Weekly Federal Update 5/9/22

President and Administration

A group of national security heavy-hitters are asking conferees on the China competition bill to keep a House provision that would exempt immigrants with advanced STEM degrees from green card caps, to bolster the U.S. workforce…

The U,S. public's view of the nation's economy is the worst it's been in a decade, a new poll finds, with many Americans also saying they feel financial strain in their own lives… 

The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by half-a-percentage point - the largest interest hike in more than two decades last week, as part of its escalating campaign to battle stubbornly high inflation…

The national average residential electricity rate was up eight percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest annual increase in more than a decade…

The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court…

The third round of funding for the Federal Communications Commission’s Emergency Connectivity Fund program opened last week, and it may be the last chance schools and libraries have to apply for remaining emergency money to improve internet access and purchase equipment to help address the homework gap, according to the agency…

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is departing the White House later this month, and will be replaced by principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre…

Congress  

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said driving will “unquestionably” include automated vehicles in the future, and Congress must do more to clarify how regulators can approach them…

Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) stated that he plans on leaving a "clean slate" for next January, and promised to work to finalize all FY23 appropriations bills before he leaves office in January…

Mental Health

A House committee is planning to vote on a bipartisan package of mental health legislation that would reauthorize several federal health programs and require self-funded, non-federal governmental plans to comply with laws requiring the same coverage for mental health care as other types of medical care…

Researchers are imploring Congress to force social media companies to share data showing the platforms’ effect on users, especially children…

The national mental health crisis gripping postsecondary institutions has led to an uptick in students registering with campus disability support offices to receive accommodations for psychological disorders…

The pandemic and the raucous political climate have taken a devastating toll on the mental health of LGBTQ youth - nearly half of whom have seriously considered suicide in the past year, according to a nationwide survey released last week from the Trevor Project…

Education

A recently announced $100 million donation to Success Academy charter schools by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will allow the network to move ahead with building a massive K-12 school in the South Bronx, but staffing shortages could prove a major hurdle…

The Department of Education will update the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act… 

The Degrees When Due (DWD) initiative, led by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, worked with more than 200 participating colleges in 23 states between 2018 and 2021 to find ways to assist students who interrupted their education and get them back on track to earning degrees or training certificates…

About a third (32%) of currently enrolled students pursuing a bachelor's degree report they have considered withdrawing from their program for a semester or more in the past six months… 

Transfer student enrollment rates decreased by 6.9 percent over last year, according to a new study by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center…

Older Americans are much more likely than younger Americans to believe that “the value of a college education is worth it even if someone needs loans to attend,” according to a new survey by NORC at the University of Chicago…

Student Debt Cancellation

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), a close ally of President Biden, said congressional Democrats will keep up pressure on him to use his executive authority to forgive as much as $50,000 in student loan per borrower rather than the more limited plan being considered by the White House…

President Biden is considering limiting his program to relieve student debt to Americans earning less than $125,000, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week…

Using executive action to cancel debts for student borrowers without tying relief to their individual needs and using regulatory procedures would put the Biden administration at risk of having its plan overruled in court, according to a legal analysis prepared by Charlie Rose, who served as the top lawyer in the Education Department under President Obama from 2009 to 2011…

Immigration Update 5/5/22

California

A just-published report by Nourish California and California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC), which used statewide survey data collected from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research from 2017 to 2020, found that 45 percent of undocumented immigrants in California are affected by food insecurity…

The Judicial System

Last week, the Supreme Court grappled with whether the Biden administration can terminate a Trump-era border policy known as "Remain in Mexico" in a case that will test the White House's ability to set immigration policy…

Administration Spending Priorities

President Biden’s annual budget proposal would substantially increase funds for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) while further taking the agency away from the enforcement-heavy policies imbued into it by the Trump administration… 

Work Permits

Most immigrants with recently expired or soon-to-expire work permits will be able to continue working on those documents for up to a year and a half after they expire under a new policy announced by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services earlier this week…

Refugees and those granted asylum may now renew their work permits in two-year increments rather than having to renew annually in an effort to address lengthy processing delays…

Migration Trends

The U.S. immigration system would come under intense pressure if the end of Title 42, a fast-track deportation policy, triggers a surge of as many as 18,000 migrants at the southern border, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said earlier this week…

Overall, 2021 will go down as the year with the slowest population growth in U.S. history…

One in 10 Black people living in the U.S. are immigrants, and the number is only expected to rise, according to new data…

Migrants attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border at the highest level in two decades…

Asylum

The Biden administration announced the final version of its long-awaited U.S. asylum overhaul in late March, aiming to speed up processing at the border and alleviate backlogs throughout the country’s immigration courts…

The administration is overhauling asylum procedures for migrants crossing the U.S. border, its most significant step toward fulfilling President Biden’s pledge to make immigration more efficient and humane…

Border Wall

Since 2019, when the border wall’s height was raised to 30 feet along much of the border in California, the number of patients arriving at the UC San Diego Medical Center’s trauma ward after falling off the structure has jumped fivefold, to 375, new statistics published Friday, 4/29, by UC San Diego physicians…

Mexican smuggling gangs have sawed through new segments of border wall 3,272 times over the past three years, according to unpublished U.S. Customs and Border Protection maintenance records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act…

Resuming work on a wall along the southern U.S. border and codifying the Remain in Mexico program for asylum seekers are among Republicans’ top priorities if they win control of the House…

Immigration Reform

The prospects of comprehensive immigration reform this year? “Zero,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), a lead sponsor of President Biden’s signature immigration bill…

Refugees

President Biden has asked Congress to provide tens of thousands of Afghan refugees with a pathway to become legal permanent residents of the U.S., according to a proposal included in the supplemental budget request he sent to lawmakers last week…

CBP officials are now processing Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion of their country at the San Diego-Tijuana border through a pedestrian crossing which has been closed to the general public for the past two years…

Afghan refugees in the United States will be allowed to stay for at least 18 months under temporary protected status, a move that will help some of the thousands who arrived following the chaotic American withdrawal from their country…

Weekly CA-COVID Update 5/3/22

California

On Friday, 4/29, Gov. Newsom announced that, beginning May 1, the state’s low-income health insurance would extend full coverage to all qualifying people who are 50 or older, regardless of immigration status…

The latest poll from the Public Policy Institute of California dropped last week with insights into how Californians are feeling about the state of education… 

Commissioned by the reform-oriented nonprofit, Murmuration, likely California voters who were also parents were much less satisfied with the performance of traditional neighborhood public schools during the pandemic than in every other state polled, including Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, New Jersey, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia…

The mental health of children under five has typically been overlooked when it comes to state funding…

Lawmakers in California are debating whether to open sites where people can inject or snort illegal drugs under the watchful gaze of a health care worker… 

California’s population declined again in 2021 for the second consecutive year, state officials said yesterday, 5/2, the result of a slowdown in births and immigration coupled with an increase in deaths and people leaving the state…

Last week, the Metropolitan Water District said that the unprecedented decision to reduce outdoor watering to one day a week for about six million Southern Californians could be followed by even stricter actions in September if conditions don’t improve, including a total ban in some areas…

The University of California will waive all tuition and fees for Californians who are members of federally recognized Native American, American Indian and Alaska Native tribes…

California’s attorney general has announced a first-of-its kind investigation into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their alleged role in causing and exacerbating a global crisis in plastic waste pollution… 

Coronavirus

After months of declining numbers, California has recorded a nearly 30 percent increase in COVID-19 cases over the last week along with smaller rises in hospitalizations, causing some health officials to suspect that the state is headed into a new pandemic wave… 

COVID-19 has had billions of chances to reconfigure itself as it has spread across the planet, and it continues to evolve, generating new variants and sub variants at a clip that has kept scientists on their toes…

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the first full approval for treating COVID-19 in children ages 28 days and older to Gilead Sciences's drug Remdesivir… 

Pfizer and BioNTech submitted data to the FDA last week showing that the low-dose booster shot is safe for children ages five through 11 and could help protect them against Omicron…

Three new observational studies from Scotland, Denmark and the United States detail reduced hospitalizations and emergency department visits for Omicron COVID-19 infections relative to those caused by the Delta variant, as well as strong but waning third-dose vaccine effectiveness over time against Omicron…

More than half of people in the United States had antibodies for COVID-19 by the end of February, according to a new study from the CDC… 

According to data from the National Vital Statistics System released last week by the CDC, only heart disease and cancer killed more Americans than COVID-19 in 2021, with provisional death tolls from each cause totaling 693,000, 605,000 and 415,000, respectively… 

Districts that operated in person last school year were far more likely to rebound in enrollment this year than those that continued to operate virtually…

Weekly Federal Update 5/2/22

President and Administration

Last week, President Biden told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he was looking at different options for forgiving student loan debt…

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, 4/28, announced a plan to ban sales of menthol-flavored cigarettes in the U.S., a measure many public health experts hailed as the government’s most meaningful action in more than a decade of tobacco control efforts…

The U.S. economy contracted in the first three months of the year, but strong consumer spending and continued business investment suggested that the recovery remained resilient…

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today, 5/2, that the city of Boston violated the Constitution when it refused to let a local organization fly a Christian flag in front of city hall…

Broadband resources for state and local governments…

Congress  

Senate Majority Leader Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have agreed on a pathway to begin an official House-Senate negotiation on the Bipartisan Innovation Act, a massive package to ensure U.S. technological competitiveness with China…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) huddled last week to discuss putting together a package to address gas prices…

A small bipartisan group of lawmakers gathered again today, 5/2, to hash out whether a deal is possible to combat climate change and modernize U.S. energy policy…

Speaker Pelosi led a congressional delegation to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv over the weekend…

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chair of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, says the panel will hold public hearings in June. Thompson also said the panel will issue one final report in the fall…

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation last week that would reduce the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine to 2.5:1 from 18:1…

Republicans and Democrats are signaling they'll back President Biden's proposed $33 billion supplemental aid package for Ukraine's military, economic and humanitarian needs…

Mental Health

Three decades ago, the gravest public health threats to teenagers in the U.S. came from binge drinking, drunken driving, teenage pregnancy and smoking…

In partnership with the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has developed new, free informational resources that inform Americans of their rights under law on coverage for mental health benefits…

Education

Last week, the Department of Education announced major actions and investments from government, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations to support student academic and mental health recovery as part of ED’s broader effort to help students, schools, and communities recover from the pandemic and re-emerge stronger…

In a new article, the Education Secretary lays out his department's values and priorities for improving education in this next phase of recovery…

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration recently launched an equity action plan with steps to offer more resources and opportunities to faculty members and students at minority-serving institutions…

Student Defense, the Project on Predatory Student Lending and the National Consumer Law Center have filed a lawsuit against Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and the Department of Education on behalf of student loan borrowers with unresolved borrower defense to repayment claims… 

The Department of Education is putting the finishing touches on a long-awaited rewrite of Title IX which is widely expected to codify the rights of trans students for the first time…

Rates of cheating in online examinations have hit a record high, according to proctoring data that show one in 14 students was caught breaking the rules last year…

Weekly CA-COVID Update 4/27/22

California

A new poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that just four percent of California voters listed COVID-19 as the most important issue for the state to address, with housing affordability, homelessness, crime and gas prices dominating the priorities - and climate change ranking below fuel costs…

Food banks across the state are seeing an influx of new faces as spikes in the cost of groceries and gas have some Californians seeking help for the first time…

Six weeks after Gov. Newsom unveiled a far-reaching effort to push more people into court-ordered treatment for severe mental illness and addiction, homeless advocates are calling it legally misguided and immoral at the proposal’s first public hearing at the state Capitol yesterday, 4/27…

New rules for the state's major web-access project define precisely what affordable means when it comes to an internet plan…

Highlighting a growing trend as California’s severe drought extends into a third summer, 1.4 million East Bay residents will see new crackdowns on water use - the first since 2016 - under rules approved yesterday, 4/26… 

California witnessed 367 incidents of antisemitic hate and harassment last year, part of a record national spike that observers fear will only continue in 2022, as right-wing extremism ricochets online and fringe groups pop up throughout the Bay Area…

Among the 17 states where population declined over the year, losses were greatest in New York (-1.58%), Illinois (-0.89%), Hawaii (-0.71%) and California (-0.66%). Losses in these states were driven by people moving away…

California wants electric vehicle sales to triple in the next four years to 35 percent of all new car purchases, an aggressive target set as part of the goal to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars by the middle of next decade…

Online platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube would face added legal obligations to protect children and teens under a bill being considered in California’s legislature…

Two newly introduced bills could significantly impact the early education landscape in California if they eventually become law…

Coronavirus

The vice president tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, 4/26, her office announced…

California is no longer recommending a five-day quarantine period for people who are exposed to COVID-19 but remain asymptomatic…

The United States is finally “out of the full-blown explosive pandemic phase” that has led to nearly one million deaths from COVID-19 and more than two years of suffering and hardship, Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said this morning, 4/27… 

Yesterday, 4/26, the White House made a push for more COVID-19 patients to get treated with Pfizer's Paxlovid as hundreds of people in the U.S. continue to die from the virus every day…

The Biden administration is expected to renew its pressure campaign on Congress to fund testing, treatments, therapeutics and prevention of future surges of COVID-19 as lawmakers return this week…

Small-business owners are bristling over a congressional proposal that would redirect unspent money from COVID-19 programs to provide $10 billion for the federal government’s pandemic health response, including vaccines and therapeutics…

The California Supreme Court must clarify the novel question arising from the COVID-19 pandemic of whether a company can be held liable for the spread of the COVID-19 virus to an employee’s household, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said in an order last week…

Members of Congress sent a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Monday, 4/25, asking whether the agency intended to delay reviewing Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for children five years old and younger and for “the scientific basis and any other rationale” for such an action…

A booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech significantly increased the level of neutralizing antibodies against both the original version of the virus and the Omicron variant in a small trial of children ages five to 11, the companies announced on Thursday, 4/21…

Infants born during the pandemic produced significantly fewer vocalizations and had less verbal back-and-forth with their caretakers compared to those born before COVID-19, according to independent studies by Brown University and a national nonprofit focused on early language development…

Vaccination coverage for kindergartners dropped across the country in the 2020-2021 school year, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday, 4/21, part of a worrying decline in childhood immunization since the start of the pandemic…

Moderna said its modified COVID-19 booster shot, designed to target two strains of COVID-19, generated a strong immune response against multiple variants of concern, including Omicron…