13 Jun
2016
SEC, FCC, and More Meetings – TenCount 6.13.16
- The Federal Open Market Committee will spend two days reading the tea leaves of recent and coming economic reports in trying to decide how to align interest rates with an economy that, depending on whom you ask, is either rolling along or stumbling toward its demise. The Fed’s meeting begins Tuesday and concludes with an announcement and press conference Wednesday afternoon. The betting money is on the Fed once again leaving its benchmark lending rate unchanged.
- While the Fed mulls its decision, Democratic voters in the District of Columbia will be closing down the 2016 primary season with the final contest. Although 46 delegates are at stake, they aren’t likely to make a difference in determining the party’s nominee, and most political types expect Bernie Sanders to throw his support to Hillary Clinton between the final contest and the Democratic Convention, which begins in late July.
- S.E.C. Chairwoman Mary Jo White will be the sole witness then the Senate Banking Committee convenes a hearing Tuesday titled “Oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.” The agency has recently been engaged in a crackdown on non-standard accounting measures that make companies’ earnings look better than they really are.
- The business of America is … small business. And that is where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will focus its attention Monday through Wednesday during the 2016 Small Business Summit, wherein some 800 owners of small businesses will meet to network and lobby Congress for relief from federal regulations that can choke entrepreneurial activity.
- The Federal Communications Commission has proposed new privacy rules for broadband Internet service providers, usurping a regulatory area that previously was the domain of the Federal Trade Commission. Some House members have viewed that as an unwarranted power grab, and on Tuesday the House Energy and Commerce Committee will take a look at the proposed rules.
- Some 23,000 Americans die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections, and the recent news of yet another fortified superbug has federal health officials worried about newly emerging strains of antibiotic resistance. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations panel on Tuesday will look at the responses of the C.D.C., N.I.H. and F.D.A. to the trend.
- Although many of the most recent terrorist incidents in the United States have been committed by American citizens, Congress is still concerned about foreign nationals who overstay their official welcome period in the U.S. On Tuesday the House Committee on Homeland Security will hear from a raft of Homeland Security officials as it ponders the national security risks created by visa overstays.
- Last December, President Obama signed the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, which set guidelines for information sharing between the private sector and government entities and was arguably the most significant piece of cyber legislation to date. So how’s it working? That is what the House Homeland Security Committee wants to know. On Wednesday it will hear from companies and technology trade groups on their perspectives of the bill’s first six months.
- Congress has about a month left before members hit the campaign trail, so the calendar is thick with hearings. Among other hearings scheduled for this week: on Tuesday the House Foreign Affairs Committee looks at Putin’s Russia; on Wednesday, House Transportation looks at Air Traffic Controller staffing, House Veterans’ Affairs looks at the V.A.’s management of paper records, and a Senate Commerce panel mulls the Cost Guard’s increasing focus on drug and migrant interdiction.
- There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold … and she’s probably going to be in court in Los Angeles on Tuesday to hear Jimmy Page and Robert Plant defend themselves at trial against charges that they ripped off the opening notes to Led Zeppelin’s 1971 classic anthem “Stairway to Heaven” from a 1960s psychedelic band named Spirit. Ooh, it makes me wonder…