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State Sen. Sylvia Santana (D-Detroit) introduced legislation last week that would end nearly a decade of state oversight of Detroit, MichiganAdavance.com reported. The bills introduced on May 17 call for repealing conditions of the “Grand Bargain,” a controversial plan that used funds from foundations, corporations, unions and the state to protect the Detroit Institute of Arts and help the city dig out of bankruptcy. In exchange, the city placed restrictions on the city and created a nine-member commission of mostly unelected gubernatorial appointees to provide oversight of the city. “At the time, Detroit’s ‘Grand Bargain’ kept the city’s lights on and kept people safe during times of tragic upheaval in one of America’s great cities — but that time is over, and the state must cede control back to local elected officials,” Santana said in a statement. It’s not yet clear how much support the bills have in the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Americans with homes that are repeatedly flooded by extreme weather events could soon have the federal government buy their houses under a new bill introduced Thursday by Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), The Hill reported. The bill would allow the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the federal flood insurer of last resort, to buy houses and zones deemed indefensible in lieu of continually paying to repair them. “You’re not obligating people to move, but you’re saying like, you know … if you want to avail yourself with the NFIP program, we’re going to structure it toward a buyout rather than rebuilding,” Casten said. Casten, who worked on the bill with Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), says it aims to solve two problems: one serious, the other potentially catastrophic. More immediately, there’s looming the risk of bankruptcy of the NFIP, which is straining under the weight of ever more frequent and severe flood events. Congress paid $16 billion to bail the program out in 2018, and Congress proposed another $20 billion in 2021. That problem is only growing. Flood damage could rise more than 25 percent by 2050, putting an additional $8 billion at risk. And 14.6 million homes are at “substantial” risk of flooding, according to data from nonprofit First Street. Large investors like Blackstone and Bank of America and reinsurers like Swiss Re carry out their own quiet retreat from endangered lowland and coastal properties, while selling off those properties to less savvy investors — and counting on the NFIP to serve as a free backstop, Casten added. That creates the potential for a domino cascade of bankruptcies analogous to the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 1980s, which saw community banks and pension funds wiped out across the country. “You’re not seeing the Blackstones come in and buy,” Casten said. Flood-prone properties are instead getting spun off to groups like “you know, the local Cleveland, Ohio, firefighters pension fund.”

The path forward for the critical housing investments Democrats sought to protect in the Build Back Better Act (BBB) is getting murky, as uncertainty hangs over the party’s chances of passing its partisan package amid resistance from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), The Hill reported. Democrats garnered a wave of headlines last year after unveiling proposals for $300 billion in historic affordable housing investments seen by advocates as potentially transformative in combating the housing crisis, including boosting funding for rental assistance and public housing construction. But as intraparty disagreements arose over the size of the plan, an essential component of President Biden’s agenda, the price tag for housing investments began to fall sharply, just as in other areas of the far-reaching package. Funding set aside for housing was cut by almost half in the House-passed version of the climate and social spending plan last year. And it remains to be seen whether the same scope of housing investments will be in any other effort the party makes this year at a package passed via budget reconciliation, a complicated procedure that will allow Democrats to bypass a GOP filibuster in the evenly split Senate. “I think that the realistic pathway for a budget resolution is something more narrow, and we have to start telling the truth about that,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. “I know nobody wants to be the bad guy and say, ‘It ain’t happening,’ but if we’re going to do a reconciliation vehicle, it’s going to be skinny,” he bluntly said. Pressed about potential talks on housing action through reconciliation, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), head of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, said he and others are “continuing to push” for those investments, but wouldn’t divulge further where they fit in the current state of play.

The top executive at McKinsey & Company, appearing on Wednesday for the first time before Congress to answer for the consulting firm’s role in fanning the opioid crisis, came under sharp criticism from Democratic lawmakers, the New York Times reported. Bob Sternfels, McKinsey’s managing partner, testifying remotely to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, apologized for McKinsey’s work in helping drive sales at opioid makers. He said that the firm “failed to recognize the broader context of what was going on in society around us.” But Mr. Sternfels did not cede ground on the main topic of the hearing: whether McKinsey’s simultaneously advising opioid makers and their regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, posed a conflict of interest. On that front, he insisted, McKinsey had been “transparent.” “McKinsey did not — did not — serve both the F.D.A. and Purdue on opioid-related matters,” Mr. Sternfels told the committee. “As both McKinsey and the F.D.A. have made clear, our work for the F.D.A. focused on administrative and operational topics including improvements to organizational structure, business processes and technology.” To some Democratic members, Mr. Sternfels’ words rang hollow. “Your apologies feel empty and insincere,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). McKinsey had worked with Purdue, Johnson & Johnson and other opioid makers to identify doctors who were heavy prescribers of painkillers, resulting in highly addictive drugs finding their way to some of the most vulnerable people in America. The work for Purdue began in 2004 and continued for 15 years as opioid-related deaths surged.

A bipartisan bill that would subject U.S. Supreme Court justices and federal judges to tougher disclosure requirements for their financial holdings and stock trades is expected to win final congressional approval on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The House of Representatives is set to vote on legislation already passed by the Senate that would make it easier for the public to see if a member of the federal judiciary has a financial conflict of interest that would warrant being recused from hearing a case. The Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, approved by the Senate in February, is expected to pass in the House. The Democratic-led chamber in December approved a version of the bill with slight differences on a 422-4 vote in a rare show of bipartisanship. After House passage, it would go to President Joe Biden for his signature. Lawmakers introduced the legislation in October soon after the Wall Street Journal reported that more than 130 federal judges had failed to recuse themselves from cases involving companies in which they or their family members owned stock. Congress also faces public pressure to impose controls on financial transactions by its own members, including possibly banning them from buying and selling stocks, though that effort is not very far along. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in February said that she expected a proposal to address that concern "pretty soon."