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  • Xi’s 3 EU magi — Huawei scoop — Biden’s democracy summit

    Xi’s 3 EU magi — Huawei scoop — Biden’s democracy summit

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    Decoding transatlantic relations with Beijing.

    POLITICO China Watcher

    By STUART LAU

    with PHELIM KINE

    Send tips here | Tweet @StuartKLau or @PhelimKine | Subscribe for free | View in your browser

    GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, EUROPE AND AMERICA. A warm welcome to our very first — drumroll, drumroll — transatlantic China Watcher, helmed jointly by Stuart Lau in Brussels and Phelim Kine in Washington D.C. The name will be familiar to our American readers, but our European devotees, previously subscribed to China Direct, may need to sit down and steady themselves over the dramatic rebrand. But fear not, this twice-a-week newsletter will continue to bring you all the unmissable whispers on China from Europe’s corridors of power. From now on, our Tuesday edition will focus more on Europe-China ties, while the Thursday issue will bring you the latest on U.S.-China relations. Who says you can’t have the best of both worlds?

    A WEEK LIKE NO OTHER: Our debut relaunch hits your inbox on a remarkably action-packed week, full of diplomatic fanfare. In Washington, the White House today begins a three-day Summit for Democracy to confront Beijing. China’s leaders, in the meantime, are preparing to welcome their first European guests of the year at the end of March and in early April. Stay with us, and you won’t miss a beat. As always, email Stuart and Phelim with comments and tips.

    DEBUT CHEAT SHEET

    — U.S. President Joe Biden’s democracy summit kicks off today and there are signs the Europeans are finally getting the message on China.

    — France’s Emmanuel Macron, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen are off to China to talk to Xi about Ukraine.

    — POLITICO has a zinging scoop on Belgium’s spies looking into Huawei’s activities in Brussels — home to the EU and NATO.

    TRANSATLANTIC MOVES ON CHINA

    DEMOCRACY VS AUTHORITARIANISM: Today marks the beginning of the Biden administration’s second Summit for Democracy, and it comes amid signs that U.S. warnings to the EU — along with a full-blown war in Ukraine — are finally starting to sway European thinking on the threat to the liberal political order.

    Welkom! The Netherlands will be the European co-host for the event, alongside South Korea, Zambia and Costa Rica. “From wars of aggression to changes in climate, societal mistrust and technological transformation, it could not be clearer that all around the world, democracy needs champions at all levels,” the White House said in a joint statement with the other hosts. This is obviously all about providing a counterweight to the Putin-Xi show and, remarkably, it’s not always been clear which way Europe would jump.

    Biden snubbed: Think back to just after Biden won the November 2020 election and you’ll recall the Europeans were in no mood to listen to dire tidings from the U.S. about China and democracy. When Biden’s incoming administration sought to dissuade the Europeans from concluding an ill-fated investment deal with Beijing at the end of 2020, their concerns were brushed aside by EU kingpin, Germany, under the control of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel gave short shrift to Biden’s idea of an alliance of democracies pitted against China — positioning herself more closely with President Xi Jinping — by saying she wanted to avoid going back to Cold War blocs.

    How things have changed: Europe is waking up to the security threat identified by Washington. Earlier this month, the Dutch government buckled to U.S. pressure and said that it would impose export restrictions on key machinery for microchip making destined for China. Several EU countries are also instructing their officials to stay off TikTok.

    Even Germany is having a change of heart: Berlin has long been the EU heavyweight that finds it easiest to shrug off rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang as long as things are OK for car factory investments. But even here a significant rethink is under way, as Merkel’s own party now wants to disown her business-first ideology on China.

    The Christian Democrats, now Germany’s largest opposition group, are arguing that the idea of keeping peace through economic cooperation “has failed with regard to Russia, but increasingly also China,” according to a 22-page draft paper seen by POLITICO’s Gabriel Rinaldi. “The rise of communist China is the central, epochal challenge of the 21st century for all states seeking to preserve, strengthen, and sustain the rules-based international order.”

    Working with partners: Washington would love to read this. “The paper calls for a ‘Zeitenwende in China policy,’ too, concluding that Germany should … expand alliances and partnerships with interest and value partners.” Read Gabriel’s full story here. (Zeitenwende refers to Germany’s major security policy shift after the invasion of Ukraine in which it vowed to pour resources back into defense.)

    Read the story on the state of the global battle for democracy by Phelim and yours truly.

    CHINA-RUSSIA COLLAB: A Russian distributor is importing fibers and other items from China to manufacture body armor, including armored vests that have previously ended up on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to trade and customs data obtained by POLITICO’s Erin Banco and Steven Overly.

    A review of the data from November and December 2022 shows a Russian company linked to Moscow’s national guard and other law enforcement agencies is using parts imported by several Chinese companies, including one directly linked to the state, to manufacture the body armor. Some of those vests have been used by Russian troops in Ukraine, according to photos and videos posted online, and Ukrainians who are selling on eBay the vests they say they took from the battlefield. Here is the full story by Erin and Steven.

    XI’S EUROPEAN GUESTS

    CAN THEY CHANGE HIS MIND? Europe somehow believes it can talk China out of deepening ties with Russia. And that impression — shared above all by France’s President Emmanuel Macron — is of course what Beijing most desires, as it will look to exploit even the tiniest of transatlantic rifts as it prepares to welcome Macron and two other European guests at the end of this month and beginning of April.

    Apart from Macron who leaves for Beijing a week from today (on April 4), Chinese President Xi Jinping will also receive European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who will travel with the French president, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

    For European leaders, the more support Russian obtains from China, the harder it will be to defeat Moscow economically and strategically. But what can they really hope to achieve?

    MACRON’S GAME PLAN: The French president likes to style himself as Europe’s real leader, taking von der Leyen in tow. In a similar Roi-Soleil mode, back in 2019, he invited the German and EU leaders to a Parisian meeting with the visiting Xi.

    Personal charm at play: Macron’s plan to build a personal rapport with Xi is clear from his itinerary. Apart from Beijing, he will also tour Guangzhou with Xi, whose father used to be the governor of the Guangdong province, where the city is located.

    — C’est la liberté ! The choice of Guangzhou is also symbolic because the city historically stood for openness and an outward-facing mentality. Macron’s expected to meet university students there — a big gamble by the Chinese propaganda officials. It’s also a Chinese city no French president has ever visited.

    Back to the main menu — Ukraine: All eyes will be on whether Macron can extract new pledges on Ukraine from Xi. Let’s remember that the French president’s strangely optimistic diplomatic whirligig with Russian President Vladimir Putin around the beginning of the war got exactly nowhere.

    A French diplomatic source said: “President Macron will engage President Xi in order to convey strong messages on the war led by Russia, on issues such as stopping all attacks on civilian infrastructure or the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children.”

    In his own words, Macron told journalists last week he would “try as much as possible to engage China … to put pressure on Russia to obviously not use chemical and nuclear weapons, but also do everything to stop the conflict, get back around the table of negotiations, and allow international law to be respected, i.e. the integrity territorial and sovereignty of Ukraine.”

    HIS TRAVELING COMPANION WILL ALSO GIVE A SPEECH: EU Commission chief von der Leyen, who will be traveling with Macron, will first give a speech on EU-China relations this Thursday. Her choice of venue speaks volumes: The event will be hosted by the Mercator Institute for China Studies — currently under Chinese sanctions which have caused the EU-China investment agreement to be frozen by EU parliamentarians — as well as the European Policy Centre.

    BUT FIRST, THE SPANISH ARRIVAL: Sánchez will arrive in Hainan Island on March 30, due to appear at the Boao Forum, China’s equivalent to the Davos World Economic Forum. He will then travel to Beijing to meet Xi.

    Debating with Xi: According to Sánchez he will focus on “territorial integrity” when explaining the Ukraine question with Xi. “The most important thing … is that when this peace is reached in Ukraine, it will be fair and lasting,” he told journalists at the Ibero-American Summit meeting in the Dominican Republic on Sunday. “When we talk about ‘fair’, I mean the respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which has been violated by Putin.”

    TALKING BUSINESS, OF COURSE: Neither Spain nor France would expect to leave China without a focus on trade. Diplomats told China Watcher that Spain was expected to focus on tourism, while Macron pinned hopes on agriculture and aviation. Remember Macron used Xi’s trip to Paris in 2019 to deliver a devastating blow to then-U.S. President Donald Trump by landing a massive €30 billion deal for Airbus planes.

    The French diplomatic source stressed that trade would be one of the topics with Xi, since EU businesses continue to see a lack of reciprocity and level-playing field in China. President Macron is expected to urge Xi to ensure the Chinese market will be opened further for French and European businesses.

    EU CAN’T LOSE CHINA: Together with my colleagues Jacopo Barigazzi, Clea Caulcutt and Gregorio Sorgi, I had this write-up from European leaders’ reaction to the Xi-Putin meeting over last week’s European Council summit.

    HUAWEI SCOOP

    BELGIUM’S SPIES EYE HUAWEI: Belgium’s state intelligence services are scrutinizing the operations of Chinese technology giant Huawei in and around the EU and NATO headquarters in Brussels, POLITICO’s Samuel Stolton and Laurens Cerulus report this morning, citing confidential documents and three people familiar with the matter.

    In recent months, Belgium’s spooks have requested interviews with former employees of the company’s lobbying operation in the heart of Brussels’ European district. The intelligence gathering is part of security officials’ activities to appraise how China may be using non-state actors to advance the interests of the Chinese state and its Communist party in Europe, the people said.

    BELGIUM MATTERS: The country is host to the European Union and NATO HQs, which makes its intelligence service responsible for monitoring the spy threats these institutions face. But that’s not all: The country’s judicial investigators are also behind the massive probe into foreign state influence and corruption in the European Parliament dubbed Qatargate. 

    Belgian spies want to determine whether there are any direct ties between the Chinese state and the operation of Huawei’s Brussels office, the people said. Of particular interest, they added, are Huawei representatives who may have previously held posts in Brussels institutions with access to a network of EU contacts.

    A Huawei spokesperson said the company was unaware of the company’s Brussels office staff being questioned by the intelligence service. The spokesperson reiterated Huawei’s insistence that the company is independent from the Chinese state. 

    Read our bombshell report online.

    THREE MINUTES WITH…

    STEFANO SANNINO, secretary-general of the European External Action Service, is Brussels’ man on the EU-U.S. Dialogue on China, with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman being his counterpart.

    Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

    How do you assess Xi’s visit to Moscow?

    I think that the symbolism is self-explanatory, in the sense that they’re in a situation where Putin is very isolated internationally, [and there] is one country which is still providing political support to Putin. We do not see any pressure coming from China on Russia to withdraw their troops and to restore the international order.

    China seems to be willing to be the one who will be mediating, but as a matter of fact, it looks like Russia is almost not willing to have any mediation, because they want their own direct contact with the United States. But the bottom line from this communiqué is that there is no opening to any kind of meaningful possibility to have an approach that could hint at the willingness of Russia to stop their military action.

    Some in Europe seem to believe that having a tough line against China will push it toward Russia.

    I honestly don’t think the balance of the strength is that we are pushing China towards Russia, because China does not need to be pushed. Russia is going directly to China, at a relatively cheap price, to be honest.

    What’s the EU’s view of China’s wish to play a mediating role?

    I don’t think there is any request on our side. For us the peace plan is [Ukrainian President] Zelenskyy’s point — that is what we are supporting politically. So from that point of view, I do not see a sort of matching between the peace formula of President Zelenskyy and the 12 points of the Chinese government.

    What will be EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell’s message to his Chinese counterpart in the next exchange?

    We need to be stressing that the European Union is not [having] any kind of policy to isolate [China] or to decouple. On the contrary, China [is] always a very relevant factor in the international scene. And so we need to be able to manage a complex relationship.

    We will continue within the EU to continue discussing this. Because, again, it’s a fast, rapidly evolving situation, so it needs to be reconsidered on a regular basis.

    Before his last meeting with Xi, Macron said Europe shouldn’t be naïve about China. Is today’s Europe still naïve?

    Honestly, I think nobody’s naïve about it. I think that there is a very clear sense of what is happening. We need to have the maturity on both sides to understand that we are not necessarily sharing the same model, but these two models have to live together and have to interact. And we have to do in a way which is not naïve, where we understand the potential risk. The more we do that, the better I think we can move this relationship forward.

    China likes to remind Europe about strategic autonomy — presumably to be autonomous from the U.S.?

    Autonomy is a general concept. Autonomy does not mean being autonomous only from the United States. If you want to be autonomous, you have to be able to be autonomous from everybody. So it’s a global concept.

    TRANSLATING WASHINGTON

    TIKTOK’S HEARING FROM HELL: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s Thursday visit to Capitol Hill didn’t go well. A bipartisan cavalcade of lawmakers went after TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance and its relationship with China’s government, as well as TikTok’s alleged noxious effects on mental health, especially for teenagers.

    Chew’s defense of the platform — that he has no working relationship with the CCP, that it’s working on content moderation, that user data from U.S. consumers is stored in America — was unconvincing to lawmakers. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said U.S. lawmakers“attacked the company based on the presumption of guilt.” POLITICO’s Calder McHugh and Ari Hawkins have the full story here.

    BEIJING SLAMS U.S. NAVY ‘SOVEREIGNTY VIOLATION’: Beijing said that Chinese naval forces “warned off” an “illegal entry” by the guided missile destroyer USS Milius into Chinese territorial waters in the South China Sea last week. The Milius’s alleged intrusion “violated China’s sovereignty…and jeopardized the peace and stability in the relevant waters,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Thursday. The U.S. 7th Fleet published a statement that dismissed that allegation as “false” and said that the Milius “was not expelled” by any Chinese vessel.  China’s Defense Ministry accused the Milius of a second incursion into Chinese waters on Friday. That constituted “provocative behaviors” that could reap “serious consequences,” Defense Ministry spokesperson Senior Colonel Tan Kefei warned in a statement. 

    BIDEN, TRUDEAU SLAM CHINA’S ‘DISRUPTIVE ACTIONS’: U.S. President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared China “serious long-term challenge to the international order,” in a joint statement following their meeting in Ottawa on Friday.  The statement singled out Beijing’s “disruptive actions such as economic coercion, non-market policies and practices and human rights abuses.” 

    BLINKEN: FY24 BUDGET WILL ‘OUTCOMPETE’ CHINA: Biden’s 2024 financial year budget allocations for the State Department and USAID are necessary to “outcompete” China,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.  That spending aims to ensure that “what we and our fellow democracies have to offer…is more attractive than the alternative being proposed” by Beijing,  Blinken told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday.  

    CHINA HOUSE CHIEF’S SECRET SHANGHAI VISIT: Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China and Taiwan, Rick Waters, made a low key visit to Hong Kong and Shanghai last week, Hong Kong media reported on Friday. Waters’ itinerary in Shanghai included meetings with senior staff at the Shanghai Institute of International Affairs, said a statement posted Wednesday on the organization’s website. Waters – who is also the coordinator of the State Department’s Office of China Coordination, or China House – may have been testing the waters for a rescheduling of Secretary of State Blinken’s trip to China after the furor over the Chinese spy balloon postponed his originally-planned visit. A China House spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    TRANSLATING CHINA

    MEETING THE LIVING AND THE DEAD: Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is keen to undercut his successor Tsai Ing-wen, and he’s found his moment. As Tsai’s getting ready to travel to Central America via the U.S., Ma began an unprecedented trip to mainland China — to “pay respects to his ancestors” according to his spokespeople.

    The trip, which started yesterday, made Ma the first former Taiwanese president to visit the other side of the Taiwan Strait since the split in 1949. A proponent of closer ties with China, Ma will stay until April 7, while he’s also leading a group of Taiwanese students to meet some Chinese counterparts.

    Ma met Chinese President Xi in Singapore in late 2015 while he was about to leave office. Will he meet Xi or other top officials again this time? His aides say Ma’s not planning to visit Beijing, but didn’t rule out the possibility. “As guests, we are at our hosts’ disposal,” the aide told journalists.

    MANY THANKS TO: Editor Christian Oliver, Laurens Cerulus, reporters Samuel Stolton, Gabriel Rinaldi, Clea Caulcutt, Jacopo Barigazzi, Gregorio Sorgi, Calder McHugh, Ari Hawkins, Erin Banco, Steven Overly and producer Grace Stranger.

    SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | London Playbook PM | Playbook Paris | POLITICO Confidential | Sunday Crunch | EU Influence | London Influence | Digital Bridge | China Direct | Berlin Bulletin | D.C. Playbook | D.C. Influence | Global Insider | All our POLITICO Pro policy morning newsletters

    More from …


    Stuart Lau and


    Phelim Kine



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

  • Murkowski won big time with Biden’s oil project. She knows it, too.

    Murkowski won big time with Biden’s oil project. She knows it, too.

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    The massive ConocoPhillips endeavor, called the Willow project, will at its peak produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day across 68,000 acres inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Advocates say it will be an economic game changer for the state and even the nation, while environmentalists called it Biden’s single biggest climate betrayal since taking office.

    Murkowski can take much of the credit for the result. In an interview with POLITICO’s E&E News on Monday afternoon, the Republican said she didn’t think it was “any great secret” that Biden was influenced, in part, by politics, as he weighed the inevitable backlash from green activists and fellow Democrats versus voters’ worries about rising energy costs and reliance on foreign oil.

    “I think in terms of the president’s engagement in this, a single state project … doesn’t get elevated to the presidential level, to the senior team, unless there’s political interest,” she said.

    But Murkowski also traced Biden’s decision back to the carefully orchestrated pressure and education campaign she conducted around the president and his senior team.

    “When he was first was elected, I made sure that he knew — by way of letter, by way of any time I saw him — I would mention [Willow] until it became almost a bit of a joke because he knew that I was going to raise it,” Murkowski recalled. “And equally so with his senior team. I made clear that they knew.”

    ‘Relationships matter’

    When it came to Willow, as Murkowski’s conversations with the administration were first getting under way in early 2021, she agreed to support Biden’s pick for Interior secretary, then-New Mexico Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland, despite her concerns about the nominee’s far-left environmental record.

    Shortly thereafter, the Biden Justice Department announced it would defend Willow in court against litigation from activists alleging the ConocoPhillips project would be devastating to the environment — a seeming reversal from a president who promised, during his 2020 campaign, “no more drilling on federal lands, period.”

    Then, Biden’s initial selection for deputy Interior secretary, Liz Klein, was swapped out for Tommy Beaudreau, who held a variety of posts in the Obama Interior Department. Most important for Murkowski, Beaudreau also had a reputation for being more friendly to oil and gas interests, had ties to Alaska and enjoyed a longstanding rapport with the state’s senior senator.

    In fact, Murkowski was instrumental in convincing Biden to nominate him for assistant secretary instead of Klein — Murkowski and others perceived Klein as hostile to fossil fuel interests. Klein is now the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a position Beaudreau once held himself.

    Beaudreau’s nomination for the deputy secretary position, paired with the administration’s posture surrounding Willow in the courts, was a turning point for Murkowski in her dealings with the Biden Interior Department.

    “Relationships matter,” she said in the interview Monday. “We worked with one another for a while, had a very respectful relationship, and so when [Beaudreau] came into the Biden administration, it was easy to sit and talk with him because we had had a good foundation previously, and so that, I think, is important.”

    Murkowski said she “needed to be able to be direct and frank with” Beaudreau. On the flip side, she said, “he needed to be honest with the fact that, ‘Look, you got … a president that ran on a platform really focused on climate, who made “no new oil and gas” statements, kind of a view towards energy that was really going to be challenging and difficult for a state like Alaska,’ where we rely on resources, particularly oil resources, for revenue, for jobs, for everything.”

    Through those conversations, Murkowski realized, she needed to form relationships beyond the one she had with Beaudreau if she wanted to impact policy — and secure Willow’s future. She honed in on Louisa Terrell, the White House director of legislative affairs, and Steve Ricchetti, a top Biden aide.

    “Just sitting down and talking to them, one on one, with no agenda other than, ‘I’m Lisa, this is my state, let me tell you what’s important,’” Murkowski said of her approach. “Building relationships helped me as I navigated some folks who really, really were not inclined to support the Willow project.”

    It also necessitated a level of dealmaking, she acknowledged: “‘Yeah, I can help you on some of the EV stuff,’” she recalled telling the White House during negotiations over the bipartisan infrastructure package, “‘but one of these days, we’re going to want to see EV ferries out there.’”

    In July, Murkowski announced $300 million would be made available for the electrification of ferries through that infrastructure law, which would benefit Alaska.

    White House vs. Interior

    It was not just Murkowski who exerted pressure. Alaska’s entire three-member congressional delegation played a role, and they took collective credit for forcing Biden’s hand Monday.

    In a call with reporters Monday morning that served as a victory lap, Murkowski, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola detailed the coordinated full-court press to sway the administration in its final stages of decisionmaking, culminating in an hourlong meeting in the Oval Office with Biden on March 3.

    There, Murkowski emphasized Willow’s economic advantages, Sullivan the geopolitical implications and Peltola the diverse constituencies supporting the project on the ground, including Alaska Natives.

    “The decision was ultimately going to be made at the White House level — not only with senior leaders, but the president’s direct involvement himself,” Murkowski asserted during that call. “The president had clearly been apprised of Willow, of what Willow was and why it was a priority for us.”

    Although she voted for Haaland for Interior Secretary, Murkowski has been deeply critical of her leadership of the department. She is also scornful of other top Interior officials she has accused of turning a blind eye to Alaska’s unique circumstances. Alaska officials have long said stewardship of the state’s environment needs to be balanced with support for energy development, the latter of which powers the state and funds social services.

    On Monday, she didn’t hesitate to credit the Biden administration for the decision while suggesting some inside Interior were seeking to undercut it.

    “Were there people … within the Department of the Interior that were working to actively kill this? Absolutely, positively, and I don’t think you have to name names,” Murkowski asserted, adding, “This was not something that I think was ultimately going to reside with the secretary of the Interior.”

    The exception to that rule continues to be Beaudreau, who Murkowski said reached out to her personally to “walk me through the specific details” of the administration’s announcements relating to energy extraction activities on federal lands around the state.

    Biden’s ‘promise’

    As Alaska lawmakers celebrated the news Monday, climate hawks were aghast at the administration’s greenlighting of the Willow project as a surrender on multiple fronts.

    “I’m sure they had a significant impact, there’s no doubt about it,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) of the Alaska delegation on a press call with representatives from the Alaska Wilderness League and the Sierra Club on Monday afternoon. “They brought the political pressure. … None of that is surprising. What is surprising, and frankly very disappointing, is that a decision like this came down to politics.”

    Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous agreed: “No doubt this will help with the reelection of every member of the Alaska delegation.”

    In the upcoming election cycle, no member of the trio stands to benefit more than Peltola, the first Alaska Native to represent the state who won a special election last summer to succeed late-Republican Rep. Don Young.

    Peltola, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee alongside Huffman, was just added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s list of most vulnerable incumbents for 2024.

    “Getting Willow across the finish line is something I campaigned very hard on,” she said Monday. “I knew this had to be a priority of anybody who was the position I’m in.”

    But, Jealous added, “it’s hard to see how this really adds up for President Biden. … His political calculation and his climate calculation may have made sense in the last century, but it’s clearly less suited for this century we’re in … both on politics and on preventing human extinction.”

    Murkowski, in her interview, dismissed accusations of Biden’s “capitulation” to fossil fuel interests.

    “The only promise the president ever made to me on Willow was that he was going to listen to me,” she said.

    He listened, Murkowski said, to the facts about Alaska’s environmental standards and the myriad ways Alaskans depend on the extraction industry, “and he evaluated that against everything else that he had coming at him, and all the politics that he knew were going to be thrown at him.”

    Her conclusion: “I think he evaluated it clearly,” she said, “and he made the right decision.”

    A version of this report first ran in E&E News’ E&E Daily. Get access to more comprehensive and in-depth reporting on the energy transition, natural resources, climate change and more in E&E News.



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Mitt Romney castigated Biden’s budget chief on Wednesday over Democrats’ insistence that Republicans want to cut Social Security.

    Mitt Romney castigated Biden’s budget chief on Wednesday over Democrats’ insistence that Republicans want to cut Social Security.

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    20230215 budget 5 francis 1
    It’s the latest instance of cross-party tensions boiling over on how to fix the entitlement program.

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    #Mitt #Romney #castigated #Bidens #budget #chief #Wednesday #Democrats #insistence #Republicans #cut #Social #Security
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Biden’s green allies promise lawsuit over Alaska oil project

    Biden’s green allies promise lawsuit over Alaska oil project

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    Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) — a staunch Willow supporter — said he was already preparing to help defend the Biden administration from “frivolous legal challenges” against the $8 billion project.

    “We are coordinated and ready to defend this decision,” he told reporters Monday.

    Biden officials have sought to balance interest in continued leasing in oil- and gas-producing states like Alaska with the president’s clean energy priorities. Environmentalists who have generally backed the president’s climate initiatives have also repeatedly pushed the federal government to go even further by eliminating new oil and gas leasing on federally controlled lands.

    Cancellation of the Willow project would have been a key win to block future fossil fuel extraction on public lands. Now environmentalists’ pressure campaign against the project is transitioning to legal action against the approval process by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management.

    Trustees for Alaska, which successfully sued to block a Trump-era Willow approval in 2020, is reviewing whether the Biden administration’s green light for the project fully complies with an earlier court order. A federal judge in 2021 blocked Willow after finding that BLM had failed to conduct an adequate analysis of the project’s environmental impacts.

    Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska sent BLM back to the drawing board after finding the agency had not done enough to model the impact of the project on foreign emissions, properly weigh alternative designs or approve a project that provided maximal surface area protections within the leasing area.

    BLM’s court-ordered environmental review did address the greenhouse gas modeling concerns, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other potential problems with the agency’s emissions and impact analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, said Psarianos of Trustees for Alaska. NEPA requires agencies to take a “hard look” at environmental impacts of major federal actions but does not require a specific outcome for a project.

    “We have some big, big questions about whether they actually complied with the NEPA requirement to assess impacts from those greenhouse gas emissions, even if they accurately quantified them,” she said.

    Environmental groups will also be looking at how BLM responded within its final approval — known as a record of decision, or ROD — to Gleason’s finding that the agency had misinterpreted its statutory authority to assume ConocoPhillips had the right to extract all the oil and gas that was under its lease.

    “The ROD does try to grapple with that,” said Psarianos.

    BLM stated that its project screening criteria were “reevaluated and augmented” to address the court’s concerns about the amount of extraction approved under the Trump administration.

    “That’s something we’re going to have to look at and dig into and see, whether that’s defensible for them,” Psarianos said.

    Environmental groups will also be looking at compliance under other statutes such as the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act, which outlines conservation requirements specifically for the Alaska petroleum reserve, also referred to as the NPR-A.

    In its new record of decision released Monday, BLM said it had responded to the concerns raised by Gleason, who was appointed during the Obama administration, and was moving forward with an alternative Willow design that “requires the fewest ice roads, fewest total miles of infield pipelines, least water use, fewest vehicle trips, fewest fixed-wing aircraft trips, fewest helicopter trips, and fewest acres of screeding.”

    The project design no longer allows gravel fill in a marine area and reduces the number of facilities, water and gravel use, and operational activities. The changes “reduce impacts to important surface resources and subsistence uses as compared to the other action alternatives,” BLM said.

    The approved alternative also had the least total greenhouse gas emissions, making the decision to move forward with the project “consistent with the principles and objectives” in 2021 climate orders issued by President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, according to BLM.

    Willow will include nearly 200 oil wells along with other supporting infrastructure. ConocoPhillips also added three boat ramps to help offset the impacts of the project to the Alaska Native community of Nuiqsut. The tiny city is located closest to the development, and its residents have strongly opposed Willow for its impacts on subsistence hunting and fishing — even as many other Alaska Native leaders have backed the project.

    BLM’s final approval includes two fewer drilling sites than what was proposed by ConocoPhillips under the Trump administration. The company had previously warned the Biden administration that approving fewer than three well sites would not be economically viable.

    ConocoPhillips praised the Biden administration’s decision Monday, saying it was compatible with White House climate and energy policies.

    ‘Huge disappointment’

    In a separate announcement Monday, the White House said it plans to protect 16 million acres of public lands and federal waters from oil and gas development — although environmental groups say the move does not offset their concerns about Willow.

    The Biden administration indefinitely withdrew 2.8 million acres of the Beaufort Sea from oil and gas leasing and announced plans for a new rulemaking to consider conservation measures for more than 13 million acres in the NPR-A that serves as important habitat for grizzly and polar bears, as well as caribou and migratory waterfowl.

    “Today’s withdrawal ensures this important habitat for whales, seals, polar bears as well as for subsistence purposes will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development,” the White House said in a memorandum.

    Psarianos said that the entire western Arctic deserves protection from oil and gas drilling.

    “The Willow approvals … would unlock a large area for industrial development,” she said. “That just in and of itself is a completely unacceptable threat for the reserve, to subsistence and to the climate.”

    Environmentalists said the Biden administration’s approval of the Willow project is in line with other oil and gas leasing decisions from Interior.

    “President Biden’s decision to approve the massive Willow fossil fuel project is undoubtedly a blow to our collective ability to address the climate crisis,” Jim Walsh, policy director of Food and Water Watch, said in a statement. “But this administration has not yet demonstrated a strong commitment to stopping new fossil fuel projects.”

    The Biden administration has already faced a series of lawsuits challenging its analysis of the risks of oil and gas leasing.

    That has included litigation over Lease Sale 258 in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, the recent lawsuit against Lease Sale 259 in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as other challenges to onshore leases and drilling permits, said Kristen Monsell, oceans program litigation director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

    Monsell said that the Biden administration’s approval of drilling permits on public lands has outpaced the rate under former President Donald Trump.

    “The Biden administration has been a huge disappointment,” she said.

    Emma Dumain contributed to this report.

    A version of this report first ran in E&E News’ Energywire. Get access to more comprehensive and in-depth reporting on the energy transition, natural resources, climate change and more in E&E News.

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    #Bidens #green #allies #promise #lawsuit #Alaska #oil #project
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Seven things to know about Biden’s big oil move

    Seven things to know about Biden’s big oil move

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    Monday’s decision likely won’t be the end of the lengthy Willow dispute, as lawsuits challenging the administration’s move are almost certain.

    Here’s what to know about the Willow decision:

    What’s in the proposal?

    The administration approved ConocoPhillips’ plans to drill in the northeast portion of the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope.

    The Biden administration couched its announcement Monday by stressing its approval of a scaled-back version of the drilling plan.

    The Interior Department is approving three of the five drill sites proposed by ConocoPhillips. The company is also relinquishing its rights to 68,000 acres of its existing leases in the NPR-A, the administration said.

    The decision comes after the project has faced years of delays, litigation and opposition from climate advocates and some Alaska Native leaders.

    ConocoPhillips pitched the drilling venture as a way to strengthen domestic energy security by producing about 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak.

    What does it mean for Alaska?

    Alaska lawmakers and ConocoPhillips have been lobbying the administration to approve the massive drilling project, arguing that it bolsters domestic energy security while creating jobs and revenue for the federal government.

    ConocoPhillips estimated that the project would create more than 2,500 jobs during construction, and about 300 permanent jobs after that.

    The Alaska congressional delegation hailed the Willow approval as a victory Monday.

    “We finally did it, Willow is finally reapproved, and we can almost literally feel Alaska’s future brightening because of it,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowsi (R-Alaska). “After years of relentless advocacy, we are now on the cusp of creating thousands of new jobs, generating billions of dollars in new revenues, improving quality of life on the North Slope and across our state, and adding vital energy to [the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System] to fuel the nation and the world,” Murkowski said.

    Critics of the project warn that the development will take a toll on a pristine environment in Alaska, jeopardizing the lifestyle of local Indigenous communities and harming the habitat of polar bears and other wildlife species.

    Why is it so contentious?

    This issue has been thorny for the Biden administration, which has attempted to find a compromise between the vocal Alaska delegation and industry representatives pushing for the development and environmentalists who are furious about the project.

    The Alaskans’ all-out push for Willow’s approval even involved a meeting between the state’s full congressional delegation and President Joe Biden during the run-up to the final announcement. Murkowski, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola were united in their push for the administration to approve an “economically viable” version of the project.

    The lawmakers have said that Alaska Natives overwhelmingly support the project. Sullivan said last week that Alaskans who support drilling in the NPR-A often refer to environmental groups in the Lower 48 as being guilty of “eco-colonialism” for trying to tell Alaskans how to live their lives.

    But while the administration’s move appears to satisfy Alaskan members of Congress, it outraged environmentalists after Biden promised on the campaign trail that there would be no new drilling on federal lands.

    What does it mean economically?

    The Willow project is projected to deliver between $8 billion and $17 billion in new revenue for the federal government, the state of Alaska, and North Slope Borough communities, according to ConocoPhillips.

    The company hailed the administration’s announcement Monday.

    “This was the right decision for Alaska and our nation,” said Ryan Lance, ConocoPhillips’ chair and CEO. “Willow fits within the Biden Administration’s priorities on environmental and social justice, facilitating the energy transition and enhancing our energy security, all while creating good union jobs and providing benefits to Alaska Native communities.”

    And Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, cheered the decision, saying it would “benefit local communities” and create “union construction jobs with long-term, family sustaining careers.”

    Why are environmentalists so mad?

    In addition to local impact to wildlife habitat, environmentalists are seething about the climate impacts of the announcement.

    “This is a grievous mistake. It greenlights a carbon bomb, sets back the climate fight and emboldens an industry hell-bent on destroying the planet,” said Christy Goldfuss, chief policy impact officer at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former Obama administration White House official.

    “Biden approved Willow knowing full well that it’ll cause massive and irreversible destruction, which is appalling,” said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

    Monsell said that people and wildlife “will suffer,” from the project, “and extracting and burning more fossil fuel will warm the climate even faster.”

    How is the administration softening the blow to greens?

    The administration announced major new efforts to limit drilling in Alaska lands and waters Sunday ahead of its Willow announcement.

    The Interior Department said it was indefinitely withdrawing 2.8 million acres in the Arctic Ocean from future oil and gas leases, and the department announced that it’s writing new rules to limit drilling on land in Alaska.

    The administration touted Biden’s conservation record as it announced the Willow approval. “In his first year, President Biden protected more lands and waters than any president since John F. Kennedy,” the Interior Department said in a statement.

    What’s next?

    Lawsuits are likely.

    Environmentalists challenged the Trump administration’s 2020 approval of the Willow project, and they’re expected to sue over the Biden administration’s plans as well.

    “Even one new oil well in the Arctic is one well too many,” said Monsell of CBD.

    “The president has left us in the cold and missed a major opportunity to live up to his climate commitments,” Monsell added. “This project is on weak legal ground, and we’re gearing up for action.”

    Reporter Heather Richards contributed.

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    #Bidens #big #oil #move
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Sen. Menendez: Biden’s policies risk making him ‘asylum-denier-in-chief’

    Sen. Menendez: Biden’s policies risk making him ‘asylum-denier-in-chief’

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    If President Joe Biden follows through with plans his administration is weighing to restart family detention for migrants, he risks becoming “the asylum denier in chief,” Sen. Bob Menendez said Sunday.

    “The best part of the administration’s immigration policy over the first two years is that they ended family detention,” Menendez (D-N.J.) said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” calling the policy a “failure.”

    “When the administration opened up a legal pathway to those fleeing, it dramatically saw a reduction in assistance — an example of what you can do in a way that is both good for the border and preserves our nation as a nation that preserves asylum,” Menendez said. “But if not, if the administration does go down this path, I am afraid the president will become the ‘asylum denier in chief.’”

    The comments come after reports that the Biden administration is considering reinstating the policy, which would require families who attempt to cross the U.S. border illegally to be detained as their cases work their way through immigration court.

    This would only exacerbate the situation at the southern border, which Menendez noted is already tense, particularly after four Americans were kidnapped — two of whom died — shortly after crossing the border into Mexico.

    “The reality is along the border communities, it is the cartels that run the border communities, not the government of Mexico,” Menendez said, adding that he is concerned the U.S. is “headed in the wrong direction in Mexico.”

    “We have to engage the Mexicans in a way that says, ‘You’ve got to do a lot more in your security.’ We can help them, you know. We have intelligence. We have other information we can share. But we need them to enforce in their own country,” Menendez said.

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    #Sen #Menendez #Bidens #policies #risk #making #asylumdenierinchief
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • GOP senator: Only way to improve Biden’s budget ‘is with a shredder’

    GOP senator: Only way to improve Biden’s budget ‘is with a shredder’

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    Biden’s budget, which includes tax hikes on wealthy Americans and corporations, record military funding and a plan to cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the course of a decade, is seen of having little chance of passing in Congress.

    House Republicans have called for cuts to spending in return for lifting the debt ceiling later this year; the House Freedom Caucus offered a 10-point plan last week. In addition, Florida Sen. Rick Scott has suggested sunsetting Social Security and Medicare programs as a way to do so, a topic that became particularly contentious after Biden criticized the plan during his State of the Union speech earlier this year.

    On Sunday, Kennedy said there should be conversations about making changes to these programs, though he was quick to say people should receive the Medicare and Social Security benefits they’ve paid for. But he echoed recent comments by Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley suggesting the possibility of raising the eligibility age for Social Security.

    “Of course we ought to talk about it,” Kennedy told host Shannon Bream.

    “The life expectancy of the average American right now is about 77 years old. For people who are in their 20s, their life expectancy will probably be 85 to 90. Does it really make sense to allow someone who is in their 20s today to retire at 62? Those are the kind of things that we should talk about.”

    “There are a lot of things we could talk about,” Kennedy added, “but President Biden has taken that issue totally off the table.”

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    #GOP #senator #improve #Bidens #budget #shredder
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Biden’s free college proposal is dead. High schoolers are tapping a solution

    Biden’s free college proposal is dead. High schoolers are tapping a solution

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    “It’s dead at the federal level, and what does the free community college movement do, just keep pounding on the same message that’s not working?” said Alex Perry, organizer of the College in High School Alliance, a coalition of national, state and local organizations that support dual enrollment and early college programs.

    “Or, do they reset and start thinking about how do we find things that resonate with both Democrats and Republicans and have the byproduct of providing students with free community college?” he said. “In my mind, I’ve just described dual enrollment.”

    Nearly all states have dual enrollment policies. Schools, districts or states fund about 78 percent of these programs, according to the Education Department. In 26 states, dual enrollment tuition is free to students through public funding, while families in 12 other states shoulder the costs for the program.

    Although many school districts are seeking out partnerships with local colleges on their own, some states are looking to bolster programs. In Arizona, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs announced in January a $20 million dollar increase in funding to support dual enrollment throughout the state. The Washington state legislature is weighing bills to expand access to dual enrollment.

    And in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed a scholarship program for K-12 teachers to teach dual enrollment courses on high school campuses to expand access, and has even floated it as an alternative to Advanced Placement courses amid his public feud with the College Board.

    “[Dual enrollment is] a win-win all the way around, and it really is looking at redesigning the high school experience of the future,” said Miami Dade College President Madeline Pumariega, who added that the programs could make a degree more affordable, especially since some states offer the courses at no extra charge to students.

    Dual enrollment has nearly doubled between fall 2011 and fall 2021, an increase of about 510,000 students, according to the Community College Research Center. One in five community college students nationally are dual enrollment participants. And since the onset of the pandemic, colleges and school districts have been working to ease requirements that previously restricted which high school students could enroll in their courses.

    The resulting uptick in dual enrollment students has spurred a small increase in overall community college attendees from the last academic year — a much needed boost after those institutions faced the worst enrollment plunges due to the pandemic.

    Pumariega said Miami Dade’s program has seen unprecedented growth this year largely because of Florida’s embrace of the policies. During the pandemic, the state ran a pilot program that allowed students to qualify to take the classes without the PERT, a state-issued standardized test for college. Additionally, school districts and the Florida College system’s joint partnership makes it so that those credits are offered to families at no charge.

    Some students may even be able to complete an entire associates degree while in high school, and it allows students to earn college credit through their coursework rather than a test, such as the exam required after completing an Advanced Placement course.

    Similar to Florida, Louisiana also eased its requirements to participate in dual enrollment because barriers, including standardized tests requirements, transportation and cost, often can make the program less accessible for underrepresented students.

    “The ACT was a sole requirement for students to access dual enrollment,” said Tramelle Howard, Louisiana state director for The Education Trust, a nonprofit that advocates for advancing equity in education. “Historically, for students of color, for example, if the ACT requirement in Louisiana was a 19, and the average ACT score of Black students was 16.5, just from the eligibility requirements alone, you were keeping out a large portion of students.”

    For years, Gov. John Bel Edwards has been pushing to expand access to dual enrollment. After the Democratic governor’s failed bid to make the courses free for high school juniors and seniors because of discussions on how to pay for it in 2019, the state legislature passed a bill to create a Statewide Dual Enrollment Task Force.

    How to fund the program is something the state is still working through, Howard said, and The Education Trust will be pressing the state legislature for $25.3 million to support dual enrollment.

    In South Carolina, the state uses lottery funds to help waive some tuition costs for some students, but tuition costs and fees for dual enrollment are also covered by families. Some colleges and districts are taking on partnerships to share the cost of providing the programs.

    Greenville Technical College entered a new agreement with its local Greenville County School District after the pandemic which has boosted its dual enrollment program by 38 percent, according to Larry Miller, the college’s vice president for learning and workforce development. The college also saw significant increases in Black and Latino students, who have been underrepresented, enrolling in the program when they changed their admissions process like Florida and Louisiana have.

    The college has also been key in providing access to courses in welding and other hands-on technical education to help high schoolers build skills that they can apply to a job or a certificate, a path Republicans in Congress have long touted as an alternative to a traditional college.

    This week, President Joe Biden urged Congress to fund what his administration called the “Career-Connected High Schools initiative,” which would dole out $200 million for programs that align high school and college by expanding access to dual enrollment, work-based learning and college and career advising for students in high school.

    But on the federal level, there has not been much innovation to advance dual enrollment beyond an Obama-era experiment that allowed some low-income high school students to use Pell Grants to fund college coursework. The Education Department said it is still working on a final report on key findings from the experiment.

    Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been cautious about expanding Pell Grant eligibility to high school students, especially since the program has a lifetime Pell eligibility cap of about six years.

    “While we are supportive of expanding the Pell Grant for high-quality credentials that prepare students for the workforce, the Pell Grant should remain a resource for low and middle-income Americans pursuing postsecondary education options,” Education and the Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) told POLITICO. “Expanding Pell Grants to high school students would be an inappropriate expansion of the federal government.”

    The way dual enrollment is funded varies by state. And for some colleges, it can be costly to provide those programs, according to the CCRC, because some colleges offer dual enrollment courses at a lower tuition rate to high school students. But dual enrollment can become “more efficient as the numbers enrolling in DE grow,” researchers said.

    “There needs to be some kind of funding to support the community college costs,” Perry, the organizer with the College in High School Alliance, said. “But I think we have a long way to go in terms of figuring out how to do this in a way that not just works for students, but also unlocks the ability for high schools and for colleges to offer these courses, particularly for underrepresented student populations who don’t have access right now.”

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    #Bidens #free #college #proposal #dead #High #schoolers #tapping #solution
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • House GOP hates Biden’s budget — but is still hunting for its own formula

    House GOP hates Biden’s budget — but is still hunting for its own formula

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    20230307 mccarthy 1 francis 4

    Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a former GOP budget chief, summarized the goals for his party by saying that Republicans should write “a ‘Hippocratic’ budget, that does no harm to our majority,” but one that also stays “responsible enough” to force a reckoning over spending.

    Womack also warned, accurately, of the political risks in a budget that reaches too far:

    “That likely becomes the next 30-second television ad against you.”

    The lack of cohesive GOP vision so far is an ominous sign as McCarthy and his team wade knee-deep into talks on their own budget, which — along with Biden’s blueprint — raise the curtain for this year’s multiple high-stakes spending dramas in Washington. And there’s already tangible proof of House Republicans’ struggle, as their timetable for a budget release slips later into the spring, following Biden’s own budget delay.

    Republicans and Democrats alike are most worried about the brewing fight over the nation’s debt limit, which could get ugly as a new speaker navigates one of the House’s narrowest majorities in decades with the U.S. credit rating hanging in the balance. And while the GOP’s budget resolution is unlikely to contain an exact prescription to resolve the debt limit, it would still be the first real movement in Biden and Republicans’ long-frozen discussion on where to go next.

    House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington predicted his panel’s blueprint would take “at least” 30 more days to finish, while also stressing there’s “no timeline” for a release. But Arrington said he’s confident he can navigate both the narrow margin of his own panel and, more critically, on the floor. Even in his committee, Republicans can lose just two votes.

    “We’re working on it,” Arrington (R-Texas) said. “218 is absolutely doable, but it’s going to take some work.”

    Privately, some senior Republicans are digging up their budgetary playbook from 2011 — steered by then-House budget chief Paul Ryan — as a kind of model for future action.

    Specifically, they’re discussing the party’s 2011 bill, known as “cut, cap and balance”, which that year’s GOP-led House passed amid Congress’ famously fractious Obama-era “fiscal cliff” debate. That bill, which included more than $1 trillion in cuts and capped federal spending to a set percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, never became law.

    Still, GOP leaders saw it as a critical marker in talks with the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House that ultimately led to a massive 10-year spending cap deal.

    “We’ll figure out something we can all vote for,” one GOP lawmaker familiar with the discussions said of the path forward for the House budget, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “No way the Senate will take it up, but it’ll force them to respond.”

    As for the GOP budget itself, Republicans are looking to a more recent era: the Trump one. Former President Donald Trump’s former budget chief, Russ Vought, has been advising Republicans in both chambers as they plot fiscal strategy.

    Any conversation about specifics, though, is likely still weeks away. Instead, much of the early discussions have centered on where exactly to propose cuts. McCarthy himself has led the talks, which include top GOP lawmakers from various factions of the party, in a group he calls his “five families” — an apparent reference to “The Godfather.”

    (Some Republicans are working on their own plan: the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus will meet Friday on the issue of the debt limit, a venue for its 64 members can begin to pitch their own ideas to resolve the looming stalemate.)

    And while many conservatives had plenty to complain about in Biden’s budget, few were willing to suggest where the GOP might look for their own cuts. Asked about his preferred way to slash domestic spending, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) instead trashed Biden’s budget for its lack of fiscal trims.

    “I think the real question that’s on my mind — he can’t identify any savings whatsoever? No savings?” Roy said. When asked how much further the cuts should go, he said: “I don’t have a specific number for it. But we’ve got to do real work.”

    “We’re working on it. When we come out with our list, I’ll let you know,” added Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), another conservative who fought for fiscal austerity during McCarthy’s speaker race this year.

    Clyde, who is also a House appropriator, stressed the importance of bringing spending down to fiscal year 2022 levels — a key part of McCarthy’s deal to secure the top gavel earlier this year. But the Georgian acknowledged that another conservative demand, balancing the budget over a decade, could take a little longer: “I think we should work toward that.”

    Some, though, had ideas on where to cut. “The woke, the Green New Deal, some of the military green programs, reallocations, the Covid dollars that we will reclaim,” said Freedom Caucus member Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another original McCarthy dissenter during the speaker race. “This is gonna be the most transparent budget that’s been put out in a long time.”

    Any cuts to the Pentagon budget, however, won’t be an easy sell across the GOP conference.

    “People need to realize the DoD budget hasn’t been keeping pace with the other federal budgets. So that shouldn’t be the first place we go to look for [cuts],” said Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), a former Navy pilot who sits on the House spending panel. “I’ve been pushing for military pay increases and taking care of our troops.”

    Still, the California Republican predicted that the GOP’s budget panel would ultimately come up with a blueprint that can get consensus: “I think, eventually, we will get there. There may be an emotional event, but we have no choice, so we’ve got to get there.”

    And some Republicans vowed that their colleagues would ultimately get behind a blueprint even if it doesn’t tick every one of their boxes, because unity is more important than squabbling over a symbolic document.

    “I think most members understand that budgets are aspirational,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-N.D.), who leads the GOP’s centrist Main Street Caucus.

    Caitlin Emma, Olivia Beavers and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

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    #House #GOP #hates #Bidens #budget #hunting #formula
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • 15 budget asks that are actually Biden’s reelection pitch

    15 budget asks that are actually Biden’s reelection pitch

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    The proposal touts trillions of dollars in spending and policies enacted on Biden’s watch, building on passage of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package and bipartisan infrastructure bill, plus Democrats’ signature tax, climate and health law.

    Here are 15 ways the president’s fiscal 2024 budget request frames his electoral pitch:

    China hawk

    Under tremendous pressure to appear tough on Beijing, the president is trying to deepen ties with other nations in the Indo-Pacific to outcompete China on trade.

    Details: To build up trade alliances with Indo-Pacific countries, Biden’s budget calls for $2 billion to secure supply chains and boost economic competitiveness, $2 billion for hard infrastructure and $2 billion to aid projects the U.S. International Development Finance Corp supports.

    Reality check: Biden has bipartisan support for deeper economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific. But the Republican-controlled House will rebuff many funding requests, and many will oppose proposals to invest billions of federal dollars overseas.

    — Steven Overly

    Robinhood taxman

    Biden is calling for tax increases on the wealthy and big business, along with tax cuts for low- and average-income people, recycling unfulfilled ideas from last year’s budget. He’s also proposing a significant cash infusion to fuel an IRS goal to crack down on tax cheats, doubling down on a Democratic message that giving the agency more money is ultimately a “deficit-reducing” measure.

    Details: Biden proposes scrapping tax breaks for oil and gas production, a change the White House predicts would drive $31 billion in new revenue over the next decade. The White House is also floating a new 25 percent minimum tax on those whose net worth exceeds $100 million, as well as an increase in the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.

    In the flavor of tax breaks, Biden is seeking to expand the Child Tax Credit again, after the popular pandemic-era increase expired at the end of 2021.

    The president requests more than $14 billion for the IRS, a 15 percent increase, including nearly $650 million to improve the taxpayer experience and outreach to low-income communities.

    Reality check: Tax reform definitely isn’t the bipartisan olive branch of the 118th Congress. House Republicans will reject tax increases outright.

    — Benjamin Guggenheim, Brian Faler and Kelsey Tamborrino

    Amtrak Joe, the bridge builder

    “Anytime I see a train door open, I head for it,” the president likes to say. And Biden isn’t going to miss an opportunity to use his budget to remind voters that he signed bills that are now funding new roads, bridges and train tunnels, as he leans into the “Amtrak Joe” nickname.

    Details: Seeking to build on the bipartisan infrastructure law, Biden’s budget calls for about a 7 percent increase in funding for the Department of Transportation. He’s also calling for the hiring of more air traffic controllers and extra cash for the reporting system that helps railroad employees flag unsafe behavior without the fear of reprisal.

    Reality check: While transportation funding is likely to be tight under a Republican-run House, lawmakers might be willing to approve higher funding for rail safety in the wake of the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

    — Alex Daugherty

    Climate defender

    The president’s plan repeats his old promise to quadruple climate aid to poor countries by 2024. Leaders of nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change have long complained that rich countries, who emit more greenhouse gases, have shirked responsibility for climate challenges.

    Details: To fulfill that commitment, the U.S. would have to surpass $11 billion in international climate spending each year.

    Reality check: House Republicans are not big fans of increasing global climate assistance, putting a damper on any legislative prospects.

    — Zack Colman

    Deficit reducer

    The budget aims to cut $3 trillion from the deficit over a decade.

    Details: Biden would hack away at the federal budget gap through a combination of tax hikes and health savings, including a new 25 percent tax on wealthy Americans and an increase in the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.

    Reality check: The president’s shift to deficit reduction comes as Republicans rail against the party-line spending packages passed by Democrats during his first two years in office, arguing that the legislation left the country in a worse fiscal state and drove record-high inflation. But even if there’s bipartisan appetite to chip away at the deficit, Republicans will never accept the tax increases pitched by Biden’s fiscal 2024 blueprint.

    — Caitlin Emma

    Defense budget booster

    Biden is asking Congress to fund the largest Defense Department budget in history, requesting $842 billion for the Pentagon, a $26 billion or 3.2 percent increase.

    Details: The budget would bolster U.S. military forces in the Pacific to counter China’s aggression, as well as continue support for Ukraine’s war against Russia and bringing the country’s nuclear arsenal up to date.

    Biden’s plan includes $9.1 billion for the Pentagon’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative, $6 billion for Ukraine, NATO and other European partners, and nearly $38 billion to maintain the nuclear deterrent. It includes an average 5.2 percent pay raise for service members and Defense Department civilian workers, the largest in decades.

    Reality check: The fiscal 2024 request stresses the administration’s dedication to countering China and maintaining support for Ukraine.

    But it will almost certainly be rejected by leaders on Capitol Hill, particularly Republicans who have pushed Biden to seek military budgets that outpace inflation to keep up with China’s military modernization.

    Congress has already given the Pentagon billions of additional dollars in the last two years that Biden didn’t seek. This fiscal year’s $858 billion national defense budget, for example, is $45 billion more than Biden requested after lawmakers rallied around a significant bipartisan spending hike.

    — Lara Seligman and Connor O’Brien

    Medicare savior

    Biden’s plan would extend the life of Medicare by at least 25 years.

    Details: The fiscal 2024 request would increase Medicare taxes on Americans making more than $400,000, close a loophole that has shielded some from paying that levy and allow Medicare to negotiate more prescription drug prices, pouring about $200 billion in savings into the program.

    Reality check: GOP leaders on the Hill and former President Donald Trump have promised to preserve Medicare and Social Security, while some fiscal conservatives argue that entitlement cuts should be considered in a debt ceiling standoff this year. Any effort to overhaul the programs, however, amounts to a massive bipartisan lift in Congress that lawmakers aren’t close to achieving.

    — Caitlin Emma

    Affordable-housing creator

    Amid rising mortgage rates and an ongoing affordable housing shortage, Biden calls in his budget for a combination of tax perks and federal cash to boost housing supply.

    Details: His plan includes $51 billion in increased tax incentives to spur construction and funding for new project-based rental assistance contracts.

    Reality check: There’s bipartisan support for increasing the tax benefits, including the low-income housing credit and a new “neighborhood homes” credit.

    Support could also grow for plans to use $10 billion to reward state and local governments that ease zoning rules and other barriers to construction. But there’s less bipartisan momentum behind a proposal to steer $10 billion to a program to help cover down payments for first-generation homeowners.

    — Katy O’Donnell

    Elections protector

    The administration wants $5 billion in new election assistance cash for states, doled out over the course of 10 years.

    Details: The funding would start with an infusion of $1.6 billion in 2024, with an additional $375 million each year after that. The money would flow through the Election Assistance Commission, a small federal agency set up in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election to spearhead election modernization efforts.

    Reality check: Congress, even under Democratic control, hasn’t fulfilled Biden’s election funding requests in previous budgets. Case in point, his fiscal 2023 budget asked for $10 billion over 10 years, a request that didn’t come to fruition. Republicans on key committees in the House have also said they believe election funding should be doled out on an as-needed basis.

    — Zach Montellaro

    Workingman’s friend

    Biden is re-upping his asks for paid family and medical leave, plus other employee protections, fashioning himself as a working-families advocate.

    Details: The budget seeks up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, and urges Congress to guarantee that employers offer a minimum of seven sick days that workers could use throughout the year without penalty. It also calls for $430 million in increased funding for the Labor Department’s worker protection branches, as part of a $1.5 billion overall boost.

    Reality check: Paid leave was left by the wayside during Democrat’s party-line spending deal, in part due to opposition from centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Republicans. And there is little chance GOP leaders in the House will agree to lavish money on the Labor Department to launch more employer probes.

    — Nick Niedzwiadek

    STEM job-creator

    Trying to magnify a legislative win he already notched last year, Biden’s budget calls for a buildup of the country’s science and tech apparatus. That includes billions of dollars more for programs created under the law he signed last summer to claw back a larger share of the global chip manufacturing market from Asia.

    Details: Biden is seeking an extra $6.5 billion to that end, including a $1.8 billion boost for the National Science Foundation. New cash would also be used to wrangle investments in science and emerging technologies, in part through a budget boost for a new National Science Foundation effort to coordinate dollars from the business world with public research and development money.

    Reality check: While leaders in both parties are keen on supercharging federal science and tech programs in a bid to outcompete China, it’s not clear that Republicans will want to shell out significantly more money for research or advanced manufacturing projects.

    — Brendan Bordelon and John Hendel

    No C-suite ally

    Biden’s budget calls for quadrupling a tax on Wall Street share buybacks, a request that will strengthen his bonafides among his party’s most liberal voters. Progressive icons Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have both decried the stock-buyback tactic as an example of public companies prioritizing shareholders over investments in their workforces or communities.

    Details: The White House is framing the proposed 4 percent tax as a way to push companies to direct funds toward expansion rather than well-heeled foreign shareholders. But buybacks also benefit major institutional investors in the U.S., including public pensions and retirement systems.

    Reality check: The 1 percent levy on buybacks that Biden signed into law as part of Democrat’s climate and health care law last year has done little to dissuade public companies from repurchasing their shares on the open market. And Biden’s buyback plan has little chance of surviving the Republican-led House, having already elicited opposition from the likes of Warren Buffet, who recently called the rejection of buybacks the work of “an economic illiterate or a silver-tongued demagogue.”

    — Sam Sutton

    Advocate for low-income families

    The president is calling on Congress to allow SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, for more people, including those who have been in jail, and to hike funding for the WIC program that helps parents buy baby formula and other food.

    Details: Biden’s budget seeks to broaden eligibility rules for the SNAP program and let people receive the benefits for longer. He proposes $6.3 billion for the WIC program, a 5 percent increase.

    Reality check: Republican lawmakers want cuts to the food stamp program and are also eager to enforce work requirements that have been waived during the pandemic.

    — Garrett Downs

    Education booster

    Biden’s budget re-ups two big-ticket education proposals he trumpeted on the campaign trail the first time around — universal pre-K and free community college, both broadly popular ideas among Democratic voters.

    Details: The plans call for major new federal spending. Expanding preschool for three- and four-year-olds would cost $200 billion over the next decade. Free community college would be about $90 billion over that timeframe.

    Reality check: Democrats failed to enact those plans during Biden’s first two years in office, despite controlling both chambers of Congress. Now Republicans control the House, and the proposals are non-starters as the new majority pushes to cut federal spending.

    — Michael Stratford

    Health cost cutter

    Biden wants an extra $15 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services, amounting to a more than 11 percent increase for the agency, while building on efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs, expand health care access and advance his cancer “moonshot.”

    Details: The budget includes $150 billion over a decade for Medicaid home- and community-based services, $20 billion for pandemic preparedness, nearly $20 billion for mental health and $10.9 billion for global health.

    The proposal also includes additional cash for long-term care improvements, maternal health, telehealth and family planning.

    Notably, Biden didn’t ask for significant new Covid funding, a reminder of the administration’s plan to wind down its emergency pandemic response in the coming months amid congressional Republican resistance to providing more money.

    Reality check: GOP leaders aren’t feeling especially charitable to help enact big health spending increases after Democrats secured significant investments through Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid aid bill during his first year in office and the party’s health, tax and climate legislation last year.

    — Daniel Payne

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )