LABOR, ECONOMY & THE CLIMATE - page 50

Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said on Monday that financial sector agents seeking to profit off of inside tips about legislation are harder to detect now than when Congressional leaders killed a high-profile push to shed light on their activities three years ago. Grassley said that although he still supports the move to subject so-called political intelligence operatives to routine disclosure requirements, the oversight might not be enough to quash a cottage industry that, until 2012, was casually thriving off of insider trading.… Keep Reading

Legal marijuana sellers, shut out of the US banking system and forced to store large amounts of cash on their own, are unlikely to see relief soon, according to public statements made by those set to manage the Justice Department for the next few years. Acting Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates, in written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee published this month, promised to uphold drug war laws that discourage banks from doing business with pot dealers operating in compliance with state law in… Keep Reading

The Senate Committee on Finance declined this week to make equal pay between between men and women a trade negotiating priority for the administration at the same time that it moved to force foreign companies supporting a non-violent human rights campaign to register their position with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The moves came Wednesday night amid a frenzy of activity in the committee, as critics and supporters of the administration’s trade agenda pinned wish-list items to the must-pass “fast-track” Trade Promotion Authority—a bill required… Keep Reading

Tweaks to laws governing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau passed the House of Representatives by a vote divided almost strictly along party lines on Wednesday afternoon, though the margin of approval was not wide enough to override the veto President Obama vowed in response. The CFPB Advisory Boards Act, which passed 235-183, would establish an advisory council for non-bank businesses, and additional advisory councils for credit unions and community banks within the Dodd-Frank institution. More contentious, however, was an amendment attached to the legislation by… Keep Reading

Former soldiers dealing with the mental scars of war had antipsychotic medications secretly yanked by a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in West Virginia, which replaced the pills with older, cheaper drugs to cut costs, a government investigation confirmed. In letters to Congress and the White House on Wednesday, the Office of Special Counsel revealed results of their probe into the Beckley Veterans Affairs Medical Center—a facility that services more than 38,000 veterans in southern West Virginia. The inquiry substantiated the claims of a whistleblower… Keep Reading

Two Democratic lawmakers, including a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are scheduled to attend a fundraiser aimed at rallying younger Democrats around attempts to address the nation’s burgeoning level of student debt. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), caucus co-chair, and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) have agreed to appear at the May 12 Virginia Young Democrats (VAYD) and Young Democrats of America event on Capitol Hill—one where attendees will pay admission rates inversely proportional to the amount of debt they have accumulated to pay for tuition. Those… Keep Reading

A coalition of lawmakers in the Senate have penned a letter to the Chairman of the Federal Communication Commission and the Attorney General, urging the Obama administration to scuttle a deal that would lead to high market concentration in the telecoms industry. As representatives of Comcast and Time Warner Cable prepared to meet with the Department of Justice on Wednesday to discuss concerns related to the proposed merger between the two companies, liberal senators urged federal regulators to block the deal. “We believe that Comcast-TWC’s… Keep Reading

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) cited instability in a regional ally gripped by pro-US authoritarian rule as a reason to grant the administration Trade Promotion Authority. Cornyn remarked at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday that the recent exodus of migrant children fleeing violence in Honduras justifies a move by the panel to advance the hotly-debated bill—one required for Congress to advance the Obama administration’s ambitious corporate lobbyist-backed trade agenda. Cornyn referred to a Congressional delegation to the Central American nation he embarked… Keep Reading

When asked after November’s midterm election what kind of room for cooperation existed between a Republican-dominated Congress and a White House without any kind of re-election to prepare for, both President Obama and incoming-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the two branches of government could find common ground on trade and tax reform. But the bridge on the former issue is looking increasingly threatened, if last week’s announcement by US Trade Representative Michael Froman—about rules concerning congressional oversight over Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations are concerned—is any… Keep Reading

The Department of Transportation issued rules on Friday aimed at preventing deadly explosions caused by derailed oil trains. The new regulations require trains carrying flammable crude through residential areas to not exceed a top speed of 40 miles per hour. They also force oil and rail companies to immediately hand over information about train specs and cargo to emergency first responders at the scene of an accident. “The measures we are announcing today are a result of lessons learned from recent accidents and are steps… Keep Reading

On Thursday, just before it was announced that key lawmakers hashed out an agreement to advance the Trans-Pacific Partnership, US Trade Ambassador Michael Froman appeared at a Bloomberg News symposium to assure reporters that critics’ concerns about secrecy surrounding the deal were being taken into consideration. Froman, who did not take any questions from reporters in the audience, didn’t say the details of the plan would be publicly revealed anytime soon, but did say he has moved “to accommodate” legislators asking to see “an unredacted version,… Keep Reading