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August 01, 2023

Will Royce

Blog Post Climate and EnvironmentExecutive Branch

GM Exec. To White House: We Can't Be Held To Our Own Standards

Reuters reported Thursday on a recent meeting between the White House Office of Management and Budget officials and General Motors (GM) executive David Strickland. In the meeting, Strickland complained about proposals for updated vehicle emissions rules, which he argued could cost the industry from $100 to $300 billion dollars from 2027, when the rule would take effect, to 2031. Rather than acquiesce to the dire warnings of an economically interested party, the Biden administration did the right thing — it called Strickland’s numbers “pure speculation and inaccurate.”

July 17, 2023

KJ Boyle

Blog Post Anti-MonopolyCongressional OversightEthics in GovernmentFTCTech

Lina Khan Unscathed By Conflicted Ethics Officer and Pro-Monopoly Republicans

Rep Jim Jordan and company had already been eyeing Khan for an investigation because she had the audacity to enforce a consent decree that Twitter violated under Elon Musk’s leadership. Then, they eagerly seized on last month’s (conveniently timed) reporting from Bloomberg which published a previously unseen memo from an FTC ethics official and accused Chair Khan of ignoring the official’s recommendation. With that backdrop, the Republicans seemed poised to strike while the iron was hot, a culmination of their years-long project to undermine Khan’s leadership and reputation. The result was … much different. Thanks to some sleuthing on our part and the bipartisan support for taking on tech monopolies, yesterday’s hearing was less a damning inquisition and more a victory lap for Khan’s rejuvenation of the FTC.

July 11, 2023

Timi Iwayemi

Blog Post Revolving DoorTechTrade Policy

A Corporate-Led Trade Agenda Is the Wrong Path Forward

Yet despite these promises, email correspondence obtained through FOIA requests by Demand Progress show that senior officials across USTR, including Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Sarah Bianchi, actively seek input from executives at Big Tech firms such as Amazon and Google. Giving Big Tech a privileged ability to mold American trade policy undermines Biden’s commitment to a new era of trade deals.

May 30, 2023

Henry Burke

Blog Post CryptocurrencyEconomic PolicyLarry SummersTech

Being A Board Member Is Hard, Just Ask Larry Summers

Former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers recently learned that making business decisions can be hard even if you’re an economist. Or, alternatively, Summers has again proven to be a real-life embodiment of an economic “rational individual;” willing to do whatever maximizes his personal interests, regardless of broader consequences. If true, this further demonstrates why the press needs to end their reliance on Summers for economic speculation – because his judgment is for sale.

May 19, 2023

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Blog Post

98 Organizations and Individuals Call on the IPCC to Uplift Settled Science and to Reject the Influence of the Global Meat Industry

This morning, 98 organizations and individuals sent a letter to calling on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to affirm its independence from private and corporate interests, to maintain a strict ethics regime that avoids even the appearance of interference or impropriety, and to boldly uplift the huge body of existing climate science that affirms the devastating climate consequences of animal agriculture and the global meat industry. Read their letter to Dr. Hoesung Lee, Chairman of the IPCC here.

May 10, 2023

Julian Scoffield

Blog Post CryptocurrencyFinancial Regulation

What The SVB Collapse Says About Crypto’s “Most Stable” Stablecoin

The March 2023 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) — aside from foregrounding the hypocrisy of neoliberal pundits and libertarian venture capitalists alike — spotlighted the instability of the cryptocurrency industry’s most ostensibly stable offering. Hidden within the uncertainty of SVB’s fate following a $42 billion withdrawal frenzy was a similar crisis of confidence for Circle Internet Financial and its stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC).