While always a crucial part of government, public comments on federal rulemaking are particularly relevant during the first 100 days of the Biden administration due to rapid changes taking place. Reporting on the administration transition suggests a quick start to new legislation during the first 100 days, including measures on COVID relief, health care, climate, and government reform, among other topics. At Summit, we’re keeping a close eye on these proposed policies—see our recent blog posts on the first-time home buyer (FTHB) tax credit and student loan forgiveness.

Summit Consulting would like to congratulate our founding partner, Dr. Albert Lee, on his appointment to the Board of Trustees at Harvey Mudd College, in Claremont, California. Since 1955, Harvey Mudd has provided rigorous science and mathematics education to its students.

With contributions by Josh Goldberg

This is the third in a series on the end of the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), a widely used financial metric that is integral to global finance. In this post, we discuss the implications for the reverse mortgage market not adopting SOFR (yet). In the past two posts, we covered why LIBOR is being discontinued and what is going to be the primary replacement. As the publishing deadline for LIBOR approaches, and as we see more headlines like this one that quantify the expected costs of discontinuing LIBOR, we are pivoting the focus of the series to discuss the implications for some of our clients here at Summit.

Even after years of network infrastructure investment by both the public and private sectors, millions of geographically remote and lower-income American households still lack access to high-speed broadband. As a result of this connectivity divide, these populations face economic, healthcare, and educational disadvantages in an increasingly digital modern world. To help further bridge this access gap, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (H.R. 133) allocates more than $7.7 billion of the total $2.3 trillion appropriations toward existing and new broadband development programs. These will be administered primarily by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and will aim to improve access to high-speed broadband by addressing the geographic and affordability issues limiting availability and prioritizing those populations facing the greatest access challenges.

In our most recent episode of Complexity Simplified, Summit Partner Anthony Curcio welcomes Sarah Cunningham as our new Director. The two discuss how her passion for public service and effective, analytical business programs has guided her career from its start and led her to Summit.

Are you a recent college graduate with a degree in statistics, economics, finance, computer science, or a similar program? Do you enjoy working on a team of dedicated, vibrant, smart, and fun individuals? If you answered "yes" to these questions, come join us at Summit! We are a consulting firm that specializes in providing state-of-the-art data analytics in support of public federal policy decision-making and litigation, and we are currently hiring for two analyst roles.

With the transition between administrations, there are many new opportunities to use geographic information systems (GIS) to assist with the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) affordable housing and zoning initiatives and its mission to create strong, sustainable, and inclusive communities. According to Esri, an international supplier of GIS software, more than 50 federal agencies have used GIS analysis to respond to local, state, and national concerns.

Summit Consulting, LLC, and its teaming partner, the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, recently completed a study for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that estimated the national economic impacts of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program for the 2020 fiscal year (FY2020).

President Biden campaigned on the promise of offering partial forgiveness of student loan debt, a financial burden that, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, has restricted homeownership and worsened existing inequalities in the United States. In this post, we take a look at the Biden Plan as well as House Resolution 1269 and Senate Resolution 711 to find out how much each forgives and who stands to benefit the most.

With contributions by Mark Hutson, PhD

This is the second in a series on the end of the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), a widely used financial metric that is integral to global finance. In this post, we cover the issues surrounding the primary replacement for LIBOR, named SOFR.