Weekly Update 4/12/21

California

California is expecting about 90% fewer Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine doses this week due to a factory error, marking a significant decrease in the total number of doses reducing first-time appointments, even as the state on Thursday, 4/15 is expected to expand eligibility to any resident over age 16…

California is expected to fully reopen its economy 6/15 as long as COVID-19 vaccinations remain widely available and hospitalization continues to be stable, Gov. Newsom said last week…

A possibly worrisome COVID-19 variant first identified in India has been found in the San Francisco Bay Area by scientists at Stanford University….

Coronavirus

Last week, President Biden said he’s bumping up his deadline by two weeks for states to make all adults in the U.S. eligible for the COVID-19 vaccines…

A new University of Southern California (USC) study has found that COVID-19 rapid tests could be the key to reopening schools more safely…

According to a JAMA Pediatrics model, as of February 2021, between 37,300 and 43,000 children aged 0 to 17 years had lost at least one parent due to COVID-19, three-quarters of whom were adolescents…

COVID-19 variants are spreading, carrying mutations that make COVID-19 both more contagious and in some cases more deadly…

A new vaccine for COVID-19 that is entering clinical trials in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, and Vietnam could change how the world fights the pandemic…

President and Administration

On Thursday, 4/8, President Biden announced that he’s taking executive actions to tighten gun restrictions, including stopping the proliferation of so-called ghost guns…

President Biden released his preliminary spending requests for 2022 on Friday, 4/9, the first step before Congress negotiates the government’s budget for the fiscal year starting in October…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) revealed last week that she expects the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to wrap up its work on President Biden’s infrastructure package in May as it seeks to hit a 7/4 deadline for House passage…

 Sixty percent of registered voters support Biden’s infrastructure plan, including 34 percent of Republicans, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll…

Democrats can pass another major piece of legislation - such as President Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan - by revisiting budget reconciliation, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said last week…

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is working with the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to address the changes required by the CARES Act, to the 42 CFR part 2 regulations governing the confidentiality of substance use disorder patient records…

Congress 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richie Neal (D-MA) is calling for dramatic expansion in childcare support for American families, saying it “needs to be a guarantee, not an expensive hassle that drives parents out of the workforce or makes them choose between wages and family” in a letter to Democratic members of his panel…

This week, the Senate is expected to hold a vote on the motion to proceed on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which aims to address the surge of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic…

Education

On Friday, 4/9,  the Education Department released the COVID-19 Handbook, Volume 2: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students' Needs to provide additional strategies for safely reopening all of America's schools and to promote educational equity by addressing opportunity gaps that have been exacerbated by the pandemic…

The Education Department is asking for input from students, educators and others as part of a comprehensive review of Title IX — an initial step toward writing a new rule protecting students from sexual harassment and violence…

Students are increasingly relying on professors for mental health assistance…

A new survey by EAB, the education consulting company, has found that 30 percent of both first-generation and low-income students said completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was difficult, a rate that is 10 to 15 percentage points higher than the proportion of other students who said it was…

A new survey by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Gallup, released last week, finds that many parents want alternatives to college for their children…

The number of students transferring between colleges continued to decline this spring, dropping nearly eight percent across all transfer pathways between and among different two-year and four-year institutions…

Many colleges don’t have a system in place to evaluate emergency aid requests and instead fall back on students’ existing financial aid information from documents like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)…

Appointee Update

 New federal appointees from the Departments of Education, Labor, and Justice include…

Weekly Update 4/5/21

California

The effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom is shaping up to be an expensive national spectacle as unlimited fund-raising and partisan interests converge in the most populous U.S. state…

California appears in the midst of another drought only a few years after a punishing five year dry spell dried up rural wells, killed endangered salmon, idled farm fields and helped fuel the most deadly and destructive wildfires in modern state history…

Coronavirus

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that the federal eviction moratorium has been extended through June 30, a move that will protect millions of tenants who have struggled to make their rent payments during the COVID-19 crisis…

 Seeking to overcome vaccine hesitancy, the Biden administration on Thursday, 4/1, stepped up its outreach efforts to skeptical Americans, launching a coalition of community, religious and celebrity partners to promote COVID-19 shots in hard-hit communities…

On Wednesday, 3/31, Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine was 100% effective in a final-stage trial in children ages 12 to 15, which could pave the way for teens and pre-teens to get shots before the next school year and intensifies pressure on schools to decide whether to make shots mandatory when students return…

During Pfizer's Phase Three clinical trial for its COVID-19 vaccine, researchers have found that protection lasts up to six months after the second dose…

President Joe Biden and top health officials warned last week that COVID-19 infections are once again beginning to climb — urging Americans, including elected officials, to double down on precautions to prevent a fourth surge…

Fully vaccinated people can resume recreational travel in the U.S. at “low risk” yet should still wear a mask and avoid crowds, according to new advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)…

President and Administration

Biden may address a joint session of Congress after about 100 days of his presidency, which falls on April 30…

President Biden is looking to send an unprecedented amount of federal funding to help people living in areas that have been disproportionately harmed by air pollution, contaminated water, and other environmental impacts…

The Biden administration is stepping up efforts to combat domestic extremism, increasing funding to prevent attacks, weighing strategies historically used against foreign terrorist groups and more openly warning the public about the threat…

The U.S. Labor Department (DOL) office that polices government contractors intensified its enforcement of anti-bias laws under President Biden, a marked change from the Trump administration’s focus on proactive measures…

President Biden announced his first slate of judicial nominees last week, elevating U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the influential appeals court in Washington to succeed Merrick Garland as part of the largest and earliest batch of court picks by a new administration in decades…

Amid steady progress with COVID-19 vaccinations, the U.S. economy is gathering so much steam that its gains will not stay at home…

Congress 

Last week, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) said he won’t back any tax increases that President Biden proposes to pay for infrastructure legislation unless there is also a repeal of the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions…

Republicans may be ready to support limited infrastructure funding in Biden’s spending proposal, which would require scaling back the $2.25 trillion plan by more than two thirds, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said…

Many of those who invaded the halls of Congress on 1/6 are likely to get little or no jail time…

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he plans to pursue comprehensive marijuana legislation but will likely face some resistance from the White House because Biden hasn’t backed full legalization…

 Last week, Gun Violence Prevention Task Force Chairman Mike Thompson led a letter signed by more than 100 of his colleagues asking President Biden to take Executive Action to regulate concealable assault-style rifles, like the firearm used recently in Boulder, Colorado… 

Education

Last week, the Biden administration halted the collection of more than 1 million federally guaranteed student loans, extending relief to a subset of the borrowers who have been left out of the government’s unprecedented freeze on loan payments and interest over the past year…

Labor unions are making a new push to get the Education Department to use executive action to forgive the student loans of Americans working in public service jobs - the latest pressure from the left for the Biden administration to act more aggressively on student debt relief…

 On Friday, 4/2, Education Secretary Cardona joined a roundtable discussion alongside Senate Majority Leader Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Warren (D-MA) to listen as student loan borrowers and advocates shared their stories about the impact student loan debt has had on their lives…

President Biden’s new infrastructure plan proposes billions of dollars for higher education over eight years…

The U.S. higher education sector will feel a revenue hit for several years from a low number of international students enrolling in colleges and universities this fall, according to Moody’s Investors Service…

A string of recent court decisions have accepted sex-based discrimination claims by male students after their schools sanctioned them for harassment or assault, potentially complicating plans for a complete overhaul of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s campus sexual misconduct regulations…

Weekly Update 3/29/21

California

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, 3/24, named Rob Bonta, a Democratic state legislator and loyal political ally, to succeed Xavier Becerra as attorney general…

California is one of 11 states that still distinguish between spousal rape and rape…

Californians frustrated by the hunt for COVID-19 vaccine appointments may have to wait several more weeks for an appointment, Blue Shield’s CEO said on Friday, 3/26…

Gun control advocates are putting pressure on the gun industry to comply with California’s unique law requiring individual identifiers on all bullet casings, a fairly ineffective mandate approved in 2007…

The mayor of Oakland on Tuesday, 3/23, announced a privately funded program that will give low-income families of color in the city $500 per month with no rules on how they can spend it…

California added 141,000 jobs in February as more than a quarter of a million people returned to the workforce, state officials announced Friday, 3/26, a reflection of loosening virus restrictions on businesses as more people get vaccinated…

Coronavirus

Today, 3/29, President Biden urged state and local officials to reconsider lifting their COVID-19 restrictions and to reinstate mask mandates that have lapsed as the U.S. faces an increase in cases…

Hospitalizations related to COVID-19 are climbing in half of the U.S., the latest sign that the nation’s fourth upswing in infections is underway…

Researchers in the U.S. and abroad are beginning to test younger children to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective for all ages…

49 percent of educators have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, according to a new survey by the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest union representing nearly 3 million members…

On Thursday, 3/25, the Senate voted 92-7 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) from 3/31 to the end of May…

Face masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes can qualify as medical expenses for tax deductions or can be paid for with money from tax-advantaged health accounts, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced Friday, 3/26…

President and Administration

President Biden will unveil the framework for a major infrastructure-and-jobs program on Wednesday, 3/31, in Pittsburgh, and later in the week will offer a glimpse of his 2022 budget - which promises to redirect federal funds to areas such as climate change and health care… 

President Biden on Thursday, 3/25, prioritized the country’s numerous crises, pledging to administer 200 million COVID-19 vaccine shots by end of April, repair U.S. infrastructure and expand voting rights, with guns and immigration as secondary priorities…

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Wednesday, 3/24, that he expects 100 percent of schools to be open for in-person learning in the fall as vaccination efforts continue amid the pandemic…

The Homeland Security Department will issue a notice of proposed rulemaking “to preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement…

Federal food assistance recipients won a victory as President Biden’s Agriculture Department abandoned a Trump administration court challenge designed to compel states to enforce work requirements to receive the aid…

Business groups are challenging the Department of Labor’s decision to delay a Trump-era rule that would make it easier for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors…

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said his plan to slow First Class mail and hike rates will help the U.S. Postal Service avoid bigger financial deficits in the future…

The Biden administration is escalating efforts to safeguard the U.S. power grid from hackers, developing a plan to better coordinate with industry to counter threats and attacks, said people familiar with the matter…

Congress 

Moderate Senate Democrats are pushing their leaders for a more modest approach to the party’s signature minimum wage hike, arguing for a compromise that can attract broader support after the defeat of a $15 hourly wage proposal…

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says voting rights, economic recovery and gun safety are on the agenda when lawmakers return in mid-April…

College lobby groups launched a campaign on Thursday, 3/25, for lawmakers to double the total value of grants to low-income students…

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday, 3/24, unanimously advanced the bipartisan “Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021”…

Seven House committees launched a sweeping investigation Thursday, 3/25, into the federal government's handling of the 1/6 assault on the Capitol and the intelligence and security breakdowns preceding it…

Education

The Education Department's Office of Federal Student Aid unveiled a new portal last night, 3/28, to ease the administration of aid programs…

The Department of Education announced today, 3/29, that relief for certain borrowers who have received student loan discharges due to total and permanent disability…

Legislatures are weighing proposals to establish summer learning initiatives, expand afterschool programs and extend the school year…

The Institute of Education Science’s Monthly School Survey Dashboard shows almost 50 percent of white students attended in-person school full-time in January, compared to just 28 percent of Black and 33 percent of Hispanic students…

Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Republican Leader Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) sent a letter to Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona questioning a recently released template for states to request waivers of certain accountability and reporting requirements under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which appears to violate the Secretary’s authority….

Coronavirus and D.C. Update 3/25/21

Coronavirus

Next Thursday, 4/1, California will expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to residents aged 50 and older, and everyone at least 16 years old will be eligible to make an appointment starting 4/15, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today, 3/25…

AstraZeneca may have included “outdated information” in touting the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine in a U.S. study, federal health officials said Tuesday, 3/23, in an unusual public rift that could further erode confidence in the shot…

In early April, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will begin providing financial assistance for funeral expenses incurred after 1/20/20 for COVID-19-related deaths to help ease financial stress and burden caused by the pandemic…

New jobless claims fell to their lowest levels amid the pandemic era, with a better-than-expected 684,000 being filed last week…

As of February, 76 percent of schools were open for full-time or hybrid learning, with classroom reopenings differing between student groups and locations, a federal survey finds…

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will visit school campuses in the coming weeks to highlight successful reopening efforts during the pandemic…

A coalition of 12 state attorneys general called on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, 3/24, to enforce their community guidelines and rid their services of misinformation spreading by accounts promoting anti-vaccine ideas…

D.C. Update

This afternoon, 3/25, President Biden held his first solo press conference…

President Joe Biden on Tuesday, 3/23, called for a federal assault weapons ban and strengthened background checks for firearms sales in the aftermath of a deadly supermarket shooting in Boulder, CO — hoisting the contentious issue of gun reform among the White House’s top legislative priorities…

Biden plans to unveil his initial 2022 spending requests next week to help shape congressional negotiations, and expects to release a full budget proposal in the coming months, the administration said Tuesday, 3/23…

The Biden administration is considering extending a soon-to-expire federal policy prohibiting landlords from evicting cash-strapped tenants, as the government seeks to buy more time for an estimated 10 million families behind on rent…

Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of resolving a surge in migration on the U.S. southern border that’s overwhelming federal immigration authorities…

Weekly Update 3/22/21

California

The House has dismissed a Republican attempt to remove Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the House intelligence panel over his contact more than six years ago with a suspected Chinese spy who targeted politicians in the United States…

“We’re anticipating within five-and-a-half weeks where we can eliminate all of the tiering,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, 3/19, “and make available vaccines to everybody across the spectrum because supply will exponentially increase”…

Last week, Judge Cynthia Freeland issued a temporary restraining order blocking California from enforcing a wide swath of rules that limit and regulate school openings, saying the state has denied children their right to an education by forcing many to stay in online learning…

Last week, Newsom committed to nominating a Black woman to the U.S. Senate should Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) resign…

The Senate narrowly confirmed California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to become the new Secretary of Health and Human Services last Thursday, 3/18…

Coronavirus

The COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford provided strong protection against COVID-19 in a large clinical trial in the U.S., completely preventing the worst outcomes from the disease while causing no serious side effects, according to results announced today, 3/22…

Schools can allow social distancing of three feet, rather than six, between students in classrooms, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Friday, 3/19, in what is expected to be a boost to reopening schools nationwide…

A new analysis found that states such as South Carolina and Florida that rushed to offer the vaccine to ever-larger groups of people have actually vaccinated smaller shares of their population than those that moved more slowly and methodically, such as Hawaii and Connecticut…

The Small Business Administration (SBA) will begin accepting online applications on 4/8 for more than $16 billion in grants for performing arts centers, movie theaters and museums that have been shut down during the pandemic…

The Senate must move to prevent a lapse in new loans for small businesses bruised by the pandemic…

President and Administration

White House officials are weighing a number of means to pass the Biden administration’s next big legislative push, “Build Back Better,” including breaking the jobs plan into as many as three bills…

The Education Department announced Thursday, 3/18, that students who were cheated by for-profit institutions and previously granted partial relief on their direct federal loans will now be granted full relief…

As the U.S. reels from major cyber-attacks by suspected Russian and Chinese hackers, officials are looking to implement new technologies that would allow the federal government to respond more effectively…

President Biden’s next major economic package will almost certainly have to rely once again on a Democrat-only approach after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) shut the door on Republican support for tax hikes to pay for it…

States are demanding the Biden administration clarify a last-minute provision in the latest virus relief package that bars them from using federal benefits to cut taxes…

President Biden is considering keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan until November, rather than withdrawing them by a 5/1 deadline outlined in an agreement his predecessor negotiated with the Taliban…

Congress 

House lawmakers described the fear and trauma rippling through the Asian-American community and argued the rise in violence was a result of anti-China messaging stoked during the pandemic…

House Republicans voted to allow their members to request dedicated-spending projects, known as earmarks, following that same move by Democrats, in a positive sign for Biden’s hopes for a bipartisan infrastructure bill…

President Biden on Tuesday, 3/16, said he supports changing the Senate’s filibuster rule back to requiring senators talk on the floor to hold up a bill, the first time he has endorsed reforming the procedure…

On Tuesday, 3/16, a bipartisan bill was introduced - The Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2021 - that would authorize $50 billion in direct infrastructure investment over five years…

Backers of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) won a fresh victory in the House, with a vote to remove a ratification deadline they hope to see matched in the Senate and upheld in the courts…

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the bipartisan Protecting Firefighters from Adverse Substances Act on Wednesday, 3/17, legislation to protect firefighters from “forever chemicals” and reduce their releases into the environment…

The House moved on Wednesday, 3/17, to renew the Violence Against Women Act, adding firearm restrictions for convicted domestic abusers and other new provisions to a landmark law that has helped combat domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking but lapsed under former President Trump in 2019…

Education

Last week, the Department issued guidance regarding the use of funds received under the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) grant program…

Secretary of Education Cardona today, 3/22, sent a letter to The Honorable Pedro Pierluisi, Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, informing him that the U.S. Department of Education has provided the Commonwealth immediate access to $912 million in Federal education funds, which had not been available to Puerto Rico as a result of previously imposed grant conditions…

A bipartisan group of Senators on Thursday, 3/18, introduced into Congress the College Transparency Act, which would remove the federal ban on a student-level data system…

Eleven districts in California are seeing an 89 percent surge in chronic absenteeism among students in elementary grades compared to last year at this time, according to new data presented to the California Department of Education…