Minnesota Repercussions
The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, by Border Patrol in Minneapolis on Saturday has freshly roiled a national debate over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and boosted the odds of a partial government shutdown later this week.
A Minnesota federal judge set a hearing for today in St. Paul on his Jan. 24 order enjoining US officials from destroying or altering shooting-related evidence. More than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies urged an immediate “de-escalation of tensions” Sunday.
Several Republican lawmakers called for an investigation, and leading Senate Democrats said they would oppose Department of Homeland Security funding as part of a spending package the Senate plans to consider this week. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol employees would likely be paid during a shutdown, through additional funding in last year’s tax and spending bill. A Senate GOP aide said Republicans would not split off DHS funding.
In this morning’s Congress Tracker, Jonathan Tamari reports the shooting is the latest instance of how Trump’s instinct for confrontation is poisoning any partisan cooperation in Congress.
Separately, the Justice Department is drawing criticism for charging some Minnesota protesters under a provision of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act designed to penalize those who intimidate or interfere with religious worship. This is the first time DOJ has ever pursued a criminal case under the provision. Read More
Impacted Consultants
BGOV contracting analyst Maika Ito keeps digging into the year-end procurement numbers, and her latest research shows a lot of big consulting firms taking a hit with the feds under new management.
The fiscal 2025 data shows an overall decline in government obligations for professional services such as marketing, project advice, and tasks that require special expertise, with the total dropping about 10%, to $106.1 billion. Cutbacks affected 2,378 companies whose contract terminations together added up to $1.1 billion.
The analysis shows that the biggest cuts were made by civilian agencies. Read More
Medicare Secrets
Medicare is 26 days into a six-year experiment using artificial intelligence algorithms to determine whether some procedures are medically necessary. It has some lawmakers and advocacy groups worried because some details about the trial run are secret, Ganny Belloni reports.
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services hasn’t told Congress the contract terms negotiated with the AI companies or their financial incentives. The agency, he said, should publicly disclose the algorithms used to make coverage decisions, along with the financial agreements and other information.
“Fully disclose everything,” Landsman said. “These states did not volunteer, the providers did not volunteer, the patients did not volunteer.”
The pilot project in Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington focuses on procedures CMS considers a high risk for fraud, waste, or abuse. Jeremy Friese, the founder and CEO of one of contractors, Humata Health, said in an interview that each of the companies selected will run its own proprietary algorithm. Any denials will be finalized by licensed clinicians and subject to appeal, he said. Read More
Long Freeze After Storm Pressures Grid
Power grids are expected to grapple with unprecedented seasonal demand and the threat of blackouts after a damaging winter storm hit parts of the South and Mid-Atlantic.
More than 800,000 homes and businesses nationwide are currently without electricity as snow and ice wreak havoc on local distribution lines. Grids so far have avoided larger system-level cuts, but frigid wind chills will likely persist all week, testing seasonal power-demand records from New England to Texas.
The PJM Interconnection grid that stretches from Chicago to Washington DC warned late Sunday it’s bracing for seven straight days of extreme demand, representing “a winter streak that PJM has never experienced.” The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, known as Ercot, is projecting record demand of 86 gigawatts on Monday, which would surpass the previous high set in August 2023. Read More
With almost 10% of US natural gas production estimated to be offline due to the cold, much of the disruption is focused on gas.
Goodyear Bayport on Saturday shut its chemical plant in Pasadena, Texas, in preparation for the deep freeze, the company said Sunday in a posting on the Community Awareness Emergency Response website.
Exxon said Saturday it shut down some units of its oil refining complex in Baytown, Texas, because of the freezing weather. Celanese wound down operations at its Houston-area chemical plant as the weather worsened, according to a public notice. Read More
Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed an emergency order for Texas that authorizes the state’s grid operator to deploy backup generation at data centers and other major facilities, “due to a sudden increase in demand, a shortage of electric energy, a shortage of facilities for the generation of electric energy.” Read More
Peace Talks To Be Continued
Just being in this discussion is noteworthy: the first round of trilateral US-Russia-Ukraine talks ended with plans for more in a week, Kate Sullivan reports.
After the initial day of talks, Kyiv came under a massive Russian air attack. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha denounced the strikes as a “cynical” move by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “His missiles hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table,” Sybiha said on X.
Even so, about three hours of negotiation took place the next day, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a social media post that “the conversations were constructive.”
Remaps on the Line
Maryland lawmakers could vote as soon as this week on changes to that state’s congressional district map, and we’ll be watching for the details of the line-shifting being proposed in Virginia.
The Maryland re-do targets the delegation’s only Republican, Rep. Andy Harris. The likely Virginia targets include Reps. Rob Wittman, Jen Kiggans , and John McGuire, all Republicans.
Greg Giroux looks at what to expect there and in other states. Read More
Before You Go
Holmes Norton Opts to Retire After Decades Representing DC
Rep.
Trump’s Latest Canada Threat Previews Rocky USMCA Talks
President
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