President Obama’s EPA usually has a bad habit of kicking American industry when it’s down by dumping on them with unnecessary regulations, regardless of what business leaders say the effects will be.

Usually. Which is why the latest fiasco over the Agency’s proposed Boiler MACT rule is so noteworthy.

After writing new rules in mid-2011 that would require electricity-generating boilers to meet a shockingly high emissions standard – at a capital cost of $9.5 billion – a wide swath of industries, most notably the paper and wood business, pushed back. EPA was set to impose the rules anyway, risking hundreds of thousands of jobs, sky-high costs, and electrical production capacity.

Yet shockingly, EPA suddenly changed its mind in December, apparently having listened to the industries’ criticisms and deciding to stay any formal enactment of the proposed rules. EPA wanted more time to study the potential effects and revise the regulations.

But of course, the environmentalist left wouldn’t have that. From the PJ Tatler: (more…)

A well-connected company with close ties to a key Obama Administration official may be running afoul of the SEC by failing to report to its investors material events that significantly impact its bottom line. Just another day in Barack Obama’s Washington, DC “favor factory.”

Capital Confidential has in the past covered the saga of PharmAthene, a company that produces “medical countermeasures to biological and chemical weapons” and its great fortune to have been awarded the sole-source contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). We have also learned that the firm has very close ties to Tara O’Toole, the Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary for Science and Technology, who, as it happens, was once a lobbyist for an industry association that is essentially funded and run by PharmAthene.

All this has been covered and, to be cynically frank, is somewhat familiar behavior from Washington, DC. But what is not so familiar (though it is becoming more so every week) is for well-heeled companies who essentially exist due only to government contracts, connections, loans or bailouts to play fast and loose with laws and regulations designed to protect taxpayers and investors. And here is where PharmAthene reenters the picture.

PharmAthene is publicly traded (NYSE amex: PIP) and therefore has an obligation to publicly disclose material events that might reasonably be expected to affect the company’s stock price. Nevertheless, important pieces of information are missing from recent press releases issued by PharmAthene and posted to the Investor Relations section of its website; information that the company had included in previous releases.

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Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley last week proposed a budget that would raise taxes by $311 million.

From the Washington Post:

The Democrat outlined a $15.3 billion general fund budget plan that includes about $311 million in new revenue. About $182 million will come from capping income tax deductions and phasing out exemptions.

[...]

The governor’s plan would cap income tax deductions at 90 percent for incomes above $100,000 and 80 percent for incomes above $200,000.

It also would reduce exemptions from $2,400 to $1,200 per person for singles who make between $100,000 and $125,000 and couples who make between $150,000 and $175,000. Exemptions would be eliminated for singles who make more than $125,000 and couples with incomes above $175,000.

[...]

About $19 million will come from aligning the state’s cigarette tax with other tobacco products. Tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco is 15 percent of wholesale, which was comparable to the 36 cents per pack cigarette tax in 1999. The governor’s proposal would make it 66 percent of wholesale, which would make it comparable to the present $2 per pack cigarette tax.

The proposal also would require online sellers to begin collecting sales tax, which the governor projects would raise about $19 million, but there are questions about enforcement.

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Call it life imitating art. Call it a cynical election year ploy for campaign cash. Call it a desperate Hollywood remake. But don’t call it over. Sources on Capitol Hill claim that, although last week saw the timely and bloody death of two bills whose interference with individual liberty was unparalleled in the digital age – SOPA and PIPA – the fight may not be over.

Many key journalists in the tech industry have already pointed out that SOPA and PIPA were, until the industry and American consumers got a hold of the bills, a “sure thing” set to pass without much, if any opposition from members of Congress. The indefinite delay, prompted by massive outrage and widespread protests last week, prompted a total reconsideration of the bill, with Marco Rubio and Congressional Republicans leading a firestorm of criticism and a mass exodus from the bill. Its worth noting, however, that one of the bill’s key sponsors, Democratic Senator Harry Reid, was quick to note that we haven’t seen the last of the bills.

“We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio,” he said in a statement posted by Games Industry (requires free account sign up.)

He went on to encourage other key senators to look into the proposed amendments to the bills, rehashing SOPA to make it more likely to pass if pushed through again.

Its worth noting that the bill’s backers – the MPAA, RIAA and a host of union thugs – are known for their persistence, whether its prosecuting unwitting grandmothers for Internet music “theft” or protesting Wisconsin governors who are trying to rescue their state’s financial well-being, and Americans should not expect them to back down any time soon. And with the amount of money and the future of Democratic party rule at stake in this next election, the MPAA’s, RIAA’s and unions’ deep pockets and ability to write huge campaign checks probably won’t be put at risk for something as silly as the rights of the American people.

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President’s appointment of liberal former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was a direct assault on the Constitution and the law causing constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley to remark that President Obama has surpassed Richard Nixon in “the development of an imperial presidency of unchecked executive powers.”

Cordray is well aware that the Constitution provides the president with the power of appointment when the Congress is not in session.  But the Congress was not in recess when the President appointed Cordray.  Adding insult to injury, the 2010 law that created the CFPB included a section that says many of the bureau’s new powers are to be held by the secretary of the Treasury “until the Director of the Bureau is confirmed by the Senate.”  The Senate, obviously, never confirmed Cordray.

Despite these constitutional and legal roadblocks, Cordray has assumed the full power of the office and has started the process of regulating the economy in earnest.

In Birmingham, Alabama, Cordray held a field hearing laying the groundwork for a regulatory assault on the short-term lending industry, as well as, the mortgage and student loan industry.  Cordray seems unconcerned of the constitutional and legal challenges ahead.  He told the Hill newspaper, “I’m going to leave that to others … lawyers are digging into it,” when asked if his appointment would survive a legal challenge.  But he added that “the position was long overdue to be filled.” “We’ve got a lot of work to do for the public to make these markets function effectively,” he said.

Cordray, in a few sentences was able to articulate the president’s view of the Constitution and the economy.

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The controversial anti-piracy legislation that set off an unprecedented wave of opposition from the technology sector is withering on the vine, with additional Members of Congress withdrawing support for the bills on an almost hourly basis.

What’s interesting is that of the over 30 Members who have recently come out in opposition to the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the vast majority have been Republicans, who have long been considered the stodgy side of the aisle when compared to their tech-savvy Democratic counterparts. While the tech world, who Dems claim to support at every turn, aggressively protests SOPA and PIPA, the very officials they helped to elect – including Democratic party leaders – have abandoned them in the face of their most important issue: internet privacy.

The word on the Hill that in the past 24-hours alone Sens. Rubio, Cornyn, Hatch, DeMint, Kirk, Grassley, Blunt, Boozman, and Ayotte have all come out in opposition of PIPA, with several among them withdrawing their original co-sponsorship of the legislation. What do these nine Senators have in common? They’re all Republicans.

Even within individual states the divisions don’t make sense; New Hampshire’s junior Senator Kelly Ayotte withdrew her co-sponsorship and support for PIPA citing overwhelming constituent opposition, whereas Democratic senior Senator Jeanne Shaheen has remained on board. Did New Hampshire voters somehow reach out to Ayotte to register their disapproval but leave Shaheen out of the loop? Unlikely.

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The Empire State is struggling to bring in additional tax revenue it projected it would gain from efforts to stop smokers from buying untaxed  cigarettes on Indian Reservations, reports the New York Post:

The state’s tax collectors were recently calling around to convenience-store owners, wondering what was up. The $130 million in extra tax that Albany was expecting from a change in the law about cigarette sales on Indian reservations wasn’t happening.

A memo sent to members of the New York Association of Convenience Stores from the group’s president, Jim Calvin — a copy of which I have on my desk — said, “I got a call from Gov. Cuomo’s budget office yesterday. In examining cigarette tax receipts so far this fiscal year (April 1 to March 31) it looks like they will fall considerably short of their projection in new revenues. . . .”

The state had hoped to get the extra dough by enforcing a new law that made it illegal for licensed cigarette wholesalers in the state to sell untaxed name-brand cigarettes like Newport and Marlboro to Indian reservations.

Why the need for the extra measures focused on Indian Reservation sales in the first place?

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Senator Tom Harkin, whose outspoken opposition to Wall Street generally and for-profit schools specifically has made him a leading voice in Congressional regulation of career and for-profit colleges. His office is set to release a report this month – the second in a series – detailing the horrific ramifications of applying free market principles to higher education, but it seems his office may have much to be concerned about given recent details that have emerged about the Senator’s direct involvement in not only the creation and distribution of faulty past reports, but in back-door dealings that should give any American pause.

Last fall, Harkin released a report that his office claimed detailed a host of transgressions on the part of for-profit or “career” colleges from misuse of student loan money to misleading counseling services and high default rates among graduates. The report was criticized by Senate Republicans as “unfair,” and Republicans boycotted subsequent hearings. It was later revealed that the report, compiled – with Harkin’s help – by the GAO, was faulty and many of its findings either fabricated or unusable and the GAO issued fix:

In November 2010, the GAO was forced to release a significantly changed report. The correction affected 16 of the 28 findings in the original report. The bias of the original report was also reflected in the fact that all 16 revisions were all of the same type: changing flawed statements that cast the for-profits in the worst possible light. Error after error took statements out of context or did not accurately portray what was said.

The report, however, had Harkin’s desired effect. Just days after the report was presented at a Senate hearing, the value of for-profit schools’ stock dropped 14% and companies that ran free-market educational facilities lost over $4 billion dollars.

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Now we know why President Obama isn’t spending any time fighting a war on unemployment. He’s too busy fighting his war on coal.

Indeed, while the past few months have seen tiny signs our economy might be growing despite Obama’s anti-job policies, the White House is ramping up its effort to make sure our labor force is expunged of every last coal job it can find. It’d be humorous if it wasn’t so real.

If we start exposing this radical nonsense coming out of the Obama EPA, conservatives can push back on these bad policies. Environmentalists rarely get their way when people actually pay attention to what they want to do.

The latest battle will be coming any day now, as the EPA has said it will issue its Utility NSPS (New Source Performance Standards) sometime in January. Any new utility plants will have to meet a new set of environmental standards – standards that conveniently work out great for natural gas but are prohibitively expensive for coal plants, even new ones, to meet.

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Senate Republicans have been holding up the confirmation of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until changes to the agency’s structure are made to provide oversight and accountability at the agency. But sources from inside the Capitol tell Capitol Confidential that a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the unconstitutional CFPB could come as early as tomorrow.

“We have been hearing consistently from the Senate offices that the President is considering a recess appointment of Richard Cordray along with a slew of other controversial nominees in the brief period between the two sessions of Congress,” a key Senate source said. “Now we are hearing from Senior Democrat staffers that something big is coming tomorrow [Jan 4].”

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution provides the president with the power to “fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” The problem for the president and his liberal allies is that the Senate has not recessed and technically remains in session. However, liberal groups are pressing the White House to invoke the “Roosevelt Option” to stack key government positions with radicals ready to carry out an anti-business, pro-big labor regulatory agenda. The Roosevelt Option is coined from the actions of Teddy Roosevelt who in 1903, in a split-second between two congressional sessions of Congress, made more than 100 recess appointments. In 2012, Congress will need to move from the First Session of this current Congress to the Second Session. Liberals claim the fraction of a second between the sessions is enough to trigger presidential power.

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Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has launched an investigation into the compensation of executives at private sector colleges and universities.

Rep. Elijah Cummings

The New York Times reports:

“The American taxpayers fund these schools through billions of dollars in tuition assistance, but there is little evidence that lavish executive pay is linked to the well-being of the students they are supposed to educate,” Mr. Cummings said in a statement. He said he wanted to determine whether executive compensation was “appropriately tied to the performance of students they educate.”

Strangely, Cummings’ interest in ensuring that students receive good educations and taxpayer dollars are wisely spent does not extend to public community colleges, which are 100 percent taxpayer funded and have comparably low graduation and employment rates. Why do these institutions, which service the same market of students as for-profit colleges and are much more directly under government control, get a free pass?

While he’s at it, why doesn’t Cummings see fit to investigate the absurdly inflated salaries of athletic coaches at many public colleges? Answer: because that wouldn’t be as politically expedient. (more…)

Across the United States, Idaho is typically known for two things: Potatoes, and its conservative political tendencies.

Indeed, in 2010, only Wyoming bested the Gem State in terms of “redness.” So, suffice to say, Idaho is no Maryland.

However, it turns out the two states do have something in common: Both are looking at potential big increases in their respective cigarette taxes as legislators get ready for the 2012 session.

As previously noted here, a push is being made in Maryland to raise the state’s tobacco tax by $1 per pack.

Now, Idaho Rep. Dennis Lake, who is the Chair of Idaho’s House Revenue and Taxation Committee, is planning to try again for a cigarette tax hike he pushed last year — with no success. Lake is reportedly looking to raise the state cigarette tax by $1.25 per pack. Proponents claim the proposed tax hike could bring in more than $50 million a year in new revenue, though other states have not always met revenue targets associated with cigarette tax increases.

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We never thought that there would be a problem with an Obama administration regulatory agency not regulating enough, but that bizarre day has come. The Federal Electric Reliability Commission (FERC), which is charged with ensuring that the nation’s power grid remain operational, is frozen like a deer in the headlights when it comes to a pair of incoming EPA rules that pose a grave threat to reliability.

To repeat: in the one instance when we actually need federal regulators to intervene, the agency in question is failing to do its job.  Oh, the irony.

From Politico:

A FERC DIVIDED – It’s not only lobbyists and lawmakers who are arguing over whether EPA regulations pose a threat to the U.S. electric grid. The debate has consumed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the board tasked with ensuring the nation a reliable supply of electricity.

The most outspoken commissioner, Philip Moeller, is pushing for his agency to scrutinize EPA’s proposals more closely, while saying the EPA should consider delaying implementation of some rules for more than a year. But fellow Commissioners Cheryl LaFleur and John Norris argue that delaying the rules might run afoul of the certainty that Moeller is seeking.

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Spurred on by the need to court a waning youth vote, the Obama Administration addressed a concern that has been on many students’ and recent graduates’ minds: The cost of education in America. Calling college presidents from across the country into the Oval Office, President Obama chastised university leaders for their high prices and lack of leadership in the area of cost control and admonished them to rethink the “cost equation” that accompanies higher education.

The take-away message from President Obama’s private meeting with higher-education leaders on Monday was threefold: There needs to be a new sense of urgency on college affordability, there won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution as policies will have to affect all sectors of higher education, and the country needs innovations and cost-management from colleges and leadership from state legislatures.

That’s according to Thomas J. Snyder, President of Ivy Tech Community College, who participated in the meeting. President Obama and Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, are now in what Mr. Snyder described as listening mode, “but I suspect some pretty substantial proposals will evolve in the next few months,” he said.

Even Education Secretary Arne Duncan got in on the action, lecturing university leadership on the difficulties faced by recent graduates and called on colleges to “clamp down” on education costs. Soros-funded Campus Progress heralded these actions as a “step in the right direction” and praised Obama for his work helping students afford higher education. Obama patted himself on the back for his efforts, saying that his administration would “help more Americans attain a higher education at an affordable price.”

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A bipartisan pair of congressmen are taking on a new battle in the House of Representatives, one that could grab some attention a month out from the Iowa caucuses.

In a “Dear Colleague” letter issued last week, Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) and Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) call on fellow congressmen to help block “EPA’s actions to allow 15% ethanol blended with gasoline (E15) to enter the marketplace.”

In the letter, Sullivan and Peters state that last year, EPA “made a premature decision to permit E15 to be used in model year (MY) 2001 and newer vehicles.” However, according to Sullivan and Peters’ letter, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) “has weighed in and agrees that mid-level ethanol blends are not ready for primetime.”

Concerns about E15, which relies on a greater proportion of ethanol blended with traditional gasoline, run the gamut from worries about market intervention and “picking winners and losers” on the conservative side, to arguments that ethanol is not a “green” energy source on the liberal side.  Both conservative and liberal critics of ethanol believe policies benefiting the ethanol industry constitute a giveaway to big corporate agriculture interests, and that the use of food to generate fuel can promote hunger, especially in corn-dependent Third World nations.

Engine manufacturers in the automotive industry and elsewhere charge that E15 is not sound from an engineering perspective and could cause damage.

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Another week, another CEO of a major U.S. company publicly calls out Washington, DC for its onslaught of new regulation.

This time it’s Clarence Otis Jr., the CEO of Darden Restaurants, through which position he oversees Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse, and other major chains, along with the tens of thousands of jobs reliant on the success of these national brands. This week, Mr. Otis penned a forceful op-ed on CNN.com telling Washington that its regulatory regime is holding back the economy and preventing private job creation.

Writes Mr. Otis:

“Regulatory mandates flowing from federal health care reform may be the most visible, but the list also includes measures such as new mandatory paid leave provisions that require us to change the way we accommodate employees who need to take time off when they are ill and ever more unrealistic requirements regarding employee meal and rest breaks that, in California for example, force our employees to take breaks in the middle of serving lunch or dinner.”

The interesting thing about Otis is that he was a major donor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and he has been a supporter of some of the administration’s efforts in other areas.

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In case the fact that 76 percent of Americans oppose ditching the dollar bill in favor of a dollar coin wasn’t compelling enough, a new study that exposes the proposal’s supposed cost savings as mere myth should finally convince the super committee to abandon this clunker of a bill and focus on real spending cuts. According to the independent study performed by economic research firm John Dunham & Associates, the study finds that rather than saving money and helping the economy, a mandated switch from a dollar bill to a dollar coin would place a heavy economic burden on businesses of all sizes and types in the midst of an ongoing recession.

From Business Insider:

The group analyzed 29 different retail and service sectors in the U.S., finding that the annual cost of running business would balloon by $201 million and cause companies to shed at least 4,300 jobs.

The added costs come from adjustments such as adding new cash registers to hold the hefty coins, changing counting machines, purchasing larger safes and the costs incurred by banks, money transfer companies and financial firms, the study says.

“Changing to a coin would be a tax increase on retail and service firms of all sizes,” said John Dunham, president of John Dunham & Associates.

The debate is sure to continue on whether such a change and its potential to save the nation cash in the long-run is worth the initial hassle.

But it appears the public so far has spoken: More than 70 percent of consumers in a recent poll said they were against the proposal.

Supporters of the dollar coin, led by Arizona Rep. David Schweikert, cite a March 2011 GAO report as support for the contention that the switch would save money in the long run (over a 30-year period).  However, the study debunks that assumption as well, highlighting two key missing elements from the report:

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In a move that grabbed attention among the technology and retail business communities, three senators—Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)—introduced legislation aimed at allowing states to require online-only, out-of-state retailers to collect and remit to states tax on sales made to residents of those states.

In a press release, the three senators touted their legislation as an effort to give states “the option to collect sales and use tax revenues from out-of-state sellers through a new, simplified tax system,” but “only if they adopt certain minimum simplification requirements and provide sellers with additional notices on the collection requirements.”  The Enzi-Durbin-Alexander bill also “exempts sellers who make less than $500,000 in total remote sales in the year preceding the sale.”  It reportedly has the support of big bricks-and-mortar retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, as well as Amazon.com.

In multiple states around the country over the past year, legislators and officials have been looking to sales made by out-of-state, online-only retailers as a potential revenue stream capable of being tapped in order to help fill budget holes. California has been notably aggressive in pursuing a so-called “Amazon Tax,” which would force retailers like Amazon.com and O.co to collect and remit to the state sales tax on sales made to Californians.

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When Scott Brown upset the Massachusetts Democratic establishment by winning the Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for a generation, he ran as a Republican. This cycle, facing the “founder” of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Elizabeth Warren, he appears to be running away from conservative principles.

Brown’s most recent capitulation is his support for a floor vote for President Obama’s nominee for the uber-regulatory agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Brown’s announcement undercuts not only his Republican colleagues who are fighting to limit the power of this new government agency but of the principles of limited government he professes to support.

Unfortunately, Brown may not be alone. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is purportedly seeking a deal with the White House to get fellow Ohioan Cordray confirmed despite ethical questions about his behavior as the state’s Attorney General. Insiders are always concerned about the Maine Senators and Alaskan Lisa Murkowski. If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, Portman, Collins, Snowe and Murkowski need to buck up and support their colleagues.

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Last week, Capitol Confidential reported that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is considering hiking taxes on non-cigarette tobacco products in an effort to bring in more revenue from tobacco users who have apparently rejected heavily-taxed cigarettes in favor of cheaper options such as rolling their own or using products such as snuff.

On Monday, it emerged the Cook County Board endorsed Preckwinkle’s tobacco tax proposal by a 10-7 vote.  The Cook County Board is set to take a final vote on the proposed budget on Friday.

Now, it is being reported that separate to this proposed tax hike, Chicago aldermen are looking at their own tobacco tax hike. From the Chicago Trubune:

Two aldermen looking for last-minute ways to head off painful budget cuts proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel floated the idea Wednesday of extending the city’s cigarette tax to other tobacco products.

Ald. Matthew O’Shea, 19th, and Leslie Hairston, 5th, brought up that option at a City Council meeting in an effort to soften spending cuts at city libraries, mental health clinics and the 911 center.

[...]

Aldermen and administration officials weren’t sure how much new money could be raised by broadening the tobacco tax — as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle plans to do so she can raise $12 million for the county next year.

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