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Summers’ evaluation of the deal President Biden struck with House Speaker McCarthy includes tepid support for work requirements.

There is a ripe poetic injustice to the fact that this long Memorial Day weekend in late May—a lush time of year when the generosity of this planet is so apparent—was book-ended by attacks on two of this country’s most important environmental laws. 

Former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers recently learned that making business decisions can be hard even if you’re an economist. Or, alternatively, Summers has again proven to be a real-life embodiment of an economic “rational individual;” willing to do whatever maximizes his personal interests, regardless of broader consequences. If true, this further demonstrates why the press needs to end their reliance on Summers for economic speculation – because his judgment is for sale.

The Washington Post last week ran a delightful little synopsis of Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) true passion: congressional oversight. Bernie is revered for his willingness to hold corporations and their CEOs accountable for their villainy, and how he does so with extraordinary dexterity. Be it by ruthlessly interrogating Big Pharma executives for their murderous price gouging of lifesaving treatments or humiliating Howard Schultz for being a whiny billionaire union-buster, Bernie Sanders makes congressional oversight hearings fun. The fun he makes for himself and for the public he strives to give real voice to through speaking truth to power is not just gratifying; it also helps sharpen congressional oversight into a tool to actually achieve something.

This morning, 98 organizations and individuals sent a letter to calling on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to affirm its independence from private and corporate interests, to maintain a strict ethics regime that avoids even the appearance of interference or impropriety, and to boldly uplift the huge body of existing climate science that affirms the devastating climate consequences of animal agriculture and the global meat industry. Read their letter to Dr. Hoesung Lee, Chairman of the IPCC here.

A whole-of-government economic agenda requires leadership devoted to rebuilding an economy that works in the public interest. As we explain in the letter, we believe Chairman Oberman has eschewed this responsibility and should no longer be trusted to lead vital oversight of the American rail industry.