Category: What We’re Reading

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

The More You Know? – Trump has announced his son in law, Jared Kirshner, will be a senior advisor. Who is this guy? Read more in New York Magazine. 

Path Forward – With many Cabinet nominees to begin having hearings this week, which is part of the advice and consent role of the Senate. The Washington Post has the whole process (with flow charts!).

Read My Lips – Legislators in some of the nation’s most conservative states are considering new ways to boost revenue — including tax increases — after years of deep cuts and a global commodity bust that has robbed them of billions of anticipated dollars. Read more in The Hill. 

Campaign Promise: An Infrastructure Package – Congress and the incoming administration have been dropping hints about one of Donald Trump’s biggest campaign promises: revitalizing U.S. roads, bridges and airports. Read more on The Hill.

The Cabinet & Education – The U.S. Department of Education is not the only office with power over student-related policy. Several more cabinet nominees could have influence over education. Read more on The Atlantic.

“No New Deals” – Sike! – Donald Trump will not sell his business nor place his assets in a blind trust while serving as president, and top federal ethics official says Trump’s conflicts of interest plan, announced at a press conference this week, is ‘meaningless.’ Read more on Politico. 

Moving Ahead—Although there is disagreement among Congressional Republicans on whether to repeal and replace ObamaCare simultaneously, they are taking procedural steps to allow for a repeal.  Read more in The Hill.

Support for DACA – Even with immigration reform as one of the hot-button agenda items for both the new Administration and Congress, there seems to be support from both the left and some quarters of the right for keeping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order signed by President Obama.  Read more in The Wall Street Journal. 

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

Survivors – Trump and Congressional Republicans have made it clear that a top priority if rolling back Obama Administration regulations, but there’s a significant amount of work that the incoming Administration cannot or will not want to roll back. Read more in Vox.

Don’t Give Up, Give Out – Debates over climate change and genome editing present the need for researchers to venture beyond their comfort zones to engage with the political establishment, and they should keep doing it. Read more in Nature. 

Liberal Cities – Republican state legislatures are planning so-called preemption laws, which prevent cities and counties from passing new measures governing everything from taxes to environmental regulations and social issues. Read more in The Hill.

150 Banks – The debts of President-elect Donald Trump and his businesses are scattered across Wall Street banks, mutual funds and other financial institutions, broadening the tangle of interests that pose potential conflicts for the incoming president’s administration. Trump businesses’ debts are held by more than 150 institutions, which was repackaged into bonds—a process known as securitization, which has been used for more than $1 billion of debt connected to Mr. Trump’s companies. Read more in The Wall Street Journal. 

Congressional Review Act – Regulatory reform is the talk of the Hill, and the upshot seems to be that at least a few of President Obama’s environmental regulations could be dismantled quickly by the Republican Congress, with President-elect Donald Trump’s approval. How so? The Congressional Review Act, enacted in 1996, allows Congress 60 legislative days, starting from the date the rule is submitted to Congress and published in the Federal Register, to overturn new federal regulations by submitting something called a “joint resolution of disapproval.” Read more in WaPo. 

Tweet Tweet – Trump’s twitter feed is becoming an off-the-cuff sword for the incoming Administration’s agenda. It’s totally unpredictable and completely throwing Washington. Read more in Politico.

Russian Divide – The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on Russian hacking, which serviced to draw a divide between Hill Republicans and the President-elect. Read more in WaPo. 

Ethical Snafu – House Republican’s push to neuter the Office of Congressional Ethics on the first day of a new Congress turned into a major public relations fiasco after the press, the public and president-elect himself came out against the move Tuesday. Read more in Politico.

Spot You – President-elect Trump has indicated that he is planning on asking Congress for money to build a wall along the border with Mexico, but that Mexico will reimburse the US. Read more in The Wall Street Journal. 

Strutter Unrest – Texas State University dance team to perform at Trump’s inauguration, causing unrest on campus. Read more in The Houston Chronicle. 

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

New Options – Unhappy with the leading options for Secretary of State, Trump asked former SECDEF Robert Gates what he thought. Gates suggested Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson. Read more in The Washington Post.

Office of “Buy American” – President-elect Donald Trump will create a new office within the White House to oversee trade and industrial policy, a move that will put an emphasis on “Buy America” policies and promote domestic manufacturing. Read more in Politico.

HB2 Failed – North Carolina failed to repeal HB 2, known as the “Bathroom Bill”. The law has caused massive impacts to the state as national organizations with drew support by moving massive sporting events or deciding not to relocate in the state. It was a major reason the Governor was not reelected. The North Carolina Legislature, in a closed session, was supposed to repeal the law this week…and failed to do so. Read more in The Atlantic. 

NSEERS No More – The Department of Homeland Security will take apart the vestiges of a controversial and unused since 2011 program that was used to register and track visitors from Muslim-majority countries. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) had two parts, and applied only to people from 25 countries named by DHS. Twenty-four of them were Muslim-majority countries. The program required registration by men ages 16 and up living in the U.S. to report regularly to immigration officials. The other half was an entry and exit tracking system, which limited the airports, seaports, and land borders that registrants could use to travel, and required them to register before leaving and after arriving. Read more in The Atlantic. 

Two for One – President-elect Trump has promised a 2 for 1 repeal on regulations, meaning for everyone regulation or order issued two will be repealed. Read more in The Hill.

Push and Pull – State support of climate and environment policy has surged as the incoming Trump Administration signals an about-face from eight years of policies designed to reduce climate-altering emissions and address the effects of a warming planet. Read more in The New York Times. 

Good for Business – Donald Trump’s November victory has been a boom for liberal news outlets, which are getting big business from voters shocked by the billionaire’s surprise win over Hillary Clinton. Read more in The Hill. 

Drilled Out – President Obama announced a ban on the outer continental shelf in the Arctic and the Atlantic, which likely can’t be undone. Read more in Vox.

Tax Reform – President-elect Trump and congressional Republicans next year hope to undertake the first overhaul of the tax code in more than 30 years. The Hill has a series of questions on how that will happen. 

First War on Christmas – In the 1920s and 1930s, committed Nazi propagandists worked to “Nazify” Christmas. Redefining familiar traditions and designing new symbols and rituals, they hoped to channel the main tenets of National Socialism through the popular holiday. Read more in Smithsonian.

Art & Science – High-tech techniques are being used to restore the Ghent Altarpiece. Read more in the New York Times. 

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

Unusuals – In the wake of the election, speculation had focused on whether President-elect Trump’s personnel choices would be drawn from the GOP establishment or from people antagonistic toward it. While his picks are not anti-establishment in any real sense, it’s also hard to imagine many of them being nominated for similar positions by Mitt Romney or John McCain, had they won the White House. Read more in The Hill. 

Increased Scrutiny –  Cabinet picks may face extra-tough vetting from the Senate. People involved with the transition process have said that Cabinet picks have been named without an extensive review of their background and in many cases, Trump has announced candidates without requiring a review of extensive paperwork about their background and financial records, including tax returns. Read more in The Wall Street Journal. 

Overtime On Schedule – Despite court challenges and delays, most colleges and universities have gone ahead with the Department of Labor’s Overtime regulations. Read more in The Chronicle. 

Hacked – Russian-sponsored cyber operatives DNC computers during the election. One of the most eyebrow-raising disclosures is that a Hillary Clinton campaign information technology staffer said an email he sent to John Podesta warning him about a phishing message called it “legitimate” because of a typo; he said he meant to call it “illegitimate.” Read more in The New York Times. 

High Debt – A persistent racial wealth gap, waning investment in higher education and limited institutional resources are driving up the rate of borrowing at historically black colleges and universities, with 4 out of 5 undergraduates relying on student loans to finance their education, according to a new study from the United Negro College Fund. Read more in The Washington Post. 

Defense on Defense – President-elect Trump’s criticism of projects from Lockheed Martin and Boeing has put contractors on notice, suggesting that the incoming administration intends to put a new emphasis on cost cutting at the Pentagon. Read more in The Hill. 

21st Century Cures a View from NIH from The New England Journal of Medicine.

Footprints – Around 3.6 million years ago, a pair of Australopithecus afarensis — a species of ancient ancestor made famous by the fossil Lucy — were walking through wet mud in Laetoli, Tanzania. This was likely just an ordinary day, but then something extraordinary happened: A nearby volcano erupted, covering their freshly made footprints in ash, preserving their shape, and locking this moment in time. The footprints, recently discovered by archaeologists, not only give us a glimpse into how these creatures walked but also, amazingly, give us some clues about how they behaved. Read more in Vox. 

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

Ignored – House Democrats are in the midst of a post-election leadership expansion designed largely to amplify the voices of lawmakers in the heartland, where voters flocked to Donald Trump and propped up vulnerable Republicans down the ballot. But after a series of votes and appointments during the past few days, the party’s leadership structure remains tilted strongly in favor of the coasts, sparking criticism from Midwestern Democrats who feel their voices are too often ignored. Read more in The Hill. 

Valley Goes to the Tower – During the election, Silicon Valley largely shunned the President-elect Trump and all he stood for. Now, the president-elect is summoning leaders of the biggest tech companies to New York for a round-table discussion. Read more in The New York Times. 

Not Double Secret Probation – A regional accreditor has placed Baylor University on warning and the University of Louisville on probation for 12 months. Both sanctions typically require the institutions to correct their deficiencies and report back to the accrediting agency on their actions. Read more in The Chronicle. 

Dreamer Pressure – President-elect Donald Trump will face bipartisan pressure not to revoke deportation relief for so-called “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants whose parents brought them to U.S. as children. To date, more than 740,000 undocumented young people have been approved for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program created by the Obama administration in 2012. Trump has vowed to “immediately terminate the program,” but Democrats and some Republicans voiced concern about what might happen to the DACA recipients. Read more in The Wall Street Journal.

Pruitt – Trump’s pick for the EPA is staunchly against almost everything the EPA has done in the last eight years, and dismantling all that work is likely going to be harder than he thought. Read more in Vox. 

Messy – There are a host of complicated business entanglements Trump’s family will face when he takes office. For example, Ivanka Trump was in the process of finalizing a deal with Japanese apparel giant Sanei when she sat in on her father’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Read more in The New York Times. 

Dead Zone – Thousands of poor Americans are currently excluded from Obamacare because of politics, and it is tough physically and mentally being uninsured. Read more in The New York Times. 

Yes, Eliza? – Researchers have recently found that more prisoners had changed their linguistic habits by the time they were released, the more likely they’d stay out of trouble. Read more in the Science of Us. 

Capitol Christmas Tree – Ted Bechtol has been the Capitol’s official Christmas tree selector for 12 years, but he’s not in charge of picking one for his own house. Read more in WaPo.