Overnight Regulation: Trump’s former chemical safety nominee leaving EPA | Senate confirms Powell as Fed chair | NTSB ‘gathering information’ on Tesla crash
Welcome to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill, the courts and beyond. It’s Tuesday evening, and the government is open. Listen to our HillCast PM View, where host Niv Ellis brings you the latest on the immigration debate, which is flaring up after the shutdown.
THE BIG STORY
President Trump’s former nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) chemical safety office is leaving his job at the agency.
Michael Dourson was hired as a senior adviser to Administrator Scott Pruitt last October after a fiery confirmation hearing. The hire angered Democrats, who accused Pruitt and Dourson of trying to do an end-run around the Senate’s responsibility to confirm high-ranking government officials.
He withdrew from the confirmation process in December after a handful of GOP senators announced their opposition to him, dooming his nomination, but he stayed on in an advisory role.
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Now, Dourson will leave that job in the coming weeks.
“We wish him continued success in his future endeavors,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said.
Democrats vocally objected to Dourson, who worked as a toxicologist for two decades, throughout his confirmation process, citing his history of working on behalf of the chemical industries as an insurmountable conflict of interest.
ON TAP FOR WEDNESDAY
The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing to examine judicial nominees and Adam I. Klein to be chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
REG ROUNDUP
Finance: The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the central bank by an overwhelming bipartisan margin.
The vote on Powell’s confirmation quickly cleared the simple majority of senators necessary to confirm him to replace Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen on Feb. 3. The final count stood at 85 to 12, one of the widest margins of confirmation for a Trump nominee.
Nearly all Republicans and a vast majority of Democrats supported Powell’s confirmation. Those opposed included conservative GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Ky.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), and Mike Lee (Utah), and potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Trump nominated Powell to replace Yellen as chair in November. Powell had served on the Fed board since his appointment by former President Barack Obama in 2012. The Senate Banking Committee approved Powell’s nomination by a near-unanimous vote in December, with only Warren opposing him.
Transportation: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is evaluating a crash in Southern California involving a Tesla vehicle reportedly operating the Autopilot feature.
NTSB says investigators will launch a field investigation focusing on “driver and vehicle factors.” The investigators are expected to arrive Wednesday, the safety agency said.
The Culver City Firefighters union confirmed on Twitter on Monday that a Tesla had hit one of its trucks. The union said the Tesla was going 65 mph at the time of the crash and no one was injured.
Finance: The Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday grilled three of President Trump’s major financial regulatory nominees, all of which are expected to be confirmed by the full chamber.
The Banking panel hosted Trump’s nominees for chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a Federal Reserve governorship and the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (FSOC) member from the insurance industry.
Republicans were supportive of the entire slate, while Democrats honed in on Marvin Goodfriend, Trump’s nominee to the Fed board.
Technology: United Kingdom (U.K.) regulators are recommending that the government block 21st Century Fox from taking over Sky TV, dealing a major blow to billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced Tuesday that it found the $15.4 billion bid to be “not in the public interest” because it would give the Murdoch family trust “too much control” over news and public opinion in the U.K., according to a statement from the agency.
“Due to its control of News Corp, the Murdoch family already has significant influence over public opinion and full ownership of Sky by Fox would strengthen this even further,” the watchdog said in the release, adding that Murdoch’s outlets are “watched, read or heard by nearly a third of the UK’s population.”
Environment: The Trump administration is waiving dozens of environmental regulations to speed up construction of President Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a notice published in the Federal Register that she was waiving the rules to accelerate construction on part of the wall in New Mexico.
The waiver excludes rules from major laws including the National Environment Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Antiquities Act, among others.
But lawsuits could be on the horizon. The Center for Biological Diversity, which sued the administration over the wall last year, said that it was considering taking further legal action over the new waiver.
Finance: President Trump on Monday imposed tariffs on imports of residential washing machines and solar panel technology as part of a promise to crack down on trading partners the industry argues hurt U.S. manufacturers.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the president agreed to levy a 20 percent tariff on washing machines and a 30 percent tariff on solar cells and modules in the Section 201 case.
“The [International Trade Commission] found that U.S. producers had been seriously injured by imports and made several recommendations to the president,” Lighthizer said in a statement.
Vicki Needham has the rundown.
SEC: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) head Jay Clayton said the agency is closely scrutinizing companies who have switched their names and business models to take advantage of mushroomed interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
Clayton disparaged the recent trend in a speech he gave on Monday at the Securities Regulation Institute.
“The SEC is looking closely at the disclosures of public companies that shift their business models to capitalize on the perceived promise of distributed ledger technology and whether the disclosures comply with the securities laws, particularly in the case of an offering,” Clayton said.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Big east coast refiner files for bankruptcy, blaming regulation (The Wall Street Journal)
South Korea’s cryptocurrency crackdown isn’t stopping this bitcoin exchange’s launch (The Wall Street Journal)
Trump pick for FDIC vows to address ‘hold-up’ of non-bank licenses (Reuters)
Qualcomm set to be sanctioned by European antitrust watchdog (Financial Times)
Trump’s latest regulatory overhaul raises food safety fears (NBC News)
IG goes to battle over plans for tough EU retail trading rules (Financial Times)
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