Category: Joe Biden

Cotton to block Garland’s quick confirmation to lead Biden DOJ

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Cotton said that Garland refused “to answer basic questions” in his written answers on immigration, the death penalty and guns.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) will slow down the confirmation of Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Justice.

In a series of tweets Wednesday evening, Cotton said that Garland refused “to answer basic questions” in his written answers on immigration, the death penalty and guns.

“Ensuring the Senate has time to debate these issues and get answers is the same thing that Senate Democrats did for Bill Barr,” Cotton wrote. “We’re not going to have one standard for Trump’s nominees and another for Biden’s.” Continue reading.

Senate votes to take up COVID-19 relief bill

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Senate Democrats voted on Thursday to take up a sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus bill, teeing off what’s expected to be a days-long sprint to pass the legislation. 

The Senate voted 50-50 to proceed to the coronavirus relief legislation, with Vice President Harris breaking the tie to advance the bill. 

“The Senate is going to move forward with the bill. No matter how long it takes, the Senate is going to stay in session to finish the bill this week,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said from the Senate floor on Thursday ahead of the vote.  Continue reading.

Texas family detention centers expected to transform into rapid-processing hubs

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The Biden administration is preparing to convert its immigrant family detention centers in South Texas into Ellis Island-style rapid-processing hubs that will screen migrant parents and children with a goal of releasing them into the United States within 72 hours, according to Department of Homeland Security draft plans obtained by The Washington Post.

The plans show the Biden administration is racing to absorb a growing number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border amid shortages of bed space and personnel. Republicans and some Democrats fear that relaxing detention policies will exacerbate a surge that is already straining the Biden administration.

Russell Hott, a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, notified staff of the rapid-processing plan in an email Thursday that said arrivals by unaccompanied minors and families this year “are expected to be the highest numbers observed in over 20 years.” Continue reading.

Senate passes massive COVID-19 relief bill, sending changes back to House

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Democratic leaders in the House will need to convince members to back changes

The Senate approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package Saturday, sending it back to the House where Democratic leaders will need to convince their members to back changes to unemployment insurance and tax rebate checks.

The 50-49 party-line vote capped off the more than 24 hours of continuous voting, courtesy of the fast-track process Democrats are using to advance the pandemic aid package. Under budget reconciliation, senators could offer as many amendments as they wanted.

Republicans filed nearly 600 amendments to the bill, but only brought up a fraction of those for debate and votes. Democrats were mostly united throughout the process, rejecting 29 Republican amendments. Overall, six amendments were adopted, including two GOP proposals. Continue reading.

Dems tighten relief benefits, firm up support for virus bill

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Democrats agreed to tighten eligibility limits for stimulus checks Wednesday, bowing to party moderates as leaders prepared to move their $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill through the Senate.

At the same time, the White House and top Democrats stood by progressives and agreed that the Senate package would retain the $400 weekly emergency unemployment benefits included in the House-passed pandemic legislation. Moderates have wanted to trim those payments to $300 after Republicans have called the bill so heedlessly generous that it would prompt some people to not return to work.

The deal-making underscored the balancing act Democrats face as they try squeezing the massive relief measure through the evenly divided, 50-50 Senate. The package, Biden’s signature legislative priority, is his attempt to stomp out the year-old pandemic, revive an economy that’s shed 10 million jobs and bring some semblance of normality to countless upended lives. Continue reading.

Reversing Trump, Interior Department Moves Swiftly on Climate Change

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WASHINGTON — As the Interior Department awaits its new secretary, the agency is already moving to lock in key parts of President Biden’s environmental agenda, particularly on oil and gas restrictions, laying the groundwork to fulfill some of the administration’s most consequential climate change promises.

Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico, Mr. Biden’s nominee to lead the department, faces a showdown vote in the Senate likely later this month, amid vocal Republican concern for her past positions against oil and gas drilling. But even without her, an agency that spent much of the past four years opening vast swaths of land to commercial exploitation has pulled an abrupt about-face.

The department has suspended lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico under an early executive order imposing a temporary freeze on new drilling leases on all public lands and waters and requiring a review of the leasing program. It has frozen drilling activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, delayed Trump-era rollbacks on protections of migratory birds and the northern spotted owl, and taken the first steps in restoring two national monuments in Utah and one off the Atlantic coast that Mr. Trump largely dismantled. Continue reading.

Biden to sanction Russia over Navalny poisoning, jailing

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The Biden administration on Tuesday announced new sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s poisoning and jailing of Alexei Navalny, accusing Russia’s main intelligence agency of attempting to assassinate the opposition leader last year.

The administration is imposing sanctions on seven members of the Russian government and export controls on several business entities involved in biological agent production. The sanctions include Russian officials and a Russian research center that were previously sanctioned by the European Union and United Kingdom in October in connection with Navalny’s poisoning.

The sanctions, which are being coordinated with EU partners, come after an intelligence community assessment concluded with “high confidence” that officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service used the Novichok nerve agent to poison Navalny in August, Biden administration officials said. Continue reading.

Merck to help make Johnson & Johnson vaccine

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President Biden will announce Tuesday that Merck will help make Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, administration officials said, a partnership between rival companies that could help produce more doses. 

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration over the weekend, adding a third vaccine to the U.S. arsenal, but supplies will be limited at first. The entire existing supply of 3.9 million doses are going out the this week, with none coming next week, and the company has faced production delays.

The partnership with Merck, a major vaccine manufacturer, could help address the shortages, though it was not immediately clear how many more doses Merck will be able to make or when they will be available.  Continue reading.

Neera Tanden withdraws nomination for Office of Management and Budget director

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Neera Tanden withdrew her name from nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget after several senators voiced opposition and concern about her qualifications and past combative tweets, President Biden announced Tuesday.

Why it matters: Tanden’s decision to pull her nomination marks Biden’s first setback in filling out his Cabinet with a thin Democratic majority in the Senate.

What they’re saying: “I have accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said in a statement.

  • “I have the utmost respect for her record of accomplishment, her experience and her counsel,” he added. Continue reading.

Rhode Island Gov. Raimondo is confirmed as commerce secretary

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New Commerce Dept. chief faced little opposition

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) won Senate confirmation Tuesday as the next U.S. commerce secretary, a post that will thrust her into some of the most contentious economic and security questions confronting the Biden administration.

The Senate easily approved her nomination by a vote of 84 to 15. She is expected to be sworn in Wednesday.

Raimondo, 49, a former venture capitalist who was reelected to her second term as Rhode Island’s chief executive in 2018, will assume command of a federal agency with sweeping responsibilities and an increasingly important portfolio. Long seen as simply a business-friendly outpost in Washington, the department in recent years emerged as an active player in President Donald Trump’s trade wars, while carrying out the decennial census and managing the nation’s weather-monitoring systems. Continue reading.