Welcome to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill, the courts and beyond. As a healthcare reporter, I’m basically contractually obligated to give all our readers a friendly reminder that the Senate ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill dropped today. Here’s what’s in the bill. Here’s where senators stand. And here’s our live coverage.
THE BIG STORY
Remember when the House passed the Financial CHOICE Act on a party-line vote earlier this month?
Well, Senate Republicans are taking a different approach to curtailing Dodd-Frank than the House did with the CHOICE Act, a sweeping bill replacing most of the 2010 law.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said Thursday that the panel is “actively engaged” in “moving forward with legislation to overhaul several Obama-era banking regulations.
“We are literally actively engaged right now in moving forward with developing this legislation,” Crapo said at a hearing with federal regulators Thursday. A spokeswoman for the chairman clarified that the committee wasn’t writing legislation yet, but rather “vetting which ideas can gain the most bipartisan traction.”
“We’re engaged in an effort to identify statutorily where we can make things better,” Crapo said. “We need to get the right balance in our system so we can have the strongest economic engine that we possibly can.”
Early signs of what that balance could look like popped up in Thursday’s hearing with several top federal banking regulators.
Here were the attendees: Leaders of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), along with Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell, the bank’s chief regulatory supervisor.
Suggestions included: Possibly adjusting the “Volcker Rule,” which bans banks from making risky trades with their own capital; focusing the rule on firms with major investment practices while reducing the compliance burden for smaller banks; adjusting how the federal government tests the stability of big banks; and more.
Read Sylvan Lane’s story here.
REG ROUNDUP:
Technology: The Federal Communications Commission just proposed its largest fine ever — $120 million.
FCC officials said that Adrian Abramovich of Miami apparently made 96 million “spoofed” robocalls in an attempt to lure consumers into buying into vacation packages and timeshares over a three-month period.
The proposed fine is based on 80,000 such calls that the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau verified as originating from Abramovich.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai added that the operation may have disrupted medical services.
More from the tech team: The FCC voted to move forward with a proposal to allow law enforcement to access blocked caller ID information in the case of threatening calls.
The proposed rule comes after Jewish community centers (JCC) across the country were hit with anonymous threats.
“Months of investigation yielded few results,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said at the agency’s monthly meeting. “Law enforcement officers were unable to identify the callers partly because of one of our rules. That rule requires carriers to honor a customer’s request that his or her telephone number not be transmitted or otherwise revealed to the party called, which prevents third parties, including law enforcement, from figuring out who’s calling.”
Keep the tech news coming: The campaign to preserve Obama-era net neutrality rules received a high-profile backer — Twitter.
The San Francisco-based social media giant announced Thursday that it will join the net neutrality “Day of Action.”
Twitter is the latest in a string of prominent companies who are officially entering the fight to protect the net neutrality rules created in the 2015 Open Internet Order.
The rules aimed to maintain a level playing field for companies on the internet and prevent certain types of content from being prioritized over others.
Read Ali Breland’s piece here.
Tech, tech, tech: President Trump on Thursday vowed to cut back on “job-killing” regulations on the tech industry in a meeting with business executives.
Trump met with leaders from the drone and broadband industries at the White House, the latest event in the administration’s “tech week.”
“We want to remain number one in certain areas,” Trump said. “We’re going to give you the competitive advantage that you need.”
Attendees at the meeting included execs from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and General Electric Co., who joined representatives from drone and venture capital firms at the meeting, titled “American Leadership in Emerging Technology.”
Finance: Republican senators really hate the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the chairman of the Senate’s health appropriations subcommittee, on Thursday tore into the Trump administration’s proposal to cut NIH funding by $7.5 billion.
“I fundamentally disagree with the proposed funding reduction for NIH,” Blunt said at a subcommittee hearing on the NIH budget, estimating that the cuts would eliminate 90,000 jobs nationwide and reduce economic activity by $15.3 billion.
NIH funding has broad support in Congress. In May, a bipartisan deal on 2017 spending reversed proposed cuts to NIH, giving the agency an additional $2 billion in funds instead.
Environment: The Trump administration is removing Endangered Species Act protections for Yellowstone grizzly bears, after they spent more than four decades on the threatened list.
The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service announced the delisting decision Thursday, which immediately drew rebukes from conservationists and Democrats.
Officials said that conservation efforts for the bear, a more than fourfold increase in its population and state policies designed to protect the bears show that the delisting is warranted.
What is the bear’s population, you ask? Around 700, compared with 150 when it was first listed.
Timothy Cama breaks down the news here.
Energy: Testimony on the Trump administration’s budget proposal for the Department of Energy became heated Thursday.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pressed Energy Secretary Rick Perry on the science behind climate change in a testy exchange during a committee hearing Thursday.
Franken questioned him about his previous statements on climate change. Perry had said at his confirmation hearing that he believed that the climate is changing, but on Monday he said that he did not believe that carbon dioxide is the primary cause for warming temperatures.
Graham Piro writes up the exchange.
Transportation: Washington is racing to keep up with the rapid development of self-driving cars.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate are crafting a package of autonomous vehicle bills due out this summer, the Trump administration is rewriting federal guidelines for driverless cars and K Street has increasingly ramped up lobbying on the issue.
The effort reflects just how close many believe the emerging technology is to becoming a practical reality for the masses — and policymakers want to make sure they are firmly in the driver’s seat.
Education: Following President Trump’s directive, the Education Department said Thursday that its newly formed Regulatory Reform Task Force has completed an initial canvas of its rules, identifying 150 regulations for department offices to review.
The agency said the Office of Postsecondary Education had already identified the Gainful Employment and Borrower Defense to Repayment as two rules to repeal, replace or modify. Those rules, finalized under former President Barack Obama, aim to rein in for-profit colleges.
The department is following an executive order Trump issued in February directing each agency to create a task force to evaluate existing regulations and make recommendations to the agency head regarding their repeal, replacement or modification, consistent with applicable law.
ON TAP FOR FRIDAY:
The House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee will mark up the fiscal 2018 legislative branch bill at 10 a.m. in HT-2.
A House Judiciary subcommittee will hold a hearing titled “Examining Ethical Responsibilities Regarding Attorney Advertising” at 9:30 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn.
ALSO IN THE NEWS:
The Finance 202: Stars are aligning for softening regulations on big banks (The Washington Post)
Supreme Court Overturns Lower Court On Grounds For Stripping U.S. Citizenship (NPR)
What’s Happening With The Travel Ban At The Supreme Court? (Buzzfeed)
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