Window on Washington – December 12, 2022, Vol. 6, Issue 47

Outlook for This Week in the Nation’s Capital

Congress. The House and Senate are both in session this week. Government funding expires at midnight Friday, making passage of a short-term extension of the current Continuing Resolution for another seven days inevitable later this week. Even if Congress reached a deal on funding, it would take several days to finalize details. In addition to a likely CR extension, the House this week will vote on several bills, including Sami’s Law, the FLOODS Act, and human trafficking legislation. Before the end of the congress, lawmakers have a long wish list: aid to Ukraine, a bill to help pregnant workers, energy permitting reforms, year-end tax extenders including the child tax credit, voting rights, election security, cannabis banking legislation, and immigration reform, as well as averting the coming 4 percent Medicare cuts due to Congress’ pay-as-you-go rule.

118^th Congress.

• Senate Democrats. Senate Democrats held leadership elections last week – the final caucus to do so. While Leader Schumer’s 17-member leadership team is extensive, the only change was the addition of Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI). Last Friday, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) announced she had changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent ahead of what will be a challenging reelection campaign in 2024, should she run for reelection. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Sinema will maintain her committee positions.
• House Republicans. In the House, GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) continues to struggle to solidify support ahead of the Jan. 3 election for Speaker of the House. He has instructed the Steering Committee – responsible for assigning committees and leadership slots – to wait until after the Speaker election to select committee and subcommittee leadership choices, using coveted positions as bargaining chips for support. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, officially announced he would run against McCarthy for the floor vote.
• House Democrats. House Democrats will vote this week on a potential rule to force terms limits on leaders of Committees introduced by Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL), who announced a late-breaking bid to lead the House Science Committee.
• Earmarks. The House GOP conference has not yet announced what changes to the earmark process may come in FY24, though Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said leaders are considering changes to ensure there is a “federal nexus” for projects. These changes could affect a number of previously eligible projects such as museums or entities operated at the state or local level.

FY23 Appropriations. Appropriators have not yet reached an agreement on topline funding levels. Democrats and Republicans are about $25 billion apart on non-defense issues, keeping an agreement elusive. Democrats had planned to introduce a “two-corner” omnibus appropriations bill as early as today to force the GOP to decide how it would proceed with negotiations. Last evening, outgoing Senate Appropriations Chair, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced that he would delay doing so due to some progress with Republicans on a top-line split. House Appropriations Chair Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) also announced she would delay introduction of a year-long Continuing Resolution because of weekend discussions. She has held out the possibility that such a year-long vehicle may also include Congressional earmarks to soften the blow of forgoing an omnibus appropriations measure. Given that government funding expires at midnight Friday, Congress will have to pass a short-term extension of the current Continuing Resolution (CR) later this week, an outcome widely expected since Congress returned from Thanksgiving.

Defense Authorization. The House last week passed the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act, setting the defense budget at a record $858 billion. The agreement also includes numerous non-defense provisions, including major authorizations for the Intelligence Community, State Department, Coast Guard, Water Resources Development projects, ocean policy, and other activities. The compromised bill did not include Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) permitting reform proposal, nor did it include cannabis banking legislation or a waiver for Boeing’s 737 MAX 7 and 10 aircraft, which some members of Congress advocated to include. The Senate will next consider the legislation before sending it to President Biden.

Biden Administration.  The Africa Leader’s Summit is in Washington, DC tomorrow through Thursday. Biden will meet with dozens of African leaders, focusing on improving cooperation and limiting the reach of China and Russia in Africa. Biden will deliver remarks at a U.S.-Africa business forum, hold multiple meetings with leaders, and host a dinner at the White House. The White House advised there would be several “major deliverables and initiatives” announced during the summit.

Last Week in the Nation’s Capital

CONGRESS

Budget & Appropriations

House GOP’s Help-Wanted Sign – One Border Funding Chief: Border funding will be one of House Republicans’ biggest causes next year. There’s just one hiccup: They’re struggling to find someone to lead the charge. The House GOP is still searching for a senior lawmaker willing to head the politically combustible panel that oversees funding for the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies for the next Congress. (Politico)

Top Republicans Ask Watchdog to Look at Economic Assistance to Ukraine: The top Republicans with oversight of foreign affairs are calling on an independent congressional watchdog to provide detailed information on the Biden administration’s delivery of economic and humanitarian support to Ukraine. (The Hill) 

Health

Dems’ Final Covid Report Slams Government Failures; Congress May Repeat Them: Democrats on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on Friday released their final report, which argues that structural weaknesses, leadership failings and the spread of misinformation contributed to the deaths of more than 1 million Americans during the pandemic. (Politico)

Lawmakers Drum Up Support to Stop Cuts: Two new letters are being shopped around the House in the hopes of increasing pressure on congressional leadership to address looming Medicare cuts in a year-end package, your host reports. One of the letters, coming from a bipartisan group of representatives, urges all cuts be stopped, while another, from the GOP Doctors Caucus, emphasizes the need to address and possibly reduce the cuts, according to drafts obtained by POLITICO. The difference in approach comes as some members are increasingly concerned with how to pay for adjustments to reimbursements. Details remain vague while committee members wait for topline appropriations numbers from leadership. (Politico)

Banking & Housing  

SEC to Consider Rules That Could Reshape How the Stock Market Operates: The Securities and Exchange Commission signaled last Wednesday it plans to issue four proposals this week to make the stock market more efficient for small investors, a key element of Chair Gary Gensler‘s policy agenda for Wall Street. (MarketWatch)

Crypto/Blockchain

FTX Founder Agrees to Testify at House Hearing on Collapse: The founder and former CEO of bankrupt cryptocurrency platform FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, on Friday said he will testify before a House committee next week despite his initial reluctance. Bankman-Fried’s decision to appear means he will face questions from lawmakers about the FTX collapse under oath. While Congress cannot bring criminal charges against an individual, it can share potentially incriminating material with regulators and law enforcement investigating FTX. Bankman-Fried did not say whether he would also agree to appear before the Senate Banking Committee during its own hearing on FTX scheduled for Wednesday. (The Hill)

Senate Banking Democrats Plan Bigger Role in Crypto Legislation: After the demise of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Senate Banking Democrats anticipate a bigger role for their committee in legislation for the industry in the next Congress after taking a back seat to the Senate Agriculture Committee this year. (Roll Call)

US Lawmakers Want Environmental Agency to Study Crypto Mining’s Energy Impact: U.S. Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) introduced a bill that would, if passed, direct the Environmental Protection Agency to study the energy usage and environmental impact of crypto mining. Cautioning that crypto mining threatened U.S. energy goals and local power grids, the lawmakers said the Crypto-Asset Environmental Transparency Act would direct the EPA to produce a report examining the effect miners using more than 5 megawatts of power have on greenhouse gas emissions. (CoinDesk)

Tax Reform

Negotiators Dig in Over Tax Credits in Spending Bill: Tax credits for individuals and businesses are up for grabs as negotiations on a year-end spending deal come down to the wire. The possible credits range from an expansion of the child tax credit (CTC), which was beefed up during the pandemic and ate away at child poverty rates in the U.S., to incentives for companies to invest more in research. (The Hill)

Rep. Tenney Introduces Bill to Redirect IRS Funding to Southern Border as Title 42 Nears Its End: Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY-22) has introduced legislation to use increased spending on the IRS for strengthening the border instead. Tenney told Fox News Digital that her bill, the DIRECT Act, would redirect new IRS funding to the border to combat the incoming flow of drugs and illegal immigrants. Titled the “Diverting IRS Resources to the Exigent Crisis Through (DIRECT) Funds for Border Security Act,” the legislation comes as the GOP hammers Democrats over $80 billion in IRS funding through the Inflation Reduction Act. (Fox News) 

Transportation 

U.S. Lawmakers Decline to Add Boeing 737 MAX Exemption in Defense Bill: U.S. lawmakers declined to add an extension to an annual defense bill of a looming deadline that would impose a new safety standard for modern cockpit alerts for two new versions of Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX aircraft. (CNBC)

Trade

Democrats Unrepentant as Allies Fume Over Trade Rules: A congressional backroom deal to favor American factories is spiraling into a full-blown global trade conflict, with European and Asian allies furious at being cut out of lucrative U.S. tax credits for electric vehicles. (Politico) 

Space/NASA & NOAA

Finalized 2023 NDAA Retains Many Space Tech Provisions: The finalized version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act—which approves $858 billion in funding in fiscal year 2023—contains several initiatives to address space policy and technology that survived reconciliation between the House and Senate versions of the new defense spending act. (NextGov)

Defense

House Passes Annual Defense Policy Bill:  The House last Thursday passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with a bipartisan 350-80 vote, sending the mammoth, $847 billion measure to the Senate for consideration ahead of the year-end deadline.  In addition to significantly more spending than the Biden Administration proposed, in a win for Republicans the measure also includes language that repeals the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for U.S. service members, which has been in place since August 2021.  (The Hill)

Homeland Security & Immigration 

HHS ‘knowingly’ Transferred Migrant Children to Criminals, Sex Traffickers, GOP Senators Charge: Republican senators are accusing the Department of Health and Human Services of “knowingly” transferring unaccompanied migrant children to criminals, based on a new whistleblower claim. (Fox News)

Senators Pitch Deal to Protect ‘Dreamers,’ Boost Border Security: Roughly 2 million “Dreamers” would get a path to citizenship in exchange for stronger border security measures under a loose blueprint for an immigration deal circulating among Senate offices. The proposal by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) is still very much in flux, according to a Senate aide and immigrant advocates familiar with the talks. (Roll Call)

New Democrat Coalition Calls for Immediate Action to Protect Pathway to Citizenship for Dreamers: Members of the New Democrat Coalition (NDC) called for Congress to pass legislation protecting Dreamers before the end of the lame-duck session at the end of this month, describing the immigration reform as an “urgent action” for legislators. (The Hill)

Democrats Tell Biden to Ditch ‘Punitive’ Immigration Measures: A group of House Democrats are calling on the Biden administration to stop implementing “punitive and failed deterrence” immigration measures and instead recognize asylum as a human right. (The Hill)

Immigration Advocates Cautiously Optimistic About Senate Immigration Deal: Immigration advocates are warily eyeing an immigration deal that’s reportedly in the works in the Senate, hopeful that the bipartisan talks could break an enduring logjam. (The Hill)

House GOP Details Border Security Initiatives for Next Congress: At a news conference outside the Capitol, members of the Texas delegation previewed a 13-page legislative framework that aims to combat the historically high migration straining government resources at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Roll Call)  

Cyber

Key Cyber and Tech Provisions Included—and Excluded—from the Final NDAA:  This year, provisions that were ultimately left out of the massive annual Defense authorization bill—despite in some cases bipartisan agreement across both Congressional chambers—got the most attention.  Among other things, analysts accurately predicted that key cybersecurity provisions related to increasing the government’s visibility into their vendors’ software supply chains and identifying systemically important entities for federal assistance and regulatory responsibilities would be excluded from the reconciled NDAA after opposition from industry.  (Next Gov)

Agriculture 

Ag Research and the Next Farm Bill: U.S. senators raised concerns Tuesday that countries such as China and Brazil are investing more heavily in agricultural research than the U.S. is, which could cause the U.S. to slip in innovative ways to boost farmer productivity. (Progressive Farmer) 

Environment & Interior  

Bill Would Create Great Lakes Authority to Promote Regional Growth: A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate would establish a new regional authority to promote economic growth in Great Lakes states. Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced the Great Lakes Authority Act of 2022 on Dec. 2. The bill would create a federal-state body tasked with promoting investments in manufacturing communities and economically distressed areas of the region. (MLive) 

Energy

House Democrats Want to Use DPA for Electric Transformers, Seek $2.1B in Funding: A group of House Democrats is pushing Congress to use the powerful Defense Production Act (DPA) to rapidly produce electric transformers, a call that comes in the wake of an armed attack at two substations in North Carolina that left tens of thousands without power. (The Hill)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH 

Health/HHS/NIH

Ex-FDA Vaccine Inspectors Call for Better Training: Training in the Food and Drug Administration’s office that oversees licensed vaccines has decreased dramatically in recent years, raising concerns that the team is not equipped to identify quality control issues in manufacturing, according to three former inspectors. (Politico)

CDC Director Walensky Calls for More Authority from Congress: If Congress wants to see a more effective and modernized Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it needs to give it more authority, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said at the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit on Wednesday. (Axios)

FDA Greenlights Bivalent Vaccines for Children as Young as 6 Months Old: The FDA last Thursday authorized emergency use of updated bivalent Covid-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months old. The move to authorize bivalent shots made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna comes as Covid-19 infections in the United States tick up amid the most intense flu season in years. (Politico)

Labor & Workforce

Biden Releasing Nearly $36 Billion To Aid Pensions of Union Workers: President Joe Biden announced last Thursday he will pump $36 billion into a union pension plan to prevent drastic benefit cuts for pensioners, just a week after he signed a railroad labor deal opposed by several union organizations. The announcement marks the largest federal award for retiree pensions in history and is funded by Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, according to the White House. The $36 billion will go to the Central States Pension Fund, which is for mostly Teamster union members. (Fox News)

Department of Education 

GAO Releases Report Blasting Colleges for Misleading Financial Aid Letters: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) blasted colleges in a new report for misleading students in financial aid letters about the total cost of attendance. Ninety-one percent of colleges underestimated or did not include the net price of attending their institution in financial aid offers to students, according to the GAO report released last week. (The Hill)

360,000 Student Loan Borrowers Received $24 Billion in Forgiveness From Fix to Public Service Loan Forgiveness: Thanks to the policy fix known as the Limited PSLF waiver, close to 360,000 borrowers have now qualified for $24 billion in loan forgiveness, according to U.S. Department of Education data analyzed by higher-education expert Mark Kantrowitz. (CNBC)

9 Million Americans Wrongly Told They Were Approved for Student Debt Forgiveness: About 9 million Americans with student loans who had applied for the Biden administration’s student-debt forgiveness program mistakenly received emails last month that said their applications had been approved. (CBS News)

A Conservative Group That Blocked Student-loan Forgiveness Wants the Supreme Court to Take It Up as the Second Case on the Matter: On Wednesday, the Job Creators Network, a conservative group representing plaintiffs who sued Biden’s debt relief in October, wrote in a legal filing that the Supreme Court should take up the case. (Business Insider) 

Banking & Housing/HUD

Economists Say a U.S. Housing Recession has Already Arrived: This has been a year of watershed moments in real estate, and not the good kind. The Housing Market Index, a closely watched industry metric that gauges the outlook for home sales, declined to 33 in November on a hundred-point scale, its lowest level in a decade, save for the first dystopian month of the pandemic. Anything under 50 spells trouble. (The Hill)

Crypto/Blockchain

SEC Sends Letter Urging Updated Crypto Disclosures:  The Securities and Exchange Commission is sending a letter to U.S. public companies asking firms to evaluate their disclosure obligations, including a “specific tailored disclosure,” about how recent crypto bankruptcies and broader financial distress across the digital asset market may have hit their business. The agency asks for companies to disclose their relationship with other firms that have filed for bankruptcy, have experienced excessive redemptions (bank runs), have crypto assets unaccounted for, or experienced “material corporate compliance failures.” (Yahoo! Finance) 

Tax Reform/IRS

The IRS is Coming for Crypto — But It’s Complicated: The world of crypto is a new frontier for a host of government agencies — and the IRS is no exception. Though changes are happening slowly, the agency’s trying to make sure that Americans who dabble in digital assets pay their fair share of taxes — while other regulators grapple with the more existential questions of crypto’s place in our financial system. (Axios)

Trade

U.S., EU Agree to Intensify Talks on ‘Green Subsidies’ Dispute: The United States and European Union agreed to intensify talks to resolve EU concerns over major subsidies for American companies contained in a U.S. clean energy law. Although no deal was reached at a meeting of the bilateral Trade and Technology Council, the two sides pledged to continue work on preliminary progress and said they would push for a solution that benefits both U.S. and European firms, workers and consumers as well as the climate. (AP)

Report says Export Control Agency Needs Upgrade: Stronger limits on the export of U.S.-made technology are essential to containing threats from Russia and China, according to a new report. Export limits can play a powerful role in ensuring national security, but the agency responsible for managing those rules needs a bigger budget and staffing to carry out that mission, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies. (Axios)

Space/NASA & NOAA

A New Law Requires Agencies to Better Prepare for Natural Disasters: Federal agencies will soon have to think more carefully about their exposure to risks from natural disasters, with President Biden on Monday signing into law a measure that will force agencies to respond more deliberately to climate change. (GovExec)

Construction Begins on the World’s Largest Radio Telescope: Work is finally underway on the world’s largest radio astronomy observatory. Known as the Square Kilometre Array, the mega telescope consists of huge clusters of dishes and antennas spread across remote parts of South Africa and Western Australia. Construction of the observatory began last week after three decades of planning. (NBC News)

Amazon Tests Machine Learning Software to Analyze Satellite Images from Space:   Amazon and its partners, Italian space start-up D-Orbit and computing technology developer Unibap, partnered to demonstrate a solution to the problem of communicating all the large amounts earth science data collected in orbit — AI software running directly on the orbiting satellite that can make its own decisions about which photos to transmit to Earth.  During the experiment the machine learning software successfully identified objects such as atmospheric clouds and billows of wildfire smoke and managed to reduce the size of the images transmitted to Earth, improving the speed and efficiency of the delivery process.  (Space.com)

Asteroid Hunting Telescope Clears NASA Review, But Two-Year Delay Hikes Cost:  A NASA infrared space telescope specifically designed to locate Earth-threatening asteroids and comets cleared a critical review last week and is now an official NASA program. NASA announced today that the Near-Earth Object Surveyor is approved to move into Phase C of development, but with a two-year delay from 2026 to 2028 and associated cost increase. Instead of $500-600 million, it is now $1.2 billion not including launch.  (Space Policy Online)

Defense, Commerce Departments Select Companies to Prototype Space Traffic Management Solutions:  The Office of Space Commerce and the Department of Defense announced Dec. 6 they have selected six commercial firms to prototype space traffic data platforms that track objects and medium and geostationary Earth orbits.  COMSPOC Corp., ExoAnalytic Solutions, Kayhan Space, KBR, NorthStar Earth & Space Inc. and Slingshot Aerospace received contracts for a pilot project to demonstrate the use of commercial technologies for space traffic management.  (Space News)

Defense/DOD

Austin Urges Congress to Pass a Budget, Citing China Threat: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged lawmakers to pass a full-year defense budget arguing investments in new, more modern weapons are needed to counter China and Russia. (GovExec)

Google, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft Awarded Pentagon Cloud Deal of Up to $9 Billion Combined: The Pentagon on Wednesday awarded Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle a cloud-computing contract that can reach as high as $9 billion total through 2028. (CNBC)

The Air Force Wants to Send its Reaper Drones to Ukraine. The Pentagon’s Not So Sure: The Air Force thought it had the perfect plan: Take its older Reaper drones, which it’s been trying to get rid of for years, and send them to Ukraine, a country begging for long-range weaponry. But after months of internal wrangling, the Pentagon has yet to make a decision — even though the drones could provide a capability to Ukraine that it’s wanted since the start of the war. (Politico)

US Navy Creates Innovation Center, Advisory Board to Focus Investments:  The Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Carlos Del Toro, announced that the Navy is creating a new innovation center and an advisory board focused on science and technology as the service seeks to better invest its resources to stay ahead of potential adversaries in the long term, which will be located at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and will which focus on the truly transformational technology that the Navy needs, that may still be 10 to 15 years down the road.  (Defense News)

The Defense Department’s New Data King Is Skeptical of AI ‘Pixie Dust’:  Artificial intelligence may decide who wins and loses future wars but not everything that calls itself “artificial intelligence” promises real intelligence, says Craig Martell, the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer.  Martell believes many of the agencies, offices, and organizations within DoD that are asking for artificial intelligence really just need to understand their own data. If they can do that, he says, they’ll be able to create their own AI tools that better fit their needs.  (Defense One)

DHS & Immigration

DHS Delays REAL ID Compliance to 2025: The Department of Homeland Security has again postponed its planned rollout of the Real ID-compliant licenses required for air travelers 18 and over boarding flights in the United States — a nod to concerns that not enough Americans have compliant forms of identification. (Politico)

The Biden Administration Wants More Than $3 Billion to Prep for a Possible Migrant Surge at the Border After Covid Ban Ends: DHS wants more than $3 billion from Congress to prep for a migrant surge expected when Covid restrictions end Dec. 21, money Republicans may not be willing to approve. (NBC News) 

Biden Administration to Appeal Ruling Striking Title 42, Pledges New Regulation From CDC: The Biden administration last Wednesday said it plans to appeal a court ruling striking down the Title 42 policy limiting asylum, forecasting that public health authorities plan to write a new regulation to replace it. (The Hill)

Secretary Mayorkas Extends and Redesignates Temporary Protected Status for Haiti for 18 Months: Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti for an additional 18 months, from February 4, 2023, through August 3, 2024, due to extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti. (DHS)

US Appeals Ruling That Would Lift Asylum Restrictions: The U.S. government said last Wednesday it is appealing a court ruling that would lift asylum restrictions that have become the cornerstone of border enforcement in recent years. (AP)

Judiciary/DOJ

DOJ Pursues Unusual Case of Car Shipping Price-Fixing and Extortion: Federal antitrust and gang prosecutors indicted a dozen people, including a ring leader with alleged ties to Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, on charges of price-fixing, extortion and money laundering involving the shipment of used cars to Mexico, according to an indictment unsealed last week. (Politico)

Biden Signs Bill to Curb Use of Sexual Harassment NDAs: President Biden signed the Speak Out Act into law last Wednesday, limiting the use of nondisclosure agreements to silence victims of workplace sexual harassment and assault. The bill’s passage came as a victory for #MeToo advocates and survivors of workplace sexual misconduct, and it is designed to create a more transparent environment. (Axios)

Cyber

CISA’s 2023 Priorities Include Election Security, Corporate Cyber Risk:  Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the agency’s 2023 priorities include working with state and local officials to prepare for the next presidential election and making inroads with corporate boards to improve how the C-suite manages cyber risk.  Easterly spoke about these needs last Tuesday during a meeting with the agency’s Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, an independent body that helps guide CISA strategy.  (Cyberscoop)

Agriculture/USDA 

‘Constant Turmoil’ at FDA’s Food Regulatory Agency, Report Says: The Food and Drug Administration’s Human Foods Program lacks leadership and mission clarity, leading to slow decision-making and weak regulation of foodborne illness, according to a highly-anticipated, independent report on the FDA’s Human Foods Program. (Politico) 

EPA & DOI

U.S. Will Consider New Priority Areas for Solar Energy on Public Lands: The Biden administration on Monday said it would begin a process to identify new areas for solar development in the Western United States to ramp up permitting of clean energy projects on public lands in order to combat climate change. (Reuters)

EPA Proposes to Close ‘Loophole’ for Reporting ‘Forever Chemical’ Releases: The EPA said it is proposing to close a prior “loophole” that allowed some companies to get out of reporting their releases of certain kinds of toxic chemicals. (The Hill)

Department of Energy

White House to Ask Oil and Gas Execs to Support Ukraine Energy Infrastructure: The Biden administration is convening a virtual meeting on Thursday with oil and gas executives to discuss how the United States can support Ukrainian energy infrastructure. The meeting comes as Russia seeks to cut off Ukraine’s energy supplies and destroy infrastructure as winter approaches with missile attacks. (Reuters)

NREL Unveils Benchmark for Tracking Long-Term Cost Trends in Latest Solar and Storage Price Report: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has rolled out a new benchmark metric called the “minimum sustainable price” in its 2022 PV solar and energy storage price analysis to better track long-term trends. (UtilityDive)

Federal Memo Warned of Attacks on Power Plants: Days after what officials called a targeted attack on power substations in North Carolina, a recent federal law enforcement memo that previously warned of similar possible attacks was disclosed. (The Hill)

FERC Chairman Wants to Update Cybersecurity Requirements: Regulators are exploring how to update critical infrastructure protection—or CIP—standards in order to secure electric utilities and other energy-sector entities from attacks against their software supply chains. (NextGov)