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Senate tees up ‘accountability act’ as regulation fight intensifies

The U.S. Senate could soon approve a major overhaul of the federal bureaucracy and make lasting changes to regulation of the environment, education, banks and other areas.
On Wednesday a Senate committee sent a bill on to the full chamber that, supporters say, will make regulators more accountable to lawmakers and provide greater understanding of how rules affect the economy.
The next step, debating the bill on the Senate floor, has not been scheduled. The House of Representatives approved companion legislation in January.
Critics say the bill, the Regulatory Accountability Act, creates so many new requirements that it would paralyze regulators working to establish even the most basic rules and standards. They also say it makes cutting industry and banks’ costs a higher priority than protecting public health and safety.
For decades the political parties have been starkly divided over regulation and Republicans are currently winning their battle to lessen the red tape they say ties up business and hurts the economy. Republicans also say former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, pushed regulators to go beyond their duties of executing laws passed by Congress to create policy on their own.
Democrats say regulation, which touches nearly every part of American life, shields average people from health, financial and other threats and is needed to accomplish the goals set in laws.
The Senate bill would require more cost-benefit and other analyses, give courts and the White House greater checks on rulemaking, classify regulations by potential economic impact, and lengthen rulemaking processes.
One progressive group, Public Citizen, estimates it would add 53 steps to major rulemaking, possibly doubling the average amount of time it takes to finalize a regulation – currently four years.
The bill has pitted the powerful business group, the Chamber of Commerce, against progressive ones such as the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Senator Heidi Heitkamp broke ranks with her fellow Democrats to write the accountability act, indicating some members of the party may support the bill when the closely-divided Senate votes.
Also, Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, is working on alternative legislation that her party could find more palatable and could keep some of the bill’s measures.
Since Republicans swept Congress and the White House in November’s elections they have moved swiftly against regulation.
Using the Congressional Review Act, lawmakers killed 14 Obama-era regulations in the span of three months.
Trump’s efforts have yielded mixed results. His order to cut two existing regulations for every new one has stalled during a legal challenge. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency was jammed with thousands of pleas to maintain regulations when it asked for public comment on Trump’s order to look into repealing or rewriting current rules. The comment period closed Monday.

Republicans worry Trump scandals may doom legislative agenda

Scandals enveloping U.S. President Donald Trump have left Republican lawmakers and lobbyists increasingly gloomy about the prospects for passing sweeping tax cuts, a rollback of Obamacare and an ambitious infrastructure program.
With the White House and both chambers of the U.S. Congress under Republican control, party leaders and their allies in the business community had expected to get quick traction on their plans, with corporate tax cuts among the top priorities.
But four months into Trump’s tenure, only limited progress has been made. The House of Representatives passed a measure to rewrite Obamacare, but the Senate is only in the very early stages of considering the issue. Lawmakers are just beginning their push on tax reform.
In addition to congressional probes that are taking place into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign team and Russia, the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday named former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate the matter.
“It’s the elephant in the room right now,” said Republican Representative Pat Tiberi. “The smartest minds in the White House know that, whether it’s tax reform or anything else on the public policy front. It’s hard enough to get things done in the U.S. Capitol under the best of circumstances.”
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on tax reform on Thursday. Key administration and congressional leaders met Wednesday afternoon to discuss a path forward. But they remain a long way from signing a bill into law.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that “less drama from the White House” was needed to advance legislative priorities.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters on Wednesday that the legislative process had “pretty much ground to a halt” amid the tumult in Washington.
Republican Representative Steve Womack said it was important for committees investigating the Russia matter to move forward expeditiously to both ensure that the public gets answers and to clear the way for Congress to move on to other issues.
“Any time we get bogged down on these kinds of issues unrelated to the governing agenda, it serves to delay and to sometimes complicate the real job that we have to do for the American people,” Womack said.
At a news conference on Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan urged his colleagues to “seize this moment” to pass tax reform.
But instead of discussing tax rates and structures, Ryan was faced with a series of questions about James Comey, who Trump fired as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week, and the Russia investigation.
Several lobbyists said that in the past week their corporate clients have grown more cautious on the prospects for tax reform but still hope that at least a small package can be approved.
“My worry level has grown considerably,” one lobbyist said.
Some lobbyists suggested that Congress could consider focusing on tax breaks and perhaps leave aside the comprehensive overhaul of the tax code that they had originally hoped for.
“When this all started, the thing we heard from the Hill was ‘transformative tax reform,’” said a strategist who consults with major companies focused on tax reform. “I think as time passes, tax reform is going to look much different, that it may be begin to look more like tax cuts than tax reform.”

Putin offers transcript to prove Trump did not pass Russia secrets

Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had not divulged any secrets during a meeting in Washington with Russian officials and offered to prove it by supplying Congress with a transcript.
But a leading U.S. Republican politician said he would have little faith in any notes Putin might supply.
Two U.S. officials said on Monday Trump had disclosed classified information about a planned Islamic State operation to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when they met last week, plunging the White House into a fresh controversy just four months into Trump’s tenure.
Trump, whose administration has been dogged by allegations that Russia helped him win the White House and that he and his allies are too cozy with Moscow, has defended his decision to discuss intelligence with the Russians after media reports of the meeting alarmed some U.S. and foreign politicians.
President Putin deployed his trademark sarcasm on Wednesday to make clear he thought the accusation that Trump had divulged secrets absurd.
“I spoke to him (Lavrov) today,” a smiling Putin told a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“I’ll be forced to issue him (Lavrov) with a reprimand because he did not share these secrets with us. Not with me, nor with representatives of Russia’s intelligence services. It was very bad of him.”
Putin, who still hopes Moscow can repair battered ties with the United States despite a deepening political scandal in the United States related to Trump’s purported Russia ties, said Moscow had rated Lavrov’s meeting with Trump highly.
If the Trump administration deemed it appropriate, Putin said Russia could hand over a transcript of Trump’s meeting with Lavrov to U.S. lawmakers to reassure them that no secrets were revealed.
A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, later told reporters that Moscow had a written record of the conversation, not an audio recording.
KREMLIN CREDIBILITY
U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio was unimpressed with Putin’s offer and alluded to alleged Russian hacking of Democratic groups during the U.S. presidential election.
“I wouldn’t put much credibility into whatever Putin’s notes are,” Rubio said on Fox News. “And if it comes in an email, I wouldn’t click on the attachment.”
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is among those probing alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, called Putin’s offer “quite amusing.”
“The last person Trump needs to vouch for him right now is Vladimir Putin,” Schiff said in an interview with CBS News. “If they want to send something, you know, hats off. Send it our way… It’s credibility would be less than zero.”
Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the U.S. election.
Trump is also under pressure over accusations he asked then-FBI Director James Comey to end the agency’s investigation into the Russia ties of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The allegation stems from a memo written by Comey and seen by a source familiar with the contents of the memo.
In Washington, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they wanted to see the Comey memo. U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger joined a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers who have said they would back some sort of independent investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
“If in fact what was in the memo is true, it’s very concerning and we need to get to the bottom of that,” Kinzinger said on CNN.
‘EITHER STUPID OR CORRUPT’
Complaining about what he said was “political schizophrenia” in the United States, Putin said Trump was not being allowed to do his job properly.
“It’s hard to imagine what else these people who generate such nonsense and rubbish can dream up next,” said Putin, referring to unnamed U.S. politicians.
“What surprises me is that they are shaking up the domestic political situation using anti-Russian slogans. Either they don’t understand the damage they’re doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt.”
Russia has repeatedly said that Trump’s opponents are trying to damage him and Moscow by making what it says are false accusations about the billionaire president and the Russian government which initially had high hopes of a rapprochement.
Officials have told Reuters Trump’s alleged disclosure of classified information to Russia’s foreign minister is unlikely to stop allies who share intelligence with Washington from cooperating.
That view was reinforced on Wednesday when British Prime Minister Theresa May said her government had confidence in its relationship with the United States and would continue to share intelligence with Britain’s most important defense and security ally.

GM will cut operations in India, South Africa

General Motors Co plans to quit selling vehicles in India by the end of this year and will sell operations in South Africa, the latest steps in a strategy of focusing cash and engineering effort on fewer, more profitable markets.
The Detroit automaker said on Thursday it will take a $500 million charge in the second quarter to restructure operations in India, Africa and Singapore. It will cancel most of a planned $1 billion investment to build a new line of low-cost vehicles in India.
About $200 million of the charge will be a cash expense, GM said. The moves are expected to save $100 million a year in a sector of GM’s global business that last year lost about $800 million, the company said.
GM President Dan Ammann told Reuters in an interview that the latest restructuring moves – and a series of earlier decisions to quit unprofitable markets – allow GM to focus more money, engineering effort and senior management time on expanding where the company is strong, including China and the North American pickup and SUV business, where GM has a “product onslaught coming.”
GM also has said it is investing about $600 million a year in efforts to develop autonomous vehicles and transportation services.
“What are we spending our time doing?” Ammann said. “Are we spending time pursuing opportunities … or all of our time fixing problems?”
GM, like its Detroit rival Ford Motor Co, has found it increasingly expensive to compete in emerging markets outside of China. GM sold just 49,000 vehicles in India and South Africa combined last year.
Chief Executive Mary Barra traveled to New Delhi in 2015 to announce a plan to invest $1 billion there to build a new line of Chevrolet models developed as part of a Global Emerging Market vehicle program – GEM for short. Since then, auto sales overall in India have slumped, and GM has failed to gain traction against incumbents such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
Now, GM plans to stop selling Chevrolet brand vehicles by the end of the year and will produce vehicles only for export at its remaining factory in Talegaon. The company currently employs about 2,500 workers there.
GM said it would continue work at its design and engineering center near Bangalore.
PULLING BACK IN SOUTH AFRICA
The $5 billion GEM program, which GM is developing with its Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp, remains on track to account for about 2 million vehicles a year in global sales volume, mainly in Latin America, Mexico and China, Ammann said.
“The market opportunity for GEM has continued to grow,” he said.
In a separate move, GM plans to stop building Chevrolet vehicles in South Africa and sell its South African factory to Japan’s Isuzu Motors Ltd, along with the 30 percent stake the U.S. automaker owns in a truck venture with Isuzu Motors. Isuzu agreed in February to buy out GM’s 57.7 percent stake in a joint venture in Kenya.
GM also will cut an undisclosed number of staff at its GM International Operations headquarters in Singapore. About 200 people work in that operation, the company said.
Since Barra took over GM in 2014, the one-time largest automaker in the world has taken aggressive steps to narrow its focus to China, the highly-profitable North American light truck and sport utility market, Latin America, vehicle financing and transportation services that ultimately could use autonomous vehicles.
Despite the restructuring moves, including Barra’s decision in March to sell loss-making European operations to French rival Peugeot SA, GM’s share price has been stuck in a range close around $33 where it went public in 2010 following a government-funded bankruptcy. GM shares closed on Wednesday at $32.42.
Barra and GM’s directors are under pressure from David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, which wants GM to split its common stock into two classes, one that pays dividends and a second that would be valued to reflect the company’s potential growth. Greenlight also has put forward a slate of three new directors. GM’s management and incumbent board have rejected Greenlight’s proposals. The hedge fund holds 54.8 million GM shares, or about 3.5 percent of the total.