Weekly Federal Update 2/22/22

President and Administration

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo held a call Thursday, 2/17, with lawmakers key to developing a compromise bill to spur domestic semiconductor chip production and combat the rise of China’s high-tech industry…

Biden administration officials told lawmakers last week that they plan to seek $30 billion in new spending to combat the COVID-19 pandemic - which includes $18 billion for medical countermeasures like antivirals and vaccines, $5 billion for testing, $3 billion to treat the uninsured and $4 billion to prepare for future variants…

The Biden administration is debating whether to overhaul a major Trump-era program tied to Medicare as soon as this week in the face of rising pressure from prominent progressive Democrats… 

Last week the Senate confirmed Robert Califf to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a 50-46 vote…

The White House and Federal Communications Commission announced more than 10 million households are enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program…

President Joe Biden is actively looking for Republican support for his Supreme Court nominee…

Dr. Francis Collins, who stepped down as the head of the National Institutes of Health, will succeed Eric Lander as White House science adviser… 

Russian troops and military equipment have begun to move into the eastern parts of Ukraine following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision yesterday, 2/22, to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – controlled by Russian-backed separatists – as independent states… 

Congress  

President Biden on Friday, 2/18, signed the Senate-passed a short-term funding bill to head off a government shutdown, after Democrats bent to Republican demands for controversial votes on vaccine mandates…

The Senate’s top GOP appropriator, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) was fairly optimistic Thursday, 2/17, about the ability to reach agreement on a massive 12-bill spending package by the new mid-March deadline… 

Vulnerable Senate Democrats are attempting a bold strategy: Running for reelection as the real tax-cutters in Congress, even if it pits them against some of their caucus colleagues…

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is concerned that Republican attacks on the Democrats' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic have "alarming credibility”…

Rep. Eric Swalwell can pursue his lawsuit to hold former President Trump accountable for the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a judge held in a scathing ruling delivered Friday, 2/18… 

Education

Inside Higher Ed released a print-on-demand compilation, entitled “Recruiting International Students in a New Era”…

A new report from Sallie Mae documents what families don’t know about paying for college…

Mid-year data from Amplify, a curriculum and assessment provider, shows that while the so-called “COVID cohort” of students in kindergarten, first, and second grade are making progress, they haven’t caught up to where students in those grade levels were performing before schools shut down in March 2020…

Most students who attend college earn more 10 years down the road than those who don’t…

Private school students were almost twice as likely as their public school counterparts to have real-time contact with their teachers during the early months of the pandemic, an advantage that could be attributed to better home internet, according to a new report released today, 2/22, by the National Center for Education Statistics, which compiled data collected from the 2020-21 National Teacher and Principal Survey…

During the pandemic, a nationwide crisis of isolation and anxiety has fallen particularly hard on young people - and more and more, those young people are turning to each other for help… 

Nearly 16,000 borrowers will receive $415 million in borrower defense to repayment discharges following the approval of four new findings…

Catholic schools experienced their first enrollment increase in 20 years after decades of declines and school closures prior to the pandemic…

Climate Change

Days when large damaging wildfires are possible could nearly double in Southern California by the end of the century if climate change continues unchecked, according to a study released Thursday, 2/17…

Oil refineries, utilities, and other companies that must pay to emit greenhouse gasses in California have saved up so many credits allowing them to pollute that it may jeopardize the state’s ability to reach its ambitious climate goals, according to a report by the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, a group of five experts appointed by lawmakers and the governor…

Sea levels along U.S. coasts will rise by as much as a foot in the next 30 years as climate change accelerates, leading to a “dramatic increase” in millions of Americans’ exposure to flooding, scientists warned in a federal report published last week… 

Biden is indefinitely freezing decisions about new federal oil and gas drilling as part of a legal brawl with 10 Republican-led states that could significantly impact Biden’s plans to tackle climate change…

Public Safety Update 2/22/22

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the launch of a national ghost gun enforcement initiative designed to prevent privately-made firearms from being used to commit crime by bringing federal charges against criminal use of such weapons…

The DOJ’s announcement on ghost guns comes as President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland traveled to New York City on 2/3 to discuss gun violence and anti-crime efforts…

Los Angeles authorities are urging three major credit card companies to stop processing online payments for kits used to assemble untraceable “ghost guns”…

Fresno officials and police are urging Governor Gavin Newsom to change Proposition 47 after recent polls from UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times showed 78 percent of voters surveyed believe crime rates have risen statewide over the last year…

Police were called to break up a fight between two teenagers in a New Jersey mall on 2/12, but the difference in police treatment of the individuals involved is raising questions…

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) joined Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and John Cornyn (R-TX) this week to introduce a bill that would support the families of officers who struggle with mental health or who are lost to trauma-linked suicides…

The Democratic party’s response to George Floyd’s murder and calls to reduce funding for police may have cost Democrats as many as 12 House seats in 2020, and a recent poll showed that only 36 percent of Americans approve of the way President Biden is handling crime…

Susan Rice, the White House domestic policy adviser, met with the nation’s largest policing groups last month to promise a significant reset in their relationship as the Biden administration finished an executive order on police reform…

Following the leak of a draft executive order on police reform, small departments raised concerns about what the proposed order would mean for rural policing…

Homicides rose in 2021, following a spike of more than 27 percent in 2020, bringing rates to the highest level since the mid-1990s, with effects felt unequally across the country…

On the fourth anniversary of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, parents of the victims marched in Washington, D.C. on 2/14, to demand action against gun violence…

Last week, a federal appeals court heard oral arguments regarding a police union’s constitutional challenge to a Washington, D.C. measure prohibiting the union from negotiating over disciplinary rules, one of the significant reforms that followed nationwide protests after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. D.C. enacted a broad set of police reforms in July 2020—including restrictions on neck restraints and the establishment of a commission on reforms…

A practice conducted by the National Institute of Justice on the effects of Body-Worn Cameras on officer behavior was rated No Effects for its effects on officer use of force, officer injuries, officer-initiated calls for service, traffic stops, field interviews, and arrest incidents…

The National Police Foundation (NPF) assessed the reach, impact, challenges, and successes of the principles of the 21st Century Policing Task Force Report (21CPTFR)…

Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), who is running for mayor of Los Angeles, called for a surge in funding for L.A.’s police force because residents “don’t feel safe today”…

The National Association for Gun Rights and gun owner Mark Sikes sued San Jose in federal court last month after City Council members voted to approve the ordinance believed to be the first measure of its kind in the United States…

In 2015, AB 953 was enacted to require police to collect data on the people they stop, including perceived race and ethnicity, the reason for the encounter, and the outcome…

San Diego is experiencing an increase in officer vacancies threatening to reverse major staffing gains over the last four years…

As local, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies address funding and recruitment challenges, more departments are creating partnerships with private security professionals to expand capabilities and presence without increasing costs…

The Atlanta-based Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative (PAD) was launched to address community concerns related to unmet mental health needs, substance use, or extreme poverty…

As the nation calls for criminal justice reform, civil justice should be included to truly advance equity…

Weekly CA-COVID Update 2/15/22

California

Today is the final day of California’s statewide indoor mask mandate as the COVID-19 rate has dipped to 6.2 percent…

Newsom says kids' low vaccination rates are holding up school mask changes… 

California’s subsidized preschool program may be open to children as young as two if the expansion of services in Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget comes to pass…

The U.S. Department of Justice is signaling it might be open to allowing so-called safe injection sites - safe havens for people to use heroin and other narcotics with protections against fatal overdoses…

California’s COVID-19 sick leave bill, which the Legislature passed last week, doesn’t apply to small employers with 25 or fewer workers…

The California Student Aid Commission on Thursday, 2/10, reported a year-over-year decline in financial aid application completions among high school and undocumented students with just three weeks left before a major financial aid deadline, March 2…

The field is now officially set in the LA mayoral race… 

Coronavirus

With COVID-19 cases still high nationwide, "now is not the moment" to drop mask mandates in schools and other public places, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said last week…

On Friday, 2/11, the CDC updated its guidance for some people with weakened immune systems, recommending they get a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine three months after completing the initial series of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots, rather than the current interval of five months…

A large-scale scientific study found that COVID-19 patients were at “substantial” risk of heart disease one year after their illness, increasing the odds of clots, arrhythmias, heart failure and related conditions… 

COVID-19 can cause “irreparable damage” to the placenta - the organ that serves as a fetus’s lifeline - and lead to stillbirth, according to a study published Thursday, 2/10, in the journal Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine…

Pfizer-BioNTech on Friday, 2/11, said they were delaying their request for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize their COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5 until early April, waiting on more data on the effectiveness of a third dose…

California Department of Public Health study published by the CDC found that people who reported always wearing face masks or respirators, such as N95 masks, in public indoor settings were significantly less likely to later test positive for COVID-19 than people who said they never wore masks in such places…

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously earlier this month to fully recommend the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for adults 18 and older…

Weekly Federal Update 2/14/22

President and Administration

The Biden administration said on Thursday, 2/10, that it would require states to submit proposals to line highways with electric vehicle chargers, part of a $5 billion plan to fill a gap in the infrastructure needed to support booming sales of battery-powered cars…

The White House released the initial edition of its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) guidebook to help state and local governments and other stakeholders unlock the benefits from this historic investment…

Consumer prices rose a higher-than-expected 0.6 percent for the second month in a row, and an alarming 7.5 percent during the last year…

President Biden is starting to clear a legal path for relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to pursue $3.5 billion that Afghanistan’s central bank had deposited in the U.S. before the Taliban takeover, while also seeking to steer a roughly equal amount toward spending to aid the Afghan people…

The threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is shaking up a fragile global oil market, as traders calculate that supplies will struggle to cushion the effect from any significant disruption in Russian fossil fuel exports… 

Congress  

On Wednesday, 2/9, House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement on a framework to move forward with conference negotiations on an omnibus appropriations bill…

On Tuesday the House passed, 272-162, a three-week Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded through March 11 while the broader spending package is still under discussion…

A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday, 2/9, announced that they had reached an agreement on a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, after months of negotiations in the chamber… 

The Senate on Thursday, 2/10,  passed legislation by voice vote to reform the way private companies handle sexual assault and harassment cases by ending the use of forced arbitration to resolve workplace disputes…

President Biden is expected to start interviewing potential nominees to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer this week, with a promise to announce his choice by the end of the month…

Education

During his first address to Congress last spring, President Biden said that Jill Biden, the first lady, would lead an effort to fulfill his administration’s promise to provide two years of free community college to all eligible students…

The Education Department has proposed to again impose regulations to measure the gainful employment of graduates of for-profit colleges and non-degree programs at nonprofit colleges… 

Students who receive a check-in text message from a friend or family member are less likely to experience loneliness or depression, according to a new study from California State University, Fullerton…

Some four-year colleges place too much emphasis on mathematics in admissions, specifically whether students have done well in calculus, limiting access as a result, said a report by Just Equations and the National Association for College Admission Counseling…

The America COMPETES Act, which passed the House on 2/4, would expand Pell Grant eligibility for students enrolled in short-term skills and job training programs, but excludes students attending these programs online, a provision some community college leaders and online education advocates call a mistake…

About 55 percent of teachers say because of the pandemic they’re considering leaving their jobs sooner than they’d planned, according to a poll from the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union…

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, in a letter sent to Congressional leadership Friday, 2/11, urging lawmakers to pass the 2022 spending bills after months of delay…

The Education Department issued a FAQ supplement on using the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund and the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) funds to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the pandemic and a revised Notice of Proposed Requirements (NPR) and updated FAQs for the ARP’s Maintenance of Equity provisions…

Weekly CA-COVID Update 2/8/22

California

California’s statewide indoor mask mandate will vanish one week from today on Tuesday, 2/15… 

A new California program to financially reward college students for volunteering has drawn national attention - but less than half of its budgeted money is going to actual student aid…

Two months after four people were killed and seven injured during a Michigan high school shooting, State Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) will introduce a bill that would require school administrators to collect information from parents about guns stored at home and would mandate backpack, locker and car searches if there is a credible threat or danger of mass casualty…

Sharon Henry, a chief deputy in the Solano County District Attorney’s Office who sued the county last year, announced last week that she is challenging her boss, Krishna Abrams, in this June’s election…

Unlike some other states, California law does not require school districts to provide buses even if a student lives far from campus…

Gov. Newsom’s administration has negotiated a deal to give Kaiser Permanente (KP) a special Medicaid contract that would allow the health care behemoth to expand its reach in California and largely continue selecting the enrollees it wants, which other health plans say leaves them with a disproportionate share of the program’s sickest and costliest patients…

Gov. Newsom, who three years ago placed a moratorium on executions, is moving to dismantle the US’ largest death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons within two years…

The California Teachers Association was Sacramento’s top spender last year, pouring nearly $4.6 million to sway education policy in the state, according to the final tally of lobbying disclosures for 2021…

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who was appointed as California’s first-ever surgeon general in 2019, has resigned…

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA) supported the leading tech antitrust bill, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, in the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, but demanded significant changes if it is to get their support on the Senate floor… 

Coronavirus

An executive order issued by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on 1/15 that allows parents to opt out of COVID-19 school mask mandates prompted dueling lawsuits last week, one siding with Youngkin and the other challenging his order…

Children under five years old may be eligible for COVID-19 shots as soon as the end of February - much earlier than previously expected…

A new analysis of research across nearly a dozen countries including the U.S. found widespread anxiety and depression among children and teens at the start of the public health crisis…

A new study found that with universal masking, in-person education was associated with low rates of secondary transmission, even with less stringent distancing and bus practices…

A new report suggests that school closures in January 2022 were more common in districts with less in-person school during 2020-21 and in districts with a larger share of students who were Black and Hispanic or eligible for free and reduced-price school lunch…

The American Academy of Pediatrics calls for renewed emphasis and support to keep schools open…

Novavax has applied to the FDA for emergency use authorization of COVID vaccine…

Asked how their communities should respond to a surge in COVID-19 infections, more than 40 percent of likely voters said they want schools to take steps to limit the spread of disease - even if those measures interfere with students’ learning, according to a survey conducted by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy…