Call Centers Jobs Return to US

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Feds give seed money to startup health care insurance co-ops

WASHINGTON — Seven organizations will receive a total of $639 million in federal low-interest loans to launch new, consumer-governed health insurance plans in eight states, the federal government announced Tuesday.

The new plans, authorized by the 2010 health care law, are scheduled to open for business in 2014. They will be available on the new state health exchanges, or marketplaces, mandated by the law. They primarily will serve Americans under age 65 in the individual and small-group insurance markets.
More loan recipients will be announced in coming months, with the goal of launching at least one nonprofit co-op plan in every state, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the program.

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Why the Volcker Rule is crucial to the 99%

We, concerned citizens, believe that regulators must enforce the Dodd-Frank Act's provisions to end proprietary trading by banks

The United States aspires to democracy, but no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. Accordingly, Occupy the SEC is delighted to participate in the public comment process for the implementation of Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act by the SEC, Federal Reserve, OCC and FDIC ("the Agencies"). This country's governing principles of transparency and due process mandate that any rules implemented by our regulators comport with the democratically-elected legislature's intention to protect the people from the widespread banking abuses and excesses of the recent past.

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Immigration enforcement program to be shut down

The Obama administration is starting to shut down a program that deputized local police officers to act as immigration agents.

Now, in their proposed budget for the upcoming year, Department of Homeland Security officials say they will not sign new contracts for 287(g) officers working in the field and will terminate the "least productive" of those agreements — saving an estimated $17 million. All the contracts between ICE and local police agencies run for three years, so that portion of the program could be finished by November when the last contract for field officers expires.

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Congress to Sell Public Airwaves to Pay Benefits & Broadband Expansion

WASHINGTON — The need for revenue to partly cover the extension of the payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits has pushed Congress to embrace a generational shift in the country’s media landscape: the auction of public airwaves now used for television broadcasts to create more wireless Internet systems.

The auctions, which are projected to raise more than $25 billion, would also further the Obama administration’s broadband expansion plans and create a nationwide communications network for emergency workers that would allow police, fire and other responders from different departments and jurisdictions to talk to each other directly.

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America's Top 10 Polluters-The EPA releases a database of greenhouse gas sources. Is there a global warmer in your backyard?

It just got a whole lot easier for Americans to find out which power plants and industrial sites are releasing the most planet-baking emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday released its greenhouse gas database, and included some cool tools for tracking polluters.

The database includes the largest sources—the 6,700 power plants and heavy industries that are responsible for 80 percent of all emissions in the United States. It covers their emissions for 2010, the first year they were required to report to the EPA. The inventory, which we've written about before, is really just an exercise in taking stock and disclosing emissions. It doesn't include any requirements to reduce those emissions. But it could be a first step in that direction.

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U.S. weighing steep nuclear arms cuts

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.

No final decision has been made, but the administration is considering at least three options for lower total numbers of deployed strategic nuclear weapons cutting to around 1,000 to 1,100, 700 to 800, or 300 to 400, according to a former government official and a congressional staffer. Both spoke on condition of anonymity in order to reveal internal administration deliberations.The potential cuts would be from a current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.

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Students Cut Energy Use 17% Through National Green Cup Challenge

K-12 schools in America spend over $8 billion a year on energy. So they’re the perfect place to save money by implementing efficiency, conservation and green building techniques — all while educating students about energy issues.

A competition organized by the Green Schools Alliance aims to help facilitate that transition.
Across the U.S., students of all ages from kindergarten to high school are competing in the Green Cup Challenge, a four-week event that encourages schools to cut energy use. Three weeks into the event, one school has cut its electricity consumption by 17% through simple changes in behavior.

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Made in America: U.S. Companies Coming Back Home

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