Tag: Biden administration

Biden administration suspends oil and gas leases in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland orders new environmental review of the leasing program, saying the Trump administration did an ‘insufficient analysis’ of drilling’s impact

The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, targeting one of President Donald Trump’s most significant environmental acts during his last days in office.

The move by the Interior Department, which could spark a major legal battle, dims the prospect of oil drilling in a pristine and politically charged expanse of Alaskan wilderness that Republicans and Democrats have fought over for four decades. The Trump administration auctioned off the right to drill in the refuge’s coastal plain — home to hundreds of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl as well as the southern Beaufort Sea’s remaining polar bears — just two weeks before President Biden was inaugurated.

Now the Biden administration is taking steps to block those leases, citing problems with the environmental review process. In Tuesday’s Interior Department order, Secretary Deb Haaland said that a review of the Trump administration’s leasing program in the wildlife refuge found “multiple legal deficiencies” including “insufficient analysis” required by environmental laws and a failure to assess other alternatives. Haaland’s order calls for a temporary moratorium on all activities related to those leases in order to conduct “a new, comprehensive analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the oil and gas program.” Continue reading.

Biden’s pick to head Census blends statistical, advocacy work

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If confirmed by the Senate, Robert Santos would become the bureau’s first Latino director

When Robert Santos sets his mind to do something, he usually finds a way to make it happen.

Santos knew next to nothing about taking pictures when the career statistician awoke one morning and decided he wanted to photograph live bands. 

After years of attending the Austin City Limits Music Festival, the Texas native convinced a New York magazine to hire him as a photographer — and found himself shooting from the festival’s music pits. He eventually learned the craft well enough to earn a long-standing spot with the SXSW festival as its photo crew chief, managing about 100 photographers each year.  Continue reading.

IRS to start monthly payments of child tax credit July 15

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The Biden administration on Monday announced it will start to make monthly payments of the expanded child tax credit on July 15.

Households that account for about 65 million children, or 88 percent of children in the United States, will will receive the payments without needing to take any additional action. Payments will be made automatically to about 39 million households, the administration said.

The administration’s announcement, which coincides with Monday’s deadline for individuals to file their 2020 tax returns, provides more details about how the Treasury Department and the IRS plan to implement a key part of the coronavirus relief law President Biden enacted in March, called the American Rescue Plan Act. Continue reading.

Interior Department approves first large-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S.

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The Vineyard Wind project envisions building 62 turbines off Martha’s Vineyard producing enough electricity to power 400,000 homes

The Biden administration on Tuesday approved the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, a project that envisions building 62 turbines off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and creating enough electricity to power 400,000 homes.

Vineyard Wind is the first of several massive offshore wind-farm proposals that could put more than 3,000 wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to North Carolina. The Biden administration has committed to processing the other 13 projects under federal review by 2025 in an attempt to meet the administration’s ambitious goal of producing 30,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind by 2030, powering some 10 million homes.

The goal is part of the Biden administration’s effort to fight climate change by shifting away from fossil fuels. Continue reading.

Biden reaches agreements with Uber and Lyft to give free rides to vaccine sites

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The Biden administration has reached agreements with ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft to offer free rides to coronavirus vaccination sites through July 4, the White House announced Tuesday.

Why it matters: The free rides, starting in the next two weeks, are part of the Biden administration’s push to administer at least one vaccine dose to 70% of U.S. adults by Independence Day. 

How it works: A new feature will allow app users to “simply select a vaccination site near them, follow simple directions to redeem their ride, and then get a ride to take them to and from a nearby vaccination site free of charge,” according to the White House. Continue reading.

Biden administration reverses limits on transgender health protections

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The Biden administration announced on Monday that it will reverse Trump-era limits on health care protections against discrimination for gay and transgender people.  

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that its Office for Civil Rights will enforce bans on sex discrimination applying to sexual orientation and gender identity in a shift from the former administration’s policies. 

The move comes after former President Trump’s administration ruled to remove ObamaCare’s nondiscrimination protections that prevented health care workers from denying care to patients based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. Continue reading.

Biden backs COVID-19 vaccine patent waivers

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The Biden administration will support a proposal to waive international patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines, according to a top administration official.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement Wednesday that the “extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures.”

The U.S. will begin participating in World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations over the exact language of the waiver, which supporters say would make the details of vaccine production widely available and allow lower-income countries to make doses themselves. Continue reading.

U.S. to begin reuniting migrant families separated under ‘cruel’ Trump policy, DHS secretary says

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Four migrant parents who were separated from their children at the U.S. border by the Trump administration and sent home alone will be allowed to return to the United States this week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Monday.

The reunions will start a process expected to stretch on for months and possibly years as separated parents are ferried back to the United States from around the world.

More than 1,000 families remain separated, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The parents were deported alone, mostly to Central America, in 2017 or 2018. Their children have since grown up with relatives or other guardians across the United States. Continue reading.

The number of migrant children in Border Patrol custody is down significantly.

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The Biden administration is starting to see some success in its efforts to suitably house the migrant children flooding to the southwest border, with a fraction of the number of children in Customs and Border Protection custody than there were a month ago.

Over the past month, the number of migrant children in the jail-like facilities of the Border Patrol dropped 83 percent, from 5,767 on March 29 to 954 on Thursday, according to government statistics. The length of time children are staying in border shelters is down as well, from an average of 133 hours to 28. By law, children are not supposed to stay in border shelters for more than 72 hours.

The improvements are attributable in part to an increase in facilities overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services where children can be housed under better living conditions. Continue reading.

Biden administration to return billions in border wall funding Trump diverted from Pentagon

All related construction contracts will be canceled, an official told ABC News. 

The Biden administration is returning to the Pentagon billions in funds diverted by President Donald Trump to build the wall at the southwestern border, and plans to cancel all related construction contracts, an administration official told ABC News on Friday.

“Border wall construction under the previous administration tied up more than $14 billion in taxpayer funds, shortchanged our military, and diverted attention away from genuine security challenges, like human traffickers. Rushed and haphazard wall construction also resulted in serious life, safety, and environmental issues,” the official said.

Amid its ongoing review to determine the fate of Trump’s border wall, the Biden administration also said it would launch two new projects along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border: one to fill holes in the Rio Grande Valley levee system left by the wall construction project, and another to address soil erosion in a 14-mile stretch of barrier construction by the Trump administration near San Diego, California. Continue reading.