In the News

Congressmen Joe Neguse of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Bill Foster of Illinois have introduced legislation to identify national composting infrastructure challenges and improve recycling data measurement and reporting. Called the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act (RCAA), the bill is designed to fill information gaps in America's recycling and composting systems.

It's impossible to determine who was the happiest person at Saturday's Juneteenth celebration in Naperville.

But a good guess would be Ginger Grant-Del Valle, a Naperville resident by way of New Orleans and Chicago.

Toward the middle of the three-hour event, held at Rotary Hill Park and put on by the Naperville Neighbors United group, about 20 people decided to move closer to the stage and dance to the music by performers of the Mays Music Centre of Excellence.

In a local response to the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, about 60 people gathered Saturday afternoon at the WWII memorial on Washington Street in downtown Naperville. The group was there in protest of the recent wave of mass shootings in the U.S. and to urge elected officials to take action. The crowd chanted "enough is enough," "end the violence now," and "no more guns."

Illinois Legislation

The House Financial Services Committee advanced legislation this week seeking to strengthen cybersecurity efforts of the financial services industry.

The Strengthening Cybersecurity for the Financial Sector Act of 2022, introduced by U.S. Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL), would empower the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to oversee third party vendors employed by the entities under their purview.

Self-hosted crypto wallets remain solidly on the radar of US anti-money-laundering regulators.

On April 28, Himamauli Das, acting director of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, appeared before the House Financial Services Committee to testify on the state of FinCEN."

As has been the case in most finance hearings of the past two months, concerns about the sanctions regime against Russia were central to the conversation. Crypto has never been far from these discussions.

To celebrate Earth Day, the Morton Arboretum kicked off its initiative to plant 3,000 trees throughout the Chicago region. Friday's launch, which included remarks by by Rep. Sean Casten and Rep. Bill Foster, marked the start of the arboretum's Centennial Tree Planting Initiative.

Arboretum President and CEO Gerard T. Donnelly presented the first of the thousands of trees to be planted: a linden tree. Less common to the Chicago area, the linden is one of 20 different types of trees that will be planted through May 2023.

The U.S. needs to create a "road map" to the batteries of the future even as it solves existing supply chain issues, experts told a House panel on Thursday.

President Biden has pushed domestic automakers to electrify their vehicle fleets, a goal that in the short term will require securing supply chains for critical minerals like lithium and cobalt that are used in lithium-ion batteries, experts say.

Electric vehicles are becoming increasingly more popular in the United States at a time when lawmakers acknowledge the country should make better investments in battery technology and its supply chain.

On Thursday, Rep. Bill Foster (D-Illinois) led a field hearing in suburban Woodridge to discuss the expected surge in demand for electric vehicle batteries over the next decade, while considering the implications for the metals required in EV battery manufacturing.