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Progressive groups successfully pressed Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to replace the acting head of the office that oversees the nation’s $1.5 trillion student loan portfolio in recent weeks. Now, Abigail Seldin, a former student loan company executive, is reportedly a candidate to lead that office.

Elizabeth Rosenberg, a lesser-known Obama-era official, is being considered to lead the Treasury Department’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence unit. Her record designing painful economic sanctions, supporting fossil fuel industry-friendly policies, and helping powerful corporations gain close access to the highest levels of government is cause for alarm, writes Vishal Shankar.

Having a pollution investor in charge of the DPC should set off alarm bells for anyone worried about climate change — in other words, everyone.

ullivan, like Secretary of State Blinken and others in the Biden national security apparatus, spent the Trump years as a “consultant,” better termed as a shadow lobbyist, for Big Tech and other industries.

The nominations that President Biden has made thus far serve as a guidebook to the years ahead. By analyzing those picks, we see a vivid picture of where we can expect strong executive actions to take on the corporate monopolies and polluters choking the American economy—and where we can anticipate division between the progressive base and corporatist establishment actors.

With Haaland at its head, the DOI will have a real chance to reverse its role in exacerbating climate change and environmental racism. Yet, in order to fully realize this potential, the agency will need more funding, increased lower-level staff and much more diversity.

We have every reason to believe Kerry genuinely wants to save the Earth from climate devastation. His problem is that there is no neoliberal path to doing so.

The Revolving Door Project is outraged by yesterday’s news that the Biden administration has been pressuring the Mexican government into turning away migrants at the Mexico-Guatemala border. While this Trump style initiative would be appalling on its own, we are additionally concerned about the possibility that President Biden may have bartered millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to achieve his anti-migration goals.

A powerful collection of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors are shaping American foreign policy by lobbying policymakers and funding hawkish think tanks to keep U.S. defense spending the highest in the world. Their influence-peddling efforts prioritize the defense industry’s profits over countless lives and pressing domestic priorities like universal healthcare. Our Elias Alsbergas and Vishal Shankar explain how the military-industrial complex seeks to influence the executive branch and which defense industry allies are seeking jobs in the Biden Administration.

Almost two months after he took office, Biden’s Cabinet is nearing completion. Nearly all of the six remaining spots seem set to be filled in relatively short order. Now, with the senior-most leadership in place, more permanent hiring for other political roles is likely to accelerate. And with that in mind progressives and good government groups are engaging in another push to ensure that public interest-minded officials populate all levels of political leadership. On Thursday, 46 groups sent a letter to Chief of Staff Ron Klain asking that new hires at the Justice Department not hail from BigLaw and that those with connections to firms who have already been hired recuse from policy and personnel decisions that could impact former clients. When asked whether the Biden administration would heed that call, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki was noncommittal. That’s disappointing — demanding recusals from BigTech and BigLaw tied hires should be a no-brainer (and, in fact, it’s already a step down from our preferred solution, which is not to appoint them at all) — but, if there’s one thing the administration should know by now, it’s that we’ll not be letting them off the hook when it comes to conflicts of interest.

You were elected on what the Marshall Project termed, “the most progressive criminal justice platform of any major party candidate in generations.” Already, in your first month in office, you have repeatedly demonstrated your eagerness to follow through on key promises. Now, you have an opportunity to make additional planks of that platform a reality through your choice of United States Attorneys. Specifically, to create a more just, humane, and compassionate criminal justice system, you must elevate committed reformers to these powerful roles, not the same tough-on-crime prosecutors and corporate law attorneys who helped to construct our current broken order.

Alvarez only re-entered the regulatory world after six years at Affirm, a fintech e-lender that offers loans up to 30 percent APR under sometimes confusing terms at the point of sale, so consumers rarely have the opportunity to shop around or read the fine print for an informed decision.

What is the spirit of a revolver? Perhaps it’s best described as someone who advances “the increasingly influential private-sector approach to world-changing.” That, after all, is how Anand Giridharadas, in his essential book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing The World, once described Sonal Shah’s current work.

Title 1 of the Dodd-Frank Act Title established the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) just over a decade ago. Prior to its arrival, there was no cross-agency government body tasked with protecting the financial system from systemic risks. FSOC was created to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 2008 financial crisis and to be a safeguard against financial practices with the potential to wreak global havoc.