The head of a powerful oil industry lobbying group met with top White House officials and senior lawmakers Wednesday about stripping a federal biofuel rule.

“We’re talking about the renewable fuel standard (RFS). It’s a hot topic,” American Petroleum Institute (API) chief executive Jack Gerard told reporters at the Capitol. “We’re just making some visits, making people understand the importance of repealing the RFS.”

API wants to repeal the biofuel rule, which requires refiners to blend 36 billion gallons of biofuel into conventional petroleum by 2022.

A list of Gerard’s meetings obtained by The Hill showed the lobbyist met with a power group of Washington, D.C., figures, underscoring the intensifying lobbying and political battle surrounding the biofuel mandate.

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors is proposing hitting large banks with a $440 million charge to finance their own regulatory supervision, under a section of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

The Fed wants to implement a section of the 2010 law that calls for it to charge the large financial institutions that it regulates the amount that it spends having to oversee them.

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The government is initiating its first legal action to stop unauthorized and unwanted cellphone charges.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday charged that Wise Media LLC, a Georgia-based company, signed up and billed consumers for text messages containing horoscopes, love tips and flirting advice that they had never requested, in a scam known as "cramming."

The company then forced customers to opt out of its subscription services, though it hid its contact information and in many cases charged customers even if they tried to unsubscribe, according to the complaint.

Because the company used confusing or abbreviated labels for its charges, many customers paid the $9.99 monthly fee regardless of their disapproval of the service, the FTC claims.

Actions by the Obama administration and oil-and-gas companies have improved offshore drilling safety since the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but congressional gridlock still poses a threat, according to ex-members of a federal panel that investigated the incident.

Congress’ failure to adopt budgets and offset automatic spending cuts known as sequestration has dinted funding for offshore drilling programs, a report card released Wednesday by Oil Spill Commission Action (OSCA) said.

“This could well be expensive to both the companies, which may well have to wait longer to obtain needed permits, and to the nation if reduced resources diminish the quality and care of the government’s oversight activities,” the seven-member group said.

House Republicans and state regulators on Wednesday aimed their fire at Obama administration rules on energy production, arguing they were hampering oil and gas development.

In a hearing on federal regulations, state officials and GOP lawmakers on the House Natural Resources Committee pushed back against calls from Democrats and green groups for tougher environmental regulations.

"We have tremendous potential for new onshore oil and natural gas production on federal lands, but the Obama administration is actively and purposefully keeping these resources off-limits," claimed Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the committee's chairman, in his opening statement.

The average time it took to obtain a drilling permit from the federal government is 307 days, he said, while states process requests for drilling in as little as 12 days.

"Regulatory hurdles, long delays and policies that keep federal lands under lock and key have become all too common," he continued.

The FBI offered a reward of $100,000 but never made arrests after two poison-laced letters were found in Washington.

Thursday's Federal Register will include a number of new meeting announcements:

The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board is meeting April 22 in Washington, D.C., to discuss investment, planning and activity reports.

The National Science Board's Task Force on Administrative Burdens is also meeting April 22, and will discuss proposed guidance on federal awards from the Office of Management and Budget.

A slew of new rules are set to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday. Here are the highlights:

Energy and Environment:
The Department of Energy is adopting more stringent energy conservation standards for electric power distribution transformers.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is withdrawing a February rule that excluded a compound from the definition of volatile organic compounds.

The EPA is also proposing to require that manufacturers, importers and processors of eight chemical substances notify the agency before the chemical is used for a new activity.

The Farm Credit Administration is adopting a regulation to strengthen the system's banks' liquidity.
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Raj Date, the first deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has started his own bank consulting firm.