Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security, immigration and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below. You can also follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
National Security
VOA reports “Iraq is counting votes Monday, a day after millions braved threats of insurgent violence to participate in Iraq’s second parliamentary election since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Iraqi officials estimate the turnout in Sunday’s vote at between 55 and 60 percent.”
The death toll from a 6.0-magnitude earthquake that shook eastern Turkey on Monday reached 57, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News reported.
The Wall Street Journal reports “a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban’s main umbrella faction, Tehreek-e-Taliban, claimed the group was responsible Monday for a suicide blast that killed up to 13 people in Lahore.”
Economy
According to the Financial Times, the Senate’s regulatory reform plan will allow the Federal Reserve to retain oversight of banks with more than $100 billion in, which “represents a partial victory for the central bank after months of attacks in Congress.”
A new Obama administration plan meant to aid underwater homeowners will allow them to sell their homes “for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way.”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to announce today “that his agency is ramping up enforcement of civil rights laws in schools and colleges, a move that seeks to draw a contrast with the policies of his Republican predecessors.”
Health Care
This week, President Barack Obama “will begin making what White House officials are calling the ‘closing arguments,’ focusing on steep increases in insurance premiums and his insistence that a comprehensive overhaul is needed rather than the incremental approach Republicans are demanding.”
“In private pitches to Democrats, President Barack Obama says he will persuade Congress to pass his health care overhaul even if it kills him and even if he has to ask deeply distrustful lawmakers to trust him on a promise the White House doesn’t have the power to keep.”
“Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that health care reform would have been “dead on arrival” if the White House had sent a finished proposal to Congress last year.”
Immigration
The Miami Herald reports that with a waiting list for Florida mental health facilities, a state debate is emerging on whether undocumented immigrants should have the same rights to public health care as legal residents.
Latino leaders, immigration-advocacy organizations and citizen-action groups are arguing that Gov. Chris Christie’s (R-NJ) plan to eliminate health care access to thousands of New Jersey immigrants would force them to turn to emergency rooms and result in higher costs.
A new report by the Economic Policy Institute immigrants who have become citizens earn on average almost 15 percent more than their non-citizen counterparts.
Climate Change
Climate scientists from Texas A&M, Texas Tech, the University of Texas, and Rice teamed up in a Houston Chronicle op-ed to say “Texas’ challenge to the EPA’s endangerment finding on carbon dioxide contains very little science” and “humans have taken over from nature as the dominant influence on our climate.”
“In Oregon and southern Washington, the youth-led branch of the fight to close the Boardman Coal Plant has soared as “Lane Community College and Reed College in Portland passed student government resolutions calling for Boardman’s closure by 2014.”
In its current form, “the only clear, immediate beneficiaries” of Gov. Charlie Crist’s (R-FL) $1.75 billion plan to save the Everglades “would be United States Sugar, and its law firm, Gunster, which is expected to collect tens of millions of dollars in fees for its work on the sale.”
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