Overnight Regulation: NRA opposes new age limits on gun buys | Justices limit Dodd-Frank protections for whistleblowers | Health chief exploring more actions on drug prices | New SEC guidance on cyber breaches
Welcome to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill, the courts and beyond. It’s Wednesday on a lovely it’s-winter-but-feels-like-spring night in Washington.
THE BIG STORY
The gun debate took center stage in Washington on Wednesday.
Students who survived last week’s school shooting in Florida took their calls for action to the White House, as President Trump grapples with how to prevent future gun massacres.
One of the solutions the students from Parkland, Fla., pushed for during an emotional meeting with the president is raising the minimum age to purchase firearms — an idea that is picking up some bipartisan support in the Senate.
The young students have quickly emerged as powerful voices in the heated gun control debate, with lawmakers saying the students have kept an extra layer of pressure on them to tackle the thorny political issue head-on.
But the grassroots student movement, dubbed “Never Again” on social media, has already suffered its first setback in the Florida state legislature and faces attacks from right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Still, the widespread national attention and White House visit underscore the growing role that the student activists are playing in the national conversation surrounding gun violence. Still, it’s unclear whether the movement will actually make progress in the Republican-controlled Congress.
The Hill’s Melanie Zanona has more on the emotional “listening session” at the White House.
NRA pushes back:
The National Rifle Association (NRA) said Wednesday it opposes any new legislation that would put age restrictions on firearm purchases.
“We need serious proposals to prevent violent criminals and the dangerously mentally ill from acquiring firearms,” NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said in a statement.
“Passing a law that makes it illegal for a 20-year-old to purchase a shotgun for hunting or adult single mother from purchasing the most effective self-defense rifle on the market punishes law-abiding citizens for the evil acts of criminals,” she added.
Any law that requires an individual to be 21 or older to buy a firearm “effectively prohibits” adults aged 18-20 from buying a firearm, Baker said, “thus depriving them of their constitutional right to self-protection.”
Trump in recent days has floated a number of different measures to respond to the Florida school shooting.
Concealed carry in schools: Trump Wednesday floated the idea of arming teachers in an effort to prevent future school shootings during a listening session on school shootings at the White House on Wednesday.
“If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly, and the good thing about a suggestion like that — and we’re going to be looking at it very strongly, and I think a lot of people are going to be opposed to it. I think a lot of people are going to like it. But the good thing is you’re going to have a lot of [armed] people with that,” the president said.
He also criticized gun-free zones around schools.
“A gun-free zone to a maniac, because they’re all cowards, a gun-free zone is ‘let’s go in and attack,'” he said.
Restrictions on bump stocks: President Trump said Tuesday he has directed the Department of Justice to propose regulations that would ban bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic guns to be modified to shoot hundreds of rounds per minute.
“We can do more to protect our children. We must do more to protect our children,” Trump said during the announcement at the White House.
Tougher background checks: Late Tuesday, Trump also said lawmakers should turn their focus to strengthening background checks for gun purchases.
“Whether we are Republican or Democrat, we must now focus on strengthening Background Checks,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile…
A student who survived last week’s Florida high school shooting is issuing a stern warning to Congress if lawmakers don’t take action: When we’re old enough to vote, we’ll vote you out.
During a Wednesday rally in front of the Florida state Capitol, Florence Yared said Congress is “directly responsible for every community that has lost people to gun violence.”
“And you have the power to change this. And if you don’t, then we will change you,” the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student said to cheers.
Rebecca Savransky has the rundown.
However…
Renewed calls for stricter gun controls following a school shooting in Florida that left 17 dead are falling on deaf ears in state legislatures.
Legislators in states across the country have delayed, defeated or refused to take up new measures to prevent more gun violence — despite the impassioned calls of victims from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
In Florida’s legislature, House Republicans blocked a Democratic effort to revive debate on a measure to ban assault weapons with student survivors from Parkland watching in the gallery.
The bill, introduced after the 2016 killings of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, failed on a party-line vote.
Students from Parkland who have blanketed the media to call for gun reforms have expressed incredulity at the lack of action.
“It seemed almost heartless how they immediately pushed the button to say ‘no,'” Sheryl Acquaroli, a 16-year-old student from Stoneman Douglas, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Advocates for gun control also ran into opposition in other states.
REG ROUNDUP
Supreme Court: The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that anti-retaliation protections under the Dodd-Frank Act only kick in when a whistleblower has reported the stock and investment fraud to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In a unanimous decision, the court said the text of the law written by Congress following the financial crisis in 2011 defines a “whistleblower” as someone who provides information relating to a violation of the securities law to the commission.
The case centered on Paul Somers, a former employee for Digital Realty Trust Inc. who was fired after he reported alleged securities violations to his senior management, but not the SEC.
But in delivering the opinion of the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the core of Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower program is to aid the SEC’s enforcement work by “motivating people who know of securities law violations to tell the SEC.”
Health Care: Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar says his department is working on additional proposals aimed at high drug prices, including some that could be enacted without congressional action.
In an interview with WTHR in Indianapolis on Tuesday, Azar pointed to the proposals to Congress on drug pricing that the administration made in its budget this month, but also said the department is working on other proposals that might not need congressional approval.
“We look forward to working with Congress to get those proposals enacted and we’re continuing to work with more proposals that we’ll move forward with on our own authority if we’re able,” Azar said, according to WTHR.
More Health Care: Alaska state lawmakers are looking to impose Medicaid work requirements.
They’ve introduced bills in both chambers of the Alaska Legislature that would require the state to seek work requirements for those enrolled in Medicaid.
The legislation follows the Trump administration’s decision earlier this year to allow states to seek such requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries.
Alaska’s Department of Health and Social Services “continues to analyze the new federal guidance,” its spokesperson, Katie Marquette, wrote in an email. She noted that the majority of the Alaskans enrolled in Medicaid are children, retirees, disabled individuals or are in working households.
I’ve got you covered with the details here.
Energy: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke met with California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Tuesday to hear the governor’s objections to oil and natural gas drilling off the state’s coast.
Brown’s press secretary said the two met privately in his Sacramento office.
“This meeting was an opportunity to continue last month’s conversation … regarding the state’s strong opposition to the federal government’s decision to expand oil and gas drilling off of California’s coast,” spokesman Evan Westrup said in a statement.
“Secretary Zinke made it clear that California’s views will be taken into account.”
Brown has been a vocal opponent of Zinke’s plan, announced last month, to consider offshore drilling along the entirety of the Pacific coast, along with the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and all around Alaska.
Environment: A Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) employee was involved with signing off on a nearly $325,000 grant that funneled taxpayer money to a nonprofit that paid his wife thousands from the agreement, an Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation published Tuesday found.
Richard Ruggiero, a supervisor at FWS, admitted to being involved in the grant-creation process between his office and a nonprofit that financially benefitted his wife Heather Eves — actions that the internal government watchdog said violated federal ethics regulations and laws.
“We found that Ruggiero violated Federal laws and regulations by participating in an FWS cooperative agreement that financially benefited his wife, and neither Ruggiero nor his wife, Dr. Heather Eves, disclosed their relationship in writing to the FWS,” the report read. “Ruggiero also shared nonpublic FWS information about the agreement with Eves.”
Finance: The Treasury Department on Wednesday called for preserving, in a limited form, a federal fund meant to protect the U.S. economy from bank failures, a policy long targeted by conservatives.
In a report released Wednesday, the Treasury said that the Dodd-Frank Act’s orderly liquidation authority (OLA) has serious flaws and should only be used in extreme conditions.
The department called on Congress to expand the federal bankruptcy code to include a better process for failing banks to dissolve without sparking a credit freeze.
Technology: A New York man pleaded guilty Tuesday to threatening to kill Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) if he didn’t support net neutrality.
Federal prosecutors announced that 28-year-old Patrick Angelo, of Syracuse, N.Y., pleaded guilty to a charge of interstate communication of a threat after leaving Katko a threatening voicemail in October.
Angelo now faces the possibility of five years in prison.
Environment: Hundreds of mayors representing cities in 47 states and territories have signed a letter opposing the Trump administration’s move to roll back the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP).
In a letter addressed to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt, 236 U.S. mayors wrote that the Trump administration’s attempt to roll back the environmental restrictions would have “devastating health and economic impacts on their communities.”
“We strongly oppose the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which would put our citizens at risk and harm our efforts to address the urgent threat of climate change,” the letter to Pruitt reads.
Finance: Wall Street’s top regulator on Wednesday released updated guidance on how public companies should go about disclosing cybersecurity breaches and “risks” to the public.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new guidance says companies should inform investors about cybersecurity risks, even if they have not yet been targeted by hackers in a cyberattack.
It also stresses that companies publicly disclose breaches in a timely fashion, and instructs firms to take steps to prevent executives and others with previous knowledge of a breach from trading in its securities before the information is made public.
The new guidance comes after credit reporting firm Equifax attracted massive scrutiny in Washington and across the country for a breach that impacted more than 145 million American consumers. Equifax discovered the breach internally at the end of July but did not publicly disclose it until September.
Morgan Chalfant has more here.
Health care: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday announced a recall of dietary supplements that contain kratom, following the agency’s decision to classify the herb as an opioid.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb also urged manufacturers to stop selling products intended for human consumption if they contain kratom.
“The extensive scientific data we’ve evaluated about kratom provides conclusive evidence that compounds contained in kratom are opioids and are expected to have similar addictive effects as well as risks of abuse, overdose and, in some cases, death,” Gottlieb said in a statement. “At the same time, there’s no evidence to indicate that kratom is safe or effective for any medical use.”
Last week, the FDA released findings showing kratom acts like an opioid and can be dangerous and addictive.
Jessie Hellmann has the story here.
IN THE NEWS
Proposed rules would allow meatpackers to slaughter hogs faster — The Wall Street Journal
Trial tests FTC’s power to referee drugmakers’ fight against generics — The Wall Street Journal
Space Council acts to streamline regulations, encourage commercial missions — CBS News
Wall Street welcomes Trump’s shift on regulation — Financial Times
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