Overnight Regulation: Trump declares opioids a public health emergency | Mark Kelly lobbied Scalise on guns | Warren rips plans to ease bank oversight | Coal industry advocate tapped for mining regulator

Welcome to Overnight Regulations, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill and the courts. It’s Thursday evening here in Washington where the House narrowly adopted the Senate’s version of a 2018 budget resolution. Next up for Republicans is tax reform.

Read about that here.

 

THE BIG STORY 

President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health crisis on Thursday, a designation that will allow the Department of Health and Human Services ease regulations to help addicts get medication and treatment. 

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As The Hill’s Rachel Roubein and Jessie Hellman report, the declaration will expand access to telemedicine to better help those with an addiction in remote areas receive medications. It will also allow for the shifting of resources within HIV/AIDS programs to help people eligible receive substance use disorder treatments. 

It could also spur a fight for funding in Congress. Senate Democrats introduced a bill Wednesday to put $45 billion toward the epidemic. Republicans are also pushing for more funds. 

While Trump said his administration would put “lots of money” toward creating nonaddictive painkillers, he sought earlier this year to cut $5.8 billion from the National Institute of Health. 

The opioid crisis has hit both rural and urban areas across America, and overdose deaths from prescription painkillers and heroin have risen sharply. Since 1999, the rate of overdose deaths has more than quadrupled.

Find the full story here. 

 

REG ROUNDUP 

Gun control: Retired astronaut Mark Kelly tried to lobby House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) on gun reform on his first day back to work after recovering from a gunshot wound he sustained when a gunman opened fire at a Congressional baseball practice over the summer. 

Even though Scalise and Kelly’s wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), are members of a tragic and exclusive club — lawmakers who have survived mass shootings — Scalise has made clear he won’t be joining Giffords’s push for expanded background checks and other gun-control measures.

Scott Wong has that story here. 

 

Energy: President Trump nominated a coal industry advocate and engineer to be the nation’s top mining regulator.

The White House on Thursday announced the nomination of J. Steven Gardner, the president of engineering firm ECSI, LLC, to be the director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM). The office is the Interior Department’s top regulator of the coal mining industry.

Gardner has been at ESCI, a Lexington, Ky.-based firm, since 1983 and was a frequent critic of environmental rules during the Obama administration, including those from the OSM.

Devin Henry has that story here. 

 

Finance: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned in an op-ed Thursday that loosening the oversight of big banks could lead to another financial crisis.

The 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act directed the Fed to apply stricter oversight and regulation to banks with more than $50 billion in assets. Lobbyists, however, have urged Congress to raise the $50 billion threshold to $250 billion or replace it with a multi-factor test. 

Brett Samuels has the story here. 

 

Energy: A group of Republican senators has asked to meet with President Trump to discuss the federal biofuels mandate.

Nine senators sent Trump a letter on Wednesday warning him that if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “does not make adjustments or reforms on matters related to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), it will result in a loss of jobs around the country, particularly in our states.”

Devin Henry again with the story here. 

 

Justice: While speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation on Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions scolded federal judges who have ruled against or criticized the Trump administration.

“Co-equal branches of government ought to respect one another as co-equal branches,” Sessions said. “As you all know well, some judges have failed to respect our representatives and Congress and the executive branch.”

Sessions singled out the federal judge in Brooklyn who, according to a New York Times report called the Trump administration’s attempt to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program “cruel,” “heartless” and “unacceptable.”

“With respect: it is emphatically not the province or duty of courts to say whether a policy is compassionate,” he said, according to his prepared remarks. “That is for the people and our elected representatives to decide. The court’s role is to say what the law is.”

Find the story here. 

 

IN OTHER NEWS 

New science suggests the ocean could rise more – and faster- than we thought – The Washington Post 

FEMA has a plan for responding to a hurricane in Puerto Rico, but it doesn’t want you to see it –ProPublica 

Despite tough talk, drug prosecutions drop under Trump, Sessions – CBS News 

GAO to investigate Trump voter fraud commission — The Hill

Opinion: Temporary status for immigrants shouldn’t mean permanent residency, by Ira Mehlman

Opinion: Canada wakes up to immigration reality after ‘refugees welcome’ dream, by Nolan Rappaport