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The Federal Maritime Commission’s leaders have no interest in breaking up the shipping conglomerates’ price-gouging which Biden promised the nation.

When Republicans blockade confirmation hearings, they handcuff the government’s ability to handcuff lawbreaking executives.

The celebration of Sunshine Week earlier this month underscored the importance of the continued effort to ensure effective administration of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and its central role for open democracy. Passed by Congress in 1966, FOIA allows citizens to request unpublished records and information from the federal government. Watchdog organizations have long relied on records obtained from FOIA requests to hold the government accountable to public interests. But, the system comes with a plethora of flaws that prevents adequate timeliness and transparency. Endless backlogs, increased usage of exemptions, partially redacted documents, and outright denials leave much to be desired in the administration of FOIA today.

Why is Biden’s attorney general so reluctant to charge Donald Trump and his cronies for their crimes? Revolving Door Project founder and executive director Jeff Hauser joined Prospect managing editor Ryan Cooper on the Left Anchor podcast to discuss.

The Tennessee Valley Authority could be leading the country toward renewables. Instead, it gets huge chunks of its power generation from coal and methane.

Overseen by Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim, the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) is one of seven litigating components of the Department of Justice (DOJ). The ENRD is divided into ten sections, each with its own area of expertise. The Division fulfills a wide range of responsibilities. For instance, the ENRD is tasked with protecting the nation’s natural resources and enforcing U.S. civil and criminal environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and hazardous waste laws. The Division also handles tribal rights and resources cases. Other responsibilities include, but are not limited to, “facilitating cleaner energy and ensuring marketplace integrity; defending and adjudicating water rights for Federal agencies and Indian Tribes, as well as policies and decisions that support the generation of clean energy on Federal lands and the outer continental shelf; and, promoting international climate justice activities and the advancement of legislative and policy matters related to climate change.”

Joe Biden pledged that as president he would hold polluters accountable. But in 2021, the number of criminal cases against polluters referred to the Justice Department dropped even lower than the year before. At best, DOJ officials have set their sights on bringing environmental crime enforcement back up to Obama-era levels—but not exceeding them. That’s a decidedly muted goal; environmental crimes enforcement was higher under George W. Bush than Obama, and has always been underfunded.

The Revolving Door Project released a new “Industry Agenda” report today breaking down the systemic flaws and increasing relevance of the carbon offset industry as the favored greenwashing strategy for big industries and high-polluting nations. The report highlights the policies and executive branch agencies of interest to players in both voluntary and compliance carbon markets in the United States.

With only a handful of years left to act before catastrophic global climate change becomes irreversible, every day is a high-stakes day for U.S. climate policy. But the past two weeks of Putin’s unconscionable war on Ukraine have been particularly nerve-racking for the future of the energy transition—a transition which is inextricably linked to the future of democracy everywhere. 

While it is unlikely that an economy as large as Russia’s can be rerouted through present crypto infrastructure, there remains opportunity for targeted individuals and entities to leverage the industry’s weak compliance mechanisms to move some of their assets. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), in conjunction with the White House’s National Security Council, need to ensure this does not happen. 

With his approval numbers continuing their steady decline and a potentially bruising midterm contest looming, President Biden used his first State of the Union address to lay out a policy agenda that enjoys overwhelming popular support. Yet, as intuitive as that approach appears on its face, it’s a safe bet that the speech will not make a lasting difference for Biden or his party’s political fortunes. That’s in part because most of the policies that Biden touted require congressional approval and have no discernible path forward in the 50-50 Senate (not to mention the fact that only a small fraction of Americans tuned in to listen).

As officers with extraordinary latitude and immense authority within their districts, U.S. Attorneys have the ability to implement ambitious reforms to the federal legal landscape in a direct and immediate fashion. U.S. Attorneys also have incredible freedom to reorient the undercurrent priorities of the federal legal system and to center historically under prosecuted, but systemic nonetheless, crimes such as corporate and white collar malfeasance. Because of the incredible potential of the position, it is critical that these offices are prioritized in Biden’s staffing of the federal bureaucracy. However, as we have examined previously, the Biden administration has proven remarkably slow in its nominations process for U.S. Attorneys positions, seemingly in part due to an unwillingness to decisively abandon deference to a racist Senate decorum procedure known as blue slips.