From: Governing
State and local officials are telling the feds that a new council designed to overhaul the grant process is leaving out an important stakeholder: grant recipients.
First, some history: last month, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Jack Lew announced the creation of a new group — the Council on Financial Assistance Reform — tasked with identifying the best ways to deliver, oversee and report federal grants. The new council replaces two similar government boards.
Editor’s Note: As CRE warned in its comments to the Federal Reserve, price controls don’t work and have unpredictable results. On this point, CRE quoted a Federal Reserve economist who described Nixon-era wage and price controls as “the Viet Nam of economic policy.” Now retailers, who promised lower consumer prices if debit interchange were federally controlled, are warning that debit card price controls “will likely lead to price increases for consumers.”
From: Reuters
* Changes could dent profits on small purchases
* Could result in higher consumer prices
Canda Free Press
EPA did not follow the Data Quality Act or its own peer review procedures while issuing the Technical Support Document (TSD) for the endangerment finding – a finding that greenhouse gases harm public health and welfare.
In the wake of the recent EPA IG report, which revealed that EPA short-circuited record-keeping and scientific peer review procedures leading up to its endangerment finding, it appears that EPA has cut corners on the proposed Utility MACT rule.”
(Reuters) – Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is advocating for regulatory control over the money-market mutual fund industry and believes the government should stop financing mortgages.
Volcker said in a recent speech that money market funds have exacerbated stress in the financial markets because they pulled back on short-term lending to European banks.
If money-market funds are to continue providing significant funding to regulated banks, they should be subject to capital requirements, deposit insurance protection and stronger oversight of their investments, Volcker said.
From: Reuters
* Seeks comments by Dec. 16
* Comments will feed into reform report due in January
* Opinions sought on switch to federal regulation
Oct 17 (Reuters) – The Federal Insurance Office on Monday opened public commentary on a report on modernizing insurance regulation that is being closely watched by the industry for any move away from state oversight and toward federal control.
The FIO report, mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, is due by the end of January. At an industry conference in New York last month, current and former regulators said they would not be surprised if the report were delayed, though.