 02, 2013)</div>

<div style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/pete_sessions/400367" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); text-decoration: underline; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial;">Sessions, Pete [R-TX32]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 1.5em;">(joined Oct 09, 2013)</div>

</div>

4. Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act.Currently, if an agency like the EPA fails to meet a deadline for issuing a regulation called for by a law, the mechanism for enforcing the law is for advocates to sue the agency for violating it. To avoid a costly legal process, the agency may settle the suit and agree to a timeline for completing the regulation. Republicans often see these legal settlements as a form of collusion between agencies and advocates, so they want to put a stop to them. This bill would impose a bunch of barriers to reaching such agreements, especially under Republican administrations. For example, it would require the attorney general to certify to the court that any consent decree does not violate a host of conditions.

5. Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act.Ironically, this one would create a bunch of unfunded mandates — but they would be mandates on federal agencies instead of states or private businesses. The specifics are too boring to go into, but basically it would require agencies to provide more reports on the financial impact on businesses and states of regulations and give businesses more opportunities for input.

<a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr899"> https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr899</a>

foxx, v

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 21.4285717010498px; background-color: rgb(254, 250, 246);"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/james_lankford/412464" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); background-position: 0px 0px;">Lankford, James [R-OK5]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 21.4285717010498px; background-color: rgb(254, 250, 246);"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/mike_mcintyre/400266" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); background-position: 0px 0px;">McIntyre, Mike [D-NC7]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 21.4285717010498px; background-color: rgb(254, 250, 246);"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/collin_peterson/400316" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); background-position: 0px 0px;">Peterson, Collin [D-MN7]</a></div>

<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 21.4285717010498px; background-color: rgb(254, 250, 246);"><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/loretta_sanchez/400356" style=" box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(203, 75, 22); background-position: 0px 0px;">Sanchez, Loretta [D-CA46]</a></div>

It’s tempting to laugh this off as just another Republican exercise in daydreaming, like the 7,000th vote to repeal Obamacare. But political analysts are <a href="http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/senate-2014-a-coin-flip/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">giving even odds</a> that the Senate will fall into Republican hands this November. These bills are a preview of what the GOP will do if it can. “We don’t see any indication that a Republican Senate wouldn’t pursue this dangerous and radical legislation,” says Narang. “We can’t count on the Senate playing that responsible role forever and maybe not even beyond this year.” If Obama faces a hostile Senate as well as House, he will have to give in on some things just to keep the government running. And then if a Republican wins the presidency in 2016 — watch out.

http://grist.org/politics/five-dumb-bills-just-passed-by-the-house-would-screw-the-environment/

</section>

Ben Adler covers climate change policy for Grist.

</section>

==

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Pathetic: How the USDA Cowers to the Poultry Industry</h1>

</div>

<div class="story-date">February 19, 2014  |  </div>

This article originally appeared at the <a href="http://populist.com/20.4.hauter.html" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Progressive Populist</a> [3], and is reprinted here with their permission.

Earlier this year, Food & Water Watch received information that USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) was going to permit a trade association — the National Chicken Council — to collect data in poultry plants to assess the rate of foodborne pathogens in chicken parts. The information came in the form of an e-mail from the Assistant FSIS Administrator for Field Operations Daniel Engeljohn, informing his district managers that he was aware of the effort and gave his full blessing to the project. What was troubling about the e-mail was that it told the district managers that the purpose of the data collection was for the industry to develop its own voluntary pathogen performance standards that it was going to enforce on poultry processing plants. It went on to say that FSIS inspection personnel assigned to the plants were not to interfere with the National Chicken Council data collection and that they had no right to look at the data that was collected.

In other words, the poultry industry would create the standards for pathogen levels in chicken parts, and they would only “voluntarily” stick with them. Not only would the industry be able to decide how much salmonella or campylobacter there is on your chicken, but there would be no USDA enforcement of the standard.

Welcome to the latest in privatization of chicken inspections that the industry is pushing, with the USDA’s blessing. Another example is the “Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection,” the proposed plan whose “modern” twist is to turn most poultry inspection over to the very companies that produce our poultry, leaving only one government inspector per plant to inspect over 175 birds per minute — or three birds per second.

</div>

===

alec bills:

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 19.2000007629395px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Energy</h2>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/3/37/3E0-Electricity_Transmission_Principles_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E0 Electricity Transmission Principles Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/7/77/3E1-ALEC_Energy_Principles_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E1 ALEC Energy Principles Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/a/ac/3E2-Energy_Efficiency_and_Savings_Act_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E2 Energy Efficiency and Savings Act Exposed</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/0/09/3E3-Offshore_Energy_Resources_Act_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E3 Offshore Energy Resources Act Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/5/59/3E4-Power_Plant_Siting_Act_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E4 Power Plant Siting Act Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/8/8a/3E5-Resolution_Encouraging_Development_of_Liquefied_Natural_Gas_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E5 Resolution Encouraging Development of Liquefied Natural Gas Exposed</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/a/ab/3E6-Resolution_on_Energy_Conservation_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E6 Resolution on Energy Conservation Exposed</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/1/14/3E7-Resolution_on_Mandatory_Electricity_Consumer_Disclosure_Information_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E7 Resolution on Mandatory Electricity Consumer Disclosure Information Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/f/fb/3E8-Resolution_on_Renewable_Energy_Resources_in_a_Competitive_Electricity_Marketplace_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E8 Resolution on Renewable Energy Resources in a Competitive Electricity Marketplace Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/2/2a/3E9-Resolution_Recognizing_the_Large_and_Growing_Need_for_Commercial_Nuclear_Energy_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E9 Resolution Recognizing the Large and Growing Need for Commercial Nuclear Energy Exposed</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/f/f7/3E10-Resolution_to_Repeal_Section_526_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E10 Resolution to Repeal Section 526 Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/9/9e/3E11-Resolution_to_Retain_State_Authority_over_Hydraulic_Fracturing_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E11 Resolution to Retain State Authority over Hydraulic Fracturing Exposed</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.eenews.net/assets/2012/05/01/document_ew_01.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/c/c6/3E12-Urge_Pres_and_Cong_to_Act_Expeditiously_in_Procuring_a_Site_or_Sites_for_the_Storage_of_High-Level_Radioactive_Waste_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E12 Urge Pres and Cong to Act Expeditiously in Procuring a Site or Sites for the Storage of High-Level Radioactive Waste Exposed</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/d/df/3E13-Urging_Congress_to_End_the_Outer_Continental_Shelf_Moratorium_on_Oil_and_Natural_Gas_Exploration_and_Production_Exposed.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">3E13 Urging Congress to End the Outer Continental Shelf Moratorium on Oil and Natural Gas Exploration and Production Exposed</a></li>

</ul>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.midwestenergynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Electricity-Freedom-Act-New.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Electricity Freedom Act</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6359.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Concurrent Resolution on Energy Taxation in a Competitive Electricity Marketplace</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6218.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Electric Industry Restructuring Act</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6420.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Resolution for Date-Certain in Federal Electric Industry Restructuring Legislation</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6454.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Resolution of Full Unbundling and Standards of Conduct for Electric Industry Restructuring</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6350.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Resolution on Alternative Fuels</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6446.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Resolution on Limited Applicability of Securitization in Electric Industry Restructuring</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6244.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAATklEQVR4XmXKQQqAMAwF0X/7XsSz9CSKiyIIFRFcjMmihmiGbB5fqDCaQJ4j46pzYLUWe+cXZ6OVBhTS0srY2Njp/+XxXXZOLu6EUWAOPX1vnwTBe6qQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Utility Construction Review Act</a></li>

</ul>

===

omg wlf troy popeo In a lengthening stream of such narrowing decisions, Troy managed to restrict FDA's ability to use its statutes creatively, and this in turn deterred mid-level managers from advocating new approaches to emerging scientific issues, leaving the agency looking - and feeling - weak. There is a philosophical basis for this result that many see in Bush Administration policies: reduce the power of government to "interfere" in the free working of the marketplace.

Troy's past use of forums provided by the ultra-conservative/libertarian Federalist Society and his actions since as chief counsel present a sharp contradiction between FDA's traditional modus operandi and that society's dictum: "The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequences would be the substitution of their pleasure for that of the legislative body." In other words, if FDA did not get from Congress what it needs, it should not try litigation, or regulatory initiatives that might lead to litigation....<a href="http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/11/18.php">http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/11/18.php</a>

</div>

Ronald Reagan began dismantling of regulation, inviting industry to submit a wish list or hit list for elimination

The Reagan-inspired Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, the legislation that precipitated the S&L crisis, was one of the most irrational pieces of legislation passed by Congress in the 20th Century.

After Clinton's defeat in 1994 Newt Revo, he "triangulated" to center, ended up repealing Glass-Steagall in a modernizing/reform move (NAFTA too?) See DeLay below

b2 this RR hitlist move was reprised by  Bush43,though the list was submitted by Koch's Mercatus Center.

===

bush2;

NRC said no backup control for nuke plants, some guys will run thru fire; backup potassium iodide pills p11

rfk2;

1/95 Tom Delay invites 350 lobbyists to dismantle regs 30  learned from watt disaster PR,

so plant tree foto op and used free mkt rhet to hide; Luntz did PR (wrote Contract for

Am) snuck riders on key bills, "supermandate" regulatory reform, ~ unfunded

mandates etc but PIRG etc caught them, 1 mil signatures, so mod gop opposed; after

gov't shutdown newt lost public support. TDelay: we lost debate on envir"

---

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="body" style="line-height: 16px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" width="50%">June 23, 2006 | <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080510143117/http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/back_issues.php" class="body" style="line-height: 16px; color: rgb(0, 102, 51); text-decoration: none;">Back Issues</a></td><td class="body" style="line-height: 16px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" align="right" width="50%">« <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080510143117/http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000312.php" class="body" style="line-height: 16px; color: rgb(0, 102, 51); text-decoration: none;">previous</a> | <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080510143117/http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000314.php" class="body" style="line-height: 16px; color: rgb(0, 102, 51); text-decoration: none;">next</a> »</td></tr></tbody></table>

White House, GOP Leaders Plan All-Out Assault on Federal Protections

Apparently rushing to lock in a long-sought goal before the fall elections, GOP congressional leaders may bring to a vote within weeks a proposal that could literally wipe out any federal program that protects public health or the environment--or for that matter civil rights, poverty programs, auto safety, education, affordable housing, Head Start, workplace safety or any other activity targeted by anti-regulatory forces.

With strong support from the Bush White House and the Republican Study Committee, the proposal would create a "sunset commission"--an unelected body with the power to recommend whether a program lives or dies, and then move its recommendations through Congress on a fast-track basis with limited debate and no amendments.

Three leading proposals have been introduced and are being winnowed into a final version. They would give the White House some--or total--authority to nominate members to the commission. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has confirmed that his office is coordinating development of a final version for prompt floor action.

Sunset commissions have been proposed, and defeated, before. But public interest veterans say the current situation is unlike any in the past, because the House Republican Study Committee, which includes some of the most anti-regulatory members of Congress, has secured guaranteed floor consideration of a sunset bill.

If such a bill should become law, the sunset commission could be packed with industry lobbyists and representatives from industry-funded think tanks, and could conduct its business in secrecy. Two of the sunset proposals under consideration would mandate that programs die after they are reviewed, unless Congress takes action to save them.

Several environmental programs have been targeted during past sunset attempts. Experts predict those would be among the first a sunset commission would review. Among them: the Energy Star Program; federal support for mass transit; the State Energy Program, which supports numerous state and local energy renewable efficiency programs; the Clean School Bus Program; the Land and Water Conservation Fund; federal grants for Wastewater infrastructure; a national children's health study that examines factors leading to such problems as premature birth, autism, obesity, asthma, and exposures to pesticides, mercury and other toxic chemicals.

A coalition of public interest groups is fighting to block enactment of a sunset commission. Information is available through the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080510143117/http://www.ombwatch.org/sunset">Sunset Commission Action Center</a> at OMB Watch.

<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080510143117/http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000313.php">http://web.archive.org/web/20080510143117/http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000313.php</a>

wolfe on moyers 6/8/13 we gets regs after each crisis, but undone or evaded: GlassSteagel 1933 bank act 1990's repealed

monsanto protection (against lawsuits?

===

AMY GOODMAN: You write, "Deregulation is one of the greatest triumphs of America’s ruling class, but [for] middle-class workers and their families the fallout has been devastating." What about retirement and pensions?

JAMES STEELE: One of the most astonishing statistics that we think we have in the book, because we were not aware of this statistic: since 1985, almost 85,000 pension plans have been killed. In the '50s, the ’60s, the ’70s, even into the early ’80s, more and more people were eligible for pensions, defined benefit plans where you got a specific benefit when you did retire. But since the mid-'80s, corporations, with the great assistance of Congress, have been shifting people out of pensions into 401(k) plans. Now, there’s nothing wrong with 401(k) plans, but originally they were viewed just as a supplement to a pension. They were not viewed as a pension. But corporations saw this would be a lot cheaper for them. It would shift the responsibility totally to the employees and the workers. But it would also not contribute enough to really take care of their retirement needs.

So, what’s happened in—this is one of the greatest title shifts in the country, because we were going in a certain direction for decades, middle-class people—I mean, not everybody had a pension. We know that. But more and more did over time. But since the '80s, this has now been totally reversed. And it raises all kinds of questions about what retirement is going to be like for people. The main question is, people are going to have to work forever, and yet what are those jobs going to be? What are they going to pay? And it also puts pressure then on people coming into the workforce. How are they going to get a job if people are having to work between 65 and 75 years old? That's going to put even more pressure on the jobs that are left.

DONALD BARLETT: And the other irony of this is—this is almost another Sandy Weill incident. You have the current head of AIG, who was not there during the collapse. He had nothing to do with it. He worked for another global insurance company. He was brought in after AIG collapsed, and the taxpayers bailed them out, and they still haven’t paid everything back yet. He was quoted as saying earlier this year that people are just going to have to get used to the idea of working until they are 70 or 80. Now, he made that pronouncement from his villa in Dubrovnik in Croatia.

===

<h1 class="title">Koch Brothers’ "Christmas Present" Up for House Vote</h1>

<div class="meta">Submitted by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/35294/rebekah-wilce" title="View user profile.">Rebekah Wilce</a> on December 1, 2011 - 8:52am</div>

The U.S. House of Representatives votes soon on a series of deregulatory bills that, according to the <a href="http://www.sensiblesafeguards.org/about_us" title="reference on Coalition for Sensible Safeguards" target="_blank">Coalition for Sensible Safeguards</a> (CSS), "threaten vital health, environmental, safety and financial regulations."

"We Want Big Biz Ruining Our Lives" (Source: Joe Mohr)Voting is expected on the Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010) and the Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act (H.R. 527) on December 1, and on The Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act (H.R. 10) next week.

Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) calls these bills "an early Christmas present to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Brothers" title="reference on Koch Brothers" target="_self">Koch Brothers</a>, who made this Congress possible."

<h2>The REINS Act (H.R. 10)</h2>

<a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr10rh/pdf/BILLS-112hr10rh.pdf" title="reference on The REINS Act" target="_blank">The REINS Act</a> would require any regulatory rule with an impact of $100 million or more on the economy to be subject to approval of the House and Senate within 70 legislative days before taking effect. If Congress were to fail to act on the proposal, with a few exceptions, the rule could not be brought up again until the next Congress.

After Congress passes a law, federal agencies are charged with implementing the law often with a series of more detailed regulations. The Administrative Procedures Act allows interested parties and the public to participate in a detailed fashion in the the rulemaking process. The REINS Act is widely viewed as a way to kill or delay public health, safety or environmental regulations. It would "allow a single member of Congress, at the behest of some powerful special interest or campaign contributor, [to] block science-based lead standards for children's products, block crib safety rules or any number of protections that provide a safer consumer marketplace," according to consumer advocate Ed Mierswinski of U.S. PIRG (the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups).

According to Representative Connolly, the REINS Act represents the "171st attack" on public health and the environment in this Congress. The REINS Act was already voted down in the Senate earlier this month as part of the so-called "Republican Jobs Bill."

<h2>The Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010)</h2>

<a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3010rh/pdf/BILLS-112hr3010rh.pdf" title="reference on The Regulatory Accountability Act" target="blank">The Regulatory Accountability Act</a> (RAA) would require all government agencies to adopt the least costly rule -- "regardless of the impact on public health and safety, the health of our financial system, or the quality of our environment," CSS notes in a <a href="http://www.sensiblesafeguards.org/sites/default/files/Oppose_House_Package_3010_527_10.pdf" title="reference on letter" target="blank">letter</a> to House Representatives.

Sidney Shapiro, administrative law professor at Wake Forest University and Vice Chair of the <a href="http://www.progressivereform.org/" title="reference on Center for Progressive Reform" target="_blank">Center for Progressive Reform</a>, calls HR 3010 "truly radical," noting that it would "add over 60 new procedural and analytical requirements to agency rule making process," making it "take somewhere between 6 and 12 years to propose a major rule." The bill, he says, "in one swoop, would overrule 25 different environmental, health and safety laws."

Laws overruled would include the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and the Occupational Safety and Health Act, according to CSS.

<h2>Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act (H.R. 527)</h2>

<a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr527rh/pdf/BILLS-112hr527rh.pdf" title="reference on The Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act" target="_blank">The Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act</a> (RFIA) would amend the current Regulatory Flexibility Act "to ensure complete analysis of potential impacts on small entities of rules." This certainly sounds reasonable.

However, as CSS explains: "Its scope is breathtakingly broad, since it would include regulations that could conceivably have an indirect impact on small businesses. Virtually any action an agency proposes -- even a guidance document designed to help a business comply with a rule -- could be subject to a lengthy regulatory process. By requiring additional and wasteful analyses, this bill would make it impossible for federal agencies to protect the public and respond to emerging hazards."

Shapiro notes that, for "agencies already teetering on the brink of disfunction, particularly in light of budget cuts (and with more coming), it's getting more and more difficult getting regulations out the door that we need, and it wouldn't take much of a push to make them entirely dysfunctional. So even the RFIA is bad news for the American public."

<h2>"Job Killing" Regulations</h2>

The House GOP is going after the rulemaking process arguing that "excessive" government regulations are "a big wet blanket" smothering the economic recovery. But, mass layoffs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show otherwise. A recent article in the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/does-government-regulation-really-kill-jobs-economists-say-overall-effect-minimal/2011/10/19/gIQALRF5IN_story.html" title="reference on Washington Post" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> reported that in "2010, 0.3 percent of the people who lost their jobs in layoffs were let go because of 'government regulations/intervention.' By comparison, 25 percent were laid off because of a drop in business demand."

Representative Connolly remembers that: "after the Clean Air Act Amendment passed in 1990, utility rates did not go up, they fell 36% in that period, and job creation was among the most robust at any time in U.S. history."

In the face of the BP oil spill, the Massey mining disaster and the Wall Street economic crisis that cost eight million Americans their jobs, the GOP's argument that excessive regulation is killing the economy goes beyond chutzpah into the realm of deadly disinformation.

</div>

<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/node/11161">http://www.prwatch.org/node/11161</a>

Ever since Reagan conservatism morphed into a fanatical, absolutist, non-compromising brand, business decisions have not only led to a rise in white-collar crime, but they have also cost the American people trillions in wealth and wasted tax dollars as the right-wing ideology glommed onto the public consciousness.

In his book, Why Decisions Fail, Professor Paul C. Nutt explains that 50 percent of business decisions are bad decisions that fail to achieve their intended consequence.

In a democracy, voters have some ability to correct bad government decisions; but in a plutocracy, where wealth controls politics, the power of the public is diminished in both the public and private sectors. The wealthy control both political and economic outcomes.

With the conservative rise to power, irrational and illicit business decisions occurred in the '80s. The killing of the savings and loan industry typified the unintended consequences of applying right-wing privatization theology.

The Reagan-inspired Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, the legislation that precipitated the S&L crisis, was one of the most irrational pieces of legislation passed by Congress in the 20th Century.

"This [Act] ... will make the thrift industry a stronger, more effective force in financing housing for millions of Americans in the years to come," President Reagan said when signing the bill. "It means help for housing, more jobs, and new growth for the economy. All in all, I think we hit the jackpot."

But not only did American citizens lose billions of dollars, the Justice Department received over 11,000 criminal referrals. Why weren't there 11,000 criminal prosecutions? Because the budgets of agencies responsible for investigation and prosecution of those cases were either cut or eliminated. In one case, a key investigative agency lost 95 percent of its staff, killing its efforts.

Of course, a few of President Reagan's crony's did "hit the jackpot," as they became sole owners of S&Ls, and were able to loot them before they went bust. During the 1990s, we had the rise of the dot.com bubble.

On one hand, economic activity exploded. President Bill Clinton got lucky. The invention of World Wide Web technology in 1993 sparked a burst of national energy and creativity not seen since the 1960s. On the other hand, deregulation and globalization took its toll on the country, as business decision-making deteriorated and its consequences accumulated.

While corporate mergers ultimately led to net job losses by the turn of the Millennium, dot.com companies, popping up like weeds on an abandoned golf course, plsyed shady games by reporting numbers that had little basis in reality.

Investor pressure to produce revenues and profits in the face of heightened free-market competition whetted the appetite of too many executives, who freely bent long-standing rules of business management and finance.

One example was the relaxation of accounting rules, enabling accounting firms - like Arthur Andersen, Inc. - to accept more lucrative contracting commissions, creating conflicts of interest in their dealings with clients.

While Arthur Levitt and Harvey Pitt, two chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), sought remedies to these problems, their efforts were blocked by GOP members of Congress, who enabled a misty curtain of permissiveness to hide a vast wave of unethical activities.

So, even today accounting firms can accept jobs as consultants to their clients. Meanwhile, companies like Enron, working with their accountants and consultants, were able to doctor quarterly reports, bamboozle investors, and scam consumers - in Enron's case, California energy consumers - into paying higher electricity prices to cover their losses elsewhere.

One result of this free-market perfidy was the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis, who was taken down by voters after an electricity crisis was manufactured by Enron energy traders in league with top executives there.

Too many companies created phony assets,transactions, and profits, assisted by accountants enticed by large consultant fees to look the other way. In the end, together with thousands of other businesses, Enron crashed, taking their costing investors - including pension funds - many billions.

Few of the transgressors were punished, though Enron's leading executive, Ken Lay, received a stiff jail sentence before he died. In the last 10 years, private enterprise found new ways to scam consumers and investors, leading to the worst world-wide recession since the Great Depression.

It was actually the wife of well-known, right-wing U.S. Senator Phil Gramm who is said to have inspired the present crisis. We are told Mrs. Gramm - associated with Enron's crash and the bankruptcy of a large managed health-care company - came up with the idea of "credit default swaps" - i.e., insuring bad mortgages to minimize risk and generate long-term income.

Bad private sector decision-making led to the closure of hundred of banks and the death, for all practical purposes, of "investment banking." Trillions of dollars of investment wealth evaporated.

Both Republican and Democratic Administrations forgot about the people and bailed out the wealthy. Only Bernie Madoff went to jail. By contrast, when the stock market crashed in 1929, everybody got hurt, including the very rich....

http://www.american-reporter.com/4,446/226.html

Deregulation of energy market led to Enron?  Gray Davis

Fairness Doctrine gave us Limbaugh

Big boost to GW skeptics

Mojo 2008  <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/its-deregulation-stupid">http://motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/its-deregulation-stupid</a>

<h1 class="title">It's the Deregulation, Stupid</h1>

</div>

Fri Mar. 28, 2008 12:00 AM PDT

Speaking at Cooper Union in New York City on Thursday, Barack Obama went where few Democrats have dared to go in the past quarter-century: He made a case for more regulation. As part of a <a target="new" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/us/politics/27cnd-dems.html?ex=1364356800&en=1f7f7529c7cec326&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">speech</a> on his economic platform, Obama depicted the current economic crisis as a consequences of deregulation in the financial sector. "Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it," he said. "Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one—aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight."

</div>

This is quite a statement from a candidate who's received $6 million in campaign contributions from securities and investment firms, just slightly less than rival Hillary Clinton, who cashes in at $6.3 million. Obama's criticism was sharp, but his six-point plan for rebuilding a regulatory structure was short on both details and teeth, and relies on the Federal Reserve, which is like having the fox guard, well, the other foxes. Still, his use of the r-word signals what is at least a rhetorical departure for a party that has been running from regulation for decades.

Obama isn't the only one. Last week at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, chair of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, also <a target="new" href="http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/10903777?f=home_featured">argued</a> that years of banking deregulation were in part responsible for creating the subprime mortgage crisis and the larger economic downturn, which he didn't hesitate to call a recession. He talked about the need to impose more "discipline" on investment banks, requiring a higher level of capitalization and transparency. Frank called on Congress to consider establishing a "Financial Services Risk Regulator" that would have "the capacity and power to assess risk across financial markets" and "to intervene when appropriate."

Such a proposal may seem like too little too late in a month when the likes of Bear Stearns crumbled to dust, yet, like Obama's speech, it suggests a small shift in what has long been the dominant position of the Democratic Party. Without entirely eschewing the sacred myth that the free market always knows best, some congressional Democrats are envisioning a more direct role for the federal government in carrying out economic policy and imposing rules and restrictions on banks and brokerages. Calls for increased oversight of financial markets come at a time when the Federal Reserve System, the quasi-public institution that is seen as the fulcrum for managing the economy, is losing credibility, what with its failure to predict or head off the current crisis and its ineffective and controversial responses once it arrived.

Americans are beginning to look elsewhere for leadership on these issues. As the economy continues to decline, some voters may finally start asking their government to rein in Wall Street. And some Democrats may finally be willing to veer out of lockstep in the party's long march toward deregulation.

Deregulation has been the mantra on both sides of the aisle since the late 1960s. Long gone are Democrats like Michigan's Phil Hart who, as chair of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, held <a target="new" href="http://www.archives.gov/legislative/guide/senate/chapter-13-judiciary-1947-1968.html">hearings</a> on the concentration of economic power in the United States, and proposed expanded government regulation of everything from the oil and auto industries to pharmaceuticals to professional sports. Hart believed that because wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of such a small number of corporations, the market economy had become no more than a facade. In this context, what would bring about lower prices and greater productivity and innovation was more government intervention and regulation, not less.

Hart got a Senate building named after him, but his warnings about the threat of unbridled corporate power and consolidation went unheeded. Instead, the rush to deregulation began, first in the transportation sector. Efforts begun under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford came to fruition under Jimmy Carter, who hired deregulation guru Alfred E. Kahn to head the Civil Aeronautics Board, the widely loathed agency responsible for regulating the airline industry. Senator Ted Kennedy and his then aide, future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, embraced deregulation as a consumer issue, and with their support, Kahn quickly worked his way out of a job: The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act dissolved the CAB and removed most regulation of commercial airlines. Carter also signed into law bills deregulating the railroads and the trucking industry.

</div>

You could argue that transportation deregulation has been a wash—replacing a system of bureaucratic incompetence with one of profit-seeking negligence, and exchanging safety for lower prices. The same cannot be said for the <a target="new" href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=40982">deregulation</a> of the energy sector, notably the natural gas and oil industries under Ronald Reagan, and the electric utilities under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Left to its own devices, a deregulated energy industry has given us Enron and Exxon—California brownouts and $100 barrels of oil. Deregulation of the telecommunications industry, also under Clinton, reduced the number of major phone service providers to just a handful of multimerged giants.

Even more damaging, in light of today's economic crisis, was the sweeping deregulation of the banking and financial services industries that took place in the 1990s. What makes this enterprise particularly confounding is not only the fact that it took place under a Democratic president with support from a majority of Democrats in Congress, but that it followed so closely on the heels of the savings and loan crisis, which ought to have served as a cautionary tale on the dangers of deregulation in the banking sector. The Depository Institutions Act of 1982, another Reagan initiative, was supposed to "revitalize" the housing industry by freeing up the S&Ls to make more loans. Instead, the regulation rollback led to what economist John Kenneth Galbraith <a target="new" href="http://www.iamone.co.uk/2007/12/01/when-mortgages-buy-the-farm/">called</a> "the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time" as they engaged in a fury of high-risk lending. The collapse that followed cost taxpayers an estimated $150 billion in government bailouts, and contributed to the recession of the early 1990s.

Yet Bill Clinton, elected in large part because of that recession (a la James Carville's "It's the economy, stupid"), was talking about deregulation before he was even inaugurated. The National Review <a target="new" href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n7_v45/ai_13699788">reported</a> that "Bill Clinton embraced at least one Reaganesque idea at the Little Rock economic summit" he held in December 1992: "banking deregulation."

The banking industry objected to regulations put in place in 1989 after the S&L debacle, as well as others dating back to FDR. The heads of the six major U.S. banking associations, according to the National Review, had written "a long letter to the President-elect in December advocating nine substantive reforms." The conservative magazine concluded that the new president seemed more than willing to oblige, but bank deregulation was being held back by such powerful congressmen as "House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez (D., Tex.), a populist throwback to the Thirties who believes bankers are by definition out to exploit the 'little guy'" and "House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D., Mich.), who holds a quasi-religious belief that banks caused the Great Depression and must be tightly regulated. (Dingell's father was a principal author of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.)"

The Glass-Steagall Act was, in fact, a primary target of the Clinton-era deregulation effort. An early piece of New Deal-era legislation, the act was passed in response to speculation and manipulation of the markets by huge banking firms, which most liberal economists believed had brought on the crash of 1929. Glass-Steagall imposed firewalls between commercial banking and investment banking, and between the banking, brokerage, and insurance industries. According to the <a target="new" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/banks/">Center for Responsive Politics</a>, which tracks lobbying and campaign contributions, "Eager to create financial supermarkets that peddle everything from checking accounts to auto insurance, the three industries for years have lobbied Congress to streamline regulatory hurdles that bar such operations."

Despite Bill Clinton's announcement that "the era of big government is over," it took the better part of his administration for him to push these initiatives through Congress. In 1999, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, always a good friend to Wall Street, finally brokered a deal between the administration and Congress that allowed banking deregulation to move forward. Shortly after the compromise was reached, Rubin took a top position at Citigroup, which went on to embark upon mergers that would have been rendered illegal under Glass-Steagall. As the New York Times put it, Rubin would be leading "what has become the first true American financial conglomerate since the Depression"—a conglomerate that could exist only because of legislation he had just shepherded through Congress.

Passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 was celebrated in a Wall Street Journal editorial as an end to "unfair" restrictions imposed on banks during the Great Depression, under the headline "Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade." But Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, writing in Mother Jones, <a target="New" href="http://motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/11/fotc10.html">warned</a> that the legislation, which amounted to the "finance industry's deregulatory wish list," would "pave the way for a new round of record-shattering financial industry mergers, dangerously concentrating political and economic power." Mokhiber and Weissman also predicted that such mergers would eventually "create too-big-to-fail institutions that are someday likely to drain the public treasury as taxpayers bail out imperiled financial giants to protect the stability of the nation's banking system."

Enter Bear Stearns. In addition, the merging of commercial and investment banking helped enable high-risk mortgage lending to make its way into the mutual funds and 401Ks of millions of Americans in the form of mortgage-backed securities. "Diversifying bad debt just spreads the poison," as Frank said in his Boston speech. It also makes a falling housing market reverberate throughout the economy far more than it did even during the S&L collapse. Enter the subprime crisis. And welcome back, 1929.

As these new financial giants go into freefall, a little regulation once again sounds like a good idea, just as it did in 1933. But increased regulation will never come willingly from the Federal Reserve, an "independent entity" that is answerable to no one, and has always operated largely in the interests of the big banks that make up its membership and provide its funding. Under two decades of leadership by the notorious anti-regulator Alan Greenspan, the Fed took a hands-off approach, preferring to set "guidelines" for the financial industry rather than enforce rules. In December 2007, the New York Times compiled a rundown of the multiple warnings and pleas made to Greenspan, over a period of at least seven years, to address the dangers posed by subprime lending—all of them, of course, rebuffed by the man who still claims he couldn't have predicted that the housing bubble would someday burst. The Fed's approach is unlikely to change much now—at least, not without a fight.

The Federal Reserve is set up in such a way that Congress cannot force its hand. But it can apply pressure, by way of threatening to pass legislation to accomplish what the Fed refuses to do. That's what Barney Frank did last summer, when he thought Fed chair Ben Bernanke wasn't doing enough about predatory lending practices. "The Fed has the authority to spell out rules about what is unfair and deceptive," Frank said in an interview with Bloomberg News. "If by default the Fed is not in the process of doing it, we, I think, should pass a law giving the authority" to other government agencies.

Now, in addition to outlining a <a target="new" href="http://www.house.gov/frank/housing030608.html">plan</a> to deal with the epidemic of foreclosures, Democrats on the Financial Services Committee are looking at legislation that could force financial firms to sing for their supper—a few bars, at least. The Financial Services Risk Regulator proposed by Frank last week would have the power to demand "timely market information from market players, inspect institutions, report to Congress on the health of the entire financial sector, and act when necessary to limit risky practices or protect the integrity of the financial system." In return, he said, financial institutions would have "potential access to the discount window for nondepository institutions."

Frank was referring to the lending program for brokers started by the Fed on March 17, which extends the same lending rules previously employed by commercial banks to securities firms. Two days after it opened, Financial Week <a target="new" href="http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080319/REG/720178954">reported</a>, under the headline "Investment bank CFOs Not Proud," that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs had already overcome concerns that borrowing from the Fed might "make them appear financially weak," and had taken advantage of the discount window, at the new rock-bottom interest rate of 2.5 percent. So Barney Frank's modest proposal simply says that if the government is going to back loans to billionaire investment firms at rates that middle-class credit card holders can only dream about, the companies are going to have to submit to a little oversight in return.

Critics outside the government have taken things a step further, advancing the view that if the taxpayers are going to be responsible for bailing out greedy financial giants like Bear Stearns, they ought to get a piece of them in return, as well as some say in how they are run. Conceivably, the federal government could either take over and run the affected enterprises, or at the very least take a share of the stock in order to exercise control. "I think it makes the most sense to take it [Bear Stearns] over outright," Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said in an email last week. "The key point is that we don't want Bear Stearns taking big risks with the public's money. I suppose it's better that we at least share in the gains if they do this sort of gambling, but it would be better to have the government directly step in and not allow the gamble."

Such measures are highly unlikely. But Baker argues that a bailout without some kind of consequences will have no impact at all on the kind of unrestrained, irresponsible behavior on the part of financial firms that got us into this mess in the first place. "The issue here is essentially the moral hazard problem that you had with the S&Ls," he said. "If you have the option of making a bet where the government covers your losses, you might as well make it a risky one."

Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) also says he wants to "pin down just how the government decided to front $30 billion in taxpayer dollars" to back the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase. He and Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) have both said they will hold <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aazaRt6_mYD4&refer=home">hearings</a> on the matter. But according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Baucus and Dodd are among the <a target="new" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=F07">top recipients</a> of donations from the securities and investment industry.

In the end, the real question is what kind of regulation of these industries can come from a Democratic Party that now relies on them to fund its campaigns. A few reform-minded Democrats in Congress won't get far without support from the White House. And while financial industry campaign contributions to Democrats have climbed ever since Bill Clinton shifted the party's rhetoric and policymaking away from "big government," donations in this election cycle dwarf those of the past.

With his speech in New York, Obama is clearly trying to show himself to be a man who isn't afraid to bite the hand that's feeding him. He is also putting space, on this issue, between himself and Hillary Clinton, in part by reminding voters of the outcomes of Bill Clinton's policies. He denounced both "Republican and Democratic administrations" for regulatory failures leading to the current crisis, and, as the New York Times <a target="new" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/us/politics/27cnd-dems.html?ex=1364356800&en=1f7f7529c7cec326&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">reported</a>, "handouts supporting the speech" noted that "the banking and insurance industries spent more than $300 million on a successful campaign to repeal the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999." Any effort Hillary Clinton might make to separate herself from her husband's positions will be undermined by the fact that Robert Rubin, promoter of bank deregulation and still a top official at Citigroup, is an advisor to her campaign. On Monday in Philadelphia, in her own speech on economic issues, Hillary Clinton urged President Bush to immediately form an "Emergency Working Group on Foreclosures," which "could be headed by eminent leaders like Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, and Bob Rubin."

For the moment, at least, Obama has staked out the higher ground on this issue. In the end, though, <a target="new" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2008/YearEndPresidential.2.4.asp">says</a> Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, "No matter who becomes our next president, Wall Street will have an indebted friend in the White House." Once the campaign rhetoric fades, the only thing that might bring change on Wall Street is a revolt on Main Street, from Americans who finally cast blame for their lost homes and depleted retirement accounts on its rightful source.

<div class="node-pager"><a class="previous previous-active" href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/its-deregulation-stupid?page=3">Previous</a>Page 4 of</div>

James Ridgeway

</div>

</div>