Mnuchin makes 2nd debt limit move
WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday that he is making a second emergency move to keep the government from going above the debt limit while awaiting congressional action to raise the threshold.
In a letter to congressional leaders, Mnuchin said he will not be able to fully invest in a large civil service retirement and disability fund. Skipped investments will be restored once the debt limit has been raised, he said.
In September, Congress agreed to suspend the debt limit, allowing the government to borrow as much as it needed. But that suspension ended Friday.
The government said the debt subject to limit stood at $20.46 trillion on Friday. Mnuchin has said he will employ various "extraordinary measures" to buy time until Congress raises the limit.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in a recent report that Mnuchin has enough maneuvering room to stay under the limit until late March or early April.
-- The Associated Press
Gas driller, resident go back to court
MONTROSE, Pa. -- A gas driller's ongoing feud with a Pennsylvania homeowner over the contamination of his water supply has once again entered a courtroom.
Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. claims Dimock resident Ray Kemble and his former lawyers tried to extort the company through a frivolous lawsuit. The federal lawsuit, which was filed in April but withdrawn two months later, accused Cabot of polluting Kemble's water supply.
Cabot says the claims in Kemble's suit were the subject of a 2012 settlement between Cabot and dozens of Dimock residents, including Kemble. It's seeking monetary damages against Kemble and his former lawyers. The first hearing in the case was held Monday.
Kemble says Cabot is trying to use the legal system to shut down dissent.
Pennsylvania regulators previously held Cabot responsible for polluting residential water wells in Dimock.
-- The Associated Press
Mining to resume at N.M. waste facility
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Officials at the nation's only underground nuclear waste repository are flipping the switch on an interim ventilation system this week, allowing mining to resume for the first time since a 2014 radiation release contaminated part of the facility.
Still, they caution it will take a few years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars before the flow of air is enough to meet the pace of operations before the leak.
Bruce Covert, president of the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for the federal government, said testing was done and the U.S. Energy Department approved starting up the air handling system.
He called it a big step for the facility, which disposes of waste from decades of bomb-making and nuclear research. The waste is placed in rooms mined out of an ancient salt bed some 2,000 feet below the desert surface.
The repository restarted operations earlier this year with a couple of weekly shipments of waste from federal sites across the U.S. That has now that has been ramped up to about six a week.
The shipments from Idaho, West Texas and South Carolina include tools, clothing, gloves and other items that have come in contact with radioactive elements such as plutonium.
-- The Associated Press
S.C. utility offers old site to state firm
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The parent company of South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. is offering the site of a failed nuclear reactor project to the state-owned utility Santee Cooper.
The State newspaper reported Scana Corp. proposed giving the Fairfield County site to Santee Cooper so the project could be preserved and perhaps finished later.
The gas company and Santee Cooper abandoned the effort July 31 after spending more than $9 billion.
The newspaper said choosing not to preserve the site is part of Scana's strategy to show it has abandoned the effort and deserves a $2 billion tax write-off.
Santee Cooper worries that accepting ownership of the site would stick its customers with the full cost of maintaining the site. Santee Cooper doesn't like a provision to prevent it from suing Scana over the failed project.
-- The Associated Press
Bitcoin soars on 1st futures trading day
Bitcoin prices surged Monday as contract futures for the cryptocurrency began trading Sunday evening on the Cboe Global Markets, the first traditional platform serving the currency.
Bitcoin contract futures opened at $15,000, and 890 contracts were traded in the first two hours and 15 minutes Sunday evening, according to the Chicago-based Cboe. The Cboe said 4,127 bitcoin futures contracts were traded in the first full day.
Cboe reported two trading halts overnight of Cboe Bitcoin Futures (XBT) due to heavy demand. One halt lasted two minutes, the other for five, according to a Cboe spokesman. There were no trading halts Monday.
Bitcoin values have skyrocketed more than 15-fold in 2017, and the digital currency has been on a tear, last week topping $17,000 a coin before settling back around $15,000.
It has risen $5,000 in the past week.
-- The Washington Post
Global economy growth at 3%, U.N. says
UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations says the global economy is growing by about 3 percent -- its highest rate since 2011 -- and a significant acceleration from last year.
In its annual economic report and forecast released Monday, the U.N. says the upturn stems predominantly from faster growth in all major developed economies, with east and south Asia remaining "the world's most dynamic regions."
The report says that compared to 2016, when global growth was just 2.4 percent, "growth strengthened in almost two-thirds of countries worldwide in 2017."
U.N. economic chief Liu Zhenmin calls the rise "a welcome sign of a healthier economy."
The report says governments should now focus on longer-term issues, including climate change and the growing inequality between rich and poor.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 12/12/2017