LABOR, ECONOMY & THE CLIMATE - page 10

Donald Trump’s private and political career has been colored by several accusations of blatant racism, but it was the President’s recent defense of white supremacists and neo-Nazis that forced CEOs to finally distance themselves from the administration. Two White House panels, staffed with CEOs of top companies, were abruptly disbanded on Wednesday by President Trump, whose hand was forced by several high-profile resignations in the wake of the President’s reaction to the racist violence in Charlottesville, Va. The CEO of the mining company 3M, Inge Thulin,… Keep Reading

An aide to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos could be in prison for violating ethics rules, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on Wednesday. Robert Eitel, a senior counselor to DeVos, was simultaneously employed earlier this year by both the Department of Education and Bridgepoint Education, an operator of for-profit colleges. Warren said that Eitel’s agency work on student debt rules between February and April might run afoul of the criminal code. “This set of rules applied to the [sic] Mr. Eitel from the day of… Keep Reading

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D- Mass.) fired off letters to CEO’s of the nation’s top financial firms, calling on them to publicly reveal their positions on a lobbying effort in their name aimed at striking down new consumer protections. In her missive, Warren noted that interest groups that represent the firms, like the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Associated, and the Financial Services Roundtable, have been ginning up support to repeal a recently-implemented Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule against forced arbitration. The rule, which… Keep Reading

Any effort to green the economy in the coming years could encounter even greater resistance from the dirty energy industry: its stakeholders are growing in number. The United States is set to become a net-exporter of natural gas this year, according to an Energy Information Administration blog post published on Wednesday. The capacity of the US to ship liquid natural gas (LNG) abroad is only expected to increase in the coming years, too, with five export terminals currently under construction. Americans have, on average, been net… Keep Reading

Migrant workers on temporary visas who say they were fired for workplace activism are demonstrating for a colleague who died on the job. The former employees of Sarbanand Farms, in a remote Washington town, are planning a protest on Tuesday afternoon, in the wake of Ernesto Silva Ibarra’s death. Ibarra, who was 28-years-old, had fallen ill in the fields on Friday—the result of Sarabanand threatening workers with deportation if they miss three days of work, advocates of the organizers said. The hospitalization led to 70… Keep Reading

The amount of penalties that federal regulators have collected from misbehaving financial firms has declined sharply in just the first 200 days of the Trump administration. The immediate reduction amounts to a tangible benefit for Wall Street brokers, courtesy of a President who’s filled his executive offices with former bankers, and has signed executive order to roll back financial regulations. A Wall Street Journal analysis shows that The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority… Keep Reading

Top House Democrats are calling on the Trump administration to reveal the identities of those behind secretive efforts to deregulate the US economy. The lawmakers sent a letter on Monday to White House aides who oversee the regulatory process. They said the rule-slashing initiatives appear to run afoul of laws on transparency and record-keeping, citing reporting by The New York Times and ProPublica, “We believe the interests of the American public must be paramount when reviewing the worthiness of regulations,” the legislators said. They called for… Keep Reading

Legislation purporting to grant terminally-ill Americans easier access to unapproved therapies cleared the Senate on Thursday, despite concerns that it could lead to unsafe drugs creeping onto the market. The upper chamber unanimously approved of the FDA Reauthorization Act, including an amendment that contained Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wisc.) “Right to Try” law. Similar laws have already been passed in 37 states, allowing those facing life-threatening illnesses to use medication that hasn’t been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The laws stipulate that the therapies… Keep Reading

An inside look at the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda was proffered in the resignation of a 30-year veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency. Elizabeth Southerland announced this week that she was leaving her post at the agency, where she served as a senior executive with both the Water and Superfund programs. On her way out, she sent a lengthy farewell message to her colleagues, which was posted by the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). PEER described Southerland as “an eyewitness to the wreckage… Keep Reading

Amid Republican efforts to insulate banks from lawsuits, Democrats are hoping to grill Wells Fargo executives about recent developments in the bank’s fake accounts scandal. Every Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee sent a letter on Tuesday to Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the panel’s chair, asking for a hearing featuring Wells CEO Timothy Sloan and the chair of the bank’s board of directors, Stephen Sanger. The move comes just days after Wells “admitted that it signed up hundreds of thousands of its auto loan customers for… Keep Reading

With all eyes on Donald Trump’s fixation on the Justice Department Russia probe, the administration looks set to put a fossil fuel industry loyalist at the head of the agency’s environmental protection division. Jeffrey Clark, a longtime lawyer for energy companies and an environmental prosecutor under the George W. Bush administration, will be considered for the job next week by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The selection to lead the Environment and Natural Resources Division saw his nomination delayed on Thursday by Democrats on the panel. The lawmakers… Keep Reading