In a Statement of Administration Policy, the Biden administration said that an abrupt end to the emergency declarations would “create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system.”
Despite this, Biden told Senate Majority Chuck Schumer last month that he did not plan to veto it — marking the second time in recent weeks that the president has signaled opposition to a Republican-sponsored bill, only to later decline to veto it. Last month, Biden told the Senate that he would not veto a GOP-back bill that would repeal changes to the D.C. criminal code, a move that came as a surprise to Democrats.
Ending the national emergency will end the use of some waivers for federal health programs meant to help health care providers during the height of the pandemic.
The law Biden signed Monday did not affect the public health emergency, which is still set to expire in May — along with the Trump-era Title 42 border policy. In the Statement of Administration Policy objecting to the GOP bills seeking to end the pandemic emergencies, the White House warned that an abrupt end to the public health emergency and Title 42 would prove particularly problematic, and could “allow thousands of migrants per day into the country immediately without the necessary policies in place.”
[ad_2]
#Biden #signs #bill #Covid19 #national #emergency
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Florida becomes the 26th state to allow residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit. The new legislation gives DeSantis another victory to tout as he gears up for an expected presidential campaign.
“Here in the free state of Florida, government will not get in the way of law-abiding Americans who want to defend themselves and their families,” said state Sen. Jay Collins, a Tampa Republican and sponsor of the legislation.
While DeSantis and other Republican backers have described the legislation as “constitutional carry,” supporters of gun rights have repeatedly called on GOP legislators to go further by allowing people to carry guns openly.
DeSantis has said he supports open carry, but top Republicans in the state Senate — including Senate President Kathleen Passidomo — oppose such a policy. Passidomo has cited the opposition of many of Florida’s sheriffs as a prime reason for her stance.
“The governor is weak if he cannot even get his own super majority legislature to add part of his agenda, which is open carry, to the permitless carry bill,” said Matt Collins, a gun rights supporter and former lobbyist for gun-rights groups. “It’s embarrassing for him. It’s failed leadership and it hurts his chances in the upcoming presidential primary.”
Democrats, meanwhile, sharply criticized the approval of the gun measure.
“Hiding behind closed doors and standing shoulder to shoulder with the NRA, Ron DeSantis just signed legislation that could make it easier for criminals to carry guns,” Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement. “DeSantis knows this legislation could be dangerous for Florida families and that’s why he signed this bill with none of his usual produced fanfare.”
Florida law currently makes it a felony if someone carries a concealed weapon without a permit. There are more than 2.6 million people with concealed weapon licenses who must go through training and a background check first.
The new law, which takes effect on July 1, does not end the permitting program but instead makes it optional. Bill supporters contend many Floridians will go through the permitting process because other states recognize the licenses.
State Sen. Lauren Book, the Senate Democratic leader, also faulted Republicans for pushing ahead with what she called a “nonsensical, reckless policy” due to the “governor’s political ambition.”
[ad_2]
#DeSantis #signs #Florida #gun #bill #activists #demand
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Kashmir: ACB traps and arrests Gram Rozgar Sevak for demanding and accepting bribe of ₹7,000 for release of bill for Construction of the Spring – Kashmir News
LONDON — As the U.K. prepares to overhaul its competition regime, a fierce lobbying battle has broken out between the world’s largest tech companies and their challengers.
Ministers are gearing up to publish new competition legislation in late-April, giving regulators more power to stop a handful of companies dominating digital markets.
But concern over the U.S. tech giants’ influence in Westminster has prompted ministers close to the bill to warn that the new legislation could be watered down.
Two ministers have expressed concerns that Big Tech firms are seeking to weaken the process for appealing decisions made by the country’s beefed-up competition regulator, according to multiple people who were either present at those discussions or whose organizations were represented there. They requested anonymity to discuss private meetings.
One MP said a minister had also approached them to raise concerns, while at an industry roundtable, two ministers spoke of worry about Big Tech firms trying to influence the appeal mechanism.
An industry representative said: “There has been a sh*t load of lobbying from Big Tech, but I don’t know if they’ll succeed.”
Appealing to who?
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill will give new powers to a branch of the Competition and Markets Authority called the Digital Markets Unit (DMU). Under the plan, the DMU will be able fine a company 10 percent of their annual turnover for breaching a code of conduct.
The code, which has not yet been published, would be designed to ensure that a company with ‘strategic market status’ cannot “unfairly use its market power and strategic position to distort or undermine competition between users of the … firm’s services,” the government has said.
Jonathan Jones, senior consultant in public law at Linklaters and formerly the head of the U.K. government’s legal department, wrote that the plan would have “very significant consequences” for Big Tech firms and could force them to “significantly alter” their business models.
One of Big Tech’s concerns is that the bill will only allow companies to appeal decisions made by the DMU on whether or not the right process was followed, known as the judicial review standard, rather than the content or merit of the decision. That puts it in line with other regulators and should mean the process is faster, but it also makes it harder to appeal decisions.
Big Tech firms want to be able to appeal on the “merit”, arguing it is unfair that they can’t challenge whether a DMU decision was correct or not. They also argue it won’t necessarily be slower than the judicial review standard.
One of the biggest fears from medium-sized firms is that the biggest tech companies will use strategies to lengthen the appeals process or even get the entire bill delayed | iStock
Tech Minister Paul Scully, who has responsibility for the bill, told POLITICO: “We want to make sure that the legislation is flexible, proportionate and fair to both big and challenger companies. Any remediation needs to be in place quickly as digital markets move quickly.”
One representative of a mid-sized tech firm said: “This is the fundamental point of contention and it will influence whether the bill works for SMEs and challengers against Big Tech.
“The fear is that big companies with big lawyers understand how to eke things out (during the appeals process) so that they’ll keep their market advantage for years. We’ve heard ministers express these concerns too.”
Consumer group Which? is also urging the government to stay with its proposed appeal system. “For the DMU to work effectively, the government must stick to its guns and ensure that the decisions it reaches are not tied up in an elongated appeals process,” said director of policy, Rocio Concha.
‘Investigator and executioner’
But Jones argued that the bill will make the DMU too powerful.
“The DMU will have power to decide who it is going to regulate, set the rules that apply to them, and then enforce those rules,” he wrote. “This makes the DMU effectively legislator, investigator and executioner.”
On the appeal method, Jones argued that it is an “oversimplification” to think that the government’s proposed standard of appeal would be quicker than one based on merits.
Ben Greenstone, managing director of tech policy consultancy Taso Advisory, said: “I can understand the argument from both sides. The largest tech companies are incentivized to push back against this, but my guess is the government will keep the appeals process as it is, because it keeps it in line with the wider competition regime.”
However, he added the bill would work better if some sort of compromise can be found with the biggest tech companies.
The international playbook
One of the biggest fears from medium-sized firms is that the biggest tech companies will use strategies already tried and tested abroad to lengthen the appeals process or even get the entire bill delayed.
In the U.S., the Open App Markets Act has failed to pass following huge spends on lobbying.
Rick VanMeter, executive director of the Coalition for App Fairness, which is based in the U.S. but has U.K. members, said: “In the U.S. we’ve learned that these mobile app gatekeepers’ will stop at nothing to preserve the status quo and squash their competition.
“To be successful, policymakers around the world must see through these gatekeepers’ efforts for what they are: self-serving attempts to retain their market power.”
Google and Microsoft declined to comment. Apple did not respond.
[ad_2]
#Big #Tech #lobbyists #stuck #UKs #landmark #competition #bill
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
With the 77-35 vote that saw House Democrats in opposition, the legislation is on the cusp of passing the Legislature but is awaiting a final committee hearing in the Senate. Two Republicans — State Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera (R-Coral Gables) and Rep. Will Robinson (R-Bradenton) — crossed party lines and voted against the bill.
“For those who think our schools should be some sort of social justice experiment, I challenge you this: I don’t agree with any of it, but when 100 percent of our children are proficient in reading, and 100 percent of our children are proficient in math, then there is time for all of this silliness,” said state Rep. Randy Fine (R-Palm Bay). “You want to know what hurts children? It’s the fact that they can’t read, it’s the fact that they can’t do math.”
The bill, FL HB1069 (23R), would broaden the state’s prohibition on teaching about sexual identity and gender orientation from kindergarten through third grade to pre-K through eighth grade. This was a key piece in the Parental Rights in Education bill, known nationally as “Don’t Say Gay,” that was one of the more controversial policies passed by state lawmakers in 2022.
It also targets how school staff and students can use pronouns on K-12 campuses. Specifically, the legislation stipulates that school employees can’t ask students for their preferred pronouns and restricts school staff from sharing their pronouns with students if they “do not correspond” with their sex. Under the bill, it would be “false to ascribe” a person with a pronoun that “does not correspond to such person’s sex.”
As lawmakers voted on the bill, scores of LGBTQ advocates protested outside the House chamber, chanting in opposition of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who supports the parental rights expansions, and Republicans who passed it.
Most Florida Democrats have joined them in fighting the legislation, arguing the policies equate to sex discrimination and are disrespectful to LGBTQ students and families. They contend that the bill disregards the rights of parents who support their children being LGBTQ for the sake of others.
“In this body, our duty to our constituents is to make sure that every single constituent is seen and heard in our legislation,” said state Rep. Ashley Gantt (D-Miami). “And this bill does nothing but tell certain parts of our community in Florida that they don’t exist.”
Republican legislators, who hold a supermajority, maintain that expanding the parental rights law is necessary to ensure the state’s youngest students learn about adult topics like sexual orientation and gender identity from their parents instead of at school. Similar to last year when the parental rights bill was introduced, conservatives say the controversy over the proposal is a “manufactured narrative” and criticize advocacy groups and some school districts for politicizing the issue.
The legislation tackles an issue central to the parental rights polices lawmakers approved in 2022, which was inspired by a case in Leon County where parents claim that school officials helped their child transition to a different gender without informing them.
“I’m very concerned when I hear this bill being correlated with another bill, the Parental Rights in Education bill,” said state Rep. Fabián Basabe (R-Miami Beach). “And we’re still calling it the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill when I know we’ve all spoken … on how much work has been put into that bill to change any words that may be interpreted as targeting.”
HB 1069 also adds to legislation passed by Republicans last year to increase transparency about what books are available to students.
The bill aims to expand Florida law to require that books facing objections for being pornographic, harmful to minors, or describe or depict sexual activity must be pulled within five days and remain out of circulation for the duration of the challenge.
It also expands school board jurisdiction to classroom libraries. The bill would allow a parent who disagrees with a district’s ruling on a book challenge to appeal the state education commissioner to appoint a special magistrate to hear the dispute.
This comes as DeSantis, along with other Florida conservatives, seek to remove books with graphic content from schools, taking aim at specific titles such as “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, which depicts sex acts. Another measure in the bill stipulates that the Florida Department of Education must approve all materials for sex education classes, breaking from current policy of having local school boards pass them every year.
Democrats argue that the bill is too vague and could lead to parents challenging a large number of books that would then be kept off the shelves. They pointed to challenges to media that have played out across the state such as the Ruby Bridges movie being called out by a parent in Pinellas County, where it remains unavailable to other students in the district.
“This bill has given a ticket for racist, homophobic people — that this chamber does not support – to pull books that matter to our children,” said state Rep. Robin Bartleman (D-Weston).
The Senate parental rights bill, FL SB1320 (23R), is slated for a second and final hearing before the chamber’s Fiscal Policy committee, although no date has been set as of yet.
[ad_2]
#Florida #House #passes #parental #rights #bill #restricting #pronouns #schools
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“We just found that a majority of [Democrats] are so extreme that they would rather stand with China and Russia than with the American energy worker,” McCarthy told reporters after the vote. “I am not sure what’s controversial in the bill. I am not sure what’s controversial that you can speed the process up so you can make things in America.”
Democrats Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, who hail from oil and gas producing Texas, voted for the bill, along with Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Jared Golden of Maine, while Republican Brian Fitzpatrick voted against it.
Biden has vowed to veto the bill, known as the Lower Energy Costs Act. But elements of the bill, aimed at streamlining permitting rules for energy projects, could serve as the starting point for negotiations on that narrower issue with the Senate, where centrist West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin last year pushed his own plan to ease those regulations.
Republicans designed the bill to do two things at once.
First, they sought to deliver a blow against Biden by repealing provisions of Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, such as the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to boost clean energy and a fee imposed on oil and gas methane emissions.
Republicans contend that the president is recklessly pushing a quick transition away from coal, oil and natural gas toward green-energy sources that China dominates, which would increase dependence on Beijing and other adversaries. The energy bill seeks to address some core Republican energy priorities from the past decade, from disapproving of Biden’s block on the Keystone XL pipeline to mandating more oil and gas lease sales and making it harder for states to block the construction of interstate pipelines that cross their borders.
But the House GOP also sought for the bill to represent an opening bid on the wonky issue of energy permitting — a rare policy area that both parties believe could lead to a bipartisan deal later on with the Senate.
“By showing our strong support, we give some of our Senate Democratic friends an idea of okay, we have a place to work the permitting space particularly,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Even if it’s not the whole package, these are smart policies whether you are trying to hook up offshore wind or trying to get a gas pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois.”
The GOP bill would overhaul rules for reviews conducted under the bedrock 1970 National Environmental Policy Act for energy infrastructure, ranging from pipelines to clean energy projects and mines, by setting a two-year deadline for major reviews and making it more difficult for environmentalists to sue to stop projects.
But most Democrats and the White House dismissed the Republican bill as doubling down on fossil fuel-centric policies that would benefit global rivals by keeping the U.S. out of the race to compete in industries of the future like electric vehicle manufacturing and clean energy development.
“None of it [the GOP energy agenda] makes sense in this moment,” said Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “They ignore the fact it was the high fossil fuel prices that was the primary driver of inflation. What I hear from folks back home is they don’t want to be at the mercy of these gas and oil price spikes. They are looking towards the clean energy economy — greater independence and more money in their pocket.”
In its statement of administration policy opposing the bill, the White House noted that both domestic oil and gas production are set to reach record highs this year as companies have responded to last year’s high prices to bring more supply to the market. Gasoline prices have come down from record highs since the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year but they could be set to rise again this summer during peak driving season.
Republicans, though, counter that their agenda makes more sense in the current moment since Russia’s military aggression underscored the importance of maintaining ample supplies of oil and gas even as the world transitions off fossil fuels.
“It comes down to affordability, it comes down to cleanliness, and it comes down to security,” said Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), who wrote many of the major permitting parts of the bill. “This administration has caused so many problems with their energy strategy, our solution fixes a lot of the problems.”
[ad_2]
#House #Republicans #pass #marquee #energy #bill #rebuke #Biden
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Nineteen people were arrested and charged with third-degree criminal trespassing, Kentucky State Police said. Officers gave each person “the option to leave without any enforcement action or be placed under arrest,” said Capt. Paul Blanton, a police spokesperson.
Republican House Speaker David Osborne later said it was a decision by state police to remove and arrest protesters.
“I think it’s unfortunate that it reached that level and certainly they were given, as I’ve been told since then, multiple opportunities to either quiet their chants or to leave voluntarily,” Osborne said.
The bill’s opponents framed the issue as a civil-rights fight. Democratic Rep. Sarah Stalker declared: “Kentucky will be on the wrong side of history” by enacting the measure.
The debate about the transgender bill will likely spill over into this year’s gubernatorial campaign, with Beshear’s veto drawing GOP condemnation as he seeks reelection to a second term. A legal fight also is brewing. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky reaffirmed that it intends to “take this fight to the courts” to try to preserve access to health care options for young transgender people.
“While we lost the battle in the legislature, our defeat is temporary. We will not lose in court,” said Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization.
In praising the veto override, David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation, said the bill puts “policy in alignment with the truth that every child is created as a male or female and deserves to be loved, treated with dignity and accepted for who they really are.”
Activists on both sides of the impassioned debate gathered at the statehouse to make competing appeals before lawmakers took up the transgender bill following an extended break.
At a rally that drew hundreds of transgender-rights supporters, trans teenager Sun Pacyga held up a sign summing up a grim review of the Republican legislation. The sign read: “Our blood is on your hands.”
“If it passes, the restricted access to gender-affirming health care, I think trans kids will die because of that,” the 17-year-old student said, expressing a persistent concern among the bill’s critics that the restrictions could lead to an increase in teen suicides.
Bill supporters assembled to defend the measure, saying it protects trans children from undertaking gender-affirming treatments they might regret as adults. Research shows such regret is rare, however.
“We cannot allow people to continue down the path of fantasy, to where they’re going to end up 10, 20, 30 years down the road and find themselves miserable from decisions that they made when they were young,” said Republican Rep. Shane Baker at a rally.
[ad_2]
#Republican #lawmakers #override #veto #transgender #bill #Kentucky
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Jaipur: Medical services were affected in parts of Rajasthan on Wednesday after government doctors and faculty members in medical colleges went on a one-day strike in solidarity with private doctors agitating against the Right to Health Bill.
However, several government doctors attended to patients in OPDs at places like Bharatpur, Alwar and Udaipur.
Emergency services and ICUs were exempted from the strike.
A health department official said in the evening that there was no significant impact of the boycott because the OPDs were handled through alternative arrangements.
There was not much impact of the boycott in Sawai Mansingh (SMS) hospitals, the largest state-run hospitals in Rajasthan. Services remained unaffected in Dausa, the hometown of state Health Minister Parsadi Lal Meena.
In Rajasthan, private doctors are demanding withdrawal of the Bill passed in the state assembly last Tuesday. According to the Bill, every resident of the state will have the right to emergency treatment and care “without prepayment” at any “public health institution, health care establishment and designated health care centres”.
Iqbal Khan, joint secretary, health department, had on Tuesday issued an order to medical college principals directing them to ensure that medical services in OPD, IPD, ICU, emergency and maternity wards were not affected and to take disciplinary action against the doctors going on leave without approval.
Meena said the strike was “unfair” and “unjustified” and that the doors of the government were always open for any negotiation.
Taking a tough stand, the state government warned of disciplinary action against the government doctors for going on leave without approval. As a result, some of the doctors returned to work after boycotting work for two hours in Alwar, Bharatpur, Udaipur and Dungarpur.
Amid the protest, Bundi collector Ravindra Goswami, who is also an MBBS doctor, attended to a few patients at the district hospital.
The management of OPD in SMS hospital was handled by additional principal, additional superintendent and other doctors engaged in administrative work.
Washington: A group of influential lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan legislation in the US Senate to comprehensively overhaul the H-1B and L-1 visa programmes and usher in more transparency in the recruitment of foreign workers.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.
Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
The L-1 is the other type of work visa the US issues to professionals looking to work in the country.
Unlike the H-1B, where an individual is looking to join an American company, the L-1 visa is issued to those who are already employed by the company in another country, and who are merely relocating to an American office.
Two influential Senators — Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley — have introduced this legislation in the US Senate.
The co-sponsors include Senators Tommy Tuberville, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, and Richard Blumenthal.
The H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act will reduce fraud and abuse in the immigration system, provide protections for American workers and visa holders, and require more transparency in the recruitment of foreign workers, a media release said on Tuesday. The legislation proposes to place new wage, recruitment and attestation requirements on employers looking to hire L-1 and H-1B workers, and employers seeking to hire H-1B employees to post those jobs on the Department of Labour (DOL) website, it said.
It also proposes to give DOL the authority to place a fee on labour condition applications and use it to hire an additional 200 DOL employees and make reforms to the H-1B programme by prioritising the H-1B visa issuance for workers with higher levels of education in STEM and amending the definition of a “specialty occupation” to require a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the release.
The legislation seeks reforms to the L-1 nonimmigrant programme, including new time limits and evidentiary requirements for petitions from a “new office” and mandating cooperation from the Department of State in verifying foreign affiliates.
“For years, outsourcing companies have used legal loopholes to displace qualified American workers and replace them with foreign workers who are paid sub-par wages and put under exploitative working conditions,” Democratic Party Senator Durbin said. “These actions hurt all workers and make our country less attractive to the world’s top talent. Our legislation would fix these broken programs, protect workers, and put an end to these abuses,” he explained.
The H-1B and L-1 visa programmes were established to fill in gaps in America’s high-skilled workforce, not supplant it, Grassley, a Republican, said.
“Unfortunately, some companies have exploited these programmes to replace American workers with cheaper labour, which ultimately harms American workers and foreign labour alike. Our bill puts American workers first and ensures that the programmes promote fairness for all workers,” he said.
Durbin and Grassley, long-time advocates for H-1B and L-1 visa reform, first introduced the legislation in 2007.
Authors of this legislation said the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act would stop these abuses by closing loopholes in these programmes.
The legislation will also crackdown on companies that hire large numbers of H-1B and L-1 workers to displace American workers and facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs, the media release added.
Thousands of highly skilled foreign-born workers, including Indians, in the US, have lost their jobs due to the series of recent layoffs at companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
According to The Washington Post, nearly 200,000 IT workers have been laid off since November last year.
Industry insiders say that between 30 to 40 per cent of them are Indian IT professionals, a significant number of whom are on H-1B and L1 visas.
New Delhi: The Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2022 covers amendments related to the power sector and there is no amendment proposal related to the agriculture sector, the Parliament was told on Tuesday.
Power Minister R.K. Singh gave the assurance in response to a question in Lok Sabha during Question Hour.
“Further, the provision of subsidy as in the present Act i.e. Electricity Act, 2003 is not proposed to be changed and the states can continue to give subsidy to farmers and other consumers as they are doing at present,” he said.
As per Electricity Act, 2003, the subsidy to specific categories of consumers including domestic and farmers is decided by state governments.
The proposed legislation is currently under consideration of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy, which is headed by BJP MP Jagdambika Pal.
Last year during the Monsoon session, the Electricity (Amendment) Bill was referred to the Parliamentary Committee by the power minister, immediately after being introduced in Lok Sabha, amid protests by opposition that it encroached upon powers of states and allows privatisation of electricity on the lines of communication sector.
