Category: What We’re Reading

Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.

It’s Harder Than It Looks –  Trump misses driving, feels as if he is in a cocoon, and is surprised how hard his new job is. President Donald Trump on Thursday reflected on his first 100 days in office with a wistful look at his life before the White House. “I loved my previous life. I had so many things going,” Trump told Reuters in an interview. “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.” Read more from Reuters. 

Diversity Among Early Career Awardees – Increasing diversity within academic science has been a priority for France Córdova since she became director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2014. Within a year she had launched an initiative, called INCLUDES, that challenges universities to do a better job of attracting women and minorities into the field. Now, Córdova has turned her attention inward in hopes of improving the dismal track record of NSF’s most prestigious award for young scientists. Read more from Science Magazine. 

Judge Blocks Another Trump Order – A judge in San Francisco on Tuesday temporarily blocked President Trump’s efforts to starve localities of federal funds when they limit their cooperation with immigration enforcement, a stinging rejection of his threats to make so-called sanctuary cities fall in line. The judge, William H. Orrick of United States District Court, said only Congress could place such conditions on spending. The ruling, which applies nationwide, was another judicial setback for the Trump administration, which has now seen three immigration orders stopped by federal courts in its first 100 days. Read more from The New York Times. 

Indirect Costs Associated with Research – For more than a decade, the University of Washington has used federal research funding to help finance a $1.1 billion building boom in labs and research offices — 15 buildings in all. But now the Trump administration is talking of sharply curtailing the overhead costs that can be included in research grants. Those so-called “indirect” costs cover salaries of hundreds of staffers who help with research support — and constructing new lab and office space. Read more from The Seattle Times.

On DeVos Rescinding Protections for Borrowers – Democrats sent a letter to Secretary DeVos criticizing the reversal of Obama-era policy on loan servicing and borrower protections. Read the full letter here. 

Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.

Rollback of ED Regs? – GOP lawmakers have been clear since November’s election about plans to dismantle several Obama administration higher education regulations, including two major rules aimed at the for-profit college sector. Read about it in Inside Higher Ed. 

Nukes Detonated – On Thursday, Senate Democrats voted to filibuster Gorsuch’s nomination, and Republicans couldn’t come up with the necessary 60 votes to overcome that filibuster. If Senate rules were adhered to, Gorsuch’s nomination would have been blocked. Senate Republicans responded simply by changing the rules so that 60 votes were no longer needed to advance a Supreme Court nomination. Read more in Vox.

Breach –  Personal information for up to 100,000 taxpayers may have been compromised in a security breach of a critical online tool used to fill out student loan applications, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen said Thursday. The IRS is beginning to notify people potentially affected by the breach. Read more in The Wall Street Journal. 

Most Popular Domestic Program – Speaker Ryan on NIH budget “All I would say is perhaps the most popular domestic funding we have among Republicans is NIH.” Read more in Roll Call. 

Current CR Expires April 28 – Congressional Republicans are working aggressively to craft an agreement intended to keep the government open past April 28, but their bid to avert a shutdown hinges on courting Democrats wary of President Trump and skirting the wrath of hard-line conservatives and Trump himself. Read more from the Washington Post.

Financial Aid Tool Breach – Personal information for up to 100,000 taxpayers may have been compromised in a security breach of a critical online tool used to fill out student loan applications, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen said Thursday. Read more in the Wall Street Journal.

6 Reasons You May Not – Graduating from a four-year college in four years may sound like a fairly straightforward venture, but only 41 percent of students manage to do it. That matters. The longer it takes, the less likely a student is to make it to graduation: A quarter of students drop out after four years, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, and most say it’s because of money. Cost, indeed, is a major issue for many families — in-state tuition and fees run $8,940 on average at public institutions, $28,308 at private ones. Many of those who finish in five or six years have either unnecessarily drained their parents’ bank accounts or end up in a lot more debt. Read more in The New York Times. 

Peanut Butter – The NBA is secretly addicted to eating peanut butter sandwiches pregame. Read more in ESPN.

Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.

Trump Budget – The President’s first budget request came out this week, and there’s a lot in there. The Washington Post has an overview. Also, WaPo has an article about how Congressional Republicans aren’t so wild about the proposal. Read more in The Washington Post here. 

CBO Numbers Grab Headlines – While many supporters of the House Obamacare repeal legislation had expected some politically difficult projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with respect to the number of uninsured Americans, the estimates released by the bipartisan office have created even more anxiety among some GOP members in both chambers of Congress. Read more here in Politico, and in The Hill here and here.

Who Do You Trust? – When it comes to health care reform and rhetoric, Trump supporters tend to believe Trump. Read more in The Washington Post.

Marriage of Convenience – Health care reform is making unusual bedfellows and straining strained relationships. For example, President Trump assured Americans on Thursday of the “improvements being made” to legislation that Speaker Paul Ryan initially suggested would scarcely change. Read more in The New York Times.

Punctuation Is Fundamental –A class-action lawsuit about overtime pay for truck drivers hinged entirely on the absence of an Oxford Comma. Read more in The New York Times. 

Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is enjoying this week.

We’ll Need to Change the Law – The Trump Administration has started the FY2018 budget passback process, where it was clear that the Administration intends to ask for a significant increase to defense funding at the expense of non defense discretionary funding (or everything that isn’t defense). Such a proposal would be a tough lift for Congress, and it becomes more of a challenge when you realize that Congress would have to pass legislation repealing the BCA to do so. Read more in Roll Call. 

Unified Against – Late last week, a House Republican discussion draft for ACA reform was leaked…and now most in Congress are against it.  House Leadership have come out this week and have said the draft is a total nonstarter now. Read more in The Hill. 

Safe Harbor – President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time this week, and the speech was notably more tempered in delivery while still hitting all the Trump policy points. The Washington Post has the speech annotated.

Trump’s Soft Spot – President Trump’s sympathetic remarks about the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers — “these incredible kids,” he has called them — were a surprising turn for a man who had vowed during the campaign to “immediately terminate” their protections from deportation. But they are unlikely to be the last word. Read more from the New York Times.

Skills Gap – President Donald Trump brought two dozen manufacturing CEOs to the White House on Thursday and declared their collective commitment to restoring factory jobs lost to foreign competition. Yet some of the CEOs suggested that there were still plenty of openings for U.S. factory jobs but too few qualified people to fill them. Read more from the Associated Press.

Travel Ban Update: Delayed Again – President Donald Trump will soon sign a revised executive order banning certain travelers from entering the U.S., but unlike the original version, it is likely to apply only to future visa applicants from targeted countries, according to people familiar with the planning. Read more from the Wall Street Journal.

Here is a selection of articles that the Federal Relations Team is reading this week:

Former House Speaker Boehner’s Interesting Take – Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who was replaced as Speaker by Paul Ryan (R-WI), continues to offer up views and statements on issues that he likely would not have made were he still in office.  For example, take a look at his take on immigrants and their views on Trump  here in Politico and his assessment of the Republican push to repeal Obamacare, also in Politico.

Transgender Bathroom Protections Rescinded – President Trump on Wednesday rescinded protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, overruling his own education secretary and placing his administration firmly in the middle of the culture wars that many Republicans have tried to leave behind. Read more from the New York Times. 

Immigration Raids and Students – An immigration-law expert chimes in on how the recent detention of Daniel Ramirez Medina could affect students around the country who still benefit from the Obama-era policy. Read more from The Atlantic.

Research Today, Innovation Tomorrow – Federal agencies, with bipartisan support, are the primary investor of cutting-edge basic research that fuels industry’s ability to harness that knowledge into innovative products and business. But federal budgets, in real terms, have shrunk. Excellent research proposals, given the highest rankings by peer-reviewed scientists, go unfunded. Read more from Rush Holt, CEO of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Maria T. Zuber, chair of the National Science Board, on The Hill.

Anti-immigrant Sentiments and Violence Not Limited to the West – Anti-immigrant sentiments and violence, most often associated with the West, are not limited to that part of the world.  Other parts of the world are dealing with such events as well. Read more here on BBC.