Week in Review

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President Obama issues a statement addressing concerns about national security threats, the RISC publishes the fall Unified Agenda, and more…

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IN THE NEWS

  • In response to mounting calls for tightened enforcement measures over drones, a Federal Aviation Administration-chartered task force released its final report detailing its recommendations for a mandatory registration process, which would govern both recreational and commercial drone operators.
  • The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) started accepting comments on its draft guidance, which provides labeling recommendations for companies interested in indicating if their food is made with or without genetically engineered salmon—recommendations that the FDA created after approving salmon as the first genetically engineered animal found safe for eating.
  • The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System introduced changes to its large bank supervision processes, including new standards that outline what documents must be furnished after a supervision and policies to address employee disagreement on supervision decisions, in response to Senate hearings that reportedly revealed “that the agency has been captured by the Wall Street firms it supervises.”
  • In an effort to offer consumers clarity on the ingredients in certain food products, a group of U.S. House and Senate Democrats introduced the Food Labeling Modernization Act of 2015, which would impose a slew of requirements on the presentation and content of manufacturers’ front-of-package food labels.

WHAT WE’RE READING THIS WEEK

  • The Regulatory Review published an essay on the history of Black Friday, examining its increasing popularity as states roll back laws that had once banned this post-Thanksgiving day tradition. The essay explains that these laws–known as blue laws–were once widely used to prohibit activities on major holidays, but many of them have been repealed “in light of changed modern values and the loss of economic earnings caused by the laws.”
  • Stateline writer Sophie Quinton examined the various methods that states and cities use to regulate ride-hailing companies, such as Uber and Lyft. In the article, Quinton argued that the ride-hailing companies’ frequent changes to their services are one factor that makes it more difficult for cities and states to regulate the industry.