Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 9:30 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.
Climate Change
A transformer fire “in the midst of Toronto’s hottest day of the year so far knocked out power to the city,” “parts of the Middle Atlantic region, which already has had several bouts of uncomfortably hot weather this year, are experiencing the warmest spring on record,” and a “heat wave across 16 provinces in China has killed at least two people.”
BP’s toxic tide of oil has reached Lake Pontchartrain and the Texas coastline.
In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, “BP publicly touted its expert oil clean-up response, but it quietly girded for a legal fight.”
Health Care
“Consumer advocates this week pushed for tough rules on how much information insurers must provide to justify premium increases, a step required by the new health overhaul law.”
“Although they’ve called repeatedly for repeal of the Democrats’ new health reform law, some senior Senate Republicans have not endorsed a bill that would actually do it,” The Hill reports.
Uwe Reinhardt asks, Can Medical Technology Solve the Health Care Problem?
Immigration
The Hill notes that it’s not clear that the 14 sitting Democratic senators who voted to filibuster the last comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2007 would vote any differently in 2010.
Sources say the law suit that the Justice Department may file against Arizona as early as today is based on the legal doctrine of “preemption,” or the Constitution’s supremacy clause.
According to emails, the Farmers Branch City Council was warned by its former city manager that litigation over its immigration ordinance would be costly and that similar issues were already being litigated “with somebody else’s money.”
Economy
The Wall Street Journal looks at the candidates to head the new consumer protection agency that will be created should financial reform pass, saying he or she “will play a critical role in determining how it works.”
Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) over the weekend “offered a hint that he may support the financial reform bill when it comes to a final vote later this month.” “I’m going to be making a decision soon, but I’m liking what I see,” he said.
California’s teacher layoffs are hitting hardest “the schools with the lowest test scores — and traditionally the highest numbers of poor and minority students.”
National Security
“Turkey’s foreign minister has insisted on an Israeli apology for a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship but did not repeat a threat to break off diplomatic ties.”
“At the end of a trip intended to reassure Russia’s neighbors that the Obama administration would not forget them in its push to improve relations with Moscow, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton resorted to the simplest of diplomatic formulations, telling Georgia, the United States ‘can walk and chew gum at the same time.’”
“Protests against a recent increase in fuel prices shut down markets, schools, airports and businesses across India on Monday, and thousands of people were arrested as violence flared in some cities.”
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