Overnight Regulation: Directors battle for control of consumer agency | Tech makes Cyber Monday appeal for net neutrality | Keystone pipeline to restart operations Tuesday
Welcome to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill, the courts and beyond. It’s Monday evening and both the House and Senate are in session, kicking off a mad dash to the end of 2017. The Senate aims to move its version of the tax bill forward, while Congress faces with a number of other pressing items such as funding the government.
THE BIG STORY:
The two officials both claiming to be the rightful acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are battling for control of the agency.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who President Trump says is now in charge of the consumer bureau, showed up for work with donuts and ordered CFPB employees to ignore all directives from Deputy Director Leandra English and report them to the agency’s legal department, according to Reuters.
{mosads}Mulvaney was seen entering the CFPB’s headquarters in downtown Washington carrying a Dunkin Donuts bag. A Mulvaney aide tweeted a picture of the OMB director reading briefing materials in the CFPB director’s office.
“[Mulvaney] sitting in director’s office,” read the tweet from OMB aide John Czwartacki. “Already hard at work as acting director at cfpb.”
The aide also tweeted a picture of Mulvaney meeting with senior CFPB officials Monday morning.
English, whom former CFPB Director Richard Cordray named as his successor, sent the director’s weekly email to CFPB employees this morning, addressing herself as the “acting director.”
She also briefed lawmakers at the Capitol Monday on her transitions plan, a source familiar with the plans told The Hill.
The White House told CNBC that Mulvaney was given access to the director’s office with full support from the bureau’s staff, despite the lawsuit filed against him and Trump by English.
English sued Trump and Mulvaney in federal court on Sunday night to block Mulvaney from taking acting directorship of the CFPB. She cited the CFPB’s line of succession as enacted in the Dodd-Frank Act, which calls on the deputy director to serve as acting chief when between permanent directors.
Sylvan Lane has the latest here.
Update: Mulvaney on the agency’s future…
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Monday he’s implementing a 30-day hiring and regulatory freeze at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau amid a legal dispute over whether he has the authority to lead the entity.
“Rumors that I’m going to set the place on fire or blow it up or lock the doors are completely false. I’m a member of the exec branch of government. We intend to execute the laws of the United States, including the provisions of Dodd-Frank that govern the CFPB,” Mulvaney said at a press conference.
Mulvaney added that the bureau will be run differently under the Trump administration than it was under former President Barack Obama, though he did not have specifics on how.
In the meantime, Mulvaney announced there will be a 30-day hiring and regulatory freeze at the CFPB. Anything already in the works will be stopped for 30 days while Mulvaney takes time to “kick the tires” at the bureau, he said.
There will be no payments out of the civil penalties fund for at least 30 days, he added.
Brett Samuels has more from Mulvaney.
More on the fight…
Jose Andres offers free drink to CFPB employees amid leadership dispute
GOP senator: Fire anyone at consumer agency who disobeys Mulvaney
Barney Frank: English should ‘clearly’ lead consumer bureau
Read CFPB deputy director’s suit saying Trump can’t fill consumer agency post
Top CFPB lawyer sides with Trump on Mulvaney appointment
ON TAP FOR TUESDAY
The Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing on Jerome Powell, Trump’s pick to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) will speak at a Center for Democracy & Technology event on the Supreme Court case on the privacy of phone location data.
The Senate HELP Committee holds a hearing on simplifying the application process for student financial aid.
ALSO ON TUESDAY
Check out The Hill’s new daily podcasts. Journalists Alexis Simendinger and Niv Elis provide a behind-the-scenes view of the latest breaking developments, drilling deep to get to the heart of what’s happening, and why it matters to you. Listen to AM View weekday mornings, PM View weekday afternoons, and Power Politics on the weekend.
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REG ROUNDUP
Net neutrality: Hundreds of tech companies and groups, including Twitter, Airbnb, Reddit and Vimeo, are urging the Federal Communications Commission to keep the Obama era-net neutrality rules.
In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai dated on Cyber Monday, the companies touted the growth of e-commerce as “a testament to the power of the free and open internet to encourage entrepreneurship, drive innovation, make our lives easier, and to support a healthy economy.”
“The internet is increasingly where commerce happens,” the letter said, noting that Americans last year spent nearly $3.5 billion on Cyber Monday.
“Our current net neutrality rules support innovation and give all businesses the opportunity to compete equally for consumers. With strong net neutrality protections, the internet is an open marketplace where any business can compete, allowing individuals to start companies easily, market their products across the country, and connect with customers anywhere worldwide,” they added.
The letter from some of the web’s most prominent companies comes as the FCC is poised to vote on December 14 to roll back the net neutrality rules. The rules aimed to create a level playing field on the internet. They prevent internet service providers (ISPs) like AT&T and Time Warner Cable from prioritizing and blocking certain content.
More on the net neutrality fight: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman chairman Ajit Pai asked people to stop harassing his family over his attempts to roll back net neutrality provisions.
During a Monday interview on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends,” Pai addressed a sign that was put up outside his home that mentioned his children’s names and read: “They will come to know the truth. Dad murdered Democracy in cold blood.”
“It certainly crosses a line with me,” Pai said.
“I understand that people are passionate about policy, but the one thing in America that should remain sacred is that families, wives and kids, should remain out of it,” he continued.
“And stop harassing us at our homes.”
Patents: The Supreme Court on Monday wrestled with whether Congress has the authority to shift how patent challenges are reviewed from the courts to a government board.
Oil States Energy Co., a Houston-based oilfield services company, is challenging the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review process for patent disputes.
The process was created by Congress in the 2011 American Invents Act (AIA) and is known as an ‘inter partes review,” with the office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board hearing any challenges to existing patents.
The case stems from a dispute Oil States had with another oilfield services company Greene’s Energy Services LLC over a patent for wellheads used in hydraulic fracturing.
Allyson Ho, who argued on behalf of Oil States Energy, said the process Congress created violates the separation of powers because the government itself — through the patent office — is acting as the adjudicator between two private parties.
But Justice Stephen Breyer said agencies decide all kinds of matters through adjudicatory-type procedures often involving private parties.
Lydia Wheeler explains the complicated legal fight.
Health care: Five medical centers within the Department of Veterans Affairs failed to report eight potentially dangerous doctors to a national database where such information is collected, according to the results of a government investigation released Monday.
The Government Accountability Office found in its review of five VA medical centers that 148 providers were reviewed from October 2013 through March 2017 after concerns were raised about their conduct.
Of the nine medical providers who had actions taken against them or who resigned during the investigation, eight were not reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank, a national database that collects information about the professional conduct and competence of providers.
The database is intended to keep these providers from crossing state lines and finding jobs elsewhere.
Jessie Hellmann has more on the watchdog report.
Environment: Spills from the Keystone pipeline, including one in South Dakota this month, have exceeded the amount predicted by its developer before the pipeline began operating, Reuters reported Monday.
According to documents reviewed by Reuters, TransCanada Corp. and a risk management company told regulators they estimated the risk of a Keystone leak of more than 50 barrels of oil was “not more than once every seven to 11 years over the entire length of the pipeline in the United States.”
In South Dakota, the firms estimated the pipeline would leak “no more than once every 41 years.”
The Keystone pipeline spilled 5,000 barrels of oil in rural South Dakota earlier this month. It reported previous spills in 2011 and 2016.
More on Keystone: The Keystone pipeline will return to service on Tuesday, operators announced, nearly two weeks after spilling about 5,000 barrels of oil in rural South Dakota.
Keystone operator TransCanada said the pipeline will operate at reduced pressure “to ensure a safe and gradual increase in the volume of crude oil moving through the system.”
The company said federal pipeline safety regulators had signed off on plans for a “safe and controlled return to service.”
Keystone leaked 5,000 barrels of oil, or about 210,000 gallons, on Nov. 16, causing a section of the 2,147-mile pipeline to go offline. Keystone transports oil from Alberta to refineries in Texas.
Energy: Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and Enbridge Inc. reached a deal Monday for the company to increase safety precautions on its controversial Line 5 petroleum pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac.
The agreement means Enbridge can, for the time being, keep operating the line, despite intense scrutiny in recent years from regulators and environmentalists.
Line 5 is decades old, and regulators have said it is at risk of leaking due to corrosion, anchors, missing coating and other factors.
“Business as usual by Enbridge is not acceptable and we are going to ensure the highest level of environmental safety standards are implemented to protect one of Michigan’s most valuable natural resources,” Snyder said in a statement.
Tech: Four GOP senators are demanding more details from Uber about a cyberbreach the ride-hailing firm endured in which the accounts of 57 million users were compromised.
Lawmakers say the breach opens new security concerns despite Uber’s claims that sensitive information, such as riders’ trip history and Social Security numbers, were not stolen.
They also say that Uber’s reported payment to hackers of $100,000 to delete compromised data could be a potential violation of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations.
“Our goal is to understand what steps Uber has taken to investigate what occurred, restore and maintain the integrity of its systems, and identify and mitigate potential consumer harm and identity theft-related fraud against Federal programs,” the senators wrote in a letter Monday to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) signed the letter.
School prayer: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a case challenging a Texas school district’s longstanding practice of allowing students to lead a prayer at the start of each school board meeting where students are present.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the school board policy. The court said the presence of students at board meetings does not transform this into a school-prayer case and said the practice falls more closely within the recently reaffirmed legislative-prayer exception.
Guns: The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear an appeal from gun owners and dealers in Maryland challenging the state’s ban on military-style rifles and detachable magazines.
The Maryland General Assembly enacted the ban in 2013 after a gunman killed 20 children and 6 adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the ban. That court said the weapons are excluded from Second Amendment protections because they are the kind of weapons most often used by the military.
“Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage,” Judge Robert King wrote in the majority opinion from the appeals court, citing a landmark Supreme Court case from 2008.
Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013 bans the AR-15 and other military-style rifles and shotguns, often referred to as “assault weapons,” and detachable large-capacity magazines.
ALSO IN THE NEWS
The New York Times: Culling voter rolls: Battling over who even gets to go to the polls
The Economist: Donald Trump’s new contenders for the Supreme Court
Bloomberg: Treasury market’s overlords tackle key question of transparency
The Wall Street Journal: Bitcoin surges past $9,500 in fastest thousand-point milestone
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