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After oil prices soared following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European governments already have imposed windfall taxes on their oil industries. But most U.S. lawmakers show little appetite to reverse that trend after oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp <CVX.N. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Ro Khanna, both Democrats, are among legislators who have already introduced bills to tax excess oil company profits. Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona and Joe Manchin from West Virginia would likely oppose a windfall profits tax, dimming its prospects, congressional sources and research groups said. Administration officials conceded privately that it may be difficult to enact a federal windfall profits tax, and said no deadline has been set for a next step.

WASHINGTON — Which party controls Congress next year could have big implications for Twitter — and its new “Chief Twit,” Elon Musk. A Jordan spokesman had no comment about Musk and Twitter, but Republicans expect the company will be more cooperative with any future GOP investigations with Musk at the helm. But upon taking control of Twitter, Musk said he would first form a “content moderation council,” and Yoel Roth, head of Safety and Integrity at Twitter, insisted that the company’s policies on hate speech have not changed. “If Elon Musk has said now that he’s going to start a content moderation board, that was one good sign, but I continue to be concerned about that,” Klobuchar said. Other Democrats are raising national security concerns about how Musk financed the $44 billion Twitter deal.

☆ House Democratic leadership finally released the text of their bill to ban members of Congress from trading stocks. Here's what's in it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Bryan Metzger | Dave Levinthal | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The text comes after months of back-and-forth between Pelosi and lawmakers, and a vote may come this week. Interest in lawmakers' stock trades rose after Insider's "Conflicted Congress" investigation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who himself does not trade stocks, said earlier this year that he'd consider barring members of Congress from trading stocks if the GOP wins the House in November. Here's what the bill includes:The bill would ban top officials across all three branches — as well as the spouses and dependent children of members of Congress — from owning or trading stocks, as well as cryptocurrencies. Members of Congress would also be required to file financial disclosures electronically, eliminating a long-standing problem with lawmakers submitting illegible information about their personal finances.

The Democratic-led Senate confirmed four new circuit court judges in the last two weeks, most recently U.S. District Judge Florence Pan to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. By contrast, Trump had installed 69 judges at this point in his tenure. The most recent two-term presidents, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, each secured 325 Senate-confirmed judges for district courts, circuit courts and the Supreme Court over eight years. McConnell's allies say a GOP-run Senate would force Biden to pick judges who are acceptable to conservatives in order to get floor votes. Republicans ended the tradition for circuit judges in the Trump era and some liberals want to end it for district judges so that GOP senators in red states cannot block Biden’s nominees for vacancies.

☆ Republican senators vote to block a bill requiring dark-money groups to disclose their donors: 'I don't want to see them doxxed'
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Bryan Metzger | Oma Seddiq | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Democrats teed up a procedural vote Thursday on a bill to disclose dark-money groups' donors. Super PACs, on the other hand, are subject to federal campaign finance disclosure laws, but their funding often comes from dark money groups. "Unfortunately, the Republican party has become as dependent on dark money as a deep-sea diver is on his air hose," said Whitehouse. Win McNamee/Getty ImagesA bipartisan problemSince the Citizens United ruling 12 years ago, dark money spending has exploded in elections. Nonprofits have poured around $2 billion into elections, most of which can be linked to dark money groups, OpenSecrets found.

☆ Millennials and Gen Z want to stop a climate catastrophe. But first they have to get elected.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +24 min

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, told young climate activists in 2019, "You didn't vote for me." AP Photo/Gemunu AmarasingheBut most policy debates aren't genuinely existential in the way climate change is. "Younger Democrats tend to have a much more friendly relationship and response to the party's activist class than older Democrats do." Fossil-fuel interests have played a central role in stymieing progress on climate change for decades. Nearly a decade later, Trump ran for and won the presidency — with Gingrich's early and staunch support — while calling climate change a "hoax."

☆ How to invest in the education tech trend as schools spend billions to close the Covid learning gap
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-17 | by ( Christina Cheddar Berk | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

In a race to catch up, school districts are putting an increased emphasis on assessments to ferret out students' weak spots. Chronic absenteeism is already a rampant problem that is continuing to worsen, particularly in school districts with low-income students. She also said products need to be engaging for students, while also providing evidence that the methods used are effective. "Districts need products that work," she said. "They don't need products that look sexy or that have, you know, exciting front ends, they need products that are actually going to work and support students to improve learning."

☆ I'm a 17-year-old high school student who can't vote. Here's why I built a system to track Congress' troubling stock trades.
▼ + stars: | 2022-07-10 | by ( George Mccain | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

As a 17-year-old student at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, I can't even vote. I would spend the summer of 2021 creating a website — SenateTrades, I dubbed it — that analyzed senators' public financial disclosures. During an April congressional hearing, there was some bipartisan consensus that changes need to be made to congressional stock trading. My high school social studies class certainly didn't cover congressional stock trading. George McCain is a rising senior at The Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

☆ Congressional stock report: Diet Coke-loving Debbie Dingell buys the competition, environmentalist Lois Frankel eyes oil, and Dan Crenshaw gets his move on
▼ + stars: | 2021-03-29 | by ( Dave Levinthal | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Members of Congress regularly make stock trades and are required to disclose them. Here's Insider's compilation of the most recent stock trades lawmakers disclosed. Her stock sales include the American Express Company, Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation, consumer credit reporting agency Equifax Inc., and oil company Hess Corporation. Dingell this month also sold up to $50,000 worth of stock in the parent company of department store Macy's. These disclosures, which include a range of information about members' income, assets, debt, and financial trades, were originally due May 17.

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