News Coverage
Mass Live: Trump could slash biomed funding for Mass. One effort to protect it
Massachusetts may run on Dunkin — but its colleges, universities, hospitals, and labs rely on federal cash to help pay for critical biomedical research efforts. With Congress headed into its final furlong for the year, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she plans to reintroduce legislation that would create a $10 billion funding stream to underwrite select initiatives at the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The money would underwrite basic … Continue Reading
December 20, 2024
The Verge: Senators rip into automakers for selling customer data and blocking right to repair
A bipartisan group of senators is calling out the auto industry for its “hypocritical, profit-driven” opposition to national right-to-repair legislation, while also selling customer data to insurance companies and other third-party interests. In a letter sent to the CEOs of the top automakers, the trio of legislators — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) — urge them to better protect customer privacy, while also dropping their opposition to state and … Continue Reading
December 19, 2024
CNBC: Student loan servicer transfer led to ‘millions of consumer credit reporting errors’: Lawmakers
A “faulty” transfer of student loan accounts from Nelnet to Mohela in 2023 led to “millions of consumer credit reporting errors,” lawmakers say in a new letter to government agencies reviewed by CNBC. The change in loan servicers caused nearly 2 million duplicate student loan records to appear on borrowers’ credit reports, while hundreds of thousands of borrowers’ credit scores were reported incorrectly for up to a year and a half, according to the letter. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Ron … Continue Reading
December 19, 2024
Bloomberg Law: Warren Urges Fair Wellpath Bankruptcy for Harmed Inmates
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is urging top executives at troubled prison health-care provider Wellpath Holdings Inc. not to abuse the company's bankruptcy proceedings by shortchanging incarcerated patients "harmed by medical malpractice." H.I.G. Capital-backed Wellpath, one of the nation's largest providers of health-care services to prisons and jails, should commit to ensuring fair payments for claims of deficient medical care while it restructures in Chapter 11, Warren said in a letter … Continue Reading
December 19, 2024
Bloomberg: Fed, OCC Use Outdated Criteria to Assess Bank Mergers, Senator Warren Says
US regulators in charge of evaluating bank mergers are "asleep at the wheel," especially given the looming task of considering Capital One Financial Corp.'s proposed purchase of Discover Financial Services, according to Senator Elizabeth Warren The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency should fall in line with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has already finalized updates to its merger guidelines, and the Justice Department, which said it intends to … Continue Reading
December 18, 2024
The New Yorker: A Call to Action on the Haditha Massacre
Nearly two decades after U.S. Marines killed twenty-five civilians, including women and children, in Haditha, Iraq, Congress is demanding answers. In a request sent this morning to the Department of Defense’s inspector general, which cites recent coverage in The New Yorker, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen write that the department “repeatedly misled the public” about Haditha, and that inaccurate reporting by the Marine Corps and delayed investigation of the incident thwarted … Continue Reading
December 18, 2024
CBS News: Sen. Elizabeth Warren pushes bill to make it easier and cheaper to file for bankruptcy
Continuing a decades-long effort to change the nation's bankruptcy system, Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans to propose legislation on Wednesday aimed at making the process less costly and complicated for the hundreds of thousands of individuals who seek court-sanctioned relief from debt each year. "People typically file for bankruptcy for one of three reasons: a job loss, a medical problem or a family breakup — and when they do, they're faced with an expensive and complicated system," the … Continue Reading
December 18, 2024
Bloomberg: Warren Seeks Faster Crackdown on Insurers Overcharging Medicare by Billions
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren urged the Biden administration to advance a proposed rule before Donald Trump takes office to crack down on insurance companies that she says are overcharging Medicare by more than $80 billion. At issue is Medicare Advantage, the private version of the health program for seniors that's been a fast-growing market for insurance companies such as Humana Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and CVS Health Corp.'s Aetna unit. Warren said excessive payments to private … Continue Reading
December 17, 2024
New York Times: Armed Services Committee Democrats call allegations against Hegseth disqualifying
A group of Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday began a bid to block the confirmation of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense. In a letter to Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, the senators argued that allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Hegseth and his opposition to women serving in combat roles made him an unacceptable choice. “At a time when D.O.D. is struggling to build up military enlistments, Mr. Hegseth’s … Continue Reading
December 17, 2024
NPR: Senators launch probe into sale-leaseback company, citing NPR's reporting
EasyKnock says its sale-leaseback deals have helped hundreds of people improve their finances. An NPR investigation found some homeowners who enter into these deals lose tens of thousands of dollars and few buy their houses back. A group of U.S. Senators has launched a probe into a now-defunct real estate company that offered homeowners a chance to "unlock" their equity through a unique sale-lease arrangement, but which an NPR investigation found cost some residents thousands of dollars and … Continue Reading
December 17, 2024
Washington Post: Elizabeth Warren asks Trump to set conflict-of-interest rules for Musk
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) wrote a letter to President-elect Donald Trump on Monday to request clear and transparent conflict-of-interest rules that would bind Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, during his role as a top Trump adviser. The letter sent by email from the Democrat’s Senate office to Trump’s transition team notes that regular members of the Trump Vance 2025 Transition Team operate under an ethics policy that requires them to “avoid both actual and apparent … Continue Reading
December 12, 2024
Business Insider: Hundreds of student-loan borrowers who applied for debt cancellation are being denied relief by a major lender, over 20 Democratic lawmakers say
A group of Democratic lawmakers said that a major student-loan company is denying some student-loan borrowers relief that they might qualify for. Sen. Elizabeth Warren led over 20 of her Democratic colleagues, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ron Wyden, in sending a letter Wednesday to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission urging an investigation into the student-loan company Navient. In the letter, viewed exclusively by Business Insider, … Continue Reading
December 12, 2024
Reuters: Senator Warren wants US military to fix its own equipment
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is proposing legislation that would make defense contractors give the U.S. military a "right to repair" its equipment, and require the Department of Defense to include cost-saving measures in plans to buy new weapons. Proposed amid a cost-cutting push by President-elect Donald Trump, Warren's bill would make contractors give the military "fair and reasonable access" to parts, tools and repair instructions. Currently, the government is often required to pay … Continue Reading
December 11, 2024
Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers Plot to Force Health Insurers to Sell Off Pharmacies
A bipartisan group of lawmakers are set to introduce legislation to break up pharmacy-benefit managers, the drug middlemen that have now faced yearslong scrutiny from Congress and the Federal Trade Commission. A Senate bill, sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), would force the companies that own health insurers or pharmacy-benefit managers to divest their pharmacy businesses within three years. A companion bill, which sponsors say draws on a history … Continue Reading
December 11, 2024
The Guardian: Elizabeth Warren introduces Senate bill to hold capitalism ‘accountable’
The senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill in Congress on Wednesday aimed at shifting corporations away from “maximizing shareholder value” and towards giving more support to workers and other stakeholders. The Accountable Capitalism Act proposes a series of reforms to increase corporate responsibility, strengthen the voices of workers and others in corporate decisions and shift companies away from their focus on shareholders. In the 1980s, the largest corporations in the US … Continue Reading
December 10, 2024
NBC News: Democrats demand answers from Trump pick Mehmet Oz on 'Medicare privatization'
Key Democratic senators are demanding answers from Mehmet Oz on his "previous advocacy for Medicare privatization," referring to his call in 2020 for putting all seniors into private insurance plans under Medicare Advantage. They're seeking clarity from the physician and TV personality known as "Dr. Oz" in a letter Tuesday, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., after President-elect Donald Trump picked him to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). "In the wake of that … Continue Reading
December 10, 2024
The 19th: Democrats push to protect the data privacy of people seeking abortions
Democrats at the federal and state levels are pushing to pass bills protecting sensitive reproductive health data before Republicans take control of key legislative chambers. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts plans on Tuesday to reintroduce legislation that would put guardrails on the largely unregulated industry buying and selling consumer data, her office shared first with The 19th. The bill, the Health and Location Data Protection Act, would ban data brokers — an estimated … Continue Reading
December 09, 2024
Boston Globe: Cancellation of kids’ asthma med continues to cause turmoil for Mass. families
Massachusetts families are still struggling to find alternatives almost a year after GlaxoSmithKline canceled a widely prescribed children’s asthma medication, a problem given renewed urgency as flu and respiratory virus season sets in. Flovent HFA, GSK’s brand name for its discontinued inhaler, hasn’t been available since December 2023 when, in response to new federal price limits, the company introduced an essentially identical authorized generic version. The company stated the move was … Continue Reading
December 05, 2024
Washington Post: These senators want to break Big Tech’s hold on AI, cloud contracts
An unlikely Senate duo is pushing to loosen the grip that tech giants such as Google and Amazon have over defense contracting in cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) are introducing a bill on Thursday requiring the Defense Department to ensure there is a "competitive award process" - which they say is currently lacking - when it doles out contracts for advanced AI models, the cloud and data infrastructure. It … Continue Reading
December 04, 2024
Bloomberg Law: Elizabeth Warren Seeks Crackdown on 'Two-Step' Bankruptcy Move
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will reintroduce legislation to rein in a controversial bankruptcy maneuver and prevent nonbankrupt entities from using Chapter 11 to skirt liability. Warren plans to introduce on Wednesday the Nondebtor Release Prohibition Act of 2024. The bill would prohibit nonconsensual litigation shields in bankruptcy plans for people and entities that aren't bankrupt, codifying what the high court banned in its 5-4 decision in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma. The justices … Continue Reading
