newswire - page 30

Fifteen major government departments would see their funding cut, and 19 agencies would be completely eliminated under the proposed budget released by the White House on Thursday. The preliminary document calls for massive spending reductions at the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department, the Agricultural Department, and the Labor Department. All would see more than a fifth of their budget go up in smoke. The cutbacks finance significant spending increases at three departments: Defense (up 9 percent), Homeland Security (up 7 percent), and Veterans’ Affairs…

Keep Reading

Congress has voted to jettison Labor Department regulations that limit who can be drug-tested before collecting unemployment benefits from state governments. The Senate on Tuesday passed a resolution under the Congressional Review Act, disapproving of the rule in a 51-48 party line vote. Lawmakers in the House had already advanced the measure, and it now only needs the signature of President Trump before the Obama-era framework is fully scrapped. “It isn’t some fringe or mean-spirited notion that there’s a connection between the use of illegal…

Keep Reading

A Washington-based non-profit organization is calling on the White House counsel to determine if one of Trump’s assistants broke laws on self-dealing. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint on Tuesday, alleging that Christopher Liddell–a presidential aide and the Director of Strategic Initiatives–blended governmental duties with his own private interests. In a letter to White House Counsel Donald McGahn, the liberal watchdog group laid out its case against Liddell, and suggested the matter be turned over to the Justice Department for a criminal…

Keep Reading

Twelve million Americans could find themselves less secure in their housing situation, if President Trump’s budget is approved by Congress. Proposed cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) could see 8 million people lose public housing, while an additional 4 million could see rental subsidies disappear, according to a report published Sunday by The Washington Post. The newspaper, which obtained the information in a “preliminary budget document,” said that overall outlined cuts to HUD would see the agency’s budget erode by $6…

Keep Reading

Donald Trump’s top environmental regulator said Thursday that he doesn’t believe carbon dioxide is the main factor changing the planet’s climate. Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt told CNBC that the cause for ongoing warming is still undetermined, when asked if the carbon emissions made up the “primary contributor” to ongoing planetary changes. “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree…

Keep Reading

More legislation rolling back late Obama-era rules headed to President Trump’s desk this week, after they were approved by the Senate. Regulations that would have forced federal contractors to disclose wage and labor law violations going back three years now face the chopping block. So, too, do rules on land-planning that Republicans say would crowd-out the input of local and state governments. A resolution of disapproval on the contractor disclosure rule passed the Senate on Monday, while a similar procedure on the land regulation advanced…

Keep Reading

President Trump’s nominee to oversee major regulatory organs at the Department of Justice wasn’t prepared on Tuesday to defend one of his first executive orders on federal rulemaking—the “two-for-one” decree requiring two old regulations to be repealed before a new one is implemented. Rachel Brand, Trump’s pick to be Associate Attorney General, told Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that she wasn’t sure if the Jan. 30 order complies with federal law. “Any regulatory action taken by any agency of the government has to comply with the…

Keep Reading