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June 29, 2022
Biden Must Take On Refineries To Lower Gas Prices
Rising gas prices may not be a problem of the Biden administration’s making, but they are a problem it cannot afford to ignore. People across the country are feeling their effects, with some groups like gig workers and those in the trucking industry – which has seen an increase in layoffs as gas prices have risen – suffering more acutely. In the face of these difficult conditions, it is essential that the Biden administration take decisive action to ease the pain people are feeling right now and, in the medium-term, address the structural factors that created this crisis.

June 28, 2022
Rogue Regulator: Biden Cedes Chance to Enlist FMC in Inflation-Fighting Agenda
Biden had a chance to change the commission undermining his inflation messaging. Instead, he demurred.

June 14, 2022
DOJ Leaders With Actual Conflicts (Unlike Jonathan Kanter) Refuse to Recuse
The attempt to force Assistant Attorney General Kanter’s recusal has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with the profit margins of Silicon Valley titans.

June 14, 2022
Gordon, Thompson Confirmations Spotlight Urgent Need To Fill HUD Vacancies
Two top Biden housing nominees have been confirmed after months of delays, but five more HUD vacancies still remain unfilled.

June 13, 2022
Almost Half Of U.S. Attorney’s Offices Have No Permanent Nominee. Where’s Biden’s Urgency?
This month President Biden nominated five additional people to helm the 93 districts of the Office of the United States Attorney. These five nominees brought Biden’s total nominations for the office up to just 53 out of 92 nominees for the office, or a little more than half. The vast majority of these nominations have occurred in states with a Democratic Senatorial delegation with many of these seats held hostage by Republicans wielding a racist Senate tradition to arbitrarily obstruct the process and these crucial seats nationwide. Now, nearly a year and a half into Biden’s presidency, the fact that almost half of these positions are still left without a nominee is a glaring indictment of Biden’s failure to prioritize these critically important positions.

June 13, 2022
The Decades-Long Food Failure at the FDA 
In 2008, a deadly salmonella outbreak from contaminated peanut products killed nine and sickened over 700 people. In the aftermath, the peanut executives who poisoned people with food they knew was contaminated received decades-long prison sentences, an all-too-rare case of a corporate criminal being held responsible for the harm they caused. Contemporary public outrage also helped to fuel a push for more structural reform to the food safety regulatory system as a whole. Shortly after the outbreak, the Obama administration began whipping bipartisan congressional support for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which sought to prevent future food safety crises by expanding and strengthening the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authority over food. FSMA ultimately passed both the Senate and the House by wide margins and enjoyed broad public support when finally enacted in 2011.

May 24, 2022
10 Things Biden Can Do About Inflation Without Congress
ome of the approaches can provide immediate relief, but many of them involve fixing broken incentive systems through increasing competition and corporate oversight. Inflation is not just a flash-in-the-pan issue, it is a consequence baked into our market structure and regulatory regime.

May 24, 2022
The Crypto Reading List
Crypto’s ongoing blitz of advertisements that package speculation and fear of missing out (FOMO) in glittering terms is a danger to consumers all over the world. Below is a list of resources that will help the public see beyond the marketing hype and garner a true understanding of crypto assets and the industry at large.

May 18, 2022
Will The New Postal Board Fire Louis DeJoy?
Probably not, thanks in part to some of Biden’s own board nominees.

May 17, 2022
One Weird Trick To Prevent the TVA From Building New Gas Plants
The Tennessee Valley Authority, an independent agency of the federal government which acts as a public utility for over 10 million residents in and around Tennessee, announced in March that it would replace two aging coal-fired power plants with gas-powered plants. As the nation’s largest public utility company, the move goes against Biden’s goal to achieve a clean energy grid by 2035. TVA could be leading the charge for renewables, but its fossil fuel CEO Jeff Lyash, who comes out of fossil fuels, is instead choosing to lock in polluting gas for decades. This does not have to be the case.

May 17, 2022
Don't Give Gina McCarthy's Job To Ernest Moniz
We are firmly on track toward an unlivable world. And a man whose entire career is marked by hubris and greed, who touts the false benefits of methane gas and makes millions from fossil fuel firms and their allies, is being raised as a candidate for White House National Climate Advisor. To put our position plainly, “No.”

May 17, 2022
Here's What Biden Can Do Without Congress
The good news is that the executive branch could do a LOT.

May 16, 2022
Andrea Beaty Eleanor Eagan Nika Hajikhodaverdikhan Sion Bell Hannah Story Brown
2020 Election/TransitionAdministrative LawDepartment of Justice
The Trump Administration Made a Mockery of the Law. Why Hasn't Biden Tossed its Cases?
Donald Trump and his Department of Justice consistently made a mockery of the law throughout his four years in power. And while their laughable reasoning and indefensible positions were struck down at a historic rate, many cases were still waiting for Biden. The new administration tossed out a handful immediately but an alarming number remain, either in some form of pause or advancing forward with the Biden administration adopting Trump’s position.

May 11, 2022
House Oversight Hearing Shows Why Attacking Corporate Villainy Needs To Be A Priority
The hearing was a golden opportunity for Congress to actually hold a corporation to account for its objectively horrendous and potentially illegal behavior. On an ostensibly bipartisan issue like the opioid epidemic, one could be forgiven for thinking that the hearing would do just that.

May 10, 2022
The IRS Has Finally Been Given The Power to Rebuild. It’s Not Enough.
In March, six months after the start of Fiscal Year 2022, Congress finally passed an omnibus funding agreement that brought agencies out from under the shadow of Trump-era austerity (although still fell far short of enacting the funding levels that most agencies require to meet their responsibilities to the public). Critically, in the case of at least one agency, the omnibus did not just grant the money to hire new staff, but the means to do so much more quickly. At the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Congress greenlit the use of direct hiring authorities to empower the agency to temporarily forgo some of the more onerous aspects of the federal hiring process as well as to facilitate a quick rebuilding of the IRS’ notoriously depleted ranks. With this designation, Congress acknowledged that staff shortages at the IRS had reached a state of emergency and thus acted accordingly.