Weekly Federal Update 5/17/22

President and Administration

Disagreements over legislation designed to boost U.S. competitiveness against China are clouding its prospects in Congress, as lawmakers enter a period of make-or-break negotiations…

The White House has announced that 20 internet service providers have agreed to offer $30 high-speed internet plans to low-income families, effectively giving free service to households that qualify for a federal subsidy under the Affordable Connectivity Program…

Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced a proposal to allow the use of federal funding for Wi-Fi in school buses during a meeting of the National Coalition for Technology in Education & Training…

President Biden has unveiled a plan to help speed construction of projects funded under his $550 billion infrastructure law passed last year…

Yesterday, 5/16, the Supreme Court invited the Biden administration to share its views on whether Fairfax, VA, may be liable to a female high school student for its allegedly lacking response after learning a male student touched her sexually during a band class bus trip…

The Abbott Nutrition plant in Sturgis, MI, an infant formula plant, has been shut down over the death of two infants…

An Interior Department report released last week highlighted the abuse of many of the children at more than 400 government-run boarding schools that the federal government forced them to attend between 1819 and 1969, with instances of beatings, withholding of food and solitary confinement…

Yesterday, 5/16, the Biden administration announced a partial lifting of sanctions on Cuba, including expanding flights beyond Havana and restarting a program to reunify Cuban families in the United States, its first moves toward fulfilling President Biden’s campaign promise to reverse many of the sanctions imposed by his predecessor…

Congress  

Democrats are vowing to push through domestic terrorism legislation to improve intelligence sharing and coordination between law enforcement agencies following the mass shooting in Buffalo - despite growing Republican opposition that could scuttle even those modest efforts…

The House Education and Labor Committee's Democratic leadership unveiled legislation Thursday, 5/12, that would overhaul the government's workforce development system…

A congressional effort to crack down on Spanish language disinformation is expanding to include popular messaging platforms - including WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal…

A $40 billion aid package for Ukraine will likely head to the President’s desk by Thursday, 5/19…

A House subcommittee will hold the first public congressional hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years today, 5/17, with its chairman Andre Carson saying “Americans need to know more about these unexplained occurrences”…

Mental Health

Mental health disorders are surging among adolescents: In 2019, 13 percent of adolescents reported having a major depressive episode, a 60 percent increase from 2007…

Education

Yesterday, 5/16, the Department of Education announced plans for a first-of-its-kind virtual summit, Recovery to Thriving: Supporting Mental Health & Students with Disabilities, to highlight steps schools, colleges and communities can take to support students with disabilities and students with mental health needs…

The number of students in the United States who have attended college but left before receiving a credential, certificate or degree has risen to 39 million, from 36 million in 2019, according to a new report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center…

High school grade point averages have been on an uphill climb since 2016…

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has released a report titled, “As Students Struggled to Learn, Teachers Reported Few Strategies as Particularly Helpful to Mitigate Learning Loss”…

Student Loans

The debate over canceling student loan debt has ebbed and flowed in Democratic politics since progressives seized on it as a go-to issue in the 2020 presidential campaign trail…

President Biden’s advisers are looking at ways to limit student loan forgiveness based on borrowers’ income to avoid sending benefits to higher-earning Americans…

While many wait to see what President Biden will do about forgiving student debts, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators released a report yesterday, 5/16, on other ideas that it thinks are necessary…

Weekly CA-COVID Update 5/10/22

California

Tens of millions of ballots began rippling out from election headquarters to voters yesterday, 5/9, launching the state’s latest round of universal mail voting…

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed an executive order on Wednesday, 5/4, intended to spur blockchain innovation, making the Golden State the first in the U.S. to start creating a regulatory framework for Web3 companies…

California cities and counties are preparing to pay for abortions, lodging, or both as they anticipate an influx of travelers from states that will ban the procedure if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade…

Torrid heat, raging wildfires and prolonged drought are putting California residents at increased risk of power outages, officials said Friday, 5/6, as extreme weather driven by climate change puts additional stress on the state’s already-taxed energy grid… 

Coronavirus

The U.S. on Wednesday, 5/4, surpassed one million COVID-19 deaths…

California has seen a 50 percent increase in cases over the past two weeks… 

California kids 12 and older are one step closer to being able to get vaccinated without parental consent after a key legislative committee on Thursday, 5/5, passed a controversial bill on a 7-0 vote despite hundreds of people expressing fierce opposition…

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended travelers continue to wear masks in airplanes, trains and airports despite a judge's April 18 order declaring the 14-month-old transportation mask mandate unlawful…

The White House could run out of COVID-19 vaccines if it moves forward with plans to encourage all adults to get a second COVID-19 vaccine booster dose by roughly Sept. 1, according to a tranche of budget documents sent to Congress… 

The Department of Transportation has released updated FAQs for COVID-19 State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds… 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) imposed new restrictions Thursday, 5/5, on the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, saying the risk of a rare and life-threatening blood clot syndrome outweighed the benefits of the vaccine for people who are 18 or older and can get another shot, unless they would otherwise remain unvaccinated…

The FDA has announced a tentative schedule for vaccine advisory meetings: June 8, 21, 22, for the use of Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech in younger populations…

The latest KFF COVID Vaccine Monitor has found that only 18 percent of parents with children under five years old are eager to get their child vaccinated right away and 38 percent say they plan to wait a while to see how the vaccine is working for others…

People who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 may be left with difficulties in thinking comparable in magnitude to aging 20 years, according to one UK study…

New data from the EdWeek Research Center show that 19 percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders surveyed say they have contracted long COVID… 

A study of more than 6,000 women who gave birth in Canada during the pandemic suggests that those infected with COVID-19 were at higher risk for hospitalization and intensive care unit admission than those of nonpregnant women of childbearing age…

The sensitivity of home rapid antigen COVID-19 tests peaks four days after symptom onset, suggesting that a negative antigen test should be followed by a second test in 1 or 2 days…

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…