August 19, 2022

Tech Week: Fed’s Crypto Guidance for Banks, WhatsApp Crackdown in Financial Industry & More

Fed Issues Crypto Guidance for Banks The U.S. Federal Reserve has issued guidance for banks thinking about getting involved with cryptocurrencies. The Fed said before doing so banks should determine whether the crypto activities being considered are legal and whether any filings are mandated by existing laws. It said banks should also have risk management controls in place to ensure such activities are carried out...

August 19, 2022

Healthcare Roundup: Major Healthcare Implications of Inflation Reduction Act, FTC Says No to State COPA Laws & More

Biden Signs Medicare Drug Pricing Changes into Law Last Tuesday President Biden signed the $700 billion climate change and health care bill passed by congressional Democrats along party lines over the preceding week. In addition to providing $375 billion over the next decade to battle climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act ( HR 5376 ) also caps out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients at $2...

August 19, 2022

California Plastics Law Likely to Have National Impact

Saying “Our kids deserve a future free of plastic waste and all its dangerous impacts,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation on June 30 th that imposes the nation’s most far-reaching regulations on single-use plastics. So far-reaching, observers believe the law is likely to have significant influence well beyond the Golden State’s borders. States Shifting Recycling Costs from...

August 05, 2022

Tech Week In Review: CA Lawmakers Weighing Social Media Protections for Kids, Amazon’s Climate Pollution Problem & More

CA Bills Would Provide Social Media Protections for Kids A pair of bills under consideration in California is aimed at protecting children from social media. AB 2273 would require all online services “likely to be accessed by a child” to minimize the collection and use of personal data of users under the age of 18. The measure, which was passed by the Assembly in May, would also require such companies...

August 05, 2022

Governors Spotlight: Abortion Rights, School Threat Assessment, Mental Health Bills & More

Murphy Signs Suite of NJ Election Bills Saying they “will make democracy more accessible, more transparent and stronger in our state,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed a package of seven bills into law last month intended to strengthen the Garden State’s elections system. The measures Murphy signed include a bill that allows for the counting of mail-in ballots prior to Election Day and another...

August 05, 2022

Healthcare Roundup: WA, U.S. Hospitals’ Financial Struggles, TN’s Opioid Lawsuit against Walgreens & More

Hospitals Struggling Financially This Year in WA, Nationwide Washington’s acute care hospitals, which provide inpatient and outpatient care in addition to nursing services, posted a 13 percent, or $929 million, aggregate net loss in the first three months of 2022, according to a study from the Washington State Hospital association. Hospital expenses were up about 11 percent over last year, while revenues rose...

August 04, 2022

Businesses Face Uncertainty in Wake of SCOTUS Abortion Ruling

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion has created a nightmare scenario for many businesses that want to remain in compliance with the law while still providing the kind of medical care their employees demand. In the wake of the court’s ruling, a litany of name-brand businesses – from Citigroup to Warner Bros. to Disney to Meta to Bank of America to Intuit...

July 22, 2022

Tech Week In Review: Tough Week for Crypto, Uber Sexual Assault Suit & More

Heat Wave Shuts Down TX Bitcoin Miners Nearly all industrial Bitcoin miners in Texas shut down their millions of computers this month in response to a conservation request from the Electric Council of Texas, the state’s power operator, as it braced for a heat wave. The 1,000-megawatt load reduction returned 1 percent of the state’s grid capacity to the grid. Texas has become one of the world’s largest...

July 22, 2022

Healthcare Roundup: CA to Manufacture Own Insulin, Lukewarm Response to Rural Hospital Program & More

CA to Start Manufacturing Insulin In an effort to make insulin more affordable, California plans to start making its own. The state budget signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) last month allocates $50 million for the development of low-cost insulin products and another $50 million for the construction of an insulin manufacturing facility in the state. “Many Americans experience out-of-pocket costs anywhere from ...

July 22, 2022

Governors Spotlight: Gun Control, Abortion Funding, Tobacco Legal Age & More

CA Gov Signs Bill Allowing Victims to Sue Gun Makers, Sellers California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed AB 1594 , a bill that allows the state, local governments, gun violence survivors, and the families of victims of gun violence to sue gun makers and sellers of weapons found to be “abnormally dangerous,” presumably a reference to high-velocity weapons like AR-15 rifles commonly used by perpetrators of mass...

July 21, 2022

Will Crypto Winter Cool Wave of State Regulations?

It has so far been a brutal year for cryptocurrencies, with the value of assets like Bitcoin falling around 70 percent from last November. But to date, the so-called “ crypto winter ” has done nothing to slow the increasing rush by state lawmakers to ease the path for cryptocurrency use in their states. Just What is Crypto Anyway? One of the stark realities of digital assets is that most people have little...

July 01, 2022

Healthcare Roundup: Coming Abortion Medication Fight, Abortion Privacy & More

Fight Looming over Abortion Pills A flurry of state legislation aimed at restricting or banning medication abortion was introduced this year. Nineteen states already ban the prescription of abortion pills via telemedicine, and the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade could encourage more states to do the same. The Biden administration indicated it would resist such bans, pledging to preserve access to...

July 01, 2022

Governors Spotlight: Crypto Mining, Ban on Plastics, Tenant Safety & More

Upstate Dems Pressure NY Gov to Halt Crypto Mining New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is facing pressure from some members of her own party over a pending bill that would pause crypto mining in the Empire State. Eight Democratic officials from county committees in the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier regions sent Hochul a letter last week urging her to sign the bill, which would impose a two-year moratorium on the practice...

July 01, 2022

Major Supreme Court Rulings On State Laws This Session

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ended its latest term after ruling on several controversial state laws, ranging from restrictions on gun permits to religious school funding. None, however, had the breadth of its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization , a ruling that has shaken America to its core. Court Strikes Down Roe v. Wade , Allowing States to Ban Abortion In 2018 , Mississippi’s Republican...

June 30, 2022

Tech Week in Review: Federal Legislation Targeting Big Tech, EU Crypto Regulations & More

Time Running Out for Federal Antitrust, Privacy Bills Aimed at Big Tech After almost five years of promising to rein in Big Tech, congressional lawmakers may finally pass antitrust and privacy legislation that could change how companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta operate. Two antitrust bills - The American Innovation and Choice Online Act ( SB 2992 ), which would prohibit companies from giving their own products...

June 17, 2022

Labor Week: CA Labor Law, Gig Workers on the Ballot & More

High Court Limits CA Labor Law The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that federal law preempts a California law that allows private lawsuits on behalf of groups of workers, even if they had agreed to resolve their disputes through individual arbitration. In an 8-1 vote, the justices said the Federal Arbitration Act supersedes the California statute, the only one of its kind in the country. By doing so, the court...

June 17, 2022

Tech Week: Data Privacy Regulations, Digital License Plates & More

CA Privacy Regulators Begin Debating New Rules The California Privacy Protection Agency voted 4-0 on June 8 th to formally begin the rulemaking process for the impending California Privacy Regulation Act, which is set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. Enforcement begins July 1, 2023. A 45-day public comment period will begin once the notice is posted with the California Regulatory Notice Register. The draft rules...

June 17, 2022

Governors Spotlight: Abortion Providers Protection, Teacher Gun Bill, Migrant Relocation & More

NY Gov Okays Legal Protections for Abortion Providers New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed a suite of bills last week intended to insulate Empire State abortion providers and out-of-state patients from legal actions taken against them in other states. The measures come in the wake of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that indicates the SCOTUS is primed to overturn its 1973 ruling that gives women the right to...

June 17, 2022

Healthcare Roundup: Healthcare Workers Bonuses, Mental Health Funding, Gender Affirming Care & More

CA Lawmakers Budget Bonus for Health Care Worker The massive $300 million budget approved by California lawmakers last week has generally been acknowledged as a placeholder that technically meets the June 15 th constitutional deadline for getting a spending plan in place, thus allowing pols to keep getting paid while they work toward an agreement by the July 15 th hard deadline. But while that means a lot of haggling...

June 17, 2022

State Lawmakers Find Success with Genetic Privacy

With Americans spending so much of their time online - over 1,300 hours a year on social media alone - state lawmakers have increasingly focused on consumer data privacy in recent years. Much of their efforts have been channeled into comprehensive data privacy legislation. But they’ve actually had more success with measures specifically targeting the privacy of consumer genetic information collected by testing companies...

June 03, 2022

Tech Week: Supreme Court Ruling on TX Social Media Censorship Law, Musk Weighs in on RTO Policies & More

SCOTUS Blocks TX Social Media Censorship Law The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a Texas law ( HB 20 ) that would have prohibited online platforms like Facebook and Twitter from censoring content because of that content’s viewpoint. The law was passed in September, but a lower court issued a preliminary injunction keeping it from taking effect. A federal appeals court for the Fifth Circuit stayed that injunction...

June 03, 2022

Healthcare Roundup: Resident Physicians Unionizing, Higher Health Insurance Premiums Possibly Ahead & More

Resident Physicians Unionizing in CA, Other States Resident physicians pushed to the brink during the coronavirus pandemic along with nurses and other healthcare workers, have been unionizing in California and other states to demand better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Since March, resident physicians - those who have finished medical school and are in the process of completing the three to seven years...

June 03, 2022

Governors Spotlight: Gun Control, Legal Weed, An Opioid Alternative & More

Govs Push Different Directions on Guns If anyone thought another murderous rampage would bring America’s two major political parties together to work on a solution to the nation’s mass shooting epidemic, think again. In the wake of two more horrific mass shootings – one at a Buffalo grocery store, followed days later by the slaughter of children at an Uvalde, Texas school – Democrats and Republicans...

June 02, 2022

Culture Wars Continue with Transgender Issues

In show of just how powerful cultural issues can be, hot-button legislation dealing with the transgender community has emerged in dozens of statehouses in recent months, even though transgender people account for less than 1 percent of the nation’s adult population. During the 2022 legislative session, at least 33 states have introduced at least 138 bills dealing with the transgender population, with proposals...

May 13, 2022

Governors Spotlight: Abortion, $18 Billion Pandemic Relief Plan, Paid Family Leave & More

Govs Take Opposing Sides on Abortion In the wake of a leaked memo indicating the Supreme Court of the United States will soon strike down Roe. V. Wade , red and blue state governors have quickly acted to further solidify their states’ positions on the issue. Several blue states in recent years have adopted laws codifying the right to an abortion, while at least 13 red states have adopted so-called trigger laws...