Tag: Biden administration

Labor secretary says gig workers should be classified as employees in ‘a lot of cases’

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Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said that a lot of gig workers are misclassified as contractors on Thursday, sending stocks of tech companies such as Uber, Lyft and DoorDash falling amid speculation about the future of the fraught business model in the Biden administration.

“We are looking at it, but in a lot of cases gig workers should be classified as employees,” Walsh told Reuters. “These companies are making profits and revenue and I’m not (going to) begrudge anyone for that, because that’s what we are about in America. But we also want to make sure that success trickles down to the worker.”

The comments, which were pulled from a larger interview with Reuters that was not published in full, were interpreted as signal that the Labor Department could move more aggressively to crack down on the use of contract labor by some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies. Continue reading.

Senate confirms former Obama official Samantha Power to lead USAID

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The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Samantha Power to lead the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Senators voted 68-26 to confirm Power, who served in the Obama administration as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

President Biden is also expected to put Power on the White House National Security Council, where she served during Obama’s first term. Continue reading.

Biden releases money in push to modernize US electric grid

NEW YORK — The federal government said Tuesday it is making more than $8 billion available to build and improve the nation’s transmission lines as part of its efforts to improve America’s aging electric grid and meet President Joe Biden’s ambitious clean-energy goals.

The administration is also pledging to speed up a sluggish permitting process that has delayed the types of major transmission projects that are crucial to meeting Biden’s goals.

The president has said he wants the nation to produce 100% clean energy by 2035. But that goal faces massive hurdles. Those include an electric grid that has been pummeled by climate change and which needs enormous expansion to carry electricity from renewable energy sources to densely populated regions. Continue reading.

Biden taps Houston-area sheriff to lead ICE

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President Biden is tapping a Houston-area sheriff to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), again turning to local law enforcement beyond the Beltway to lead a major agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Ed Gonzalez has served as sheriff for Harris County, which includes the Houston metro area, since 2017 and previously spent 18 years with the Houston Police Department and served three terms on the Houston City Council.

Gonzalez has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policy and in 2017 terminated the county’s 287(g) agreement with ICE, ending the practice of allowing local officers to carry out some immigration enforcement. Continue reading.

Biden to order raising federal contractor minimum wage to $15

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President Biden on Tuesday is expected to sign an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 by March 2022.

At that time, the order will result in a 37-percent raise for federal contractors making the current contracting minimum $10.95, and setting their salary at over double the regular statutory federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009.

The move would affect hundreds of thousands of workers, according to a senior administration official. Continue reading.

U.S. to share up to 60 million vaccine doses amid pressure to aid desperate countries

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The United States will share up to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine with other countries, the White House said Monday, as the Biden administration faces growing pressure to help vaccinate the global population and cases spike around the world.

The move comes as India in particular faces an increasingly dire situation, with its health system showing signs of collapse — adding to the sense of urgent global need. The AstraZeneca vaccine, which is not authorized for use in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration, will be shipped out once it clears federal safety reviews, officials said.

The White House took pains to stress that the move will not affect the United States’ internal vaccination drive. “We do not need to use AstraZeneca in our fight against covid,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters, noting that the domestic U.S. push relies on vaccines made by other companies. Continue reading.

US prepares for vaccine tipping point

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The U.S. has surpassed President Biden‘s goal of administering 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses four months into its massive vaccination campaign, but experts say that was the easy part.

For months, supply has been so limited that states were restricting access to specific priority groups and many people who wanted a shot couldn’t get one. But now every person over the age of 16 is eligible, and more than half the country’s adult population has received at least one dose.

The nation is fast approaching the tipping point of vaccinations, where supply will outstrip demand. State and federal officials are going to need to find the best message and best method to get shots to the people who are either hesitant, unable or just indifferent. Continue reading.

Biden touts jobs from tackling climate change, including some ‘we haven’t even conceived of yet’

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President Biden expressed hope Friday that even geopolitical foes such as the United States and Russia can cooperate on climate change as he closed out a two-day virtual summit of world leaders that he hosted from the White House.

In earlier remarks, Biden touted the new jobs that the effort could produce, including in “fields we haven’t even conceived of yet,” and stressed the importance of ensuring that workers who “thrived in yesterday’s and today’s industries have as bright a tomorrow in the new industries.” View the post here.

Biden aims for 50 to 52 percent emissions reduction by 2030

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President Biden is aiming to reduce the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent when compared to 2005 levels by the year 2030, an interim goal in his quest to reach net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050. 

A White House fact sheet announced the much-anticipated goal, which will both guide the next several years of domestic climate policy and send a signal to the rest of the world on how aggressively the U.S. plans to combat climate change. 

The target, called a nationally determined contribution, is being made as part of the Paris Agreement and will be formally submitted to the United Nations.  Continue reading.

NSA official installed as Trump left office resigns after he was sidelined

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Michael Ellis, a former Republican political operative, resigned Friday as the National Security Agency’s top lawyer, having been sidelined for three months after President Biden took office.

The NSA director, Gen. Paul Nakasone, had placed Ellis on administrative leavethe day President Donald Trump left the White House — just as Ellis was taking up the position. The reasons: a pending Pentagon inspector general probe, an official told The Washington Post at the time, and a security inquiry into Ellis’s handling of classified information, according to a letter from Ellis’s attorney to Nakasone, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.

Nakasone had agreed to install Ellis as general counsel just days earlier under orders from Trump’s acting defense secretary. The role does not require Senate confirmation. Continue reading.