On The Money: Treasury official charged with leaking info on ex-Trump advisers | Trump to seek 5 percent budget cut from Cabinet members | Mnuchin to decide by Thursday on attending Saudi conference

View in your browser     Happy Wednesday and welcome back to On The Money, which unfortunately does not have imminent plans to launch its own artificial moon. 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--Treasury official charged with leaking info on ex-Trump advisers: A senior official working for the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has been charged with leaking confidential financial reports on former Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort, Richard Gates and others to a media outlet. Prosecutors say that Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a senior adviser to FinCEN, photographed what are called suspicious activity reports, or SARs, and other sensitive government files and sent them to an unnamed reporter, in violation of U.S. law. Edwards is being charged in the Southern District of New York with one count of unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports and one count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports, both of which carry a maximum five years in prison. The Hill's Morgan Chalfant and I fill you in here.   The allegations: Edwards is accused of leaking reports about suspicious transactions made by Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, and Gates, Manafort's longtime business partner who also served on the Trump campaign and the transition team. Federal prosecutors have also accused Edwards of leaking sensitive financial information related to the case of Maria Butina, the Russian woman charged with illegally acting as an unregistered agent of the Russian government. The complaint does not name the news organization to which Edwards sent the information from the documents, but lists the headlines of six articles published by BuzzFeed News between October 2017 and as recently as Monday that prosecutors allege were based on the leaks.   The significance: The charges are the latest indication of the Trump administration's efforts to root out alleged leakers within the government, which prosecutors emphasized in announcing the charges on Wednesday. The alleged leak announced Wednesday would be the second major suspected breach at FinCEN reported this year, after a federal law enforcement official told The New Yorker in May that he leaked SARs on a shell company set up by Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, after two similar bank records appeared to be missing from the FinCEN database.   LEADING THE DAY Trump to request 5 percent cut from Cabinet members: President Trump on Wednesday said he was planning on asking every Cabinet secretary to cut 5 percent from their budgets. "We're going to ask every secretary to cut 5 percent for next year," he said ahead of a Cabinet meeting.  Trump blamed Democrats for the increase in spending. "Last year, the first year, I had to do something with the military. The military was falling apart, it was depleted, it was in very bad shape, and that's why we went for two years, $700 billion, $716 billion," he said. "I had to give the Democrats, I call it 'waste money,' things I would never have approved, but we had to do that in order to get the votes because we don't have enough Republican votes to do that without them," he continued. The bipartisan spending bill included increases of $80 billion in defense spending and $63 billion in nondefense spending for 2018, with an additional $5 billion for each in 2019. For comparison, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the tax law would add $164 billion to the 2018 deficit after economic growth was taken into account. When asked if the request would apply to the Pentagon, Trump seemed to indicate it would not, saying its budget would likely remain at the same levels he cited earlier. The Hill's Niv Elis tells us more here.   Reminder: Congress routinely ignores the annual White House budget proposal, so don't expect Trump's request to make it into government funding legislation.   Mnuchin to decide by Thursday whether to attend Saudi conference: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters Wednesday that he intends to decide by Thursday whether to attend an economic summit in Saudi Arabia. Mnuchin said at a Treasury press event that he still plans to attend the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh next week, but is waiting to hear the results of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's meeting with Saudi and Turkish officials. "We're going to revisit the decision again tomorrow," Mnuchin said, according to a CNN report. "So for now we are. We're going to make a decision tomorrow based on Secretary Pompeo's report." Mnuchin has faced pressure from lawmakers to drop out of the conference, known as "Davos in the Desert," as officials investigate what happened to missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Sunday that the U.S. can't conduct "business as usual" in the wake of Khashoggi's disappearance, and said Mnuchin should not go to Riyadh. Since then, Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Todd Young (R-Ind.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) have each said Mnuchin should drop out of the event. Multiple Democrats have said the same. The Hill's Brett Samuels fills us in here.   Senate Democrats are also asking President Trump and the Trump Organization to disclose any ties to Saudi Arabia, as well as freeze any potential business relationships, in the wake of the disappearance of the U.S.-based journalist.   GOOD TO KNOW Consumer confidence in the U.S. economy is at its highest level since 2004, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday. The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) said Wednesday that Prudential Financial would no longer be considered a "systemically important financial institution (SIFI)" under Dodd-Frank, freeing the company of onerous capital requirements and disclosures. The Treasury Department on Wednesday declined to label China a currency manipulator, holding back from what could have been a major escalation of the U.S.-China trade war. The New York Times explains why Trump's tax cuts are not (yet) paying for themselves. ProPublica reports on the "deceptive practices" that helped Trump create a business empire. The U.S. poultry industry is crying fowl (I'm so sorry) over Trump's tariffs, according to the AP.   ODDS AND ENDS Tesla said Wednesday that it has secured land in Shanghai to build its first plant outside of the U.S., according to The Associated Press. Full repeal of President Trump's 2017 tax-cut law would result in lost take-home pay for the average taxpayer in every congressional district, according to a report released Wednesday by the conservative Heritage Foundation. United States Steel Corp. workers have negotiated a tentative deal with their employer that will result in the largest wage increases in at least six years, according to Reuters. The Onion has released its long-awaited guide to blockchain and cryptocurrencies.            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: US greenhouse gas emissions fell in Trump's first year | EPA delays decision on science rule | Trump scolds California over wildfires

View in Browser     GREENHOUSE GASES DROP IN 2017: United States greenhouses gas emissions decreased during President Trump's first year in office, according to new a Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report released Wednesday. U.S. emissions of the gases that cause global warming dropped by 2.7 percent from 2016 to 2017, continuing a downward trend that's been apparent since 2007, according to data collected through the agency's Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. The report also found that emissions from larger power plants dropped 4.5 percent since 2016. Experts have largely attributed the new trend to the cheaper price of natural gas, which is cleaner when burned than traditional coal and emits less carbon. Coal is a top contributor to greenhouse gas emissions globally. In 2017, coal made up 14 percent of U.S. energy consumption, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Coal consumption in the U.S., the top consumer of the energy source, peaked in 2007 and has declined since. Natural gas became the main source of energy use in the U.S. in 2016. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said President Trump deserves credit for the drop, despite his actions to roll back or repeal numerous climate regulations. "Thanks to President Trump's regulatory reform agenda, the economy is booming, energy production is surging, and we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions from major industrial sources," Wheeler said in a statement. "The Trump Administration has proven that federal regulations are not necessary to drive CO2 reductions. While many around the world are talking about reducing greenhouse gases, the U.S. continues to deliver, and today's report is further evidence of our action-oriented approach." Read more.   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 SCIENCE RULE SLATED FOR 2020: The EPA's rule to overhaul how it evaluates science won't be made final until 2020, the Trump administration said. The agency has put the regulation, called Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science, on its "long-term actions" list in the latest edition of the Trump administration's regulatory agenda, released Wednesday by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The EPA now expects to make the rule final around January 2020, and dozens of other regulatory projects are in line in front of the science rule. Wednesday's regulatory agenda also provided updated timelines for numerous major EPA initiatives, like repealing the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan and Clean Water Rule. The highly controversial science rule would mandate that for regulations and other decisions, the EPA can only use scientific data and findings for which all of the underlying data can be made publicly available and reproducible. Critics, including environmentalists, many scientists and Democrats, say it would set the bar unnecessarily high and prevent the EPA from using many high-quality studies, which would lead to fewer regulations. An EPA spokesman said the rule is still under development, but the agency is taking its time sifting through the nearly 600,000 comments it received. "This is not a delay. The agency is continuing its internal rulemaking development process for this action," spokesman Michael Abboud said, noting that the prior regulatory agenda, published this past spring, did not have any timeline for a final version of the rule. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) nonetheless celebrated Wednesday's move as a victory. "We recently filed strong opposition to a proposed regulation by the EPA that would restrict EPA's access to critical scientific data. EPA just shelved this misguided proposal. Now they should get back to their core mission of protecting human health and the environment," he said in a statement. Also in the regulatory agenda: March 2019 will be a big month for EPA's deregulatory actions. That's when the EPA plans to finalize its Clean Power Plan repeal, its Clean Water Rule repeal and its American Clean Energy rule, the replacement for the Clean Power Plan, according to the agenda. At the Interior Department, the Trump administration plans to roll back parts of a major 2016 offshore drilling safety rule in December. The Fish and Wildlife Service's trio of rules to change how it implements the Endangered Species Act, proposed this summer, will be made final in November, the administration said. Also on the back burner: The EPA's proposal to repeal the Obama administration's 2016 rule limiting the sales of high-polluting trucks with rebuilt engines -- known as glider trucks -- is also in the "long-term" category on the new agenda. But unlike the science rule, the glider rule has no date for finalization, and is only listed as "to be determined." Read more.   TRUMP SLAMS CALIFORNIA ON FORESTS, WILDFIRES: President Trump on Wednesday appeared to threaten to withhold funding to fight wildfires in California if the state doesn't remove more "old trees" from forests. "California's a mess. We're giving billions and billions of dollars for forest fires in California," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, shortly after Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told him about the Forest Service's efforts to prevent fires. "They are leaving them dirty," Trump said of California's forests. "Old trees are sitting there, rotting and drying. And instead of cleaning it up, they don't touch them, they leave them. And we end up with these massive fires that we're paying hundreds of billions of dollars for to fix, and the destruction is incredible." "I think California ought to get their act together and clean up their forests and manage their forests," he continued. "It's costing our country hundreds of billions of dollars because of incompetence in California," Trump said. "It's hurting our budget, it's hurting our country. And they just better get their act together." Read more.   ON TAP THURSDAY: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold its monthly meeting.   OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY: The United Kingdom is supporting a proposal to create the world's largest wildlife reserve on Antarctica, the Guardian reports. Oil prices settled Wednesday at less than $70 per barrel for the first time in a month, Reuters reports. Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures is opening a $116 million investment fund for European green energy companies, Bloomberg reports.   IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Check out Wednesday's stories ... - EPA in talks with Volvo over faulty emissions part in trucks - Trump: California 'better get their act together' on wildfires - Greenhouse gas emissions dropped nearly 3 percent in Trump's first year - EPA puts science 'transparency' rule on back burner - Dems damp down hopes for climate change agenda         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.

News Alert: Five things to know about 'MBS,' Saudi Arabia's crown prince

View in your browser     Five things to know about 'MBS,' Saudi Arabia's crown prince Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been caught in an international firestorm over his alleged involvement in the disappearance and suspected death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul earlier this month. Khashoggi was a Saudi-born U.S. resident who wrote for The Washington Post and was critical of the Saudi royal court. The New York Times reported that multiple suspects in Khashoggi’s disappearance had close ties to the crown prince. 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.