News Alert: Trump’s shot at Ford seems to backfire

View in your browser     The Memo: Trump’s shot at Ford seems to backfire President Trump's latest shot in the culture war appeared to backfire Wednesday, as Republicans distanced themselves from comments he had made at a rally the previous evening. The president, speaking in Southaven, Miss., on Tuesday mocked Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Read the full story here           Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for News Alerts     Forward News Alerts     You Might Like       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

On The Money: Consumer bureau reels from racial controversy | Top Dem asks IRS to probe Trump taxes after NYT bombshell | US firms hire 230K in September | Sanders offers bill to break up big banks

View in your browser     Happy Wednesday and welcome back to On The Money. I'm Sylvan Lane, and here's your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. See something I missed? Let me know at slane@thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://bit.ly/1NxxW2N. Write us with tips, suggestions and news: slane@thehill.com, vneedham@thehill.com, njagoda@thehill.com and nelis@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @SylvanLane, @VickofTheHill, @NJagoda and @NivElis.   THE BIG DEAL--Trump official's past racial comments spark revolt at agency: Controversial blog posts written by a senior Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) official have plunged the already divided agency into a bitter battle over its mission and handling of racial discrimination. Eric Blankenstein, CFPB's director of supervision, enforcement and fair lending, has come under fire for anonymous blog posts he wrote in 2004 dismissing hate crimes and questioning whether using the n-word was racist. The discovery of Blankenstein's posts sparked backlash among Obama-era officials at the agency who say he's unfit to oversee CFPB's efforts to curb racial discrimination. Top bureau managers and CFPB union representatives have called on acting Director Mick Mulvaney to fire Blankenstein and abandon a planned reorganization of the agency that would give him more authority over fair lending cases. "People are pretty dumbstruck at the moment," a senior CFPB official told The Hill. "This is forcing people to confront what should the bureau be doing in regards to race and [that] the bureau is not a place where we haven't had our own problems in the past." I explain what's going on here.   The latest: Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee asked Mulvaney today whether he knew about the controversial blog posts before he hired Blankenstein, how he vets potential hires and whether the fair lending office has confidence in its polarizing director. "It is unclear whether his appointment is due to a failure to investigate Mr. Blankenstein's background prior to his appointment, Mr. Blankenstein withholding information from you and the CFPB, or an informed decision on your part to ignore his public comments," the senators wrote in a letter to Mulvaney.   LEADING THE DAY Top Finance Dem urges IRS to investigate Trump tax allegations: Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Wednesday urged the IRS to investigate findings of New York Times article that President Trump and his family engaged in "dubious" and possibly criminal tax schemes in the 1990s. "These media reports represent serious and credible allegations of potentially illegal tax fraud, based on extensive documentation," Wyden wrote in a letter Wednesday to new IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. The bombshell Times story, published Tuesday afternoon, reported multiple schemes that the president and his father, Fred Trump, engaged in to minimize estate and gift tax bills. These included the establishment of a "sham" company used to hide gifts of millions of dollars, as well as undervaluing properties. The Hill's Naomi Jagoda has more here.   Why it matters: Tax experts say that the statute of limitations for criminal charges has likely expired for the events described in the Times story, but that there is no statute of limitations for civil tax fraud. Midterm implications: If Democrats take control of the Senate in November, Wyden would take the chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. That would give him power to subpoena Trump's tax returns and other financial forms that could help the panel expose and investigate the president's past dealings. Speaking of which: The White House said Wednesday there are no plans for President Trump to release his tax returns. And just in case you missed it: Trump called the story an "old, boring and often told hit piece on me."   US businesses add 230,000 workers in September: U.S. businesses added a robust 230,000 jobs in September, the highest level since February and a sign that employers are hiring in the growing economy. The latest jobs data was significantly better than the 168,000 jobs created in August, according to payroll processor ADP's national employment report released Wednesday. "The job market continues to power forward. Employment gains are broad-based across industries and company sizes," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, whose firm oversees the numbers. The Hill's Vicki Needham breaks down the report here.   GOOD TO KNOW Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill Wednesday that would break up some of the largest U.S. banks, a long-standing goal of financial sector skeptics. Amazon is reportedly cutting benefits for warehouse workers and other hourly employees after the company announced this week that it will raise its minimum wage for its workers to $15 per hour. Elon Musk's has given an ultimatum to Tesla, according to the New York Times: fight the SEC, or I quit. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank may eventually raise interest rates to levels where they begin to restrain economic growth, according to Bloomberg News. Russia and Saudi Arabia made a deal in September to increase their oil output and informed the United States about their plan, Reuters reported Wednesday. The American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Navient, alleging that it failed to guide eligible borrowers through a critical student loan forgiveness program, according to the AP. North Korea has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars globally since 2014 by hacking banks' computer systems, according to a new report from a U.S. security firm. The Education Department will miss a crucial deadline to finalize a regulation on forgiving loans made to students who say colleges used deceptive recruiting, according to Bloomberg Government.   ODDS AND ENDS Ebay on Wednesday publicly accused Amazon of trying to poach its sellers using the online auction company's own messaging system. Restaurants in Austin, Texas, will no longer be allowed to throw out food waste, the city announced this week. Drug companies are gearing up for a fight if Democrats take over the House as liberals say Republicans have gone too easy on the industry.            Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for Finance Newsletters     Forward Finance Newsletters       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2018 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Overnight Energy — Presented by Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance — Trump taps pick for energy regulator | EPA left key official out of 'secret science' rule | EPA takes out language on climate impacts on kids

Presented by Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance | View in Browser       TRUMP TAPS NOMINEE FOR ENERGY REGULATOR: The Trump administration will nominate Bernard McNamee, head of the Department of Energy's Office of Policy, to fill the opening on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Politico reports. McNamee, whose role at DOE included advising Energy Secretary Rick Perry on energy issues, will replace departing Commissioner Robert Powelson, who in June announced his resignation to head the National Association of Water Companies. At DOE, McNamee was responsible for pushing the importance of various energy industries, including strongly supporting fossil fuels. In an April Op-ed for The Hill, McNamee wrote, "We have been told that fossil fuels are wrecking the environment and our health. The facts are that life expectancy, population and economic growth all began to increase dramatically when fossil fuels were harnessed -- and have continued to do so for the 200 years since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution." McNamee was also a part of the DOE's unsuccessful attempt to bail out the coal and nuclear industries that was unanimously rejected by FERC in January as not legally defensible. Perry last fall submitted a controversial proposal to subsidize struggling U.S. coal and nuclear plants, arguing it was necessary to keep the power grid dependable. The White House did not return a request for comment.     Happy Wednesday! Welcome to Overnight Energy, The Hill's roundup of the latest energy and environment news. Please send tips and comments to Timothy Cama, tcama@thehill.com, and Miranda Green, mgreen@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Timothy_Cama, @mirandacgreen, @thehill. CLICK HERE to subscribe to our newsletter.   EPA EXCLUDED TOP SCIENCE OFFICIALS FROM SCIENCE RULE REWRITES: The Environmental Protection Agency under former Administrator Scott Pruitt excluded the top scientist leading its Office of the Science Advisor (OSA) while devising a new "secret science" rule, the Washington Post reports. Emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Union of Concerned Scientists show that EPA's director of OSA was self admittedly completely out of the loop as EPA worked to devise the new rule that aimed to limit the types of science used when writing agency regulations. In an April 24 email, Tom Sinks wrote, "Even though OSA [the Office of Science Advisor] and I have not participated in the development of this document and I just this moment obtained it (have yet to read it), I am listed as the point of contact." Adding: "the proposal likely touches upon three aspects of OSA work -- public access to EPA funded research, human subjects research protection, and scientific integrity." An EPA spokesperson said in a statement that the agency "received input from a number of stakeholders and utilized the intra and interagency process to ensure a robust proposal was put forward." The rule more formally is known as the "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science," and was introduced to the federal register in April. It met almost immediate resistance from the science community that argued that it would exclude a number of peer reviewed scientific studies related to public health because many of them would not be able to share the details of the patients studied. Critics feared, the rule would place more reliance on industry-produced studies that might reaffirm arguments that certain chemicals or emissions had little harmful side effects on human health or the environment. In June a group of 103 lawmakers signed a letter sent to Pruitt calling on him to reverse course on the rulemaking. "Contrary to its name, the proposed rule would implement an opaque process allowing EPA to selectively suppress scientific evidence without accountability and in the process undermine bedrock environmental laws," the lawmakers wrote. On Wednesday, the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee held a hearing to discuss the merits and disadvantages posed by the new rule. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) likened the rule to the tobacco industry's old playbook. "This is deja vu all over again," he said. EPA confirmed to the Hill last week that it is reorganizing a number of offices within ORD including merging the Office of the Science Advisor with the Office of Science Policy, a move that critics fear would diminish the role of the scientists there. Read more here.   EPA RULE STRIKES LANGUAGE LISTING IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON KIDS: The Trump administration's latest rule weakening the way a greenhouse gas is regulated in cooling units also strips out language on how climate change affects children, new documents show. A draft proposal on heat-trapping chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, that was released Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not include language the Obama administration had previously used pointing out how children could be affected by global warming. "Certain populations and life stages, including children, the elderly, and the poor, are most vulnerable to climate-related health effects," the since-removed portion read in part. "Impacts to children are expected from heat waves, air pollution, infectious and waterborne illnesses, and mental health effects resulting from extreme weather events." The EPA referred requests for comment to the White House. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The language change was first reported by E&E News. EPA officials announced the new rule in mid-September, though the specific text of the change wasn't available online until this week. The rule would do away with an Obama-era regulation that restricts HFCs, a known greenhouse gas that can contribute to ozone depletion, from being used as a refrigerant in household appliances. The 2016 regulation would have phased out the use of the gas in appliances. The chemical is frequently used as a refrigerant substitute in air conditioners and refrigerators. The EPA said the new rule is based off the agency's own determination that the previous rule "exceeded its statutory authority" by extending a refrigerant management requirement meant for ozone depleting substitutes to the gas. The text of the new rule also notes that the EPA did not study the effects of the rule change on children. Read more here.     OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY: -Saudi Arabia, Russia agreed in Sept to lift oil output, told U.S. -To honor an elephant, Indian temples are going plastic-free -Virgin Atlantic runs first commercial transatlantic biofuels flight   IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Check out Wednesday's stories ... -Company agrees to replace underwater oil pipeline between Great Lakes -New EPA rule strikes language listing impact of climate change on children -Russia, Saudi Arabia agreed to boost oil output: report -Restaurants in Austin banned from throwing away food         Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for Energy Newsletters     Forward Energy Newsletters       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.