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This week’s newsletter discusses a wolf in a moderate’s clothing, opposition to healthcare revolvers, and new polling suggesting widespread support for the CFPB.

On Thursday the 19th, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is expected to vote on whether to approve Calcasieu Pass 2, a massive long-term natural gas liquefaction and export facility that intends to export 20 million metric tons of planet-warming methane gas a year. Dodging its responsibility so far to consider the full range of consequences of its infrastructure permitting decisions, FERC looks set to greenlight this monstrosity. As this newsletter will explore, not only are the global climate consequences of new gas export infrastructure enormous, but the immediate impacts are keenly felt by the local community inundated with pollution from the original Calcasieu Pass facility.

Corporate greed and emaciated federal regulatory capacity means people are needlessly suffering physically, and sometimes even dying. That’s the upshot of two recent reports from the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). These reports illustrate the concerning state of environmental regulation and enforcement in regards to water quality and refinery emissions. 

On Sunday, an estimated 75,000 people marched in Manhattan, demanding that President Biden end the era of fossil fuels and take immediate action to address climate change.

New revelations over Musk’s interference in Ukraine warrant Congressional oversight over the billionaire.

With Labor Day now behind us, Hot Labor Summer has come to a scorching end, but the labor movement is alive and well with several heavyweight bouts looming on the horizon. This transition time is the perfect moment to take stock of the Biden administration’s labor allyship — applauding recent rulemaking efforts, highlighting some shortcomings, and previewing some potential labor strikes coming this fall.

The roughly 35,800 employees of the federal Forest Service, housed within the Department of Agriculture, are responsible for managing 193,000,000 acres of national forests. The mission of the Forest Service is to “sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.” Yet time and time again, the Forest Service has betrayed this mission in order to service the profit-driven ends of the timber industry, prioritizing commercial timber extraction over recreation and conservation, and ignoring the essential role intact forests play in mitigating our ongoing biodiversity and climate crises. 

DOJ’s penalty for Booz Allen Hamilton ripping off the government is tens of millions less than a whistleblower thinks the company stole. 

On July 25, 2023, military leaders in Niger, along with members of the Presidential Guard, enacted a coup against President Mohamed Bazoum. Led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, a Nigerien military officer and self-appointed President of Niger’s military junta, coup plotters detained the democratically-elected President Bazoum, as well as members of his family, threatened to kill him in the event of any military intervention in the coup, and most recently put him on trial for treason.

Despite widespread rumors of an emergent coup in the country, the United States was reportedly “blindsided” by it, and scrambled to respond. Of course, American intel regarding the actual political atmosphere of the country was hindered in no small way by the lack of State Department personnel staffing embassies in the region.

Continued reliance on underregulated financial technology companies could stand to further harm the agency’s reputation and goals for lending equity.

Two weeks ago, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan entered a House Judiciary  Committee hearing with a target on her back. In the leadup to the hearing, Republicans readied their trumped-up attacks against Khan and the agency she leads: a barely relevant memo from a conflicted ethics officer, a list of unfounded grievances from bitter former Commissioner Christine Wilson, and absurd defenses of Elon Musk’s lazy privacy practices at Twitter. But Khan emerged unscathed, and by the end, the Republicans had lost all their fire.

If Biden wants to keep his nickname and the working class vote, he needs to start listening to the unions.

Measuring the impact of regulations and enforcement actions can be difficult, particularly as the benefits of such actions can take years to accrue. On the other hand, it’s often possible to observe the consequences of lax or nonexistent enforcement playing out in real time.  

Extreme weather is the story of this summer so far, the hottest in 120,000 years. But you wouldn’t know it from following Beltway politics.