Independent Agencies

It turns out that the ethics official who recommended that Khan recuse herself from a case involving Meta is an owner of Meta stock. This ethics judgment was music to the ears of the media organizations, Republicans, and antitrust hacks who have been attacking Lina Khan throughout her leadership. Beyond being wrong and selective in singling out FTC officials for ethics concerns, the problem with Pankey’s opinion is deeply ironic. Pankey herself has a legitimate conflict of interest in relation to Meta. 

By focusing on the (inflated) total defrauded, reporters are using big-sounding numbers without any context to try to scare the public.

Implicit in the worldview of these revolvers is the idea that corporations should be free to operate and acquire competitors with near impunity, therefore antitrust enforcement should be as narrowly tailored as possible. This is obviously problematic — we need regulators that believe in the government’s ability to take on corporations with outsized market influence — but Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Christine Varney recently took things many steps further in her representation of the biotech company Illumina in its case against the FTC. Varney doesn’t just attack specific enforcement actions as unwarranted, but calls into question the constitutionality of the FTC’s authority to issue enforcement actions in the first place. 

Does former corporate lobbyist Anna Gomez stand for Big Telecom or a free and open internet?

Spending cuts aren’t minor, caps ignore inflation, and President Biden isn’t helpless.

Just weeks after a series of high profile train derailments headlined by the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) decided to double down on the current railroad oligopoly. The STB approved a merger between Canadian Pacific Railway and Kansas City Southern Railway Company, cutting the number of major “Class I” rail companies in the United States from seven down to six. This decision is diametrically opposed to the public interest and seriously undermines trust in rail regulators.

“GOP leaders have sent a wildly exploitative ransom note to the public. The administration should not accept its terms.”

Biden’s best regulator takes aim at one of the biggest barriers to accessing rental housing.

Rolling back Trump’s framework just means that FSOC is allowing itself to see the financial system through a realistic lens.

Demand Progress and the Revolving Door Project sent a letter to President Biden reminding him that neither the White House nor Senate Democrats “should feel compelled to expedite the nomination and/or confirmation of Republicans to independent agencies” particularly while Democratic nominees remain languishing in the Senate due to years of Senate Republicans’ malfeasance.

When bankers blow their businesses up, it’s no-questions-asked bailout time. When student borrowers need relief, not so much.