February 2017 - page 2

The Senate approved of President Trump’s chief budget and policy aide on Thursday, in a 51-49 vote. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) was the lone Republican to reject Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), on the grounds that the Tea Party Congressman has extended his frequent calls for fiscal austerity to the defense budget. Mulvaney is now set to lead the Office of Management and Budget, an influential wonky arm of the White House through which draft “major rules” receive edits before publication. The agency is also tasked with…

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The chief federal watchdog warned on Wednesday that the United States government’s environmental liabilities have grown by hundreds of billions of dollars over the past two decades. In a biannual report about “high risk” problems facing federal agencies, the Government Accountability Office said that taxpayers were on the hook last year for $447 billion in environmental cleanup costs—up from $217 billion in 1997. The doubling roughly mirrors the rate of economic growth over the same time frame, but GAO warned that federal environmental liabilities might…

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The first of many deregulatory measures rapidly pushed by Congressional Republicans under the Trump administration was signed into law on Tuesday. President Trump gave the green light to a resolution disapproving of Dodd-Frank disclosure rules. The regulations had required publicly-traded companies extracting natural resources to divulge payments made to foreign governments. The proposal was one of dozens that have originated in the House of Representatives since January under the Congressional Review Act (CRA)–an arcane law, passed in 1996, allowing the legislative branch to nullify recently passed executive…

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A proposed $34 billion merger between health insurance giants Aetna and Humana has fallen apart, after a federal judge ruled last month that it violated antitrust laws. Aetna announced on Tuesday that the two companies would not be appealing the ruling. District Judge John Bates had found that integration of the two firms would illegally stifle competition in the market for Medicare Advantage. The CEO of Aetna, Mark Bertolini, said that “the current environment makes it too challenging to continue pursuing” the merger, by appealing Bates’…

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In a report issued on Monday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) called on the White House to implement a national food safety plan to address weaknesses in the current oversight regime. The watchdog cited negative outcomes in the existing system due to excessive fragmentation, with more than 3,000 agencies involved in the majority of food safety initiatives. “Although the US food supply is generally considered safe, foodborne illness remains a costly, common public health problem,” the report stated. It went on to recommend that the…

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The majority of crude oil produced in the US over the next few decades will come from fracked wells, according to a research arm of the Energy Department. “Tight oil” from the lower 48 states is projected to account for some 60 percent of total oil production between last year and 2040, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Monday. The agency said that fracking oil production is expected to ramp up to 6 million barrels per day, well into next decade. Output will then…

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Barring an order from the courts, construction will resume imminently on the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline—fulfilling one of President Donald Trump’s first executive actions. On Wednesday, the US Army Corps of Engineers announced it would grant easement to the fossil fuel infrastructure project, which had been halted in the final months of the Obama administration. The corps concurrently killed a planned environmental impact statement (EIS) on the pipeline’s final leg, which crosses North Dakota’s Lake Oahe, near critical water supplies and areas considered sacred by the Standing…

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