White House group requests speedier drug approval, report details advantages of carbon tax, and more.
- White House advisory group urged speedier Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of new drugs.
- A former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator urged Mitt Romney to take more positive posture toward environmental regulation.
- The Congressional Research Service detailed the fiscal advantages of carbon tax.
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cracked down on personal computer rental firms that allegedly spied on users.
- A Fifth Circuit appeals court panel reversed itself and threw out a lower court’s ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers was liable for billions of dollars in Hurricane Katrina flood damage that property owners blamed on the Corps’ maintenance of a New Orleans shipping channel.
- A Ninth Circuit panel denied an Arizona sheriff’s request to reverse a lower-court decision barring his deputies from detaining people solely on the suspicion that they are undocumented immigrants.
- A federal judge dismissed a challenge to an Obama administration ban on registered lobbyists serving on certain advisory committees.
- A group of federal agencies reopened for further public comment a proposed rule to establish margin and capital requirements for “swaps-dealers” or “major swap participants”, including major U.S. banks.
- Trade groups for power companies and natural-gas suppliers pressed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to delay their industries’ need to comply with regulations issued under the 2010 Dodd-Frank law.
- The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) seeking information about license plate readers, real-time tracking devices that the ACLU fears are being used with little public oversight.
- A WSJ story indicated that state restrictions on painkiller prescriptions could limit access by those legitimately in need of drugs.
