“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” - Benjamin Franklin
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| CLIMATE CHANGE |
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| MITCH MCCONNELL Senate Majority Leader |
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| WHIMSEY |
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Employers: Trump
enforcing ACA too aggressively
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You
didn't expect to hear the Trump administration accused of tough ACA
enforcement, right? But a group of business associations says it's relying on
an "unlawful and deeply flawed process" to enforce the ACA's
employer mandate.
The
issue: The IRS has begun sending out notices to
businesses that it believes owe fines for failing to comply with the mandate.
The tax agency has said some 30,000 employers are on the hook for a total of
roughly $4.3 billion in fines.
The
other side: A coalition of employer groups, including
the National Restaurant Association and the National Retail Federation, say
the administration is breaking the rules.
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| PUBLIC LANDS |
🚑 Cortexyme, a
South San Francisco-based developer of Alzheimer’s disease therapeutics, raised
$76 million in Series B funding. Sequoia Capital, Vulcan Capital, Verily Life
Sciences, EPIQ Capital Group, RSL Investments, Huizenga Capital were joined by
return backers Pfizer, Takeda Ventures, Lamond Family, Breakout Ventures and
Dolby Family Ventures. www.cortexyme.com [Axios Pro Rata: Thursday, May 31, 2018]
• PlayVS, a Los Angeles-based developer of online and
offline infrastructure for high school e-sports, raised $15 million in Series A
funding. NEA led,
and was joined by Science Inc., CrossCut Venturess, Cross Culture Ventures,
funds affiliated with the SF 49ers and individual angels like Nas and Russell
Okung. http://axios.link/8xxA [Axios Pro Rata: Monday, June 4, 2018]
• Price talk: Vista Equity yesterday said that
it has purchased a majority stake in Integral Ad Science, a VC-backed digital
ad measurement firm that many had expected would IPO. No financial terms were
disclosed, but multiple sources tell Axios that the deal valued IAS at around
$850 million. [Axios Pro Rata: Tuesday, June 5, 2018]
PRUITT'S SAB STORY: EPA's independent
Science Advisory Board will meet today and Friday for the first time since
Administrator Scott Pruitt barred scientists on the committee from receiving
EPA grants and boosted its ranks with industry
representatives — and the group's agenda is packed. The SAB will look at Pruitt's
"secret science" proposal to bar EPA from using studies that don't
make public all their data, as well as the Clean Power Plan repeal, Pruitt's
decision to relax 2022-25 auto emissions standards, changes to the 2016 methane
rule for new oil and gas wells and effort to repeal a rule regulating emissions
from "glider" trucks — and that's not all.
A lot to dive into: The heavy slate of
issues is unusual for the advisory board, Pro's Alex Guillén reports. Several
current and former SAB members say it's unprecedented for the board to consider
reviewing so many regulatory actions. But like green groups and critics of
Pruitt, the SAB scientists say EPA has declined to share information about its
regulatory rollbacks. "The agency has not been forthcoming about how
they're developing the relevant science work products," said Chris Frey, a
professor of environmental engineering at North Carolina State University and a
SAB member since 2012.
EPA keeps quiet: SAB has been conducting
twice-yearly reviews of EPA's planned regulatory actions since 2012, members
said. It's an effort designed to enable the advisory board to help guide EPA
before its rules are finalized. But this time around, the SAB's working groups
say EPA wasn't being forthcoming with information. "Basically they just
didn't provide us with any answers," said Frey. "That kind of put us
in a position where all we can really do is say EPA has not identified the
science or any plan to review it, and clearly there are science issues that are
in the proposed rule."
What to expect: It's not immediately clear
whether the full SAB will vote today to advance the reviews. But Frey noted
that some of the members appointed by Pruitt had been on the working groups,
giving him hope that the full board will back the recommendations to look
deeper into the regulatory rollbacks. Should SAB adopt them, Alex reports, it
likely would mean setting up special subcommittees that include current members
plus outside experts to question EPA further. [POLITICO's
Morning Energy, May 31, 2018]
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| READ |
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| UNIONS |
RETAILERS BACK WORKER CENTER BILL: The
Retail Industry Leaders Association on Tuesday threw its support behind H.R. 5665 (115), which would require worker
centers to register as labor organizations. The centers are non-profit
organizations that provide auxiliary services to workers, but business
groups view them as de facto labor unions.
In a letter to Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.), the
bill's sponsor, the trade association contended that worker centers operate
outside federal labor law, skirting regulations "such as regular and fair
elections for union leadership, reports to the Department of Labor, and
transparency into membership dues and spending." [POLITICO's Morning Shift, May 30, 2018]
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| TECHNOLOGY |
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| POLITICS |
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| NATO |
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| INDIGENOUS AMERICANS |
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| ENVIRONMENT |
ONE YEAR LATER: A year after Trump vowed to
withdraw from the worldwide Paris climate agreement, Americans' planet-warming
carbon emissions continue to decline, but at a slower rate than before,
according to the most recent estimatesavailable.
Reductions are coming mostly from the power sector, and the Trump
administration is not pursuing efforts to lower growing emissions from
transportation, industry or buildings. "The Trump Administration, after
conducting an interagency policy process, concluded that withdrawing from the
Paris Climate Accord was the best decision for the United States and for the
American people," White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told ME.
"One year later, there has been no change in the U.S. position."
Trump has filled out the upper ranks of
the government with officials who deny mainstream climate science, while the White House
has ignored climate findings from its own
agencies. Many states, cities and businesses are pledging to keep cutting their
greenhouse gas contributions — although initiatives like America's Pledge have not yet quantified how
close those entities could contribute to meeting the 2030 goal the U.S. set
under the Obama administration.
Other big emitters, China and India, appear
to be outperforming their own goals, although China's commitment still falls
short of a path toward meeting the Paris deal's minimum target of limiting
warming to 2 degrees Celsius, according to the independent Climate Action Tracker. Both countries continue to
argue that they should get more flexibility since they are still developing, a
stance that may be elevated at talks in Poland at the end of the year with the
U.S. no longer a leading force at international discussions. [POLITICO's Morning Energy, June 1, 2018]
NOTE: I have no official connection to any organization from which information is shared.. Occasionally, I post informational material and/or an opportunity to donate or join as a "community service" announcement. These again are shared for their varying perspectives.
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