U.S. President Joe Biden will arrive at COP 26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow next week, with the promise, if not the guarantee, that the United States is about to commit to the largest single investment in combating climate change in history.

The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress on Thursday announced a scaled-back version of the president’s Build Back Better climate and social spending package. While less ambitious than earlier versions, the package contains $555 billion in spending directed at reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to between 50% and 52% of 2005 levels by 2030.

That matches the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) the U.S. committed to when the Biden administration rejoined the Paris climate change accord earlier this year. According to activists and experts, it considerably strengthens Biden’s ability to assert a leadership role for the U.S. in the global effort to slow climate change.

‘Show us first’

“Without this, I think it would have been tremendously hard for the U.S. delegation to appear with a credible claim that the U.S. is ‘back,’” said Michael Mehling, deputy director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“It has an NDC of 50% to 52%, and it has the means to achieve that,” he told VOA. “Without it, I think people would have just said, ‘Yeah, show us first.’”

In a statement released Thursday, Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce congratulated the president and Democrats in Congress for “advancing a bold vision for historic climate action,” and urged lawmakers to finalize an agreement on the legislation as soon as possible.

“This is a bold vision for clean energy and climate action that the President can present at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, to demonstrate that the United States is committed to taking the immediate and bold action necessary to tackle the climate crisis as a top priority,” Pierce said. “We urge Congress to immediately deliver a full Build Back Better Act that fulfills this promise, because we have no time to wait.”

No guarantees

The president and his allies are behaving as though they are on the cusp of a major legislative achievement. However, it remains possible that infighting and policy disagreements among Democrats on Capitol Hill could derail the deal as the final legislative language is being prepared.

The two wild cards are West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, neither of whom has said that they will definitely support the package.

Manchin has already forced his colleagues to remove some of the climate elements of the original package, which he saw as overly punitive toward existing fossil fuel companies. Manchin, whose state has a long history of coal mining and still relies on coal-fired power plants for much of its electricity, also has a financial stake in the coal industry.

He has also expressed hesitation over a non-climate-related part of the package that would deliver benefits to families with young children.

Sinema has shot down several versions of the package over disagreements about how to pay for it. She objected to raising tax rates and to changing the way investments are taxed at death. It is unclear whether she will support the current package, which contains income-tax surcharges on people earning more than $10 million per year, and on income that business owners receive on a “pass-through” basis.

Because the Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in the Senate, either Manchin or Sinema could torpedo Biden’s Build Back Better package – including the climate change provisions – by voting no.

Broad-based spending

The largest part of the climate spending in the bill is $320 billion in tax credits, spread over 10 years, aimed at making a wide array of green technologies cheaper and easier to implement.

Among other things, it would cut the price of installing home solar panels by about 30% and would offer rebates of up to $12,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, provided it is made in the U.S. with domestic parts and unionized labor. The package would also create financial incentives for the development of clean mass transit, buses and trucks.

The next-largest element of the package is $110 billion to incentivize the creation of a domestic supply chain for the delivery of products that will be key to broad electrification of the U.S., including batteries, solar cells and other technologies.

An additional $105 billion would go toward building resiliency in communities that are already feeling the drastic effects of climate change through extreme weather events. This includes funding for a Civilian Conservation Corps that the administration says will hire 300,000 Americans.

Rounding out the spending is $20 billion that would go toward government procurement of next-generation green technologies – essentially helping to create a market for the products and services that the other elements of the proposal will be subsidizing.

Looking on the bright side

Climate activists definitely didn’t get everything they wanted in the package currently before Congress. Among other things, Biden’s proposed Clean Energy Production Program, which would have rewarded electrical utilities that increase their use of renewable energy by 4% per year and punished those that did not, was scuttled after Manchin strongly objected to it.

But on Friday, with the possibility of the $555 billion package actually becoming law, environmentalist groups were focused on the positive side of things.

“I’ve been around Washington for 20 years, and I’ve worked on energy and environmental issues for over 20 years,” said Toby Short, associate vice president for federal affairs with the Environmental Defense Fund. “A half a trillion dollars in climate and energy investments? It’s incredible. From EDF’s perspective, we’re extremely excited about the transformational investments that can occur from this.” 

 
…

your ad here

The U.S. Justice Department is in talks to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to each child and parent who was separated under a Trump-era practice of splitting families at the border, a person familiar with discussions to settle lawsuits said Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that the government was considering payments around $450,000 to each person affected. A person familiar with the talks told The Associated Press that figure was under consideration but changed, though not dramatically. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

The discussions continue, and there is no guarantee the two sides will strike an agreement.

About 5,500 children were split from their parents under President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, under which parents were separated from their children to face criminal prosecution for crossing the border illegally, according to court filings in a federal case in San Diego. Inadequate tracking systems caused many to be apart for an extended time. The payments are intended to compensate for the psychological trauma.

Attorneys for the families are also seeking permanent legal status in the United States for those separated under the practice, which a judge halted in June 2018, six days after Trump stopped it amid an international backlash.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night.

The settlement talks involve several law firms. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing parents in the San Diego case.

The National Immigration Litigation Alliance represents five mothers and their children who were separated for more than two months, including four children who were sent to holding facilities in New York. A federal judge in Arizona denied the government’s bid to dismiss the case last year.

“No amount of money can compensate for the amount of pain and suffering these parents and children endured under this unconscionable and unprecedented policy,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance.

A Justice Department inspector general’s report in January said a “single-minded focus on increasing immigration prosecutions came at the expense of careful and appropriate consideration of the impact of family unit prosecutions and child separations.” 

 
…

your ad here

Wages jumped in the three months ending in September by the most on records dating back 20 years, a stark illustration of the growing ability of workers to demand higher pay from companies that are desperate to fill a near-record number of available jobs.

Pay increased 1.5% in the third quarter, the Labor Department said Friday. That’s up sharply from 0.9% in the previous quarter. The value of benefits rose 0.9% in the July-September quarter, more than double the preceding three months.

Workers have gained the upper hand in the job market for the first time in at least two decades, and they are commanding higher pay, more benefits and other perks like flexible work hours. With more jobs available than there are unemployed people, government data shows, businesses have been forced to work harder to attract staff.

Higher inflation is eating away at some of the wage increases, but in recent months overall pay has kept up with rising prices. The 1.5% increase in wages and salaries in the third quarter is ahead of the 1.2% increase in inflation during that period, economists said.

However, compared with a year ago, it’s a closer call. In the year ending in September, wages and salaries soared 4.2%, also a record gain. But the government also reported Friday that prices increased 4.4% in September from year earlier. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, inflation was 3.6% in the past year.

Many experts expect inflation to slow

Jason Furman, a former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, said Friday that inflation-adjusted wages still trail their pre-pandemic level, given the big price jumps that occurred over the spring and summer for new and used cars, furniture and airline tickets.

Whether inflation fades in the coming months will determine how much benefit workers get from higher pay.

Many economists expect inflation to slow a bit, while wages are likely to keep rising.

Pay is rising much faster in the recovery from the pandemic recession than in the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09, when wage growth kept slowing until a year after that downturn ended. That’s because of the different nature of the two recessions and the different policy responses.

There has been much more government stimulus during and after the pandemic recession compared with the previous one, including the $2 trillion financial support package signed by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 and the $1.9 trillion in aid approved by President Joe Biden this March. Both packages provided stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment benefits that fueled greater spending.

Lower-paid workers have seen the biggest gains, with pay rising for employees at restaurants, bars and hotels by 8.1% in the third quarter from a year earlier. For retail workers it’s jumped 5.9%.

The healthy increase for disadvantaged workers “is the result of specific policy choices to give workers a better bargaining hand and to ensure the economy recovered faster,” said Mike Konczal, a director at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute. “The fact that it’s happening is pretty unique.”

The stimulus checks and an extra $300 a week in jobless benefits, which ended in early September, gave those out of work more leverage to demand higher pay, Konczal said. In addition, the Fed’s low-interest rate policies helped spur more spending, raising the demand for workers.

In August, there were 10.4 million jobs available, down from 11 million in July, which was the most in two decades.

Millions of Americans are responding to rising wages by quitting their jobs for better-paying positions. In August, nearly 3% of American workers quit their jobs, a record high. A higher number of quits also means companies have to raise pay to keep their employees.

Workers who switch jobs are seeing some of the sharpest income gains in decades. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, in September job-switchers saw their pay jump 5.4% compared with a year earlier. That’s up from just 3.4% in May and the biggest increase in nearly 20 years. For those who stayed in their jobs, pay rose 3.5%.

‘It was a no-brainer’

Esther Cano, 26, is one of those who found a new job that paid more in the July-September quarter. A recent college graduate who isn’t yet sure of her long-term career path, she left a job as a dispatcher at an HVAC firm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a position at the job placement agency Robert Half. She started in July and got a raise of about 10%.

“What I was requesting was lower than what they were willing to pay,” Cano said. “It was a no-brainer on that end, plus the environment, the room for growth, the opportunity.”

Cano has already gotten a promotion to a team leader position, where she helps place temporary employees who work in finance and accounting.

Most economists expect solid wage gains to continue for the coming months. Data from the Indeed job listings website shows that employers are still posting huge numbers of available jobs.

Higher pay can fuel inflation, as companies raise prices to cover their increased costs. But that’s not the only way businesses can respond. Lydia Boussour, an economist at Oxford Economics, notes that corporate profits in the April-June quarter were at their highest level in nearly a decade. That suggests many companies can pay higher salaries without having to lift prices. 
…

your ad here

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized on Friday the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in children 5-11 years old. 

The FDA approved for children doses that are one-third the amount that teens and adults receive.

“With this vaccine kids can go back to something that’s better than being locked at home on remote schooling, not being able to see their friends,” Dr. Kawsar Talaat of Johns Hopkins University said, according to The Associated Press. “The vaccine will protect them and also protect our communities.” 

On Tuesday, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make detailed recommendations, and the CDC director will have the final say. 

Approval by the regulatory agencies would make the vaccine available in the coming days to 28 million American children, many of whom are back in school for in-person learning. Only a few other countries, including China, Cuba and the United Arab Emirates, have so far cleared COVID-19 vaccines for children in this age group and younger. 

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe on Friday called for schools to stay open, provided appropriate prevention and response measures are in place. 

The recommendation comes after WHO reported the European region has now seen four consecutive weeks of growing COVID-19 transmission, the only WHO region to do so. The agency said Europe’s rising numbers accounted for 57% of new cases worldwide in the third week of October. 

In a statement from the agency’s website, WHO/Europe says instead of closing educational institutions in response to this latest surge, it recommends a “whole-of-society approach” to reducing transmission through mitigation measures such as maintaining physical distancing, cleaning hands frequently, wearing masks and ensuring adequate ventilation.

The WHO regional director for Europe, Dr. Hans Henri Kluge, said, “Last year’s widespread school closures, disrupting the education of millions of children and adolescents, did more harm than good, especially to children’s mental and social well-being. We can’t repeat the same mistakes.” 

Kluge said that in the coming months, decisions by governments and the public to reduce the impact of COVID-19 should be based on data and evidence, “with the understanding that the epidemiological situation can change, and that our behavior must change with it. Science must trump politics.”
…

your ad here

U.S. President Joe Biden launched his whirlwind European diplomatic tour on a conciliatory note, saying Friday that the rollout of a security deal between the United States, Britain and Australia that cut out longtime ally France was “clumsy.”

“What happened was, to use an English phrase – what we did was clumsy,” Biden said. “It was not done with a lot of grace,” he acknowledged, next to French President Emanuel Macron in Rome ahead of the G-20 summit. The two spoke to reporters following their meeting which was notably held at Villa Bonaparte, the French Embassy to the Vatican, instead of a neutral venue.

The Indo-Pacific AUKUS security deal provides Australia with U.S. nuclear-powered submarines.  But buying U.S. subs meant Canberra cancelled the $65 billion deal it previously made with Paris for traditional submarines.

The diplomatic fallout was swift: Paris temporarily recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra, saying they were not consulted in advance of the AUKUS deal.

“I was under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal was not coming through,” Biden said Friday. “Honest to God, I did not know that you had not been.”

This modest concession matters, said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and the Americas program at Chatham House. 

“It’s pretty clear that both Biden and Macron have a lot to lose and wish this relationship to work,” she said. “So, they are finding ways to signal that, including in this case an acknowledgment that stops short of an apology.”

Biden earlier committed to supporting France in their counterterrorism effort in the Sahel, where instability triggers waves of African migrants to aim for Europe.

“Clearly the U.S. made a tough call on how to deal with France in the run-up to this decision and, ultimately, the AUKUS partnership stands and France is outside of it,” Vinjamuri said.

Other key meetings 

Earlier Friday, Biden met with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a potential key ally in transatlantic relations at a time when German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to leave office and Macron remains politically embattled at home.

They and other leaders will gather at the G-20 summit of the world’s wealthiest nations, hosted this year by Italy, which begins Saturday.

“Italy really is an anchor in southeastern Europe for the United States,” said Rachel Ellehuus, deputy director and senior fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

The White House said Biden thanked Draghi for Italy’s support following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, including by temporarily housing more than 4,000 Afghans who were on route to the U.S. in August. The leaders discussed challenges to security in the Mediterranean region and reaffirmed the importance of NATO’s efforts to deter and defend against threats.

Biden is also expected to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the summit’s sidelines. Erdogan recently threatened to expel the U.S. and nine other Western ambassadors over their support of a jailed Turkish philanthropist over charges of espionage, terrorism and attempts to overthrow the government – allegations that Western observers have called absurd.

“This meeting is important for President Biden to send some messages to Turkey about what is and is not acceptable behavior from a NATO ally, what his expectations are for Turkey being a partner in everything from follow-on security challenges from Afghanistan to Turkey’s role in the Black Sea region and Turkey’s performance in NATO,” Ellehuus said.

Observers, journalists and international partners have repeatedly asked when Biden will meet one-on-one with the leader of the country the U.S. considers its main adversary: China. But Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the G-20 summit in person, nor the climate conference that will follow immediately after, in Glasgow. 

The White House has confirmed Biden and Xi will meet virtually before the year’s end.
…

your ad here

The United States announced Thursday it is providing nearly $144 million in new humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, where millions of people could face acute hunger this winter unless aid arrives soon. 

National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement the U.S. assistance will be directed through independent organizations that provide support directly to more than 18.4 million vulnerable Afghans, including Afghan refugees in neighboring countries. 

“Our partners provide lifesaving protection, shelter, livelihoods support, essential health care, winterization assistance, emergency food aid, water, sanitation, and hygiene services in response to the growing humanitarian needs exacerbated by health care shortages, drought, malnutrition, and the impending winter,” Horne said. 

She noted that the additional funding brings the total U.S. humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and for Afghan refugees in the region to nearly $474 million in 2021, the largest amount of assistance from any nation. 

The United Nations said more than four decades of deadly conflicts and recurrent natural disasters have resulted in a protracted food crisis in Afghanistan.

Humanitarian needs have grown to unprecedented levels, and more than half of the conflict-torn country’s estimated 40 million population, a record 22.8 million people, will “face acute food insecurity” from November, U.N agencies warned earlier this week.

Among those at risk are 3.2 million children under age 5 who are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year, they said. 

U.S. and Western troops withdrew from Afghanistan in August after 20 years of involvement in the fighting, leading to the fall of the Afghan government to Taliban insurgents. 

The return of the Islamist Taliban to power has triggered financial sanctions on Kabul by the United States and other nations over human rights and terrorism concerns. 

The sanctions have blocked the group’s access to about $10 billion in Afghan assets parked largely with the U.S. Federal Reserve, raising prospects of an economic meltdown in Afghanistan.
…

your ad here

A government report is recommending that Congress pass legislation to better define editorial firewalls at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA.

The Government Accountability Office, which audits U.S. government agencies for Congress, issued a 60-page report Wednesday examining the impact that legislation passed in recent years has had on USAGM’s organizational structure and editorial independence.

The report examines the tumultuous tenure of former USAGM CEO Michael Pack, who became the agency’s first leader with expanded powers to oversee several taxpayer-funded news networks, including Voice of America,

Soon after he was confirmed by the Senate, Pack, a conservative documentary filmmaker, drew criticism from U.S. lawmakers and others by firing most of the network heads and replacing members of the formerly bipartisan governing boards. 

Pack’s actions later drew lawsuits; whistleblower complaints alleging gross mismanagement and retaliation; a subpoena from Congress; and court orders barring him from interfering with the operations of the networks and grantee organizations he oversaw, including VOA, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and the Open Technology Fund.

David Seide, senior counsel at the Government Accountability Project, who represented several agency whistleblowers, said the report did a “commendable job” of reviewing the misconduct allegations made against Pack and his team. 

“The independence of the agency and the existence of the firewall are critical to the mission of VOA, the other networks and USAGM. And the GAO has recognized that more work could be done in the space and should be done,” Seide said.

Seide said the report references three independent investigators hired by USAGM to review allegations made against Pack’s team between June 2020 and January 2021.

“Fundamentally, this report suggests that CEO Pack was out of his lane in a variety of ways on a variety of topics. And so, this report catalogues those instances and is a good basis to strengthen the independence of the agencies,” Seide told VOA.

The GAO makes two recommendations to Congress. The first focuses on amendments to the 1994 Broadcasting Act’s provisions on hiring and firing grantee board members, and the second recommends legislation to more clearly define what the firewall does and does not cover.

When asked for comment, USAGM referred VOA to a response from USAGM included in the report. In the letter dated October 5, acting USAGM CEO Kelu Chao said she concurs with the recommendations and “recognizes the importance of strong grants management.”

The firewall was central to a November 2020 lawsuit in which a federal district court ruled that VOA’s journalists were afforded First Amendment rights. The ruling imposed a preliminary injunction to prevent further attempts to repeal or breach the firewall.

After Pack resigned, the law firm representing members of USAGM including then-VOA Program Director Chao in a case against Pack’s team agreed to withdraw the case on condition that the Justice Department would not file a motion to vacate the decision.

Chao was named acting CEO of USAGM in January.

The deal is significant because it means journalists at the network could cite the decision in future lawsuits over suspected firewall breaches, said Lee Crain, of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, who acted as the counsel for the plaintiffs in the case.

Crain welcomed the report recommendations, saying, “It’s really exciting to think that they’re going to try to build out what was in the prior regulation in the legislation.”

“Our position in the case was there was enough language in the statute, and in the legislative history from President [Barack] Obama and different committees of Congress, that the firewall was baked into the statute. But that said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with clarifying and making things more specific,” Crain told VOA.

The GAO focuses on the CEO’s powers over the grantee boards. Those powers were expanded when Congress changed the agency’s leadership structure in 2018.

Supporters of the change hoped the CEO would be able to better manage and coordinate the agency’s networks, which in 2020 had a budget of around $810 million.

But the GAO said that Pack made himself chair of all the boards and appointed new members. The report cites officials at the agency who said the move “increased uncertainty and lowered the morale of network staff.”

The challenges reflect a long-standing tension over what VOA’s role should be.

In repealing the firewall, Pack had argued that agency rules made it impossible for him to fulfill his executive branch responsibilities to further U.S. foreign policy objectives. But his critics alleged that making sweeping changes to the firewall and bipartisan boards undercut the networks’ credibility with foreign audiences.

Crain said the disagreement highlighted the need to clarify the CEO’s powers and responsibilities.

“Looking at what was happening at the time, I think it was very scary for a lot of people, the idea that Mr. Pack would have the authority to put whoever he wants in perpetuity on these boards, and sort of burrow his policies going forward, when that wasn’t what the administration wanted. That wasn’t what a lot of bipartisan members of Congress wanted with these organizations. So, I think it absolutely makes sense to impose some sort of structural reform.”

Failings

The report cites some shortcomings, including USAGM’s failure to resolve a deficiency in grants monitoring and compliance with federal grant regulations. But the report notes that “corrective actions” are being taken, which include a plan to hire someone to oversee the improvements.

It also cited a whistleblower complaint alleging misconduct by the director of VOA’s Persian division, who was accused of fraud, waste and abuse. The director was placed on administrative leave while Pack’s team took steps to terminate her.

The official was reinstated and the request for termination rescinded when Chao was appointed acting CEO.

Republican U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, however, wrote to USAGM on Wednesday, asking for information about the decision to reinstate the senior official.

McCaul said that USAGM’s Labor and Employment Relations office found cause for dismissal including “falsifying … credentials and abuse of public funds.”

He also questioned Chao’s relationship with the official and requested that the acting CEO detail her role in the rehiring process and provide other information and documents, by November 17.

USAGM told VOA it does not comment on communication, or possible communication, between the agency and members of Congress.

Investigators for the GAO report interviewed managers and journalists working for USAGM’s networks. Pack and his senior advisers all declined to be interviewed, the report said.

The report highlighted other steps USAGM has taken to roll back some of Pack’s policies, including the nonrenewal of J-1 work visas for the agency’s foreign journalists, which the report said led to “a significant loss of staff with specialized skills and knowledge.”

Authority to renew the visas was given to the acting VOA director, and the network has since approved 23 visas and is in the process of rehiring at least 15 journalists who were terminated after their visas had expired under Pack.

Seven foreign journalists whose contracts were terminated under Pack filed a lawsuit claiming wrongful termination and seeking damages. Three of those had to leave the U.S.

VOA’s Jessica Jerreat and Barry Newhouse contributed to this report.
…

your ad here