The WonkLine: October 1, 2009

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis is retiring, effective at the end of this year, in a move likely “driven by his and the bank’s growing problems over how it handled the Merrill Lynch acquisition a year ago.” BusinessWeek’s Dean Foust writes that Lewis’ retirement still won’t clear up BofA’s problems.

The Wall Street Journal reports that “a new wave of financial alchemy is emerging on Wall Street as banks and insurers seek to make soured securities look better.” Regulators, however, are “pushing back, saying the transactions don’t have enough substance and stand to benefit bankers and ratings firms.”

The Financial Times reports that the U.S. “intends to take a flexible approach to interpreting global guidelines on bankers’ bonuses, a move likely to frustrate European nations that want clearly defined standards to be applied globally.”

According to McClatchy Newspapers, U.S. Army soldiers stationed along a particularly lush and violent 18-mile swath of the Arghandab River have nicknamed the area “Vietnam without the napalm.” Violence in the region has already claimed 10 of their members since August.

American and Iranian officials sat down amid multilateral talks in Switzerland Thursday morning. The meeting is aimed at convincing Iran to engage in serious, high level negotiations regarding its nuclear enrichment programs. A senior American official said that these talks were part of an “extraordinarily difficult process” that may include “bilateral talks” between the U.S. and Iran.

The New York Times is reporting that following a senior level national security meeting yesterday, President Obama “is confronting a split among his closest advisers on Afghanistan, reflecting divisions in his own party over whether to send in thousands more U.S. troops.”

Politico reports the Senate Finance Committee “will continue cranking through its laundry list of comparatively minor amendments and could wrap up as early as today while backroom discussions on major sticking points are just getting started.”

The New York Times pans the abortion amendments: “Critics of pending health care reforms claim they want to ensure that the government does not thrust itself between patients and doctors to dictate what medical procedures can be performed. Yet many are trying to do just that when it comes to one legal and medically valid service: abortion.”

The Washington Post asks, “what makes a health plan a ‘Cadillac’?

According to new U.S. data and a study by human rights groups, the number of deaths at the US-Mexico border has increased and is the highest since 2006 — despite the fact that immigration to the US has plummeted since the economic recession began.

A lawsuit filed against the government filed by a now-deceased Salvadoran immigrant over inappropriate medical care while he was in the custody of US immigration officials has moved to the US Supreme Court.

The recession and strict regulations imposed by the US Congress have led to a situation in which there is a surplus of more than 18,000 high-skilled H-1B visas, which were once in extremely high demand by professionals from computers and information technology sectors.

The DeSmog Project’s Kevin Grandia is boggled that “green” car maker Toyota “continues to be a supporter of the National Association of Manufacturers – an organization that is leading the charge against President Obama’s clean energy agenda.”

Making coal companies fume, the EPA has announced that all 79 mountaintop removal permits do not satisfy the Clean Water Act and require further review.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) “cannot support” the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs Act, and Sen. Mary Landrieu is “not committed to cap-and-trade under any circumstance.”

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