On several occasions during debt-limit negotiations over the last decade, the unpredictable fallout of a looming deadline has helped persuade dozens of lawmakers from each party to begrudgingly support concessions they didn’t love. This time, ideas like beefing up work requirements for food assistance programs aren’t gaining the bipartisan appeal Republicans might have hoped for, while other proposals — like easing permitting for energy projects — might attract enough interest among Democrats to get added to a final deal.
Here’s a breakdown of the particular policy areas in the House Republican bill that might offer an opening for a bipartisan deal, with a clear-eyed assessment of how realistic those hopes really are:
Energy permitting
A sizable share of lawmakers in both parties agree that it takes too long to get permits for energy project construction in the U.S. So House Republicans’ push to streamline permitting rules just might have legs.
But what an agreement would look like, exactly, remains a big question. And Democrats remain resistant to linking energy policy to the debt-limit debate.
“This may be one of the few things we can actually accomplish in this Congress,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said. He added that it’s “very clear” Republicans are focused on permitting for oil and gas pipelines, instead of electric transmission lines — an emphasis Democrats could shift.
“They are just out of step with where the economy and country are,” Heinrich said of House GOP lawmakers. “That’s hopefully where the Senate comes in and rebalances.”
Worried that green perks could go to waste from the party-line tax and climate law they cleared last year, many Democrats want the federal government to make it easier to connect clean energy to the grid. Progressives are reluctant to shorten the length of environmental reviews for energy projects, however, for fear that could hurt low-income communities and communities of color.
Details: The House Republican package would streamline permitting reviews for energy projects and mines. But it’s also chock full of partisan priorities like protecting fracking, forcing the sale of oil and gas leases, killing tax benefits for green energy projects and pooh-poohing Biden’s decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline.
Sympathizers: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has tried to rally bipartisan support for overhauling energy permitting rules. But he failed last year, as progressive lawmakers argued against changing the rules for environmental reviews and Republicans spurned him for supporting Democrats’ trademark climate law.
In the House, when the chamber first voted in March on the package of energy policies that got rolled into the debt limit package, four Democrats joined as “yeas.” Those supporters included Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, who hail from oil-and-gas-rich Texas, as well as centrists Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Jared Golden of Maine.
Work requirements
House Republicans are trying to get a handful of swing-state Democrats in the Senate to support tougher work requirements for food assistance programs. But most have resoundingly rejected the idea.
Details: The debt limit bill House Republicans passed last week includes provisions that would expand existing work requirements for the nation’s largest food aid program, often referred to by its acronym of SNAP, along with other emergency aid that low-income families can use to buy food.
Specifically, it requires so-called “able-bodied adults without dependents” who receive SNAP to continue meeting work requirements until they’re 55 years old, rather than the current age limit at 49.
Sympathizers: Manchin has signaled he could be open to beefing up work requirements, potentially backing tighter rules for people who are “capable and able to do it.” House Republicans are quick to highlight Biden’s own embrace of welfare reform during the Clinton administration in the 1990s, when the position was less fraught among Democrats and Biden was a sitting senator — but the stricter work rules getting pushed by today’s GOP go beyond those.
Spending caps
Democrats have insisted that they’re ready to haggle over federal funding for the fiscal year that kicks off on Oct. 1 — just not with the Treasury Department’s borrowing ability at stake.
In order for that to happen, though, Republicans would have to agree to separate government funding caps that aren’t tied to debt-ceiling talks. And that would amount to a major shift from the GOP’s current demand for $130 billion in spending cuts in exchange for a vote to lift the debt limit.
If those talks get decoupled, it’s plausible that both sides could reach an agreement on military spending, since there’s already broad bipartisan support for ensuring the Pentagon gets enough money to at least keep pace with inflation.
Democrats would never sign off on the domestic spending cuts that GOP leaders are seeking. But it’s possible that they could cut a deal with a handful of Republicans — think centrists, purple-state members and appropriators — to keep non-defense funding essentially stagnant, pairing small cuts with increases elsewhere to rein in spending.
Details: The House debt limit bill would cap spending at $1.47 trillion for the upcoming fiscal year, rolling back the clock by two years on federal funding levels. Then for a decade, funding would be allowed to grow by 1 percent every year.
Sympathizers: A slew of moderate Democrats in both chambers have expressed support for fiscal restraint in the abstract, including long-term strategies for stabilizing the national debt like the 2010 budget plan that proposed trillions of dollars in tax increases and spending cuts.
“I am certainly not opposed to working on ways to reduce the debt. I am very, very, very opposed to putting the full faith and credit of the country at risk,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who faces a tough reelection in a red state, has said. “So you know, if we’re talking about doing something like [the 2010 plan], I not only think that’s a good idea, put me on it.”
Ending student loan relief
It’s hard to see Biden negotiating away a major domestic policy achievement that his administration has so vigorously defended in court. Some have even credited the president’s student debt relief plan, announced in the months leading up to the midterm elections, with helping limit Republican gains in the House last November.
A few moderate Democrats have criticized the president’s embrace of mass forgiveness of student loan debt, however, and have signaled openness to a separate Republican effort to nix the relief.
Details: The House GOP bill would overturn Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, which promises up to $20,000 in debt relief per borrower, even as the president’s plan remains in limbo ahead of a challenge at the Supreme Court.
The Republican bill would also block the administration’s new income-driven repayment plan that’s designed to lower monthly payments. And it would permanently curtail the Education Department’s power to create new policies that increase the taxpayer cost of the student loan program.
Sympathizers: When the president rolled out his student loan forgiveness plan last summer, Manchin called it “excessive,” arguing that people need to “earn it” through public service like working for the federal government. Other politically vulnerable Democrats have also spoken against the plan, including Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Michael Bennet of Colorado, as well as Rep. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire.
Meredith Lee Hill and Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
People in the oil industry were surprised at how ambitious EPA’s newest rule is, multiple oil industry lobbyists said, complaining that Biden’s regulators had skipped the Obama administration’s practice of meeting with outside groups while prepping a rule.
“The administration on these things, they tend to go big,” said Bruce Thompson, CEO of oil and grid consulting and lobbying firm CapeDC Advisors, adding that he saw the proposal mostly as a messaging exercise meant to energize Biden’s green supporters. “It’s almost as if they’re trying to convince people they’re actually doing something. It’s way over the top… I suspect a lot of this is theater.”
Biden’s supporters said they’re sure the new rules will hold up in court, noting that Congress enacted a climate law last year that’s pouring billions of dollars into the effort to get more electric cars on the road. And administration officials expressed confidence that the auto industry can meet the EPA’s audacious goal of having electric vehicles account for two-thirds of new sales by 2032 — despite the carmakers’ public misgivings.
“When I look at the projections that many in the automobile industry have made, this is the future,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said Wednesday morning during the proposal’s official unveiling. “The consumer demand is there. The markets are enabling it. The technologies are enabling it.”
But whether the rule can succeed depends on multiple complicated issues, including the average electric vehicle’s hefty price tag, the patchy state of the nation’s charging infrastructure, and the Treasury Department’s recent tightening of a $7,500 tax incentive that was supposed to make EVs more affordable. Other challenges include China’s dominance of the supply chain for batteries and the need to upgrade the U.S. power grid.
Here are the opponents who could make the task even tougher:
Republicans and red state attorneys general push back
Republicans in Congress are already stoking the fires of what could be the next big culture war: A fight over what’s in Americans’ driveways. And they’re invoking the partisan flare-up from earlier this year over another fossil-fuel touchstone of Americana — a false accusation that Biden was proposing to ban gas stoves.
“First President Biden came for our gas stoves,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Wednesday morning. “Now he wants to ban the cars we drive.”
Biden does, in fact, want to get millions of Americans to give up their gasoline-powered cars. And there’s not much that Republicans in Congress can do about it immediately, aside from attempting to pass a resolution that would roll back the EPA rule. (Biden could veto such a resolution.)
But a coalition of 17 attorneys general from GOP-led states has already sued over an earlier EPA auto-emissions rule, along with plaintiffs from the oil and gas industry. Though none of those states have yet explicitly threatened to sue over this latest version, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey hinted Wednesday that another multistate legal challenge could be on the way. “We’ll be ready to once again lead the charge against wrongheaded energy proposals like these,” Morrisey said in a statement.
He also said the new rule showed that “this administration is hell bent on destroying America’s energy security and independence” and making the U.S. dependent on resources from “countries like China and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Oil, gas and ethanol sharpen their knives
The oil and gas industry for the most part seems to be happy to let other industries poke holes in the rule, or for it to collapse under its own weight, lobbyists told POLITICO — or both.
But the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the main trade association representing refining companies, will be pushing the administration to make changes. And EPA is on shaky legal ground if it doesn’t, said Patrick Kelly, the group’s senior director for fuel and vehicle policy.
“I don’t think Congress has given the EPA authority to do this,” Kelly said in an interview just after an initial reading of the rule. “We need to look at where the EPA may have drifted into the Department of Transportation’s lane for setting fuel economy standards and where the EPA may have exceeded the authority Congress gave it.”
Ethanol interests also expressed frustration with the proposed rules and objected to the administration’s characterization of electric vehicles as being free of greenhouse gas pollution. They said the agency isn’t accounting for the energy-intensive nature of mineral mining and battery building, as well as the energy used to charge electric vehicles.
Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, noted that a majority of U.S. electricity today comes from fossil fuels. He said his group will be reaching out to members of Congress on what it calls a better approach — rather than what he called “carbon accounting gimmicks to create a de facto EV mandate.”
Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, an associate member of the national trade group, also accused the administration of putting its “thumb on the scale for EVs.”
And as an executive branch action, Wednesday’s rule proposal is vulnerable to being reversed by a future administration, much as former President Donald Trump’s regulators tried to undo EPA’s Obama-era regulations. Shaw predicted a continuation of “disjointed public policy” on emissions, characterized by “radical U turns” in policy until a consensus is reached.
But Thompson, from CapeDC Advisors, said he thinks the oil industry will “stay out of the crosshairs on this one” and let the auto industry lead the charge against the rule in the courts — assuming the carmakers do so.
The EPA rule is “more of an eyeroll than a source of consternation,” said one lobbyist, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
But another industry lobbyist, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the oil industry couldn’t just “leave it up to the autos because they have very different goals: The autos take issue with the speed with which they’re accelerating the energy transition, not the transition itself.”
Automobiles warn of a proposal that could be doomed to fail
Automakers are pouring more than $100 billion into the transition to electric, but they say the new EPA proposal goes too far too fast, especially considering the many challenges involving charging, minerals and the tax-credit restrictions.
One noteworthy feature of Wednesday’s rule rollout was what the automakers didn’t say. Officials from GM, Ford, Mercedes and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the principal U.S. trade group for the auto industry, were present for Wednesday’s unveiling at EPA headquarters in Washington but didn’t speak.
The event had originally been expected to happen in Detroit, the industry’s home turf, a person familiar with the situation said. But the person, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, said automakers were concerned that holding it there could make it appear they were endorsing a proposal they hadn’t seen yet.
But people in the industry made it clear they don’t love the proposal.
Alliance for Automotive Innovation leader John Bozzella noted in a statement Wednesday that the EPA’s goal for electric vehicle adoption goes beyond Biden’s original target of having EVs make up 50 percent of new vehicle sales by 2030. He questioned how the agency could justify steamrolling that “carefully considered and data-driven goal,” especially since the industry and the administration had agreed on it just two years ago..
“To be clear, 50 percent was always a stretch goal and predicated on several conditions,” Bozzella said. Those conditions included the climate law’s incentives for manufacturers, which “have only just begun to be implemented,” and the $7,500 tax credits that the Treasury Department is now dramatically curtailing to meet Congress’ domestic sourcing requirements.
Nobody in the auto industry was threatening to go to court, but Bozzella also wasn’t endorsing the administration’s more ambitious new goal.
“The question isn’t can this be done, it’s how fast can it be done, and how fast will depend almost exclusively on having the right policies and market conditions in place,” he said.
Individual statements from some major carmakers were more noncommittal. Ford touted its advancement of electric vehicles and promised “strong coordinated action from the public and private sectors.” A GM spokesperson told POLITICO that policy staff is still going through the massive rule but that the company would likely submit comments on the rule.
Manufacturers exclusively invested in EVs, such as Rivian, applauded the EPA proposal.
The Zero Emission Transportation Association urged the administration to act swiftly to encourage more Americans to buy electric vehicles — and to ensure the industry is capable of providing them.
James Bikales and Alex Guillén contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“Election officials do want elections to become boring again,” said Rachel Orey, the associate director of the BPC’s Elections Project and an author of the report. “We need to think more realistically about what it is that we actually need to do to improve elections.”
They might have their work cut out for them.
The explosion of election denialism, Orey says, has distracted “from the actual challenges that are undermining elections. If legislators’ attention is so focused on appeasing critics, they end up doing things that aren’t actually solving problems.”
One longtime recommendation they reup is to urge states to join or remain in the Electronic Registration Information Center — an interstate organization that helps states maintain their voter rolls — in an effort to make roll maintenance “a regular and uncontroversial part of the elections process.”
But what’s happening on the ground is the opposite. Several Republican-led states have left the organization over the last year after it was attacked by former President Donald Trump and his allies. Some affiliated with the organization fear more departures are coming.
BPC recommends improving funding for elections, a bugaboo for some in the field. The report’s first set of recommendations call for the state and federal government to supply more reliable funding for election officials.
The report argues that it is needed because “an increasingly interconnected, complicated, and contentious political environment means that vulnerabilities in one jurisdiction could cast doubt on the election and, ultimately, on American democracy as a whole.”
The report says states should “consider requiring that all ballots be in hand [of election officials] by the close of polls to be counted,” in an effort to expedite the amount of time it takes results to be tabulated. Election officials have become increasingly concerned about the window between when polls close and when a winner is clear, a time they say is ripe for bad actors to spread disinformation.
The idea would likely be unpopular with some Democrats who advocate letting ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and are received by officials days later to count.
That recommendation is part of one of the report’s other major goals, which is looking to have election results that are “trusted by candidates and the general public.”
That and other recommendations look to speed up ballot counting timelines, an effort to counteract “today’s rapid-information culture [that] perceives longer waits as inherently suspect.”
There is also a recognition that post-election work is just as important as what happens on Election Day.
BPC believes holding “cross-partisan” election audits could curb the misinformation that stemmed from states like Arizona, where the Republican-led state Senate ran a post-election review of Maricopa County that was widely panned by election experts as amateurish and fueling conspiracy theories.
“Getting some sort of agreed-upon, trusted approach to audit the process can really then enhance [elections],” said Scott Jarrett, who is co-elections director in Maricopa and a BPC elections task force member. “Not only for the near-term, but then for decades and decades of elections to come.”
The election certification process has been revealed as a weak point in American democracy. In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, allies of Trump targeted election certification in Michigan and elsewhere. And a handful of counties across the country had to be ordered by courts to certify some results during the midterms. “Certification challenges might increase in the days after the 2024 presidential election,” the report warns.
Among other things, the report urges lawmakers to allow state election officials to step in if a local jurisdiction does not certify, and allowing for “courts [to] expediently intervene” if officials refuse to certify.
The ultimate goal of the entire report, officials say, is to have elections run smoothly. The thinking there is that if voters have a positive individual experience, they will be more trusting of the system overall.
But they acknowledge that the heat on election officials likely isn’t going away anytime soon.
“I would love for it to be boring again, and people aren’t paying attention, and they just show up, vote and are confident that their vote has been counted,” said Monica Holman Evans, another BPC task force member and the executive director of the D.C. board of elections. “But I don’t know if that’s likely to happen.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Hyderabad: Global advisory firm EPG has invited Telangana IT minister KT Rama Rao to speak at the second edition of the ‘Ideas for India’ conference to be held in London on May 11 and 12.
“We believe your presence would add significant value to the dialogue and the audience, and we are particularly keen to showcase the economic strides made by the Telangana government,” the global firm said.
The economic and strategy consulting firm also extended the invitation to KTR to attend the dinner at the House of Commons, hosted by Seema Malhotra MP (Labour) and the Black-tie Celebration Dinner with a UK cabinet minister as keynote speaker.
Over 800 people including multiple business, media and political leaders are expected to attend the event, as part of the inaugural India Week to be held across the United Kingdom.
TOKYO (Reuters) – Incoming Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said on Monday he had ideas about how Japan’s central bank might exit its massive monetary stimulus, but a shift to tighter policy would only come when the country’s inflation tendency to increase significantly.
The central bank will reduce its bond purchases and is likely to move towards monetary policy normalization when sustained achievement of its 2% inflation target is in sight, Ueda said.
With inflation trending below the Bank of Japan’s target, however, the central bank is likely to stick to the current ultra-loose policy for the time being, he added.
“Big improvements must be made in Japan’s inflation trend for the Bank of Japan to shift to monetary tightening,” Ueda said.
“It’s not that I don’t have ideas on how to adjust the Bank of Japan’s current policy. But the desirable adjustment will vary depending on economic changes at the moment,” Ueda said, adding that it was premature to comment on how the central bank might change monetary policy.
For now, the Bank of Japan’s ultra-lax conduct was appropriate as the benefits of monetary policy, such as boosting growth, exceeded the costs, such as deteriorating market functions, he said.
“If the inflation trend does not pick up, the Bank of Japan should shift to a more sustainable monetary policy or an easing monetary framework that takes care of the cost of its stimulus,” Ueda told a confirmation hearing in parliament.
Ueda said he sees no need now to change the 2% inflation target or the central bank’s language in a joint statement the government signed in 2013 obliges the central bank to hit the price target as soon as possible.
He also said the Bank of Japan must watch out for an unwelcome rise in inflation, maintaining a commitment to continue increasing money printing until inflation exceeds its 2% target.
Upon parliamentary approval, Ueda will succeed incumbent President Haruhiko Kuroda, whose second five-year term as head of the bank ends on April 8.
The ball was sent long, launched off the right boot in the hope of getting his team up the other end to put pressure on the opposition defenders. Possession was lost, though, and the visitors took control, quickly regained the territory and nearly scored on the counter. The fan next to me bemoaned this waste of an attack from the hosts, claiming short passes at speed are a better way of playing than that “lazy” style.
All this took place at Twickenham, where it was fascinating to analyse the differences and similarities between rugby union and football. I spent last Sunday at England’s victory over Italy in the Six Nations, watching the preferences for slower buildup or a more direct approach. It was supposed to be a day off, something completely different from my day-to-day roles, but I was fascinated by what the sports can take from one another, and seeing the tactical theories on show and how they could influence other sports.
Football is all-consuming in my life because of my punditry in the men’s and women’s games, leading the government review into women’s football and working on a project, The Second Half, to help female footballers transition into a career outside the sport. I have, however, recognised the need to look externally to find the best ways to progress and innovate.
If an organisation stands still, it will go backwards. The best are always looking to take that next step to keep them ahead of rivals. Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp are innovators on the pitch, coming up with new tactics, whereas Brentford and Brighton innovate in recruitment. They all do what is required to progress.
Sir Alex Ferguson was another who never rested on his laurels. For example, he brought in a vision specialist, the late Prof Gail Stephenson, to test the players’ eyes. He was always looking for a high-performance advantage to set Manchester United apart.
I visited the National Cycling Centre at the Manchester Velodrome a few years ago to see how they operate when I was doing my psychology master’s and learned from what they do. The sport has been heavily influenced by Sir Dave Brailsford, who pioneered the idea of marginal gains and made others think differently about coaching. It made its way into my mindset. If you get a 1% advantage in seven areas that would give a 7% advantage over rivals. Many have looked at this concept and analysts have investigated the minutiae that can make a huge difference in elite sport. It is not just individual ideas that change sports but concepts.
The former England rugby union coach Eddie Jones has made an impression on Everton manager Sean Dyche. Photograph: Dave Shopland/Shutterstock
Often out-of-work football coaches will visit other clubs to see how their contemporaries operate. We also see plenty of examples of crossover. The former England rugby union coach Eddie Jones scrutinised proceedings at football training grounds, and Eddie Howe went to watch boxing weigh-ins to find out how fighters prepare mentally. Sean Dyche said last week he would invite Jones to Everton’s training centre. “If you are going to ask for feedback – get people in who will give you feedback,” Dyche said. “It’s not just football people; it’s business people, who I will ask to pop in.”
Getting that range of perspectives can be informative and it is a two-way street. The best coaches are thieves, picking up others’ ideas and implementing them within their own structure.
Chelsea recently hired the All Blacks leadership manager and mental skills coach, Gilbert Enoka, on a consultancy basis. The New Zealand rugby team have won two World Cups during his time on the staff. The difference between the best and the rest at the highest level is mentality. Everyone there can run, jump, twist and turn. I am always interested when a player says in a post-match interview: “I am confident at the moment.” One has to look at what that means. In a gym you can measure fitness by lifting weights, for example, because you can see the progression but in terms of psychological gains it is hard to measure.
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Tennis is a fascinating example because it is – often – played as an individual and that person has to motivate themselves with no one on the court to get them going or encourage them. Everything that person needs to win is within their armoury and they have to rely on themselves to complete the business. Footballers can learn from that.
All sportspeople need to recover and the science across the different professions is aligning. Ice baths, recovery drinks and meditation have become the norm in many sports because of the benefits those are found to have.
There is also plenty to learn from other sports in terms of business and how they attract and engage with fans. At Twickenham I looked at the fan experience and how that differs in sports on match day. The business of attracting supporters is imperative, especially in a market where fans have plenty of choice of where to spend their money.
Staying at the top is the hardest part of professional football. Getting a team physically and mentally prepared for every fixture is a coach’s aim. To do that they need the best staff, facilities and equipment but it helps if they also know how to steal the odd idea and make it their own – because if they do not, others will.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Yet Biden also warned that the job remains half-done, using the address to lay out priorities across several areas that, he argued, would be essential to keeping the U.S. on the right track.
And in a nod to the tougher political landscape he now faces with Republicans in charge of the House, Biden emphasized his openness to compromise. He urged GOP leaders to work with him to strengthen the economy and slash the deficit even as he vowed to pursue his own longstanding cost-cutting policies.
Here are some of the major policy areas that Biden focused on in his speech:
Shoring up the economy
Biden made the state of the economy a central element of his address, reveling in its resilience over the past year despite persistent inflation and widespread predictions the U.S. was bound for a recession.
The president boasted about the roughly 12 million jobs created throughout his administration and an unemployment rate at its lowest point in more than 50 years. He credited a pair of bipartisan laws for spurring a boom in manufacturing investments and infrastructure projects across the country.
And Biden expressed confidence that the inflation that has dampened the White House’s economic record to date would continue to slow.
“Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back because of the choices we made in the last several years,” he said. “This is my view and of a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America.”
Maintaining that progress means continuing to bring manufacturing operations back to the U.S. and focus on building out the nation’s middle class, he argued. In that vein, Biden announced that the administration would soon issue guidance requiring that a range of construction materials used in federally funded infrastructure projects be made in America.
Addressing the deficit
The federal deficit fell by roughly $1.7 trillion in Biden’s first two years. On Tuesday, he proposed reducing it further through a pair of populist policies that would tax billionaires and corporate stock buybacks.
The plan Biden laid out is a long shot; it would require Congress to pass legislation unlikely to make it through the GOP-controlled House. It would impose a minimum tax on billionaires to ensure they won’t pay “a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter.” Corporations’ stock buybacks, meanwhile, would be taxed quadruple the current rate as an incentive for companies to make long-term investments.
Biden’s deficit talk came against the backdrop of a looming fight over the debt ceiling, which he noted had been raised three times in previous years “without preconditions or crisis.”
The president reiterated his call for quickly increasing the borrowing limit, calling it a necessary step to prevent an “economic disaster” that would throw the full faith and credit of the U.S. in question.
Even as he sought to reach across the aisle in other areas, Biden couldn’t help but hit Republicans over their suggestions that the debt ceiling is tied to cutting spending on entitlements.
“Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” he said, eliciting boos and finger-waving from GOP lawmakers and prompting a back-and-forth over the prospect of touching the programs.
“So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare, off the books now, right?” a bemused Biden eventually asked, to cheers from both sides of the aisle. “All right. We got unanimity.”
Cutting health care costs
Biden cast health care affordability as a key to his efforts to fight inflation by lowering “every day” costs, highlighting provisions in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act that reduced Obamacare premiums and helped spur record enrollment. The bill also granted Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices and limited the price of insulin for program beneficiaries, fulfilling two of Democrats’ long-held health policy priorities.
But Biden noted the bill failed to expand that insulin price cap to all Americans in the face of Republican opposition. He renewed his call for making the policy universal, challenging Congress to apply the new $35-per-month insulin limit to everyone who needs the medicine.
“There are millions of other Americans who are not on Medicare, including 200,000 young people with Type I diabetes who need this insulin to stay alive,” Biden said. “Let’s finish the job this time.”
Abortion
Despite making the threat to abortion access a key pillar of his midterm message, Biden made only a brief mention of the issue during his address on Tuesday.
Congress must codify Roe v. Wade, he said, mirroring the central argument that his administration has made in the months since the Supreme Court struck down the precedent. He insisted the White House is doing all it can to protect abortion access in the meantime, though he offered few specifics as to what that entailed besides pledging to veto any national abortion ban.
Keeping Covid in check
Biden pointed to Covid’s blunted impact on public health and the economy as confirmation of his administration’s progress in fighting the pandemic, insisting the country has reached a clear turning point where it can live safely with the virus.
He celebrated the planned expiration of the public health emergency for Covid this spring, and declared that the U.S. has “broken Covid’s grip on us.” Biden allowed that the virus is still circulating, and that his administration would continue working to keep it under control.
But in a sign of the pandemic’s shrinking political salience, Biden devoted relatively little time to discussing the next stage of a public health battle that once defined his presidency. He offered little in the way of new federal initiatives that might further suppress Covid’s spread outside of reiterating a monthslong call for more funding.
Defending America’s interests abroad
A year after making a primetime case for defending Ukraine against a just-launched Russian invasion, Biden pointed to the country’s extraordinary resilience in arguing that the U.S. must remain resolute in its support.
The nation’s continued defense of Ukraine, he said, is a testament to the U.S.’s ability to assemble and keep intact a global coalition. In a move that came even as some Republicans’ have grown openly skeptical over continuing to send aid to Ukraine, Biden directly addressed the Ukrainian ambassador, telling her: “We are united in our support for your country. We are going to stand with you as long as it takes.”
Biden also briefly addressed last week’s downing of a Chinese spy balloon, holding it up as a clear message that “if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.”
Guns and policing
In one of the most somber moments of the night, Biden mourned the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers. Acknowledging Nichols’ parents in the audience, Biden lamented there are “no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a child.”
Biden also offered a defense of law enforcement, calling most police “good, decent people.” But he urged Congress to embrace the need for greater accountability and pass a policing reform bill that has now been stalled for two years.
Biden similarly renewed his call for stronger action to curb access to assault weapons, in the aftermath of back-to-back mass shootings in January. Brandon Tsay, who disarmed a mass shooter at a Lunar New Year festival in California, was one of the president’s guests for the speech.
“Ban assault weapons now. Ban them now, once and for all,” Biden said.
Immigration
Biden batted away criticism of his border policies from Republicans who have vowed a flurry of investigations over the issue, contending that he’s made significant progress in policing human smuggling and fentanyl trafficking across the southern border.
But he also sought help from Congress to take additional action, pleading that if lawmakers won’t “pass my comprehensive immigration reform,” they should at least pass legislation providing the equipment and officers necessary to secure the border.
Biden added that Congress also needed to prioritize a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, farm workers, essential workers and those in the country on temporary status.
Climate
Biden pointed to the IRA in laying out his achievements on the climate, which he hailed as setting the foundation for a green revolution over the next several years. The hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies meant to spur electric vehicle manufacturing and other green technology investments will lead the way to what Biden termed a “clean energy future.”
Still, he linked the need to do more on the climate to his corporate tax proposals, arguing that ensuring the wealthiest corporations pay their “fair share” would be key to funding future investments aimed at preserving the environment.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Dr Samina Raja plans cities, towns, and regions to promote health and food equity. An award-winning professor and founder of a globally recognized Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities laboratory, operating from the University of Buffalo, she and her team conduct research on how to develop equitable, sustainable, and healthy cities. Her research has been used to advise local and national governments within and outside the US, and international organizations like the UN’s FAO. In a freewheeling interview with Masood Hussain, she offers her ideas about Kashmir of her imagination
KASHMIR LIFE (KL): Food security is a major concern in developing countries. What are its manifestations and current global status?
DR SAMINA RAJA (DSR): Food insecurity has varied definitions but is often defined as the chronic lack of access to food. Food insecurity is different from hunger. Hunger is a physical sensation tied to undernourishment while food insecurity is about chronic deprivation of food over time. In 2021, more than 800 million people were affected by hunger, and around 2.3 billion people globally were food insecure. Though food insecurity is a problem globally, it is more prevalent in the developing world. For example, the prevalence of undernourishment is 9.8 per cent globally, while in South Asia it is nearly 16.9 per cent. It is ironic that farmers from developing countries who grow vegetables and fruits for the world often face food deprivation. The persistence of food insecurity across the globe is tied to the lack of food sovereignty or the lack of farmers’ control over the means of food production.
KL: Guide us through your journey from Srinagar to the State University of New York, University at Buffalo.
DSR: I am a trans-disciplinary scholar and a professor at the State University of New York, University at Buffalo. I was trained as a civil engineer as well as an urban planner. I completed an undergraduate degree in civil engineering from Jamia Millia Islamia, a Master’s (in Housing) from the School of Architecture and Planning (New Delhi), and a PhD in urban planning (with a focus on fiscal impacts of land development). My career trajectory blended science, technology, engineering and urban planning. As a civil engineer, I was trained to build but not necessarily trained to think about why we build. Motivated by concerns about the impact of building on human health and health equity, I decided to pursue advanced training so I could use my engineering and urban planning skills in the service of health equity. Health equity is a condition in which all people in a society can lead healthy and full lives, including those with the fewest resources. This interest in equity led me to pursue a PhD in urban planning at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.
I recall the first class I completed during my PhD programme was about ethics, which, despite being an important aspect for all disciplines, is not widely discussed. The course focused on fundamental questions tied to equity, especially about why, and for whom, one should plan or build. The goals of the course were aligned with my values and satisfied my curiosity. As a PhD student, I was able to connect a values-based education to technical questions. Ultimately, my PhD focused on how urban planners measure the fiscal impacts of land development and the implications of such measurements for the well-being of present and future generations.
Prof Samina Raja heads the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities laboratory in the University of Buffalo, New York. Photograph by Alexender J Becker
In western urban planning, there is a concept called the ‘highest and best use of land’. Unfortunately, this concept has also been exported to Kashmir and South Asia. There is a heuristic notion that if, for example, farmland is converted into a commercial building, some see the conversion as a measure of development. In the US, cities pursue such development because it is presumed to generate money. This presumption is based on widespread, but outdated, measurement techniques that urban planners use to judge whether land development is “good” or “bad”. In my doctoral research, I measured the accuracy of these techniques using statistical models. I found that the common techniques that planners use to measure the fiscal impacts of development are flawed. In the subsequent body of scholarship for the last 20 years, I have found that misguided land use planning and development can be harmful to public well-being. To translate this simply: if you see a patch of farmland, or say, a paddy field, converted into a mansion and you think it’s a sign of progress, it turns out that it’s not. It’s complicated.
KL: Unlike our universities, PhD in the west is a systemic and systematic investment in an individual. Did your dissertation change anything?
DSR: In the long run, yes. Not immediately though. Translating research into action takes time. My dissertation generated more questions (about existing urban planning procedures) than offered immediate solutions. This, in my judgment, was the key to my long-term research success. One of the key questions that it generated was to push me (and planners) to rethink the utility of the so-called “land use hierarchy,” and it forced me to re-imagine ‘how to plan?’ It set me on a trajectory to develop tools and resources for local governments throughout the United States through a sub-field called food systems planning. Food systems planning questions the traditional way in which urban planning has occurred for decades across the globe. My research lab is the first one in the world that used urban planning to improve food systems (there are other labs now as well). So, I was able to take my learning from my dissertation and develop new – healthier ways – of planning cities. We develop technical assistance models and training for a variety of audiences including researchers, city governments, and international organizations. I have been doing research for more than 20 years but I couldn’t tell you the immediate impact of my dissertation. Cumulatively, my research has generated tools that have helped cities, towns, and other types of communities plan in more equitable, sustainable, and healthy ways.
KL: What has been the contribution of your lab?
DSR: As I noted earlier, our research team is one of the earliest in the world to study and develop urban planning strategies for building equitable, healthy, and sustainable food systems and communities. We are an interdisciplinary team so we use quantitative methods as well as qualitative methods to understand the impact of the built environment on human health (at any given time our collaborators include geographers, physicians, public health experts, urban planners, policy scholars, and computer science experts). With Geographic Information Systems (GIS), surveying, and other technologies, we monitor the impact of urban planning on human health. We have published work that shows disparities in the built environment, as well as the impact of the design and quality of one’s neighbourhood on the incidence of chronic diseases.
Our lab is well known for translating research into policy guidance, training, and action on the ground. To give some examples, in the US, I led the writing of the Planners Guide to Community and Regional Planning for the American Planning Association, the largest professional association of urban planners in the US (2008). Because local governments in the US needed training to enact plans that promote healthy and equitable food systems (only 1 per cent of local governments in the US reported being equipped to engage in food systems planning), in 2012, my team launched the Growing Food Connections, a national initiative that provides guidance to US local governments on food systems planning. This initiative, which received US $3.96 million from the US government, is a game changer because it provides easy access to information to local governments across the United States. Planning to protect food systems and health is a new sub-field even in the US and globally. So, my lab’s contribution has been to change the field of urban planning in the United States.
Similarly, our work has also expanded globally. My team has authored guidance on local government planning for food systems for the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations. Our lab routinely aids local governments across the United States to better understand the impact of plans on food systems and human health (in Kashmir these are called Master Plans).
KL: What have been the major findings of your investigations or academic probes?
DSR: We have a lot of different studies, so it is difficult to summarize 20 years’ worth of work. That said, I will summarize the major findings by saying that urban planning without considering the health and food system is perilous to the health and well-being of current and future generations. Here are some examples: Scientific results show that urban planning patterns (USA) undermine the health and well-being of marginalized people, especially the Black, immigrant, and indigenous peoples (we have many different studies showing this). Poor urban planning has especially harmed human health by encouraging automobile-centric land use patterns (e.g., four-lane highways are privileged over farmland). On aggregate, such land use patterns discourage physical activity (walking) and limit communities’ ability to grow their own food. The US has high rates of chronic disease – much of these can be attributed to such environmental changes.
New models of planning from our studies suggest that planning for healthy, equitable, and sustainable cities will benefit from protecting the food system. We have found that science can learn from the experiences of farmers on how to plan and design communities. So, in one of the UN-supported projects we tracked farmers’ experiences in different parts of the world (Jamaica, Ghana, and India) to understand the impact of urban planning. The findings of the study are straightforward and will not surprise anybody. Today, globally, urban planning decisions are being implemented to undermine food sovereignty and food security. They are especially undermining farmland preservation and farming.
This is also true in Kashmir as land use change is harming smallholder farmers. On the flip side we have noticed that in some places, in fact also in Srinagar, even though urban planning land use decisions are negatively impacting farmers, small-scale farmers are trying to resist bad urban planning decisions. Farmers are, in many ways, at the frontline of protecting the health of their community. For example, nutrition rates and food security rates in the Srinagar district are better than in many parts of South Asia including the Indian subcontinent. One plausible reason is that historically Kashmiris have had egalitarian land ownership patterns, where people make use of their land holdings to grow vegetables for themselves and others. Protecting land and using it to grow food for oneself is a health-enabling practice. So even though negative urban planning decisions are impacting people’s health, farmers are protecting the health of people. I think Kashmiris must understand that you must protect their local food supply chain; you can eat, buy and consume Kashmiri food that is not processed. That means food on your dastarkhaan needs to come from a nearby farm or vaer. Eating haakh (Collard Greens) is better than eating any other packaged food that travels from distant places. So, if the food comes wrapped in packages cut it out of your diet, and if it comes from the soil eat it! I would say that we are learning through our studies that many traditional Kashmiri ideas were far healthier than some of the so-called modern ways.
KL: If you are told to reconstruct Srinagar tomorrow, what will you do?
DSR: My answer will likely surprise some people in Kashmir, especially given how I observe planning to unfold in Kashmir. The first thing I would do is sit down with people to understand their aspirations for Srinagar. The idea that a planner is a genius with grand ideas is bogus. I am sorry to put it just plainly. The idea of an urban planner or a government deciding what is good for a city is an exported model from the West. The best ideas come from the community. In the case of Srinagar, if I could, I would sit with farmers in Srinagar and ask them how they would protect the future of their neighbourhood, and how they would develop the area so that it is protected for them and their community. Then, this process would generate context-sensitive ideas for how to plan for healthy land use (this is a process that my team has used in other parts so the world, for example).
So, planning is not only a scientific-technical exercise. It is an exercise to understand the problem at hand and return power to the people. I can give examples of prescriptions and models that work elsewhere but the first answer is: all planning must begin with inclusive and equitable processes that privilege people with the least amount of power. In Srinagar, these people are farmers. We depend on the farmers, but we are not listening to them.
It must be said that Srinagar has quite a brilliant policy framework (in its master plan). I have reviewed it very closely and I followed the process as well. It recognizes the unique ecology of the city, and its unique heritage, and lays out a framework that is comparable to many plans globally. However, the policy framework and the implementation guidelines are inconsistent. That said, here are some practical steps to consider: protect the land from conversion and development. In Kashmir, we are blessed with fertile lands and water bodies, but we are putting driveways, roads, highways, flyovers, and malls on them (I have seen a hotel construction in a flood channel of all the places). All of this so-called development is bad for human health (and the environment). Globally cities are adding green infrastructure such as bioswales, community gardens, urban farms, edible landscapes, etc., but unfortunately, Srinagar is destroying its existing natural green infrastructure (In city of Montreal, Canada they are literally dismantling flyovers but in Srinagar, we are building them).
Some may say Srinagar needs flyovers for reduced traffic congestion and mobility. I would agree that we need reduced congestion and mobility – but evidence from around the world shows that roads and flyovers (and cars) are not the way to improve mobility (proximity to highways is linked to a higher incidence of asthma, for example). There should be investments in ecologically sensitive and healthy forms of travel, including pedestrian, bicycle, bus, and trolley-based travel infrastructure. If you visit older European cities or even Global South cities, we see the use of electric trolleys–that may be a good substitute here.
Until urban planning looks different in Kashmir, Kashmiris can also take matters into their hand: consider not building cement/concrete driveways within your homes – opt for surfaces that allow water to percolate into the ground; bicycle or walk rather than drive a car (if you can), and, grow and eat your own local food.
KL: We live in an era where we are capable of altering the genes of life forms. Genetically Modified food is one such example. Where do you place yourself on the ethical debate of using GM foods?
DSR: One of the things about scientists and researchers is that they don’t answer questions that are outside of their domain. So, I will politely say that I am not going to answer that question, but I will tell you who can. A brilliant and amazing colleague at SKUAST named Dr Khalid Masood with who I have worked can answer this question. He could probably do genetic modifications in his sleep! You should ask him. I remember when I visited his research lab, there was a poster over the door, which said, and I quote, “Yes we can clone dinosaurs but is it a good idea?” That said, I will redirect your question to ask why aren’t we using our scientific skills to protect those plants and foods that are indigenous and good for us, for example, haakh (collard greens). With a number of colleagues in Kashmir including Athar Parvaiz, Khalid Masoodi, Shakeel Romshoo, and others, we are trying to document the power of haakh for human health as well as environmental health. Briefly, haakh is from the Brassica family. It is nutritious, it is cheap, it is culturally celebrated, and it is available locally. For goodness sake, tell me why do we need genetically modified food when we have this amazing vegetable. I encourage people to follow Dr Khalid Masoodi’s work who will hopefully share his result on haakh in the near future.
But conservative conspiracy sites like The Gateway Pundit and the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit that filed lawsuits that unsuccessfully sought to overturn the 2020 election, have attacked ERIC as part of a liberal plot to control the underpinnings of American elections.
Allen’s abandonment of ERIC illustrates how ideas stemming from the falsehood of a stolen presidential election remain in the bloodstream of the American democratic system, even after its most well-known proponents were shut out from winning key positions in major swing states in the midterms.
It also suggests the era of bipartisan, behind-the-scenes, mundane cooperation on the mechanics of running elections is at risk.
“It’s not the start, nor the end,” said David Becker, a former DOJ attorney who was central to setting up ERIC over a decade ago. “If you’ve been to any meetings of election officials over the last few years — if you’ve been to anything where consensus is attempted — it seems that fewer and fewer want to engage in that.”
Becker, who is now the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, retains a non-voting position on the board of ERIC, which is otherwise made up of voting representatives from member states.
Allen’s office did not respond to an interview request or to written questions about his decision to pull the state out of ERIC. But in a statement accompanying his letter to ERIC, he said that: “Providing the private information of Alabama citizens, including underage minors, to an out of state organization is troubling to me and to people that I heard from as I traveled the state for the last 20 months.”
ERIC collects voter registration and motor vehicle data from each member state regularly throughout the year, the organization says. That data is used to produce several reports identifying voters on their rolls who may have moved to or from other member states or within a state, who may be registered in multiple states — which in itself is not a crime — or who may have died.
The system can also generate a report on voters who may have voted in different states in the same election — which generally carries criminal penalties — and people who appear to be eligible but are unregistered to vote, which ERIC members are required to contact.
The Gateway Pundit published a series of posts in mid-January 2022 about ERIC, claiming it was part of a left-wing cabal. And in December 2022, the Thomas More Society said it has filed complaints in three states about ERIC and planned to continue to do so in more. A spokesperson for TMS did not respond to a request for an update on the filings.
Allen was the second secretary of state to pull his state out of ERIC. Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, a Republican, announced last January that Louisiana would “suspend” its participation in the program and sent a letter in July withdrawing entirely.
John Tobler, a spokesperson for Ardoin’s office, said the office had conversations with ERIC officials before it left, but did not make Ardoin available for an interview and declined to answer specific questions about the move.
The announcement from Ardoin’s office about the suspension alleged: “concerns raised by citizens, government watchdog organizations and media reports about potential questionable funding sources and that possibly partisan actors may have access to ERIC network data.”
In a statement at the time, Ardoin said he spoke with “election attorneys and experts,” but did not identify those people, nor the watchdog groups and media reports. Ardoin’s campaign website says he “demanded answers from ERIC … to keep Louisiana’s elections secure,” linking to a brief local news article from January about the announcement.
On the campaign trail, Allen more closely echoed the postings from Gateway Pundit website: He said he opposed ERIC because it was a “Soros-funded, leftist group,” referencing the prominent liberal donor George Soros.
The group is entirely funded and controlled by member states, after receiving initial startup support from The Pew Charitable Trusts in 2012.
Despite the two states leaving the organization, ERIC still broadly maintains bipartisan support. Republican officials have praised ERIC for helping their states remove from the rolls voters who have either moved out of state or died, and for its use as a backstop to catch people who potentially cast ballots in two different states in one election.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted ERIC by name in a summer press conference as helping to catch potential cases of double voting. (DeSantis announced the state would join ERIC in 2019.) And one of its biggest proponents of the program was Allen’s predecessor, now-former Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, who regularly defended the value of ERIC after Allen raised it as an issue on the campaign trail.
“ERIC does something that no other entity is capable of doing,” Merrill, a Republican, said in an interview in November, following the midterm elections. “The people who have complaints about ERIC and who have concerns about ERIC, don’t understand ERIC.”
Trey Grayson, a Republican and former Kentucky secretary of state who remains active in the election administration community, said in a text that he was a “big fan” of ERIC and that it was an “important tool” to maintain accurate voter rolls. He said it was disappointing to see the two states leave the group.
“I especially find it disappointing because in general we Republicans tend to care more about cleaning up the voter rolls,” Grayson wrote. “And these Republican secretaries are shooting those efforts in the foot with their decisions.”
Officials from other member states also expressed displeasure over the exit of Louisiana and Alabama. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said he was “disappointed with the decision because I think the more members there are in ERIC, the stronger ERIC is.”
The scuffle around ERIC is just one point of agitation between election officials. Recent public meetings of the National Association of Secretaries of State, a longstanding, bipartisan organization, have showcased the tension growing within the group. Sessions at NASS meetings now focus on the increasingly fraught task of ensuring the safety of election officials from physical threats, and there has been public chatter about the risk of insider threats to election offices.
And a few sessions have triggered sharp disagreements among secretaries that, at times, have gotten heated. That could continue to grow, with several newly-elected secretaries in red states who have at least questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election now eligible to join the organization, Allen among them.
But Simon — who is set to assume the NASS presidency in the summer of 2024 and helped lead a near-unanimous NASS resolution for election audits in 2021 — said he was still hopeful that there would be plenty of room for behind-the-scenes election cooperation to survive and thrive.
“I actually have thought about that,” Simon said when asked if the tension around ERIC could metastasize into something more. “We might have differences, including on this issue, but I really don’t think it changes the fundamentals. … So I don’t see this as a body blow to cooperation among secretaries of state of varying political viewpoints.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
