Weekly Update 9/5/23

Federal Government Funding: Appropriations

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that a stopgap spending bill through early December “makes a good deal of sense,” less than 24 hours after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) floated the same timing for a temporary funding patch during a private GOP conference call…

President and Administration

More than four million student loan borrowers have enrolled in the Biden administration’s new student loan repayment plan, “Saving on a Valuable Education," top administration officials said today (9/5)…

On Friday, 8/4, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new prescription drug to treat postpartum depression, greenlighting the first pill marketed for people experiencing the debilitating condition after pregnancy…

On Friday, 8/4, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released IRS Notice 2023-59, which specifies requirements for U.S. taxpayers to claim the “Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit” under section 25C of the U.S. tax code for home energy audits…

The Biden administration is boosting an experiment in downsized policing sparked by George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020…

A systematic review in Pediatrics of 31 studies published through December 2022 reveals that persistent symptoms three months after confirmed COVID-19 infections, or "long COVID," affect 16 percent of children and adolescents…

This guide, entitled “Connecting Communities to Substance Use Services: Practical Tools for First Responders,” provides practical, evidence-based information that first responder agencies, their partners, and communities can use to implement or expand practices and programs for linking people to substance use services…

According to new government data, about 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever…

This guide provides staff with knowledge and strategies to best support diverse rural communities…

Just days after warning that pharmacies wouldn’t provide free COVID vaccines to people without health insurance until October, the Biden administration and retail pharmacies are trying to accelerate the timeline…

Education

A research brief, published by Amplify, on national end-of-school-year reading data for K-3 students revealed that while schools across the country have made progress in reading scores among earlier elementary grades (K-2), gains among third graders remains comparatively slow…

The Education Department’s inspector general (IG) recommended the agency improve its procedures to review and monitor charter school program grant spending, following a yearslong audit of the department’s performance reporting process for federal charter replication and expansion grants…

After George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer who held him to the ground facedown for nearly 10 minutes, lawmakers passed rules to ensure children wouldn’t suffer similar fates at school…

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo has what he calls a short-term plan to shore up a private school scholarship program, after Democratic legislators rejected a proposal last month that involved using unallocated federal money…

Actions in the nation’s two largest school districts are testing the idea that charter and traditional schools can exist under one roof…

According to a new study, over the first two full school years under the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 enrollment in public schools fell dramatically (i.e., by more than 1.2 million students) with losses concentrated among the youngest students…

Schools are spending millions of dollars on social-emotional learning programs, social workers and hotlines to support the mental health of students…

President Biden has yet to complete one of his major campaign promises — rewriting the Title IX rule that prohibits sexual discrimination and harassment in education, including a sweeping expansion to include transgender students in sports…

Public Safety and Justice Update: 9/1/23

On 8/31, the Justice Department announced a proposed rule to specify what exactly the new definition in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

Despite claims from politicians, party rule does not drive crime…

A graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been charged in the fatal shooting of one of his professors, a killing that spread fear across the campus and forced an hours-long lockdown…

Gun suicides reached an all-time high in the United States in 2022, and the gun suicide rate among Black teens surpassed that of white teens for the first time on record, new data shows…

At least 48,000 people died by guns last year — an average of one person every 11 minutes, according to a Johns Hopkins analysis…

Payroll records between 2020 and 2022 show the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) had 273 officers leave their jobs…

In towns and cities across the country, police unions have been asking for pay bumps for body cameras, seeking to capitalize on the growing public expectation that every encounter with the police will be recorded…

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s quest to put gun restrictions into the U.S. Constitution through an amendment cleared the first of many hurdles this week…

Acknowledging a lack of oversight that allowed abuses of power within the police force, the Antioch City Council has agreed to give itself the authority to hire, supervise and remove its police chief…

A San Jose lawmaker’s criminal justice reform bill is set for a hearing this week in Sacramento…

The San Jose drug dealer that targeted his sale of fentanyl-laced pills at Los Gatos High School students will be sentenced to 12 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to all charges…

Deputies and medical personnel rushed on 8/23, to a mass shooting at a bar in Orange County’s Trabuco Canyon, with authorities saying four were confirmed dead at the scene, including the shooter…

Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia, formally signaling his intent to fight the charges in the sprawling racketeering case brought by Fulton County prosecutors…

Zephaniah “Zephi” Trevino, 20, was charged in connection with the death of Carlos Arajeni-Arriaza Murillo, 24, who was fatally shot during a 2019 robbery in Grand Prairie, Tex…

Infrastructure and Transportation Update - August 2023

California

California Democrats trying to slow the rollout of driverless trucks are facing a powerful opponent: Governor Gavin Newsom…

San Francisco officials are asking a state regulator to change course and halt driverless car expansion, intensifying a battle over robotaxis in America’s tech hub…

Zero-emission vehicles comprised a quarter of the cars sold in California between April and June of this year, marking the first time the state has crossed that threshold, according to data published Wednesday, 8/2, by the California Energy Commission…

The State of California will be investing more than $750 million in locations where jobs are plentiful, but housing and green transportation is not…

The California High-Speed Rail took another important step toward becoming reality after the governing body’s board of directors began the process of obtaining possible vendors for the state’s most ambitious transit project in history…

California’s transportation infrastructure is no longer considered “high-risk,” 16 years after it was added to an inauspicious list by the California State Auditor…

Long Beach aims to launch an e-bike lending program to provide residents with up to 40 bikes—in one of the latest efforts in California to increase accessibility with green transportation…

Congress

The first [mini] bus is here, Senate appropriators announced Wednesday, 9/6, with just 23 days left until government funding runs out…

President and Administration

On Tuesday, 8/8, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced that it is accepting applications for the second year of its Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants Program…

On Monday, 8/7, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the availability of approximately $13.4 million in competitive grant funds through the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Planning

The Biden administration announced more than $15 billion in new funding opportunities to help spur domestic battery manufacturing and ensure U.S. auto workers are taking part in the transition to electric vehicles amid continued pressure from organized labor…

On Wednesday, 8/30, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would allow a waiver from some REAL ID rules in order to accept mobile driver’s licenses in the future…

President Biden dipped a toe into the contract talks between automakers and the UAW on Monday, 8/14, reaffirming his support for electric vehicle jobs as a path to the middle class while urging the companies to address the union's concerns over the transition…

The U.S. Department of Transportation has launched the Project Delivery Center of Excellence to help recipients of federal infrastructure funds deliver projects more efficiently and effectively, from concept to completion…

On Monday, 7/31, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced $102.3 million in funding to 17 transit agencies, cities, and planning councils in eight states and territories to help recover from recent natural disasters…

On Tuesday, 8/22, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced $8.8 million in grants for 10 projects in eight States and the District of Columbia to encourage the use of tools that can improve safety on bridges and in work zones…

Following an announcement of a private investment plan for 30,000 new electric vehicle chargers across the United States, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said government investment has paved the way for private companies to produce more electric cars…

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is requiring transit agencies across the U.S. to adhere to a new federal data reporting standard that will help the agency stay on top of current trends and evolve in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic…

Expanding broadband access is just one of the areas in which state and industry officials are scrambling to find workers as $550 billion in new federal infrastructure funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was passed in 2021, begins to come their way…

A training program operated by the National League of Cities (NLC) helps small cities apply directly for federal infrastructure funding…

On Wednesday, 8/9, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S.DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), launched the Heat-Related EMS Activation Surveillance Dashboard (“EMS HeatTracker”)…

Public Safety and Justice Update: 8/4/23

Gun sales increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020…

Last summer, the Supreme Court sought to clarify its expansive reading of the Second Amendment, however, the result has been less clear…

Representative John D. Dingell Jr., a powerful Michigan Democrat who died in 2019, sat on the National Rifle’s Association (NRA)’s board of directors, positioning him to influence firearms policy as well as the lobbying force responsible for shaping it…

A focused deterrence intervention designed to reduce the presence of gun violence and gang activity was rated Promising by the National Institute of Justice…

Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers pleaded guilty this week to multiple counts of civil rights violations for a January raid in Rankin County during which they physically abused two Black men, the Justice Department said…

President Joe Biden is encouraging downsized policing sparked by George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020…

Ellis Lariviere, an eighth grader at Saint Ann’s, an elite private school in Brooklyn Heights, was asked not to return to the school for ninth grade…

National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie…

The City of Antioch has announced a possible ordinance change that would allow for the city council to have control to appoint, supervise and remove the Antioch Police Chief…

An emotional showdown in the jury room where one holdout juror complained of being bullied and refused to deliberate Thursday led to a mistrial in the case of San Jose State’s former head athletic trainer accused of sexually assaulting female athletes during treatment sessions…

Operation Cross Country focused on women and girls suspected of being forced into sex work and was conducted by the FBI and county and city law enforcement…

Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday, 8/3, to federal charges accusing him of orchestrating a criminal conspiracy to try to derail the transfer of power after the 2020 election…

Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal investigations of former President Donald Trump, has charged Trump with committing criminal fraud and violating conspiracy laws that were not written to prevent the overturning of an election result…

Infrastructure and Transportation Update - July 2023

California

As a historic 10-day heat wave threatened brownouts across California last summer, a small San Diego County school district did its part to help: It captured excess power from its electric school buses and sent it back to the state’s overwhelmed grid

On Monday, 7/10, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a package of infrastructure bills that aim to cut the red tape associated with building new projects, while also ensuring environmental protection…

 In the heart of Silicon Valley, leaders are calling on the best and the brightest minds. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan's office has partnered with tinyML Foundation, Sony and San Jose's Department of Transportation to launch a global traffic safety hackathon…

President and Administration

The world is on track to manufacture enough electric vehicle batteries to meet expected demand requirements in 2030 under a net-zero emissions by mid-century scenario, according to new tracking from the International Energy Agency

On Thursday, 7/20, Politico Pro sat down with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to talk about matters before his department, including the fight over adding flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tesla’s inroads into the electric vehicle charging industry and high-speed rail…

More major cities in the United States are letting public transit riders hop on board for free. Kansas City; Raleigh; Richmond; Olympia; Tucson; Alexandria, Virginia; and other cities are testing dropping fares on their transit systems…

Smartphone apps have become commonplace tools for travel and navigation…

Ridesharing has become a convenient way of life, but that's not so for everyone…

With billions of federal dollars in the hands of local officials to fix the nation’s roads, bridges and water systems, it is no surprise that infrastructure is at the top of many mayors’ agendas…

Congress

Four Senate Republicans are challenging the Biden administration’s waiver of Buy America rules for electric vehicle chargers, saying that the waiver would allow China to profit from the U.S. EV boom…

The backstop mechanism House Republicans inserted into last month’s debt ceiling package to ensure the completion of full-year appropriations would cause some collateral damage if triggered: cuts to bipartisan infrastructure law funding enacted two years ago…

After committees approved versions of a fiscal 2024 transportation funding bill, Congress is unlikely to clear the legislation before its August recess…