Nomination Hearing for Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein

There were no TV network cameras or overflow crowds of press or lobbyists at the May 12th nomination hearing of Cass R. Sunstein to head up the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget. The low-profile hearing was in keeping with the relative obscurity of OIRA.

But what the agency does is crucial to business and to ordinary Americans. If confirmed, as expected, Sunstein will be the regulatory czar, sitting in judgment of the rules coming out of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency. OIRA “exerts enormous influence

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Antitrust’s Big Break
Posted by: Theo Francis on May 11

Anyone who listened to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign can’t be terribly surprised that his Justice Department in breaking with the Bush Administration on antitrust doctrine.

Still, it’s worth noting the vehemence with which Christine A. Varney, Justice’s newly minted antitrust czar, repudiated her predecessors’ "Section 2" report, issued last September (and now bearing a virtual sticky-note linking to the current administration’s rejection of it).

It’s also worth beginning to think about the consequences that rejection will have, because they’re potentially far-reaching.


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Obama Administration Trumpets Budget Cuts
Posted by: Theo Francis on May 06

It's budget day again as the Obama Administration releases a detailed spending plan on Thursday -- and this time, officials are pointing to a more extensive list of spending cuts and program terminations.

The overall budget is still huge, of course, but the administration will be emphasizing cost-cutting measures: 121 programs totaling $17 billion in savings in 2010 and more down the road. While some of the proposals have been heard before -- including Defense Secretary Robert Gates' proposals last month -- an administration officials says 80 of them will be entirely new. About half the cuts will be from the defense budget and half from elsewhere; most will be from the "discretionary" budget -- ie, not from entitlements like Medicare and Social Security.

The message of the day: "This is an important step in the process, but it's only a step." In other words, there's more to come.

The same administration official trotted out five examples of cuts the administration is proposing -- including at least one that has had big backing from Dems in the past.



Napolitano on H-1B: Hire Americans First?


By Moira Herbst

At Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked for DHS secretary Janet Napolitano’s views on the H-1B visa program. (The exchange starts around the 56-minute mark.)

Durbin said that he and Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) “feel that our first obligation is to American workers. And to encourage, if not hold accountable, those firms that are looking to fill spots to first turn to the talent pool in America, and particularly those who've lost a job. Do you have any opinions on the H-1B visa program?”

“I agree with you,” Napolitano said. “Our top obligation [is] to American workers, making sure American workers have jobs.”

The comments were Napolitano’s first public statements on the H-1B visa program since she was named DHS Secretary by President Barack Obama. It was unclear from her remarks whether she was indicating support for the bill Senators Durbin and Grassley introduced on April 23. That bill would require that employers seeking an H-1B visa pledge they have first tried to hire an American worker for the position. Currently, only employers identified as heavy users of the H-1B visa program are required to make such a pledge.




Kosovo's Trip to Washington
Posted by: Steve LeVine on May 01

Dozens of the world’s central bankers rolled into Washington last week for the spring summit of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Members of the elite Group of 7 nations and the more representative Group of 20 discussed under what terms China would contribute a few tens of billions of dollars in IMF financing for the troubled economies of the world; how and when to transform the IMF leadership so it actually reflects how the global economy has evolved over the last half-century; and how to implement an agreement to regulate the financial systems of the world’s leading economies.

But the meeting is also the scene of many smaller, personal missions, and among them last week was that of Ahmet Shala, economics minister of the world’s newest nation, Kosovo. Some five dozen countries have since recognized the Balkan province since it broke off from Serbia and declared independence in February of last year. But the exceptions – among them China, Russia and Spain – have prevented Kosovo from obtaining economic assistance from the IMF, the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Hence Shala’s trip to Washington. He is in a bid to persuade more than half the IMF’s 182 members, or 92 of them, to support Kosovo’s membership application. His feeling was that he was one or two short, hence his nervousness.


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