Weekly Update 12/13/21

California

The outlook for the California economy appears more feeble than was the case just three months ago because of the uncertainty from the Omicron variant…

Gov. Gavin Newsom said he wants to allow private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, sells or distributes assault weapons or ghost gun kits or parts in the state for at least $10,000 per violation, modeling his proposal after the legal framework used in the Texas law that bans abortions past six weeks…

Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said Friday, 12/10, that his newly proposed legislation would set new per-engine minimums at Cal Fire and would launch a staffing study to help prepare the department for fire conditions that are projected to keep getting worse in the years ahead…

Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Senate Budget Chair Nancy Skinner outlined a set of “values" that Atkins’ office said will offer a starting point for budget negotiations with the Assembly and Gov. Newsom…

California plans to start converting residents’ food waste into compost or energy, becoming the second state in the U.S. to do so…

More than a half-million Californians struggling to pay their water bills during the pandemic will probably have their debt paid off by the state… 

Coronavirus

For Americans worried about rising prices and shrinking household budgets, January could bring another blow to the bottom line…

More than 40 people in the U.S. have been found to be infected with the Omicron variant so far, and more than three-quarters of them had been vaccinated and one-third of them had been boosted, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Wednesday, 12/8…

A booster using the current version of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine increased antibodies 25-fold, providing a similar level of immunity observed after two doses against the original virus and previous variants, the companies said Wednesday, 12/8…

Federal regulators on Thursday, 12/9, authorized booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for 16- and 17-year-olds, at least six months after they received their second shot…

Last week, the U.S. surgeon general warned that young people are facing “devastating” mental health effects as a result of the challenges experienced by their generation, including the COVID-19 pandemic…

President Biden announced last week that rapid COVID-19 tests were a pillar of his plan to fight the new Omicron variant…

As the COVID-19 pandemic approaches the end of a second year, the United States stands on the cusp of surpassing 800,000 deaths from the virus, and no group has suffered more than older Americans…

President and Administration

A U.S. Supreme Court that has consistently favored religious rights is poised to consider buttressing the rights of parents to use public dollars to pay tuition at faith-based schools…

The Biden administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a challenge to Harvard College’s use of race in admissions and leave in place affirmative action programs at selective universities around the country…

A bipartisan panel of legal scholars examining possible changes to the Supreme Court voted unanimously Tuesday, 12/7, to submit to President Biden its final report, which describes public support for imposing term limits but “profound disagreement” about adding justices…

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, 12/7, urged Congress to allocate an additional $3 billion for maternal healthcare and expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to one year as part of the proposed social safety net and climate package now before the Senate…

The Biden administration signed an executive order on Wednesday, 12/8, which directs the government to spend billions to create a federal fleet of electric vehicles, upgrade federal buildings and change how the government buys electricity, with the aim of cutting the government’s carbon emissions 65 percent by the end of the decade… 

Congress 

The House passed legislation Tuesday, 12/7, that would create a quick process to raise the U.S. debt ceiling by a simple majority vote in the Senate, approving a procedural measure on a 222 to 212 vote… 

The Senate will complete work on the National Defense Authorization Act this week…

House and Senate negotiators reached a landmark agreement last week that would strip military commanders of most of their authority to prosecute sexual assaults and a myriad of other criminal cases, a move that Pentagon leaders, lawmakers and presidents have resisted for nearly a generation…

Last week, the Senate voted 68-31 to approve Jessica Rosenworcel to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and serve another five-year term with the regulator… 

Build Back Better: Latest on Negotiations

President Biden and Senator Manchin (D-WV) will speak about the bill as early as today, 12/13, a discussion that will go a long way toward deciding whether the $1.7 trillion package - the president’s top legislative priority - can be finished before Christmas or will slide into 2022… 

Senate Democrats are dropping a proposal that would have imposed taxes on vaping, removing a $9 billion provision backed by some public-health advocates…

Education

The Biden administration’s six priorities for K-12 and higher education grants were released on Friday, 12/10…

When the COVID-19 pandemic first swept the U.S. in March 2020, student debt relief was among the first policies enacted to help struggling Americans…

On Friday, 12/10, the Education Department published the Fall 2021 Unified Agenda and Regulatory Plan which showed that the Department anticipates issuing the Title IX notice of proposed rulemaking by April 2022, a month earlier than expected…

Global supply chain disruptions are leaving schools with food shortages and the Agriculture Department can use its authority to help, a new School Nutrition Association (SNA) survey suggests…

Nearly one million 2020 grads in the dataset, which comes from the National Student Clearinghouse, did not immediately enroll in college the following fall… 

Last year, data from the Understanding America Study, a nationally representative panel of U.S. households, found that nearly two-thirds of parents supported canceling standardized testing in the 2020-21 school year…

Weekly Update 12/6/21

California

On Tuesday, 11/30, a federal appeals court decided to uphold California’s ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines, in a ruling that is likely to lead to the court’s approval of the state’s ban on assault weapons…

California, Texas and New York are getting the most in the first year’s allotment for water investments from the $550 billion federal infrastructure bill passed last month, a document released Thursday, 12/2, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed…

All California community colleges will be able to offer virtual medical and mental health care to students through a new partnership between the Foundation for California Community Colleges and TimelyMD, a telehealth provider that serves colleges and universities…

Scientists and water managers say that at some point California’s snowpack could simply disappear…

Gun violence in Oakland has become a ‘pandemic within the pandemic’…

With California on the verge of allowing multi-unit housing in neighborhoods previously reserved for single-family homes, some cities are rushing to pass restrictions on the new developments…

Nearly 1,500 unhoused people are estimated to have died on the streets of Los Angeles during the pandemic, according to a new report that raises alarms about authorities’ handling of a worsening humanitarian crisis…

California’s redistricting process is facing a legal challenge just weeks before line-drawers are set to release the final maps of new legislative districts…

It's the first time California has made an initial prediction of zero percent of contracted deliveries to the 29 urban water agencies around the state that receive supplies from the State Water Project… 

Coronavirus

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) strengthened its COVID-19 booster-shot recommendations last Monday, 11/29, reflecting the potential threat the new Omicron variant poses to the pandemic response in the U.S. and world-wide…

U.S. health officials said yesterday, 12/5, that while the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is rapidly spreading throughout the country, early indications suggest it may be less dangerous than Delta, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalizations…

The State Data Report from American Academy of Pediatrics found that as of 11/18, almost 6.8 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic…

Last week, a federal judge blocked President Biden from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in a court order that said that the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid had no clear authority from Congress to enact the vaccine mandate for providers participating in the two government health care programs for the elderly, disabled and poor…

President and Administration

The Treasury has released a highlight report describing how states and communities are using their portion of the $350 billion Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds…

The U.S. will stage a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over concerns about China's record on human rights, the White House announced this afternoon, 12/6…

Congress 

Lawmakers averted a shutdown with a day to spare, as the House and Senate cleared a stopgap measure on Thursday, 12/2, to fund the government through 2/18, though they face other legislative deadlines this month and could struggle to strike a spending deal later in the winter…

Lawmakers still face challenges this month on the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill, the debt limit, and the defense authorization bill… 

Last week’s Supreme Court argument on abortion has accelerated an urgency among Senate Democrats to fundamentally alter how the court operates, fueled in part by lingering anger over Republican confirmation maneuvers that have led to three new conservative justices in the past four years…

Build Back Better: Latest on Negotiations

Senate Democrats negotiating an expansion of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction aren’t near a deal, raising prospects that talks will spill into this week - and potentially next year…

The Senate Parliamentarian will meet with the Democrats today, 12/6, to begin talking through health care provisions in the reconciliation bill…

An array of civil rights organizations including the NAACP, Urban League, Unidos US and others are sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today, 12/6, urging passage of the Democrats’ reconciliation bill… 

Education

Last week, the Education Department launched two new multistate communities of practice to support states in addressing the impact of lost instructional time from the pandemic on students’ social, emotional, and mental health, and academic well-being…

Students who dropout of college are disproportionately women, low income and working students, according to a new study of adults ages 20 to 34 who completed some college but earned no degree…

Butler County Community College in Pennsylvania and Lewis and Clark Community College in Illinois were victims of ransomware attacks last week, the latest in a string of costly cyberintrusions at American higher education institutions… 

The Education Department announced Friday, 12/3, that it will establish the Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility Committee for a negotiated rule-making process beginning in January…

Weekly Update 11/29/21

California

Last week, Gov. Newsom said that he will seek “exponentially” more money to combat retail theft after a series of seemingly orchestrated smash-and-grab crimes in the Bay Area over the weekend…

About one million Californians who got unemployment payments from the pandemic-related federal benefit program now have to prove to the state they had a prior work history – or face paying back benefits…

A federal appeals court on Friday, 11/26, temporarily blocked an order that all California prison workers must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or have a religious or medical exemption…

Last week, Newsom named Alice Reynolds to lead the California Public Utilities Commission… 

Coronavirus

Countries around the world reported their first cases of the Omicron variant over the weekend and some imposed new travel restrictions…

Around 95 percent of the 3.5 million federal employees covered by President Biden’s vaccine mandate for government workers had complied with the requirement ahead of its 11/22 deadline, according to the White House…

President and Administration

In fiscal year 2020, SAMHSA’s Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) grantees enrolled 60,000 individuals and connected nearly 40,000 to community mental health services…

The United States won’t meet the Biden administration’s goal of widespread electric-vehicle adoption without urgent investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said…

After months of discord and delay, the House will soon be moving ahead on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) China-targeted $250 billion U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, bolstered by a bipartisan consensus that the U.S. government needs to act decisively to better compete with China…

Today marks the 46th anniversary of the enactment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act…

The Justice Department will pay about $130 million to 40 survivors and families of victims of the 2018 massacre at a high school in Parkland, FL, over the F.B.I.’s failure to properly investigate two tips in the months before the shooting that suggested the gunman might open fire at a school…

President Biden announced on Wednesday, 11/24, that he will nominate Shalanda Young to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, along with Nani Coloretti as deputy director…

Last week, President Biden announced that he will reappoint Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as head of the U.S. central bank, opting for continuity in the government’s most powerful economic post as the specter of rising inflation looms in an election year…

The White House has launched a new energy division of its Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and appointed Sally Benson, a well-known energy expert at Stanford University, to a high-level position to contribute to climate change policy…

Congress 

Government funding runs out this Friday, 12/3…

Senate Democratic aides will huddle informally today, 11/29, with the Parliamentarian’s office over Byrd Rule issues, with more formal bipartisan sessions expected this week…

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told congressional leaders last month that she has a “high degree of confidence” that the federal government can pay its bills through 12/15, but what happens after that date is unclear…

The Senate is currently debating the National Defense Authorization Act, and there’s a cloture vote on a substitute bill offered by Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-RI) scheduled for today, 11/29…

Education

The Education Department recently conducted a two-part webinar series on Using American Rescue Plan Funds and Other Federal Supports to Address State and Local Teacher and School Staff Labor Shortages…

Borrowers are less than three months away from having to resume making payments on their student loans, and although loan servicers are well into the process of executing the Education Department’s transition plan, a huge majority of borrowers say they aren’t financially prepared for repayment to begin…

Professional training programs have exploded over the last dozen years - by one count, there are now more than 500,000 of them…

Last week, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) submitted to the Federal Register for public comment a proposed Civil Rights Data Collection information collection request package for the 2021-22 school year…

 A report published in May inspired the introduction of bipartisan legislation this month that would improve access to public transportation for college students, an investment that is widely supported by higher education advocates…

Weekly Update 11/22/21

California

California community colleges are struggling with low completion rates as many students fail to graduate with a degree or certificate or transfer within four years…

Roughly 99,000 more California Community College students were awarded a Cal Grant this fall, according to the California Student Aid Commission…

Admission to University of California campuses will from now on be done without standardized tests… 

Coronavirus

Faced with rising infections and an anticipated surge in holiday travel, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday, 11/19, endorsed booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans over 18… 

The Biden administration plans to spend billions of dollars to expand manufacturing capacity, with the goal of producing at least one billion additional COVID-19 doses a year beginning in the second half of 2022…

A new ABC News-Washington Post poll found that just 46 percent of adults with a child younger than 18 at home said they’re confident the vaccine is safe for 5- to 17-year-olds…

President and Administration

Last week,, the U.S. Education Department announced the approval of Puerto Rico’s American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) plan and distributed the final $990 million in ARP funding…

President Biden's infrastructure bill - which was signed into law last week - and Build Back Better reconciliation bill will not add to inflationary pressures in the U.S. economy, economists and analysts in leading rating agencies announced last week…

Detroit’s two biggest automakers - Ford Motor and General Motors - are looking to get into the semiconductor business, after a year of computer-chip shortages that snarled their global factory output…

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is extending the methadone take-home flexibilities for one year, effective upon the eventual expiration of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency… 

U.S. consumers withstood rising inflation to power a burst of shopping ahead of the holiday season, with big retailers reporting higher sales and expectations for a solid finish to the year…

Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen extended the deadline for a potential catastrophic default on government debt to 12/15 from 12/3…

Rebounding economic activity and natural gas shortages recently pushed the developed world’s oil reserves to their lowest since early 2015, but growing crude supply could soon ease that pressure, the International Energy Agency said last week…

Congress 

The House on Friday, 11/19, passed $1.7 trillion in new funding to expand the social safety net, sending it to the Senate after months of infighting… 

As the U.S. approaches the 12/3 deadline, top Democrats are considering a stopgap further into December as their leading option - potentially 12/17 or even closer to Christmas - rather than a longer continuing resolution that pushes the deadline into the new year…

A cloture vote on Wednesday, 11/17, to expedite debate on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will kick into gear senators’ push to tack their priorities onto must-pass spending bills before the end of the year…

Last week, the Senate confirmed Jonathan Kanter on a bipartisan basis as the Justice Department’s top antitrust official…

Steve Bannon, who served as a senior aide to President Trump, surrendered to authorities and appeared in federal court last week, three days after he was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide information to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol…

President Biden pardoned two turkeys, named Peanut Butter and Jelly, on Friday, 11/19, during the first traditional turkey pardon ceremony of his presidency…

Education

College students are taking on more private loan debt than ever before, with private loans now comprising nearly eight percent of all student debt, according to the Institute for College Access and Success’s new report on the Class of 2020’s student debt burden…

The House Education and Labor Committee held a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, 11/17, to conduct oversight of how institutions have been using the $76 billion invested in the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF)…

The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans awards $25,000 and $10,000 in college scholarships each year, for a total of more than $20 million a year in such awards…

Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Education Department needs to update its plans for responding to cyberattacks against grade schools, as they face growing online threats, including ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, email scams and pandemic-era concerns like disruptions to virtual learning environments…

Immigration Update 11/16/21

California

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office transferred eight people to federal immigration agents last year for deportation or some other kind of immigration enforcement, according to information presented at a county Board of Supervisors meeting recently…

A San Francisco immigration judge took less than an hour to order 23 people deported…

Tenants living in the most precarious conditions - immigrants who speak limited English, don’t have a traditional lease or face digital barriers - are not applying for rental assistance at the same rate as their estimated need, advocates say…

First came the hunger strikes, lawsuits and protests, followed by damning government inspection reports, all decrying conditions inside facilities that detain immigrants in California…

Encounters at sea are still substantially lower than those on land, but experts say the shift to maritime crossings - in response to restrictive border policies and the devastation from COVID-19 across the hemisphere - is amplifying the danger migrants face trying to reach the United States…

Education

RAND Corp. researchers estimate 321,000 undocumented and asylum-seeking children enrolled in the nation’s public schools between late 2016 and 2019, just ahead of the more recent and dramatic uptick in newcomers from Central America, Mexico, Afghanistan and Haiti…

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a blog discussing how to confront discrimination based on national origin and immigration status…

President and Administration

In early July, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) drafted a comprehensive nine-page plan to stop using “Title 42,” a Trump-era pandemic policy, to rapidly expel migrant families with children…

Last week, President Biden dismissed the idea that immigrant families separated at the southern border under his predecessor’s zero-tolerance policy could receive payments of $450,000 per person in monetary settlements, calling the report “garbage”…

In a hearing, the U.S. was questioned closely on whether it improperly ended the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” asylum program…

U.S. authorities detained more than 1.7 million migrants along the Mexico border during the 2021 fiscal year that ended in September, and arrests by the Border Patrol soared to the highest levels recorded…

Immigration arrests in the interior of the United States fell in fiscal 2021 to the lowest level in more than a decade - roughly half the annual totals recorded during the Trump administration, according to ICE data…

In late October, DHS Secretary Mayorkas expanded the list of “sensitive locations” where immigration officers cannot make arrests…

Congress

The current text of Democrats’ $1.75 Build Back Better reconciliation bill includes a provision that would expand eligibility for federal student aid - including Pell Grants, federal loans, and Federal Work-Study programs - to students with Temporary Protected Status or who are recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)…

Protections for undocumented immigrants and provisions to salvage unused green cards going back decades are included in the Democrats’ sweeping social spending and tax package…

Chris Magnus, the president’s pick to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), appeared before the Senate Finance Committee in October, where he faced aggressive questioning from Republicans concerned about how the administration is managing increased border crossings 2019, and Magnus - who’s currently police chief in Tucson, Arizona - is likely to face a tight confirmation battle, with critics pushing Congress to oppose the nomination…