Overnight Regulation

Overnight Regulation: DeVos ignites backlash with rewrite of campus sexual assault policy l EPA power plant rule decision likely this fall | Panel approves Trump financial regulator nominees

by Rachel Roubein 09/07/17 06:59 PM ET

Welcome to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill, the courts and beyond. It’s Thursday, and the Senate approved a debt deal that stunned Republicans — one President Trump negotiated with Democrats.

THE BIG STORY

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is planning to revamp an Obama-era guidance for colleges and universities on how to handle sexual assaults on campuses to better protect students who are accused.

What’s happening: The Department of Education will launch a public notice and comment period to gain public input on a better way to enforce Title IX sex discrimination laws and create an effective system that protects the rights of all students.

DeVos says the Obama administration helped elevate the issue of sexual assault in American public life and issued guidance in 2011 with good intentions, but good intentions alone are not enough.

“Justice demands humility, wisdom and prudence,” she said. “It requires a serious pursuit of truth.”

She said she held a summit to understand all perspectives including those of survivors, falsely accused students and educational institutions — both K-12 and higher education institutions.

The backlash came quickly.

“This is another cruel, heartless move from the Discrimination Administration,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, in a statement following the secretary’s remarks.

Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet, a leading national women’s advocacy group, said the idea that there needs to be more of a focus on the rights of the accused would be “laughable if it weren’t so terrifying and outright dangerous.”

Read Lydia Wheeler’s piece here.

REGULATORY ROUNDUP

Environment: Federal officials expect to finalize their review of the Obama administration’s climate rule for power plants this fall, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Thursday in a court filing.

President Trump in March ordered the EPA to review and consider repealing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which sets carbon reduction targets for states to apply to their energy sectors.

The EPA is widely expected to formally order the rule off the books at the end of its review.

Background: The Clean Power Plan was the cornerstone environmental regulation of the Obama administration. The rule, which the Supreme Court stayed in early 2016, would require the U.S. electricity sector to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by up to 32 percent, from 2005 levels, by 2030.

Devin Henry has more here.

{mosads}

More environment: Three environmental groups sued the Trump administration Thursday over its decision to delay a new regulation to increase fines for automakers who violate efficiency rules.

The Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity said in a federal court filing that the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) delay was illegal, and want the court to force the new regulation to go forward.

Background: The regulation, written under the Obama administration, would have increased automakers’ penalties for not complying with efficiency rules to $14 for each tenth of a mile per gallon for each vehicle an automaker sold in violation of the rules, starting in 2019.

Timothy Cama has the report.

Finance: Nominations slide through.

The Senate Banking Committee on Thursday approved the nominations of two of President Trump’s top financial regulator nominees, sending them to the full Senate for consideration.

The panel approved along party lines Randal Quarles to serve as Federal Reserve vice chairman for supervision and Joseph Otting to serve as comptroller of the currency.

Only Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), who is up for reelection in 2018 in a state Trump won by large margin in the presidential election, voted with all Republicans to approve Otting. Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) voted with Heitkamp and all Republicans to approve Quarles; Tester and Donnelly are both up for reelection next year in states Trump won.

Read Sylvan Lane’s report here.

More finance: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he has prepared an executive order for President Trump that would sanction nations trading with North Korea.

“If we don’t get these additional sanctions at the [United Nations], as I mentioned over the weekend, I have an executive order prepared, that’s ready to go to the president that will authorize [the government] to stop doing trade and put sanctions on anybody that does trade with North Korea,” Mnuchin told reporters on Wednesday.

Mnuchin described “the North Korean situation” as “not acceptable” in comments that come after Pyongyang said over the weekend that it successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb that can be placed on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Mallory Shelbourne’s piece is here.

Supreme Court: House and Senate Republicans are throwing their support behind the owner of a Colorado cake shop who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding in a case headed to the Supreme Court.

GOP lawmakers announced plans Thursday to send an amicus brief on behalf of Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop.

Background: Phillips is challenging whether the state can force him to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding under its public accommodations law, arguing that his constitutional rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion are violated if he is required to make a wedding cake for Charlie Craig and David Mullins’s marriage.

The lawmakers claim the government is trying to tell Phillips how to exercise his artistic expression and send a message that contradicts his deeply held beliefs.