News
Samuel Dewey on Congressional Investigations in the 117th Congress: Senate Investigations Are Coming
With a new administration has come more than 20 requested inquiries targeting the private sector. In particular, Senate Investigations are targeting regulations surrounding tech and social media companies, inaccuracies in congressional hearings regarding student loan service providers, and questionable practices by pharmaceutical companies resulting in decreased corporate taxes and increased prices for consumers.
Samuel Dewey is a lawyer with extensive experience in Congressional Investigations. In this article, Mr. Dewey provides an overview of some Senate Investigations planned and underway in the 117th Congress.
Tech and Social Media
Both parties have long been calling for corporate responsibility for major social media platforms to take down fake news, disinformation, and to take more responsibility for regulating bad actors who want to exploit their applications and websites.
At the heart of the issue is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230), a law signed into effect in 1996 by former President Bill Clinton protecting internet companies from liability for user-created content published on their platforms.
While Democrats and Republicans disagree on why Section 230 should be amended, they may both agree on some measure of reform. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and even Wikipedia stand a lot to lose if this should come to pass.
Former President Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Section 230 in conflicts with major social medial companies and is currently suing Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for suspending his accounts after the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Congressional Hearings Revisited
The Senate is conducting follow-up hearings for “false and misleading testimony” provided by loan service providers to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on student debt issues.
The questions in the original hearing were to discuss the mismanagement of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency in its Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, but the case has since evolved with the discovery of allegedly inaccurate denials during the original testimony
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Drug Pricing
The pharmaceutical manufacturing company AbbieVie is under investigation for its tax practices and the effects on consumer pricing. One year after the 2017 tax law was passed, AbbieVie’s tax rate fell to 8.6%, far below the statutory corporate income tax rate of 21%.
Meanwhile, the company was also drastically raising drug prices to American consumers for life-saving treatments. In a letter to AbbieVie’s CEO from Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, he states that “It appears that AbbVie shifts profits offshore while reporting a domestic loss in the United States to avoid paying U.S. corporate income taxes and that the current U.S. international tax system seems to encourage that.”
Similarly, Gilead Sciences, Inc. is under investigation for high pricing for its drugs treating hepatitis C and HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis. The Committee on Finance is accusing the company of anti-competitive behaviors and the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to block drug pricing proposals through questionable lobbying efforts.
In addition, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that advertising by drug manufacturers may have contributed to increases in Medicare beneficiary use and spending. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Senator Chuck Grassley intend to introduce legislation that requires the pharmaceutical industry to disclose the product’s cost in advertising, with the intent of more cost transparency to make patients more aware of lower-cost generics and ultimately lower drug spending for consumers.
About Samuel Dewey
Samuel Dewey is a successful lawyer and former Senior Counsel to the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee and Chief Investigator and Counsel to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. Mr. Dewey specializes in: (1) white-collar investigations, compliance, and litigation; (2) regulatory compliance and litigation; and (3) complex public policy matters. Within these fields, Mr. Dewey is considered an expert in Congressional investigations and attendant matters. Mr. Dewey has a BA in Political Science, a JD from Harvard, and is admitted to practice law in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.
Odyssey has been the lead content writer and content marketer. He has vast experience in the field of writing. His SEO strategies help businesses to gain maximum traffic and success.
The powerhouse typhoon is the equivalent of a very strong Category 4 hurricane as it approaches the northernmost island of the Philippines before turning to the north, continuing its damaging path.
Violent Typhoon Mawar, which pounded Guam with destructive winds and flooding downpours earlier this week, is continuing to churn west across the Pacific Ocean and will impact more landmasses in the western Pacific and eastern Asia next week, according to AccuWeather forecasters.
Despite already achieving the status of strongest tropical cyclone on the planet so far this year, Mawar may strengthen further and then aim for portions of the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan beginning Sunday, with more flooding rainfall and strong winds expected.
Super Typhoon Mawar is seen on AccuWeather Enhanced RealVue™ satellite May 27, 2023.
As of Saturday afternoon, local time, Mawar was a powerful typhoon centered several hundred miles to the west-northwest of Guam, packing winds equivalent to that of a strong Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale (maximum sustained winds of 130-156 mph, or 209-251 km/h).
According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA), the governing body which monitors and tracks tropical cyclones in this portion of the western Pacific tropical basin, the ‘violent’ designation is given to typhoons with maximum sustained winds of at least 121 mph (194 km/h).
GET THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
• Have the app? Unlock AccuWeather Alerts™ with Premium+
“Mawar is forecast to maintain intensity, or even strengthen slightly, as it continues to track westward across the Philippine Sea into this weekend,” said AccuWeather Lead International Forecaster Jason Nicholls.
The Philippine Sea is a marginal sea located within the western Pacific Ocean, bounded by the Philippines to the west and the Mariana Trench to the east.
The AccuWeather EyePath® forecast calls for Mawar to peak at the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane (maximum sustained winds of at least 157 mph, or 252 km/h). After that, the storm will maintain or lose some wind intensity as it begins to impact land again.
“The typhoon is expected to bring heavy rain and strong winds to northern Luzon in the Philippines from later Sunday through Tuesday, local time,” said Nicholls.
Much like what happened in Guam earlier this week, the eye of the typhoon is expected to remain to the north of Luzon when it approaches early next week. However, there will still be impacts, and AccuWeather meteorologists warn that the storm is likely to be the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane around then.
“The amount of rain that falls and the strength of the wind in the Philippines will depend on how close the storm gets before making an expected turn to the north,” added Nicholls. Despite that uncertainty, even the outer rain bands of a tropical system like Mawar can bring flooding downpours and damaging wind gusts.
As Mawar approaches the Philippines, the country’s weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), took over from the JMA in monitoring the typhoon as of early Saturday morning, local time. At that point, the typhoon gained the designation of ‘Betty’ in the Philippines.
In this photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, downed tree branches litter a neighborhood in Yona, Guam, Thursday, May 25, 2023, after Typhoon Mawar passed over the island. The powerful typhoon smashed the U.S. territory of Guam and continued lashing the Pacific island with high winds and heavy rain Thursday, knocking down trees, walls and power lines and creating a powerful storm surge that threatened to wash out low-lying areas. (Chief Warrant Officer Adam Brown/U.S. Coast Guard via AP)
Ahead of the expected impacts this weekend, officials in the Philippines are preparing. Sea trips around the archipelago nation are being suspended, an official with the Philippine Ports Authority told CNN. Additionally, operators of smaller boats are being warned against fishing and sailing in the waters off the coast.
By next week, after Mawar impacts the Philippines, AccuWeather forecasters expect the typhoon to take aim at portions of Japan and Taiwan as it begins to slow in forward speed.
“Despite an expected loss in wind intensity as the typhoon churns to the north, Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and eastern Taiwan could also endure impacts during the middle and latter portion of the week,” said Nicholls. “Eventually, the southern Japan mainland could endure impacts by next weekend.”
Mawar has already caused substantial damage
Mawar has already carved a powerful and destructive path since it was first designated as a tropical system over the open waters of the Pacific back on May 19. Just two days later, it became the first typhoon of the 2023 season and the strongest storm the planet has seen so far this year less than a week later.
Although typhoons regularly impact Guam, Mawar has since achieved a strength, both in wind intensity and minimum central pressure, not seen in the tropical basin as a whole since deadly Typhoon Surigae in 2021 or in that specific part of the basin near Guam since Typhoon Damrey in 2000.
When it impacted Guam on Wednesday, the typhoon unleashed strong winds of over 140 mph (225 km/h) snapped trees, ripped roofs off of buildings and brought more than 2 feet of rain in just hours.
“We’re looking out our door and what used to be a jungle looks like toothpicks, like a scene from the movie ‘Twister,’ with trees just thrashed apart,” Landon Aydlett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Guam, told The Associated Press.
While damage and power outages were widespread, the AP reported that there were no fatalities and only minor injuries as Mawar moved through.
President Biden approved a disaster declaration for the island late Thursday, which will allow federal funding to flow to the United States territory to aid in the recovery effort in the coming days and months.
Want next-level safety, ad-free? Unlock advanced, hyperlocal severe weather alerts when you subscribe to Premium+ on the AccuWeather app. AccuWeather Alerts™ are prompted by our expert meteorologists who monitor and analyze dangerous weather risks 24/7 to keep you and your family safer.
The country’s defence ministry says Russian ‘intelligence-gathering’ aircraft spotted near its coasts along the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Japan.
Japan scrambled fighter jets after spotting Russian “intelligence-gathering” aircraft off its coasts along the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Japan on Thursday, the country’s defence ministry has said.
One Russian aircraft travelled from Japan’s north down along part of its west coast, while the other took a similar route along the opposite coast and returned the same way, the Joint Staff office run under the defence ministry said in a brief statement.
“In response, fighters of the Air Self-Defence Force’s Northern Air Force and other units were scrambled,” it added.
There was no further information on the incident, which comes days after Japan hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the summit of Group of Seven (G7) – a grouping of rich nations – in Hiroshima city.
Japan has joined Western allies in sanctioning Moscow over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and has warned of the threat posed by Russia.
Its latest security document, which once called for enhanced ties and cooperation with Russia, now warns that Moscow’s military posturing in Asia and cooperation with China are “a strong security concern”.
Last May, Chinese and Russian military jets carried out joint flights near Japan immediately after a meeting of the United States-led Quad grouping in Tokyo. India and Australia are other members of Quad.
And more recently, Moscow has carried out military exercises, including test-firing missiles, in the Sea of Japan.
Russia considers Japan to be a “hostile” country – a designation it shares with all European Union countries, the US and its allies, including the United Kingdom and Australia.
Tokyo had complex relations with Moscow before the invasion of Ukraine in February, and the two sides have yet to sign a post-World War II peace treaty.
Attempts to do so have been hampered by a long-running dispute over islands controlled by Russia, which calls them the Kurils.
France has banned domestic short-haul flights where train alternatives exist, in a bid to cut carbon emissions.
The law came into force two years after lawmakers had voted to end routes where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours.
The ban all but rules out air travel between Paris and cities including Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, while connecting flights are unaffected.
Critics have described the latest measures as “symbolic bans”.
Laurent Donceel, interim head of industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E), told the AFP news agency that “banning these trips will only have minimal effects” on CO2 output.
He added that governments should instead support “real and significant solutions” to the issue.
Airlines around the world have been severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with website Flightradar24 reporting that the number of flights last year was down almost 42% from 2019.
The French government had faced calls to introduce even stricter rules.
France’s Citizens’ Convention on Climate, which was created by President Emmanuel Macron in 2019 and included 150 members of the public, had proposed scrapping plane journeys where train journeys of under four hours existed.
But this was reduced to two-and-a-half hours after objections from some regions, as well as the airline Air France-KLM.
French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir had earlier called on lawmakers to retain the four-hour limit.
“On average, the plane emits 77 times more CO2 per passenger than the train on these routes, even though the train is cheaper and the time lost is limited to 40 minutes,” it said.
It also called for “safeguards that [French national railway] SNCF will not seize the opportunity to artificially inflate its prices or degrade the quality of rail service”.
I am an experienced financial analyst & writer who is well known for his ability to foretell market trends as well.
-
Sports2 years agoFoxz168 is the most modern football betting available
-
Work1 year agoEBL Portable Power Station Voyager
-
Apps1 year agoTiktok Video Downloader You Can Inspire To Use It
-
Technology1 year agoHow To Drain A Lawn | Fix Waterlogged Grass
-
Technology2 years ago5 Strange Car Design Terminology, Description
-
Technology2 years agoAdvantages of Using Personal GPS Tracking Systems
-
Health1 year agoEight Reasons Why You Should Drink Ghee with Milk at Night
-
Digital Marketing2 years agoWhat is the work of an influencer marketing agency?