Largest U.S. banks face $120 billion shortfall under new rule

Six big U.S. banks need to raise an additional $120 billion, most likely in long-term debt, under a rule proposed on Friday by the Federal Reserve. The requirements are aimed at ensuring that some of the biggest and most interconnected banks, which include Goldman Sachs Group Inc, (GS.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co, (JPM.N), and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), can better withstand another crisis by turning some of their debt, particularly debt issued by their holding companies, into equity without disrupting markets or requiring a government bailout.


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More fraudulent science from EPA

The Obama Environmental Protection Agency recently slashed the maximum allowable sulfur content in gasoline from 30 parts per million to 10 ppm. The agency claims its new “Tier 3” rule will bring $7 billion to $19 billion in annual health benefits by 2030. “These standards are a win for public health, a win for our environment and a win for our pocketbooks,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy insists. But according to Environ International the finalized Tier 3 gasoline sulfur rules will bring bogus benefits at a high health and welfare price.

"... regardless of their ultimate cost, the rules will reduce monthly ozone levels by just 1.2 parts per billion during rush hour, says Environ. That’s equivalent to 12 cents out of $100 million or 1.2 seconds out of 32,000 years. These minuscule improvements could not even have been measured by equipment existing a couple decades ago. Their contribution to improved human health will be essentially zero."

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Senate Votes For Nuclear Option, Merkley Lead Proponent

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled the trigger Thursday, deploying a parliamentary procedure dubbed the "nuclear option" to change Senate rules to pass most executive and judicial nominees by a simple majority vote. ✧ The Senate voted 52 to 48 for the move, with just three Democrats declining to go along with the rarely used maneuver. Excerpts:

• The move marks a significant win for the newer crop of Democrats -- like Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the lead proponent of going nuclear.
• Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who chaired the Judiciary Committee back when it was Democrats trying to stall Bush's nominees, echoed McConnell, suggesting newer Democrats such as Merkley, who have never been in the minority, were not taking the long view. ✧ "They're -- I want to say this the right way -- they're rustling their inexperienced feathers," Hatch said, calling the historic move a "charade just to try and get off Obamacare."
• But Merkley disagreed, arguing the reform is "about clearing the decks of the Senate so we can actually spend time on legislation, we can actually address the cost of college, actually have job-creation bills on the floor, that we can address issues related to retirement security." ✧ "I feel great," Merkley said. "Since I came here in 2009, I've been absolutely appalled by the dysfunction of this body."

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House GOP leaders blindsided by defections on spending vote

House Republican leaders have a new problem. They can’t count on their members to support them on procedural votes.

Sixteen Republicans defected Wednesday in a vote on the rule governing consideration of a government-funding bill meant to prevent a government shutdown. The defections could have caused the rule to fail since most Democrats voted also voted against it.

Even more striking? Seven of the Republicans who voted against the rule then voted for the funding bill.

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Riparian Issue: Albany poised to act on controversial Goal 5 rules

9/25/2011 - The Albany City Council is poised to act on new land use regulations potentially affecting an estimated 1,000 property owners, but how much depends on the individual case. ✧ The city staff says the changes are intended to protect natural resources such as fish-bearing streams and streamside habitat, along with significant wetlands. Read more at the Democrat Herald... Read More......

WSJ: EPA Again Delays Greenhouse-Gas Rule

9/15/2011 - WASHINGTON—The Environmental Protection Agency is again delaying a plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, saying it needs more time to propose the rule. ✧ The move comes amid intense pushback from business groups and Republican lawmakers who complain a recent slate of EPA proposals are chilling business investment and hindering the economic recovery. Late last month, the White House forced the EPA to abandon an air-pollution rule that business groups said would kill millions of jobs. ✧ An EPA official said the agency is committed to the rule, which it is legally required to propose. "We are working on a schedule and will release it as soon as possible," the official said. "This is EPA's decision. It's a complex rule. We just needed more time." Read more at the Wall Street Journal... Read More......

AEI: Can the Middle Class Be Rebuilt?

What Should Government Do? Less
By Andrew G. Briggs - As a foundation for the middle class, good jobs, stable families and individual creativity are hard to beat. America didn't generate the strongest middle class in history by having lots of bureaucrats and rules but by having few of them, creating a chaotic economy in which college dropouts become C.E.O.'s and seemingly only political offices are handed down father-to-son. Read more at American Enterprise Institute

Andrew G. Biggs is a resident scholar at AEI. Read More......

End of the Line

Why the EPA Train Wreck Must be Stopped - Behind the scenes, while Washington and the United States focus on the debt crisis, President Obama’s EPA has been quietly implementing one of the most radical and costly policies of his administration. Ever since the failure of cap-and-trade, the administration has turned to the EPA to carry out its radical environmental agenda. Immediately after the 2010 election Obama was quoted saying “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way.” The EPA is in the process of completing and finalizing 30 major regulations and 170 major policy rules that would impose hundreds of billions of dollars of compliance costs on the economy, killing jobs and threatening the economic recovery. Because of the disastrous affects that the EPA’s new regulations will have on the already struggling economy, many have taken to calling the administration’s aggressive stance the “EPA train wreck.”

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Stossel: Attack on Freedom

TOWNHALL by John Stossel - Something's happened to America, and it isn't good. It's become easier to get into trouble. We've become a nation of a million rules. Not the kind of bottom-up rules that people generate through voluntary associations. Those are fine. I mean imposed, top-down rules formed in the brains of meddling bureaucrats who think they know better than we how to manage our lives. ∴ Cross them, and we are in trouble. Read more at Townhall... Read More......

Sen. Jim DeMint takes on Sen. Jeff Merkley over HC bill provision

CNSNews.com, 1/5/2010 - Senate Health-Care Bill Provision Would Make it Impossible for Future Congresses to Repeal Parts of Bill: A provision deep within the Senate’s 2,000-page health-care overhaul bill would make it impossible, once approved, for the legislation to be repealed or changed by future Congresses -- a provision that a Senate Republican and a conservative analyst say is unconstitutional.

On page 1,020, the bill states: “It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

The provision appears in Section 3403 of the Senate bill, which creates an Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB). The objective of the board would be to “reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending,” which has ballooned in recent decades. The IMAB would recommend changes to the Medicare program to limit its spending growth -- recommendations that would automatically go into effect unless Congress votes to block them. Read more for the DeMint (R-SC)-Merkley (D-OR) exchange...

Notes: 1) IMAB is what Sarah Palin referred to as "Death Panels." Kudos to Sen. DeMint. 2) Sen. Merkley will hold a town hall meeting on Jan. 15. Please see Events Calendar --bc Read More......

Obama to set first CO2 emissions rule for auto industry

BLOOMBERG, 5/18/2009 by Kim Chipman and John Hughes - President Barack Obama will announce tomorrow new rules for vehicle emissions and mileage, setting the first-ever nationwide standard for greenhouse-gas pollution, according to people familiar with the plan. Read more at bloomberg.com... Read More......

Whoa Nellie, if CO2 is designated a pollutant by the EPA!

E.P.A. Expected to Act in Regulating Carbon Dioxide. “If the environmental agency determines that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, it would set off one of the most extensive regulatory rule makings in history.” --Instapundit Read More......