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The average FICO credit score in 2022 was 714, and the average VantageScore credit score was 701. 10 states with the highest average credit scoreAccording to data gathered by Experian, the 10 states with the highest average credit scores in 2022 are as follows:States Credit Scores (FICO) Minnesota 742 Vermont 736 Washington 735 Wisconsin 735 New Hampshire 734 South Dakota 734 North Dakota 733 Hawaii 732 Massachusetts 732 Oregon 732The 10 states with the lowest average credit scoreOverall, credit scores have risen over the past couple of decades. How credit scores are categorizedThe range of possible credit scores spans from 300 to 850, which FICO categorizes into five levels called risk categories. Minnesota, with a 742 average score, is the only exception, nudging its way into a "very good" average score. Average credit scores by state frequently asked questionsWhy are credit scores worse in the South?

☆ Manchin Clashes With Biden Administration Over Climate Law
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Luke Broadwater | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ever since Senator Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat, cast the crucial vote last year for the Inflation Reduction Act, delivering President Biden his biggest legislative victory to date, the bill has weighed him down politically. Mr. Manchin’s poll numbers in his solidly Republican and coal-rich state dropped last year after he played a critical role in writing the climate, health and tax legislation. He has since worked to rebrand the pro-environment law, telling voters it would not only combat climate change but also ensure fossil fuel production in the United States. He has professed frustration and dismay at what he calls the “radical climate agenda” that he says is driving the Biden administration’s rollout of the law. And he is still irritated that his colleagues failed to include one of his top priorities: an initiative to speed permitting of energy projects.

☆ Biden administration grants Mountain Valley Pipeline permit
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

May 16 (Reuters) - The Biden administration has approved a permit to allow the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline to run through the Jefferson National Forest straddling Virginia and West Virginia, Senator Joe Manchin said on Tuesday. Manchin, a conservative Democrat of West Virgina, has introduced a bill to speed fossil fuel and renewable energy projects that calls on the administration to approve Equitrans Midstream Corp's (ETRN.N) $6.6 billion Mountain Valley pipeline. The Biden administration has supported Manchin's bill as it would help renewable energy companies reap the benefit of billions of dollars of tax credits contained in last year's Inflation Reduction Act. The Mountain Valley Pipeline has been opposed by environmental activists, but won the backing of Biden administration officials, including Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. The Forest Service is part of USDA.

Biden highlighted his administration’s work to prevent gun violence in a weekend op-ed that called out Congress to do more on the issue. Plus, they want to invest early in Florida, hoping to prove the state isn’t truly off the map for Democrats. Thinking about it: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who has been weighing a run for president, told Politico he will decide before late June. Rick Perry didn’t rule out running for president again in an interview with CNN, and wouldn’t endorse Trump. Jim Justice’s office to obtain his official calendar, NBC News first reports.

☆ The US wants to cut carbon emissions from power plants. Here are the 15 states where coal is king.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Biden administration proposed steep pollution cuts by coal- and gas-fired power plants. Most US electricity comes from fossil fuels — the sector creates 25% of the nation's emissions. Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel, and plants have been closing over the past decade. Most of the country's more than 3,400 fossil-fuel power plants would have to nearly eliminate their planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions by 2040 under a proposal announced by the Environmental Protection Agency last week. Coal plants could also opt to shut down in the first half of the 2030s to avoid meeting most or even all pollution caps.

Persons: Biden, it's Organizations: Service, Environmental, Agency, EPA, Biden, US Energy Information Administration, West Virginia —, Missouri —, Wyoming, Kentucky —, Utah —, Indiana —, Dakota —, Nebraska —, Montana —, Wisconsin —, Colorado —, Mexico —, Arkansas —, Michigan —, Minnesota — Locations: Mexico

☆ Vivek Ramaswamy's firm courts GOP officials as he pushes businesses to stay out of politics
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +14 min

Scott Olson | Getty ImagesRepublican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy built his White House bid around urging companies to stay out of politics. The messages show Ramaswamy's firm actively engaged with GOP state leaders who have defended the fossil fuel industry and criticized environmentally conscious investment standards. Ramaswamy on Thursday defended the firm's engagement with GOP officials, saying bigger firms BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street have conducted similar practices with state officials across the country. Strive has become one of the more vocal opponents of ESG investing and has gained enough notoriety to challenge the likes of fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil . Ron DeSantis, have often attacked ESG investing standards and corporations that support social causes — an increasingly common refrain within the GOP.

"Right now, the permitting process for clean energy infrastructure, including transmission, is plagued by delays and bottlenecks. The White House is backing a bill by Manchin of West Virginia, who has grown more critical in recent months of the administration's attacks on the fossil fuel industry. The White House released a detailed fact sheet outlining reform measures its seeking, including helping clean energy projects like wind and solar get on the grid faster. Manchin's legislation sets a two-year limit on environmental reviews of major federal energy projects, including ones on fossil fuels and directs the president to designate at least 25 high-level energy projects and prioritize their permitting. The White House said it is using existing authorities to speed permitting of energy projects.

☆ Joe Manchin blasts Mitch McConnell's push to go 'all out' to defeat him next year: 'This is what's wrong with this place'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sen. Joe Manchin blasted Mitch McConnell over the GOP leader's plans to defeat him next year. "If you want to know what's wrong with the process, go talk to McConnell," he told CNN's Manu Raju. "This is what's wrong with this place, okay, and I have said this," Manchin said. "And if you want to know what's wrong with the process, go talk to McConnell," he continued. Still, despite the heavy Republican lean of the state, Manchin has managed to thrive where other Democrats have not been able to find success.

Senator Joe Manchin said on Wednesday he would oppose all nominees for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posts until President Joe Biden's administration halts what he described as its "radical climate agenda." Manchin, who represents the coal-producing state West Virginia, delivered his ultimatum a day ahead of the EPA's planned roll-out on Thursday of its new carbon emission standards for new and existing power plants. He said he worried the rules could cripple coal- and gas-fired power plants. "If the reports are true, the pending EPA proposal would impact nearly all fossil-fueled power plants in the United States, which generate about 60% of our electricity, without an adequate plan to replace the lost baseload generation," Manchin said in a statement. Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Doina ChiacuOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ It’s Been a Warm 2023 for the Eastern U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Talal Ansari | Suryatapa Bhattacharya | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

It was ice cream weather in Washington, D.C., in February. Photo: Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg NewsThe eastern U.S. had a record warm start to the year, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia all had their warmest January to April on record, data from NOAA’s U.S. climate report show. Other Eastern states—Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina and West Virginia—posted their second-warmest period. NOAA and its predecessors have been recording weather data since the 1800s.

☆ Party City is planning to close over 30 stores across the country — here's the full list
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Avery Hartmans | Ben Tobin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Party City says it's closing over 30 stores after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Cartersville: Cartersville Crossing, 451 East Main St.IowaWaterloo: Crossroads Commons Shopping Center, 1415 Flammang Dr.IllinoisBradley: Bradley Commons, 2060 N. State Rte. 20Felch Street Shopping Center, 3050 Beeline Rd., Ste. L12East Hills Shopping Center, 3702 Frederick Ave., Ste. K2Five Points Shopping Center, 4101 Hwy.

☆ Dianne Feinstein set to return to Senate after nearly 3-month absence
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Garrett Haake | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), who announced she will not be seeking re-election, leaves the Senate floor after a vote on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 14, 2023. WASHINGTON — California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is returning to the Senate after a nearly three-month absence due to health problems, according to a spokesperson for the senator. With Democrats holding just a single-seat advantage in the Senate, Feinstein's absence complicated her party's efforts to confirm some of President Joe Biden's nominees. Feinstein later disputed that her absence had in any way limited the number of nominees advanced by the committee. "I'm confident that when I return to the Senate, we will be able to move the remaining qualified nominees out of committee quickly and to the Senate floor for a vote."

☆ Republicans want to push Manchin out of a reelection bid because they think he's the last Democrat who can win in deep red West Virginia: 'You can't say that it's impossible for him to win'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Republicans are looking to nudge Joe Manchin out of a Senate reelection bid in 2024. Still, Republican leaders aren't dismissing Manchin, as he has withstood the GOP lean of the state. And the state Senate and state House of Delegates, which had robust Democratic majorities just over a decade ago, now have GOP supermajorities. But if Manchin does run, Republicans should expect a tenacious campaigner who has shown that he won't be outworked. "He has that Clinton-esque ability to make everybody feel like he's your friend and he's listening to you and he's concerned about you," Hickey told Politico.

☆ Republicans dismiss fears that their debt ceiling bill would make the housing crisis worse for 1 million families as 'scaremongering'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

House Republicans' debt ceiling bill would cut significant funding from federal housing services. HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said the agency would suffer "the most devastating impacts in HUD's history" if the funding cuts in the bill are made law. He went on, "It's being positioned as congressional Republicans are heartless because they want to pass these spending cuts. "The House bill reduces spending to the levels we had in 2022. The last I checked, 2022 was not a horrid apocalypse sweeping across our country," Cruz told Insider on Wednesday.

☆ Opinion: For women, it’s past time to give up the ghost of equality
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Opinion Marcie Bianco | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

CNN —The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which states that equal rights under the law cannot be denied on account of sex, has been in a perpetual state of limbo for 100 years. And worldwide, those dreaming of gender equality will have to wait another 300 years, according to the latest United Nations estimates. Arguably, billionaires will land on Mars before we achieve gender equality. With odds like those, it’s well worth asking: What does “achieve gender equality” even mean? It’s past time to give up the ghost of equality and pursue a goal that has hope of transforming women’s lives for the better: freedom.

☆ Home Insurance Premiums Rise as Americans Flock to Weather-Worn States
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Debra Kamin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

In South Dakota, 8,424 new residents moved into the sparsely populated state in 2022, while insurance costs have jumped 39 percent since 2015. In dry, sunny Arizona, where nearly 71,000 new residents flocked in 2022, costs grew 28 percent. Conversely, states that lost significant numbers of residents saw insurance rates rise much more gradually. New York lost the most population in 2022 — nearly 300,000 residents — but saw home insurance jump only 17 percent, several points below average. While mortgage lenders typically require homeowners to carry home insurance, most policies do not cover floods.

WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden picked a senior aide, Neera Tanden, to replace Susan Rice as his domestic policy adviser, the White House said in a statement. As Biden's staff secretary, Tanden already played a major role in the West Wing, controlling the schedules, briefing books and other paperwork that reach the president's desk. Stefanie Feldman, an aide to Rice who has long been a top policy mind in Biden's orbit, will replace Tanden as staff secretary. "Neera oversaw decision-making processes across my domestic, economic and national security teams," Biden said in a statement touting 25 years of public policy experience. Tanden's predecessor at the domestic policy council, Susan Rice, departed after a two-year term that included wrangling over tense issues from immigration to healthcare, guns and police reform.

☆ Here are the 5 key takeaways from this year's Milken Global conference
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Dakin Campbell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

The pullback by banks is raising the hopes of those in the private credit industry. Some panelists and others who spoke in the hallways of the event suggested that there was a large-scale handoff from private equity to private credit. Many private-equity firms are scrambling to raise private credit funds to take advantage. "I don't think this is the end of private equity, but the environment certainly favors private credit," he said. And that will show up in lower returns for private credit funds, she said.

☆ Kroger will pay $68 million in West Virginia opioid settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Kroger will pay $68 million to resolve a lawsuit in West Virginia alleging the company contributed to the oversupply of opioids in the state and failed to maintain effective controls. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on Thursday announced the settlement in a statement. Kroger was the last remaining defendant in a state lawsuit involving Walgreens, Walmart, CVS and Rite Aid. More than 564,000 people died from overdoses involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids, from 1999-2020, according to the latest CDC data. State and local governments have filed thousands of lawsuits against drug companies and wholesalers accused of fueling the crisis, resulting in a plethora of settlement deals.

☆ Westinghouse unveils small modular nuclear reactor
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Timothy Gardner | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - U.S. company Westinghouse unveiled plans on Thursday for a small modular reactor to generate virtually emissions-free electricity that could replace coal plants or power water desalinization and other industries. Small modular reactors (SMR) are meant to fit new applications such as replacing shut coal plants and being located in more remote communities. They noted that Russia took the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the site of repeated shelling. That year, former President Donald Trump's administration issued restrictions on exports of nuclear technology newer than the AP1000 due to nuclear proliferation concerns. Baranwal said if the U.S. government deems AP300 to be a subset of the earlier reactor technology "then we can start entertaining the possibilities" of exporting it to China.

☆ Repulsed by Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump? Tough. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Gail Collins | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

This conversation took place when the country was bearing down on the 2016 election, and Nader vowed not to vote for either Trump or Clinton. “They’re not alike,” he acknowledged, but added, “they’re both terrible.”Think that was the last time I ever consulted Ralph Nader. Well, a few days before the election the Green candidate — have I mentioned her name was Angela Green? As senator, Sinema became an, um, unreliable Democratic vote. Another senator who frequently drives Democratic leaders crazy is Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who hasn’t announced his own plans.

☆ Senator Manchin introduces new U.S. energy permitting bill
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Timothy Gardner | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) speaks at the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 1, 2023. Senator Joe Manchin introduced on Tuesday his latest measure to speed permitting of both fossil fuel and renewable energy projects, as he tries to win support from both major parties after similar bills failed several times last year. The legislation, Building American Energy Security Act, sets a two-year limit on environmental reviews of major federal energy projects and one year for smaller ones, reduces court delays over energy projects, and directs the U.S. president to designate at least 25 high level energy projects and prioritize their permitting. And Republicans who were angry with Manchin for supporting President Joe Biden's climate legislation did not support his bill last year. And Manchin could get support from some Republicans in the Senate, currently controlled by Democrats, whose states would benefit from energy projects.

☆ 2 Wisconsin Republicans want 14-year-olds to be allowed to serve alcohol in restaurants
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

New proposed legislation would make it legal for kids as young as 14 to serve alcohol in Wisconsin. The move comes amid a seeming broader push by Republicans nationwide to roll back child labor laws. In the memo this week, Stafsholt and Green cited "workforce issues" stemming from underage employees only being allowed to do "part of their job," if they aren't allowed to serve alcohol, according to the outlet. A wide-reaching Iowa bill would allow 16 and 17-year-olds to serve alcohol in restaurants as long as their parent signs off on it. Only two other states in the country — Maine and West Virginia — allow teenagers that age to to serve alcohol, according to The National Institutes of Health.

☆ Storm Clouds Gather for Joe Manchin in West Virginia
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Eric Bazail-Eimil | Photographs Nate Smallwood For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WHEELING, W.Va.—Democrat Joe Manchin has served the Mountain State for decades, as secretary of state, then governor, then senator. But the state’s hard-right turn and the emergence of formidable GOP challengers have thrown his political future into jeopardy, with some voters questioning whether he deserves another term. Mr. Manchin hasn’t said whether he plans to run for re-election. The state’s current GOP governor, Jim Justice, jumped into the race on Thursday, a crucial recruit for Senate Republican leaders. Another Republican, Rep. Alex Mooney , has also entered the field with the backing of some prominent conservatives, setting up what is expected to be a hard-fought primary.

☆ Health Plan Coverage of Abortion and Related Services
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Practical Law Employee Benefits | Executive Compensation | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +36 min

The Dobbs ruling, which returned the regulation of abortion to the individual states, has led to legislation that restricts abortion, including medication abortion, in many states. In response to the rapidly changing post-Dobbs legal landscape, this article addresses health plan coverage of abortion, medication abortion coverage and litigation, abortion-related travel benefits, and related Practical Law resources concerning these topics. The insurer in a fully insured health plan, health maintenance organization (HMO), or similar arrangement:Assumes the risk of providing health coverage for insured events by paying medical costs for eligible claims incurred under the plan. Self-Funded Health PlansBy contrast, employers with self-funded arrangements may have more discretion in providing coverage for abortion and related services. Changes to plan coverage of medication abortion will likely require plan administrators to:(For more on coverage of medication abortion, see Newly Launched, ReproductiveRights.gov Website Addresses Access to Medication Abortion (Mifepristone) Using Telehealth on Practical Law.)

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