Tag Archives: Biden Administration

Biden Administration, Civil Rights, Democracy, Human Rights

The Status of Women is the Status of Democracy: Advancing Women’s Political and Civic Participation and Leadership at the Second Summit for Democracy

“Democracy not theocracy – protests in the United States over attacks on reproductive freedom, turning women and girls into second-class citizens without the same right to bodily autonomy or self-determination. Vice President Kamala Harris has said “the status of women is the status of democracy.” The ability of women and girls to participate safely, freely, and equally in political life and in society is a defining feature of democracy, but this hard-won progress is increasingly fragile. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

As Vice President Kamala Harris has said, “the status of women is the status of democracy.” The ability of women and girls to participate safely, freely, and equally in political life and in society is a defining feature of democracy, but this hard-won progress is increasingly fragile. Wherever women and girls are under threat, so, too, is democracy, peace, and stability—from Iran, where women are courageously demanding respect for their human rights and fundamental freedoms in the face of oppression; to Ukraine, where we are once more seeing rape used as a weapon in Russia’s brutal and unjust war; to Afghanistan, where the Taliban bars women and girls from attending school and fully participating in society.

As we face unprecedented global challenges, we must harness the full potential, participation, and leadership of women and girls. In hosting the second Summit for Democracy, the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to advancing women’s political and civic participation and leadership and ensuring that they are at every table where decisions are being made. Research shows that the status of women and the stability of nations are inextricably linked, and that societies that foster gender discrimination and allow oppressive gender norms to flourish are more likely to be unstable. 

At the second Summit for Democracy, the Biden-Harris Administration highlighted key actions and progress made during the intervening Year of Action.

Accelerating Women’s and Girls’ Civic and Political Leadership under the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal. At the first Summit, President Biden established the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal, a landmark set of policy and foreign assistance initiatives that increase the Administration’s ongoing work to bolster democracy and defend human rights globally. Today, we are building on those efforts by:

  • Expanding the Advancing Women’s and Girls’ Civic and Political Leadership Initiative, including in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Announced at the first Summit for Democracy, this USAID-led initiative works to dismantle barriers to the political empowerment of women and girls by building the pipeline of women leaders and facilitating their safe and meaningful participation in political, peacebuilding and transition processes. This initiative will expand efforts to prevent and mitigate violence against women in politics and public life. USAID is providing more than $15 million to this initiative and is beginning program implementation in eight focus countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Tanzania, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Kyrgyz Republic, and Yemen.
  • Establishing the Network for Gender Inclusive Democracy: USAID is launching a Network for Gender Inclusive Democracy (Network) to provide strategic direction and a platform for bilateral donors, intergovernmental institutions, civil society and academic partners to align their multilateral and country-level efforts in support of women’s political and civic participation and leadership.  The Network will facilitate coordination, knowledge-sharing, and policy advocacy and carry forward the work of the Cohort on Gender Equality as a Prerequisite for Democracy, including the policy recommendations and roadmap developed during the Year of Action.
     
  • Investing in SHE PERSISTS (Supporting Her Empowerment: Political Engagement, Rights, Safety, and Inclusion Strategies to Succeed). The State Department will invest $2 million over this year in support of SHE PERSISTS, an initiative announced at the first Summit for Democracy that bolsters women’s political participation and empowerment to build and sustain good governance and lasting democracy globally.  This multi-year program provides funding for technical assistance to advance women’s safety, political participation and empowerment, and initiatives for inclusive democracy, with a focus on diverse groups and marginalized populations.

Advancing Women’s Involvement in Peace and Security Efforts. Women’s participation in peace and security processes—as peacekeepers, leaders, and members of the defense and security sector—is essential to global security, stability and democracy. To advance women’s meaningful participation, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken the following actions:

  • Investing in SHE WINS (Support Her Empowerment: Women’s Inclusion for New Security): The Department of State is investing an additional $1.7 million, working with Congress and subject to the availability of funds, for the SHE WINS initiative, a nearly $10 million program that advances the leadership of local women and women-led civil society organizations to address peace and security challenges in their communities. Since the first Summit for Democracy, SHE WINS has initiated projects in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Papua New Guinea, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. To provide agile, easy-to-access funds that directly support women-led groups facing emerging crises and challenges related to Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), the State Department launched the SHE WINS Rapid Response Fund in November 2022.
     
  • Co-Chairing the Women, Peace, and Security Focal Points Network. The United States, in partnership with the government of Romania, is the 2023 Co-Chair of the UN Women-led Women, Peace, and Security Focal Points Network (WPS-FPN), a cross-regional forum coordinated by UN Women to share best practices and experiences to advance WPS globally.  As co-chair, the U.S. will host the WPS-FPN Capital Level Meeting in June 2023, bringing together representatives and leaders from over 95 different countries and organizations, including members of Congress and the Administration. 
     
  • Reducing Gaps for Women’s Participation in Security Forces: In consultation with the Department of State, the Department of Defense is establishing a pilot program to conduct an assessment of opportunities for women’s involvement in the security forces of select partner nations.  Through this multi-year program, the Department of Defense intends to standardize the way it assesses barriers to women’s participation in partner nation security forces, in order to inform future security cooperation activities.

The Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse (Global Partnership). A commitment from the first Summit for Democracy and launched at the 66th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the Global Partnership, which currently has 12 participating governments, brings together international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to prioritize, understand, prevent, and address the growing scourge of technology-facilitated gender-based violence,  which disproportionately impacts women and LGBTQI+ political and public figures, leaders, journalists and activists.

Today, alongside the release of the Global Partnership’s 2023 Roadmap, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing key actions and investments to prevent and respond to technology-facilitated gender-based violence and counter its chilling effects on women leaders and democratic participation, including more than $13 million in targeted funding across USAID and the Department of State. Key actions include:

  • Combatting technology-facilitated violence targeting women in politics and public life, including gendered disinformation.
    • Transform Digital Spaces Initiative (Transform). USAID is launching Transform, with planned investments of up to $6 million over three years, to prevent and address technology-facilitated gender-based violence, especially violence perpetrated against women in politics and public life. Transform’s pilot projects across three countries will integrate expertise from women-led civil society organizations working to address gender-based violence, women’s political and civic participation, and digital democracy.  Transform will synthesize and share practical, comparative knowledge drawn from these pilots to inform global efforts to address this problem. 
       
    • Promoting Information Integrity and Resilience Initiative (ProInfo). This week, USAID will announce the Promoting Information and Resilience Integrity (Pro-Info) Initiative, which will build on the work of the Summit for Democracy Information Integrity Cohort, and expand efforts by USAID and the U.S. Department of State to strengthen information integrity and resilience globally, with efforts to address the disproportionate targeting of women and LGBTQI+ leaders, activists, and public figures.
       
    • Capacity-building to prevent and address technology-facilitated gender-based violence globally, including access to services for survivors. Working with Congress and subject to the availability of funds, the Department of State will continue to invest over $7 million in programs focused on documenting, mitigating, preventing and responding to technology-facilitated gender-based violence and integrating solutions that address online harassment and abuse, including support for women in public-facing roles in politics and the media, through: small grants for awareness, prevention and digital safety workshops; access to legal and psychosocial services for survivors; and programs to encourage collaboration between civil society organizations focused on gender-based violence and digital rights, to support coalitions to promote institutional change.
       
  • Expanding data and research on technology-facilitated gender-based violence.
    • Deepening the evidence base on gendered disinformation. Today, the State Department Global Engagement Center (GEC) is releasing a public Executive Summary of a joint research report on gendered disinformation. Conducted with Canada, the European External Action Service, Germany, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom, the groundbreaking global study finds that state and non-state actors use gendered disinformation to silence women, discourage online political discourse, and shape perceptions toward gender and the role of women in democracies, and underscore the need for more research to tackle this scourge.
       
    • Measuring technology-facilitated gender-based violence through Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). In 2023, USAID will pilot questions within the DHS Domestic Violence Module in two countries with high internet penetration rates to measure technology-facilitated gender-based violence.
       
  • Advancing U.S. policies to prevent and respond to technology-facilitated gender-based violence. Countries represented on the Global Partnership—including the United States—make a commitment to advance activities within their own countries to prioritize and address gender-based online harassment and abuse.  In support of that commitment, the Administration has taken the following key actions:
    • Building a blueprint for action to prevent and address technology-facilitated gender-based violence. To tackle this scourge in the U.S, President Biden established a Task Force with a mandate to identify concrete actions in a Blueprint to prevent online harassment and abuse, provide support for survivors, increase accountability, and expand research. Last month, the White House published an Executive Summary of the initial Task Force blueprint, which includes a broad range of new and expanded commitments from Federal agencies to address technology-facilitated gender-based violence across four lines of effort: Prevention, Survivor Support, Accountability, and Research. 
       
    • Integrating a gender lens in the National Cybersecurity Strategy. Earlier this month, the Administration released the National Cybersecurity Strategy, which integrates a gender lens across key priorities to secure cyberspace and our digital ecosystem, including the imperative of increasing the participation of women and LGBTQI+ persons in the cybersecurity workforce; recognizing how technologies are misused to proliferate online harassment, exploitation, and abuse; and prioritizing partnerships, such as the Global Partnership, and the Freedom Online Coalition, to advance common cybersecurity interests.
       

Prioritizing technology-facilitated gender-based violence in the U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to GBV Globally. In December 2022, the Administration released an updated U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally, which bolsters U.S. commitments to prevent and address this global scourge, including a specific objective to prevent and respond to technology-facilitated gender-based violence.

Biden Administration, Democracy

FACT SHEET: Biden Administration’s Abiding Commitment to Democratic Renewal at Home and Abroad

Voting, Long Island, NY. The Biden Administration reviewed actions it has taken over the past two years to bolster democratic governance at home and abroad, which President Biden has called “the defining challenge of our time.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

The White House provided this fact sheet reviewing efforts by the Biden Administration to bolster democratic governance at home and abroad, which President Biden has called “the defining challenge of our time.”

President Biden has called the struggle to bolster democratic governance at home and abroad the defining challenge of our time. That is because democracy—transparent and accountable government of, for, and by the people—remains the best way to realize lasting peace, prosperity, and human dignity.
 
Internationally, the United States continues to strengthen democratic resilience and respect for human rights through both new and existing initiatives.  In Fiscal Years 2022, 2023, and 2024, the United States has invested and aims to provide approximately $9.5 billion, working with Congress and subject to the availability of appropriations, to support democracy, human rights, and good governance globally.
 
At the first Summit for Democracy held in December 2021, President Biden launched the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal, an expansion of U.S. Government efforts to defend and grow democratic resilience with like-minded partners through diplomacy and foreign assistance. These efforts center on five areas of work crucial to the functioning of transparent, accountable governance:  advancing technology for democracy, supporting free and independent media, fighting corruption, bolstering human rights and democratic reformers, and defending free and fair elections.
 
On March 29, the United States is announced up to $690 million in new funding for the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal through Fiscal Year 2024, working with Congress and subject to the availability of appropriations. As part of the Presidential Initiative, the U.S. Government is also announcing a groundbreaking new suite of policy initiatives intended to advance technology that works for, and not against, democratic societies.   
  
At home, the Biden-Harris Administration has produced historic progress for the American people, proving that democracy delivers a stronger, fairer society that leaves no one behind. Under President Biden’s leadership, the economy has added more than 12 million jobs. The unemployment rate has fallen to 3.6 percent.. The Biden-Harris Administration has taken action to give families more breathing room, including cutting prescription drug costs, health insurance premiums, and energy bills, while driving the uninsured rate to historic lows. It has invested in rebuilding America’s infrastructure, delivering safe roads, clean water, and high-speed Internet to communities across the country. And it is taking the most aggressive action ever to tackle the climate crisis, investing in American innovation and industries that will define the future, and fueling a manufacturing boom that is creating good jobs for workers in parts of the country that have long been left behind.  At the same time, the Biden-Harris Administration has continued to restore and strengthen the United States’ democratic institutions, including by protecting the right to vote and the civil rights of all Americans.
 
Advancing Technology for Democracy at Home and Abroad

  • The U.S. Government is committed to advancing a positive vision for the Internet and the digital ecosystem; countering the misuse of technology and stemming the tide of digital authoritarianism; and shaping emerging technologies to ensure respect for human rights and democratic principles. At the Summit, the Administration will announce an ambitious slate of new efforts to ensure that technology strengthens democracy.

Promoting Democratic Renewal Abroad

  • Supporting Free and Independent Media. To help mitigate the existential threat to the survival of independent media, USAID via its Media Viability Accelerator is partnering with Microsoft and Internews to create a new, web-based data platform that will enable media outlets to better understand the markets, audiences, and strategies that will maximize their odds of profitability. Additionally, USAID will provide up to $16 million for the Promoting Information Integrity and Resilience Initiative (ProInfo), which will strengthen information integrity globally by advancing international cooperation and private-public-civic partnerships. 
     
  • Fighting Corruption. In complement to the ongoing work at the U.S. Department of the Treasury to unmask shell companies by requiring them to report information about their beneficial owners, today the U.S. government and over two dozen foreign partners announced the Summit for Democracy Commitment on Beneficial Ownership and Misuse of Legal Persons. The Beneficial Ownership Commitment pledges endorsees to enhancing beneficial ownership transparency so as to make it more difficult for corrupt actors to conceal their identities, assets, and criminal activities through the misuse of opaque corporate structures and legal persons.
     
  • Bolstering Human Rights and Democratic Reformers.
     
    • Through the Partnerships for Democratic Development and the Democracy Delivers Initiative, USAID is surging support to countries experiencing democratic breakthroughs by helping reformist leaders show that democracy is delivering concrete benefits to their people. Since the first Summit for Democracy, the Development Finance Corporation has committed more than $1 billion to help consolidate democratic progress in eight countries on which USAID is focusing the latter effort.
       
    • USAID is creating a first-ever Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance to expand and modernize its support for democracy around the world, implement much of the Presidential Initiative, and further infuse democracy, human rights, and good governance considerations across the Agency’s foreign policy and development work.
       
    • In coordination with the Department of State, the Department of Defense is piloting a program to reduce gaps for women’s participation in partner nation defense and security forces by better incorporating this imperative into security cooperation with its partners.
       
  • Defending Free and Fair Elections.  Following a commitment made at the first Summit for Democracy, USAID has convened the world’s leading election assistance organizations in the Global Network for Securing Election Integrity, to align on standards and practices for supporting clean elections.  It is also issuing a Guide to USAID Electoral Assistance for the 21st Century to highlight the tenets of transparent, politically neutral, technically rigorous electoral assistance, in contrast to the covert and partisan electoral interference of malign foreign actors.   

Advancing Democratic Renewal at Home

  • Protecting the Right to Vote in Free, Fair, and Secure Elections.
    • President Biden has repeatedly and forcefully called on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act to eliminate discrimination in voting and ensure access to the ballot box for all eligible voters. Until that critical legislation is secured, the Biden-Harris Administration will use every tool at its disposal to protect the right to vote. The Department of Justice has doubled the number of staff dedicated to enforcing voting rights laws, and the President’s FY 2024 Budget provides an increase of $62 million to further strengthen the Department’s Civil Rights Division. The Budget also includes $5 billion to help state and local jurisdictions strengthen our election infrastructure by supporting sustained investment in election equipment, systems, and personnel. Agencies continue to implement the President’s Executive Order directing an all-of-government effort to promote access to voting.
       
    • In January 2023, President Biden signed into law the Electoral Count Reform Act, which establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President. This Act aims to preserve the will of the people and to protect against attempts to overturn our elections, like the attempt that led to the January 6 insurrection.
       
    • The Federal Election Commission took a major step to increase transparency in digital campaigning by finalizing a rule expanding the political advertising disclaimer requirements. These requirements previously applied mainly to traditional print and broadcast; this rule explicitly addresses ads placed for a fee on another person’s website, digital device, application, or advertising platform. Effective March 1, digital political ads must now disclose the entity paying for them.
       
  • Advancing Equity and Racial Justice and Protecting the Rights of All Americans.
    • Through the implementation of landmark legislation and historic executive action, the Biden-Harris Administration is working to make real the promise of America for everyone—including rural communities, communities of color, Tribal communities, LGBTQI+ individuals, people with disabilities, women and girls, and communities impacted by persistent poverty. To strengthen the federal government’s equity mandate, in February, President Biden signed a second Executive Order further advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities through the federal government. This Executive Order launches a new annual, government-wide process to address the barriers underserved communities face in benefitting from Federal policies, programs, and activities. It also requires agencies to improve their community engagement and seek more input from communities about the policies that impact them. Consistent with this charge, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is developing new tools and guidance to broaden public engagement in the regulatory process.
       
    • In a healthy democracy, the criminal justice system must protect the public and ensure fair and impartial justice for all. To advance these mutually reinforcing goals, President Biden urges Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to advance accountability, transparency, and public trust in law enforcement. In May 2022, the President issued an Executive Order on effective and accountable policing and criminal justice practices that, among other things, requires federal law enforcement agencies to ban chokeholds; restrict no-knock warrants; mandate the use of body-worn cameras; provide de-escalation training; submit officer misconduct records into a new national database; and restrict the transfer of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies. The President’s Executive Order also established a new interagency Alternatives and Reentry Committee to safely reduce unnecessary criminal justice system interactions, improve rehabilitation, and support formerly incarcerated individuals’ successful reentry into society while addressing existing disparities in our Nation’s criminal justice systems.
       
    • In September, President Biden held the United We Stand Summit, the first-ever White House Summit to address the hate-fueled violence that threatens our public safety and democracy. At the Summit, the White House announced an historic package of new actions the federal government and all sectors of society will take to foster national unity and counter hate and toxic polarization. The President also established an interagency group to increase and better coordinate U.S. Government efforts to counter antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of bias and discrimination within the United States—the group’s first order of business is to develop a national strategy to counter antisemitism. The President has also taken historic action to reduce gun violence, including by signing into law the most significant gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years and taking more executive action to reduce gun violence that any other president at this point in the presidency.
       
    • President Biden has taken historic actions to advance full equality for LGBTQI+ Americans. The President championed and signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, safeguarding marriage equality for LGBTQI+ and interracial couples. The President has expanded rights and protections for transgender Americans. He has also worked to advance opportunity and dignity for LGBTQI+ children and families by: taking on the discredited practice of so-called “conversion therapy;” strengthening resources and protecting for LGBTQI+ children in America’s public schools; and improving the federal government’s collection of data related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
       
    • Ensuring all people—regardless of their gender—are able to participate fully and equally in civic and political life is a foundational tenet of stable democracies. The Biden-Harris Administration is implementing the National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, including making progress towards ensuring all people can live free from violence by signing into law the strengthened and reauthorized Violence Against Women Act and historic military justice reform. The President has also advanced protections and equity in the workplace, including through Executive Orders to advance pay equity for federal employees and employees of federal contractors, and by signing into law important protections for pregnant and nursing workers. The President has issued two Executive Orders and a Presidential Memorandum to protect access to reproductive health care services, including abortion, in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, and to defend a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.
       
    • President Biden has prioritized relationships with Tribal Nations that are built on respect for Tribal sovereignty and self-governance, honoring federal trust and treaty responsibilities, protecting Tribal homelands, and conducting regular, meaningful, and robust consultation. The President’s economic agenda includes historic levels of funding specifically for Tribal communities and Native people, including $32 billion in the American Rescue Plan (ARP), $13 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), and $700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
       
  • Bolstering Democratic Institutions, Promoting Civic Participation, and Improving Public Engagement with Government.
    • The Administration is leveraging the power of national service and volunteerism to bring together Americans from different backgrounds to serve their communities and country in common purpose. The President’s FY 2024 Budget includes a $166 million increase for AmeriCorps to raise the living allowance it provides its members to make national service more accessible.
       
    • President Biden believes that all Americans should have the opportunity to learn about our democratic process and our nation’s rich history—including both our triumphs and the times we have failed to live up to our founding ideals. The 2023 omnibus appropriations package tripled federal investment in civics education, and President Biden is building on this progress by including an additional $50 million to help students understand the U.S. Constitution and how our system of Government works and build the skills—including media and digital literacy skills—required to fully participate in civic life.
       
    • A free and independent press is critical to our democracy. In October 2022, Attorney General Garland announced significant revisions to the Justice Department’s regulations regarding obtaining information from, or records of, members of the news media. Under the new rules, only in extremely narrow circumstances will DOJ use compulsory legal process—like subpoenas and search warrants—when investigating media acting within the scope of newsgathering. The President’s FY 2024 Budget committed to working with the Congress to support independent local journalism to better inform Americans about the matters that impact their lives and hold the powerful accountable.
       
    • Strong and independent unions are an essential bulwark of democracies: They build solidarity across race, gender and other lines of difference to advance their members’ shared interests, elect leadership from their own ranks to give workers a voice, and serve as counter-weights to the economic and political power of Wall Street and large corporations. Earlier this month, the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment released an update detailing agencies’ progress towards implementing more than 70 action items to support worker organizing and collective bargaining.
       

In December 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration released the U.S. Government’s Fifth Open Government National Action Plan to advance a more inclusive, responsive, and accountable government. The plan includes commitments to increase the public’s access to data to better advance equity, engage the public in the regulatory process, make government records more accessible to the public, counter corruption, and improve the delivery of government services and benefits.

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Foreign Policy, Foreign Relations

FACT SHEET: $7 Billion in Private Sector and US Government Commitments to Promote Climate Resilience, Adaptation, and Mitigation across Africa

From the White House:

In Lusaka, Zambia, in response to Vice President Kamala Harris’s call for the private sector to promote and enhance climate resilience, adaptation and migration across Africa, the private sector made over $7 billion in new commitments. Additionally, the U.S. Government is announcing new federal funding and initiatives to expand access to climate information services and enhance climate resilience and adaptation. These new investments and initiatives will generate significant economic benefits while addressing African nations’ pressing needs resulting from the climate crisis, including food security challenges, by helping to lift-up over 116 million farmers and promote climate-smart agriculture. These announcements demonstrate America’s commitment to partnering with African people and governments, alongside the private sector, to help the continent meet its climate adaptation and resilience, clean-energy access, and just energy transition goals.
 
African nations have historically contributed relatively little to the climate crisis but are disproportionally harmed by its impacts. The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes that to address the climate crisis in Africa, we must work together, building new coalitions between the U.S. government, African governments, civil society, and the private sector.
 
Private Sector Investments
 
The Vice President, as part of her call for the private sector to promote climate resilience, adaptation, and mitigation across Africa, is announcing the following 27 private sector and philanthropic commitments to support farmers, climate-smart agriculture, sustainability, clean energy, and clean transportation.
 
Supporting Farmers and Climate-Smart Agriculture
 

  • Pula, an agricultural insurance and technology company, is responding to the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) Call to Action and has committed to increase their coverage to 100 million small holder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa by providing up to $20 billion in insurance coverage by 2026. The smallholder farmers pay $20 for $200 dollars of insurance coverage. Insuring previously uninsured farmers can generate a direct positive impact for farming households across Africa, helping to secure their livelihoods by protecting them against the risk of financial losses due to climate-related events.
     
  • Mastercard, a payment and technology company, is responding to the PREPARE Call to Action and has committed to increase access of its Community Pass platform to a total of 15 million farmers in Africa by 2027 to spur economic output and opportunity. Community Pass is a shared interoperable digital platform that provides a commercially sustainable approach to scaling service delivery and increasing access to critical services including healthcare, agriculture, and micro-commerce, for individuals in underserved, remote, and frequently offline communities. Community Pass enables farmers to command higher prices by facilitating increased access to buyers and creating greater price transparency. Community Pass also enables access to inputs, advisory, and other financial service providers. Together, these services improve a smallholder farmer’s agricultural practices, resulting in a more resilient, sustainable, and productive farming system.
     
  • SunCulture, an Africa-focused solar irrigation company, commits to mobilizing $100 million in private capital and $40 million in grant/subsidy funding to deploy smallholder farmer solar irrigation to address food security in Kenya by 2028. SunCulture expects to install 274,000 solar irrigation systems on smallholder farms, reaching nearly 1.1 million direct beneficiaries, creating 411,000 jobs, growing 7.1 million metric tons of food, and generating $5 billion of increased incomes for smallholder farmers.
     
  • One Acre Fund, an agricultural service provider to support African smallholder farmers in partnership with local governments, has committed to raise and invest a $100 million fund to help 1 million farmers plant one billion trees by 2030. Smallholder farmers plant trees to harvest branches and wood, improve the farm environment, and sequester carbon.
     
  • Touton SA, an agro-industrial actor, is leading a consortium expected to commit $79.2 million into sourcing sustainable cocoa by 2025 and benefit an estimated 150,000 Ghanaians. They are supported by Palladium through the Partnership for Forests (P4F) project, and will develop and pilot a landscape-wide governance model in Juaboso-Bia landscape to promote sustainable and deforestation-free cocoa production while protecting forests earmarked as a hotspot intervention area. 
  • AlphaTalentsAfrica (ATA), an investment company supporting agribusiness ecosystems in Africa, has committed $50 million in agrifood industry investments in Africa over the next 20 years. ATA has committed $9 million for its first investment from the $50 million in a manufacturer of quinine-based ingredients for the beverage industry and of medicinal plant-based pharmaceutical products headquartered in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 
  • AgDevCo, a specialist investor in African agribusiness, is investing $10 million in sustainable forestry through New Forests Company. New Forests Company is one of the leading forestry companies in East Africa, with more than 30,000 hectares of plantations in Uganda and Tanzania. The company also supports over 6,000 smallholder farmers through the company’s outgrower program. All timber is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, and the plantations sequester significant volumes of carbon, which will increase further as the company and outgrower forestry stands mature. 
  • Switch Bioworks, a living fertilizer company, has committed $10 million to create sustainable biofertilizers in Africa over the next three years. Successful biofertilizer has the potential to triple per-acre productivity at less than one-tenth the greenhouse gas emissions of synthetic fertilizer.
     
  • Agrinfo Company Limited, an aerial imagery and artificial intelligence company that helps farmers make informed crop decisions, has committed $2 million to create a network of 3,000 drone pilots to collect and analyze data that will help 1 million farmers in Africa by 2030.
     
  • Corteva, an agriscience company dedicated to agriculture, has committed $250,000 to support climate smart post-harvest solutions in Ethiopia for 230,000 smallholder farmers and recently committed $100,000 for research that is applying gene-editing techniques to create a parasite-resistant “smart” sorghum by 2025. These collaborations will increase the incomes and food security of smallholder farmers in Africa as the threats of climate change, pest, and disease continue to grow. 
  • Land O’ Lakes Venture 37, the non-profit international development affiliate of the member-owned agricultural cooperative, is working through the Dairy Nourishes Africa portfolio of projects, founded by the Chicago-based Global Dairy Platform and in partnership with the Boston-based Bain & Company. This unique 15-to-20-year public/private partnership will drive inclusive climate-smart economic development in the dairy sector of four East African countries, reaching more than 10 million resource-poor, opportunity-constrained stakeholders. The projects aim to feed 40,000 children daily and double the income of 250,000 commercial-oriented farmers in the next 10 years. 
  • McCormick, a global flavor company headquartered in the U.S., is responding to the PREPARE Call to Action, and through its Grown for Good framework, is investing in the resilience of over 30,000 farmers across their supply chains. They have set an ambitious 100% sustainable sourcing goal for their top five branded ingredients for 2025 and have already achieved 100% sustainability for their vanilla supply chain sourced from Madagascar.

 
Spurring Sustainability, Clean Energy, and Clean Transportation

  • African Parks, a non-profit conservation organization that rehabilitates and manages national parks in partnership with governments and local communities across Africa, has committed to increase its management of 8 new parks by 2030, taking their number to 30. To meet this 30 Parks by 2030 goal, African Parks is committing to raise and invest an additional $1.25 billion in Africa over the next 7 years. This will include a mix of already raised funds in addition to future fundraising.
     
  • Cambridge Industries Ltd (CIL), an engineering, design, procurement, and construction firm focused on renewable energy projects throughout Africa, has committed $950 million to decarbonizing waste management in Kinshasa, anchored by four Waste-to-Value Industrial Parks for the Circular Economy. The universal waste management project, which will utilize anaerobic digesters for waste-to-energy and high-quality recycling scheme is expected to provide waste collection and disposal services to over 3.5 million households, electricity to 400,000 households, and create employment opportunities for more than 35,000 residents by 2030. 
  • ABD Group, a project development firm focused on Africa, commits to finance and operationalize an electrification project with Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (Tanesco) by expanding two combined cycle gas power projects to produce 900 MW of electricity through new power plants to expand energy access in a project valued at $800 million dollars. ABD Group has also developed and secured financing to build five wastewater treatment plants in Cote d’Ivoire valued at $52 million. Construction will start in the second quarter of 2023 on five wastewater treatment plants and a pumping station. This will bring wastewater treatment to social housing communities and benefit a projected 40,000 households. 
  • Combustion Associates Inc (CAI), a power plant equipment supplier company specializing in gas turbine power generation packages, has committed to $600 million to reduce vented greenhouse gas emissions through their Flare Gas Elimination Program in Nigeria by 2025. 
  • SAGLEV Inc, a vehicle assembly, manufacturing, and distributing company, is committing $600 million in electric vehicle assembly plants for Ghana – with service to Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, and South Africa by 2027. This will create 150 direct jobs and up to 25,000 indirect jobs by 2027. 
  • The Emissions Capture Company (ECCO), an emissions management platform utilizing AI-driven solutions that recycle industrial emission and waste into valuable compounds to support the green economy, commits at least $550 million to reduce emissions and plastic waste from Nestlé sites in Africa between 2023 and 2029 by deploying its proprietary technology that gathers emissions and plastic waste from industrial processes and converts it into sodium bicarbonate and other materials. 
  • The Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African multilateral development finance institution, will invest and mobilize $510 million for the initial $750 million first close of a $2 billion Infrastructure Climate Resilience Fund (ICRF) with a mission to incorporate climate risk in physical infrastructure built across the continent. The ICRF was launched last year and is focused on the following four sectors: Transport and Logistics, Power and Renewables, Telecoms and Digital Infrastructure, Industrial Parks and Special Economic Zones. It is the first large-scale adaptation program of its kind, and it offers a unique opportunity to support sustainable development in Africa while mitigating the impacts of climate change through a blended finance approach to de-risk investment opportunities. 
  • CrossBoundary Energy, an investment firm, has committed $500 million to support clean energy solutions for African businesses over the next two years. According to World Bank data, access to reliable and affordable electricity is the most significant constraint on economic growth on the continent. CBE addresses this challenge by providing African corporations with fully financed renewable power. CBE expects to employ over 6,000 people and save African businesses between $6.5 and13 million annually in electricity costs. 
  • Wilderness, an ecotourism pioneer, and carbon offset developer Carbon Ark, have signed a partnership with the Zambian government that aims to protect millions of acres of threatened forest and “rewild” previously pristine areas of biodiversity damaged by human activity. The partnership seeks to empower local communities and expand the habitat for endangered wildlife through the implementation of a high-integrity carbon sequestration project. Carbon Ark anticipates that this partnership project will deploy over $500 million in operational investments and create over 1,000 community jobs. The partnership is also supported by U.S. impact investing firm TPG Rise, Bank of America and Jet Blue Ventures through Rubicon Carbon.
     
  • C1 Ventures, a climate technology investment fund focused on decarbonizing large-scale industries by applying breakthrough technologies, has partnered with other investors to commit $250 million in biomanufacturing in Africa over the next four years. The stealth company, backed by C1 Ventures, will employ a gas-based precision fermentation technique to create animal feed protein and biodegradable plastics using captured CO2 and CH4 gases from concentrated natural and industrial sources.
     
  • Coalition for Climate Entrepreneurship (CCE), which includes the Gaia Africa Climate Fund, MassChallenge, Village Capital, SVG’s Thrive Africa, and additional partners, commits over $200 million to identify and support emerging sustainability entrepreneurs in Africa, including by helping scale their innovations to global markets.
     
  • Roam, an electric vehicle company from Kenya, is aiming to raise and invest over the next eight years $150 million to scale up affordable electric motorcycles and public transit solutions that have been uniquely designed to offer a clean transport solution for emerging market consumers and result in economic benefits for micro-entrepreneurs and commuters. Roam’s plan will reduce CO2 emissions while creating 300 direct jobs and more than 24,000 indirect jobs by 2026 with a gender inclusive recruitment strategy.
     
  • Vista Bank Group, a financial service holding company with the objective to build a world-class pan-African financial institution, commits $100 million to be invested toward sustainability initiatives over the next year, such as renewable energy projects and reforestation programs on the African continent. This commitment will help ensure that investments support a resilient economy and deliver financial returns while generating positive value for society and operating within environmental constraints. 
  • World Economic Forum (WEF), an independent international non-government organization, is publicly announcing $18.2 million of recently committed dollars from its Global Plastic Action Partnership (a consortium of public and private sector partners) towards plastic pollution reduction in Ghana through the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership (their national platform for multistakeholder collaboration). This commitment will support Ghana in transitioning to a circular plastics economy. 
  • Transvolt Energy Systems Limited, a clean energy storage company, is committed to raising $10 million to establish a lithium battery assembly plant in Africa by 2024. This manufacturing facility will increase access to clean energy, reduce the cost of local clean energy installations, generate secondary markets based on refurbished batteries, and create 1,200 direct and indirect job opportunities.

U.S. Government Commitments
 
To further accelerate the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE), which aims to help more than half a billion people in developing countries adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change this decade, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing the following initiatives in recognition of the critical urgency of building climate resilience across the African continent. These announcements build on the bilateral climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation announcements the Vice President made in Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia.
 
Expanding Access to Climate Information Services
 

  • The GEOGlows Streamflow Forecasting Service. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) is committed to continuing its leadership role as part of the Group on Earth Observations Global Water Sustainability Initiative (GEOGloWS), which provides reliable 15-day forecasts and 50 years of historical streamflow data for every river in the world through a free and open web service. Over the next five years, the United States, including NOAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), together with other partners will commit $1.5 million to enhance GEOGloWS service implementation in Tanzania, Botswana and Kenya, building on earlier success in Malawi. GEOGloWS will work directly with partner countries on implementation, including capacity development workshops with user organizations. Through its support for the GEOGloWS European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Streamflow Forecasting Service, NOAA contributes to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Executive Action Plan to deliver Early Warning for All by 2027. 
  • Expanding Weather Station Networks in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) will commit nearly $10 million in weather stations and capacity building to use and maintain them over the next five years with 10 African governments, beginning with Kenya. These partnerships will support governments to develop or fortify the capability to report weather station data and integrate this information with Earth observations to improve climate, weather, and acute food insecurity forecasts. USAID’s investment in these services will also benefit other sectors such as health; agriculture; water, sanitation and hygiene; and climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction; thereby helping to save lives and livelihoods. This expansion of FEWS NET will help the region and the international community to monitor our rapidly changing climate and support early warning systems for climate hazards and acute food insecurity. 
  • YouthMappers. A Global Mapping Response for African Development.  With support from the USAID’s GeoCenter, young people in 70 countries from more than 350 universities are applying geospatial technology to assist with humanitarian outcomes and to help solve international development challenges related to poverty, disease, and climate change. Through its YouthMappers program, USAID will invest $600,000 to empower more than 5,000 university students around the world to map communities in African countries using earth observations and satellite data. The new data will be used to address health, food security, energy security, disaster response, and resilience in local communities.  
  • FEWS NET Health Threat Extension. Through the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Health Threat Extension (HTE) pilot activity, overseas USAID Missions in Somalia and Mozambique will explore and address climate-sensitive health threats that generate cross-sectoral impacts. Each Mission will take an interdisciplinary approach to incorporating local health, climate, earth system, and social science data and information. These projects will leverage and enhance existing data systems to advance evidence-based health threat early warning systems. The projects will support evidence-based decision-making, prevention, and planning surrounding forecast health threats and their relationship to food and water insecurity and other development challenges.

 
Enhancing Climate Resilience and Adaptation

  • Energy Access and Climate Resilience. The U.S. Africa Development Fund (USADF) has committed up to $1.5 million in grant funding in FY23 for new and expanded USADF Off-grid Energy Challenges. The areas in which the Challenges will focus include healthcare facilities electrification, energy for agriculture, women in energy, productive use of energy, and innovative energy solutions that will support African governments goals of increasing energy access and improve the standard of living in unserved and underserved communities in Africa. This program will support energy for agriculture, women in energy, and healthcare facilities electrification. 
  • U.S.-Africa Climate Innovation Week. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will advance the development of climate resilience and adaptation projects in Africa by hosting a U.S.-Africa Climate Innovation Week in the United States for leaders from across the continent. This partnership-building engagement will include parallel reverse trade missions to multiple U.S. cities, to showcase innovative American technologies, services and best practices that can benefit Africa’s infrastructure for water management, and early warning and emergency management systems.
Biden Administration, Foreign Policy, Foreign Relations

FACT SHEET: Biden Submits to Congress 10-Year Plans to Implement US Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability

From the White House:

The U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability is a long-term initiative to redefine how the United States prevents violence and advances stability in areas vulnerable to conflict.  Under the bipartisan Global Fragility Act, the U.S. government is implementing this Strategy through 10-year plans developed with extensive consultations with local stakeholders in our priority partner countries and region: Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and the Coastal West Africa countries of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo.  The U.S. government is investing resources, including through the Prevention and Stabilization Fund, to bolster these country and region-specific plans. 
 
In line with the vision and goals of this landmark Act, the Strategy and resulting plans seek to break the costly cycle of instability and promote peaceful, resilient nations that become strong economic and security partners.  The work ahead focuses on four goals:  prevention, stabilization, partnerships, and management.  These plans embody an integrated, whole-of-government approach that seeks to harness the full range of U.S. tools across new and existing diplomatic, defense, and development programs.  Through partnerships, analysis, and adaptive learning, the Strategy and these plans aim to address drivers of conflict with a long-term view to support partner countries’ efforts to forge a more peaceful future. 

  • Partnerships:  The Strategy and these plans reflect a commitment to innovate how the U.S. government works with partners to advance shared interests in conflict prevention and stabilization.  They were developed through leadership from the field and emphasize forging partnerships at the national and local levels.
     
  • Analysis:  In the development of these plans, the United States recognized and assessed a diverse set of resiliencies and challenges.  The plans outline an initial assessment of complex and multifaceted drivers of violence and instability and will rely on data-informed analysis throughout their implementation.
     
  • Learning:  Over the long term, the United States will utilize rigorous monitoring and evaluation to document lessons learned and guide decisions.  The tools used will provide information to further assess progress towards key milestones while informing programmatic changes and strategic pivots.

Country and Region Partnerships
The United States is advancing this Strategy through increased engagement and partnerships in the priority partner countries and region.  U.S. government interagency teams conducted broad-ranging consultations with national and local leaders, including women, youth, and civil society members, to guide these planned partnerships.  On March 24, 2023, President Biden transmitted to Congress 10-year plans for advancing our joint efforts, including by aligning and expanding resources for conflict prevention and stabilization.  Specifically:

  • In Coastal West Africa, the United States aims to work with partners at all levels to prevent the destabilizing expansion of terrorism and violent extremism.  The United States is pursuing an integrated approach to governance and security in support of African-led initiatives and aligning our efforts with the plans of national governments, which take a holistic approach to mitigating conflict risks and vulnerabilities and strengthening social cohesion.
     
  • In Haiti, the United States aims to foster stabilization in communities impacted by violence while systematically addressing underlying drivers of conflict over time and mitigating the impact of future climate shocks.  The United States aims to build on mechanisms for consultations with a broad range of Haitian stakeholders to support locally driven peace and stability.
     
  • In Libya, the United States is focusing on laying the groundwork for an elected national government capable of governing, providing services, and maintaining security throughout the country.  The United States is pursuing a flexible, adaptive approach focused on community-level programs that can be scaled up as opportunities arise to support national elections; access to security, justice, accountability, and reconciliation; and pre-disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration efforts. 
     
  • In Mozambique, the United States supports the national government’s plans to promote reconciliation, inclusive and sustainable development, and resilience in historically marginalized and conflict-affected areas.  This includes efforts to counter vulnerabilities to terrorism, bolster recovery from its impacts, and address the root causes of instability in the north.  The United States aims to help the government and local partners foster pathways for inclusive economic growth to increase employment, especially among young Mozambicans.
     
  • In Papua New Guinea, U.S. efforts will reinforce our growing Pacific partnerships with a key country of the Pacific Islands.  We will seek to strengthen communities’ capacity to prevent and respond to chronic violence and conflict; support inclusive, sustainable, and equitable economic growth; improve justice systems; and professionalize the security forces.  This includes a focus on helping Papua New Guinean partners advance gender equity and equality, prevent and respond to gender-based violence, and elevate women peacebuilders.

Across these efforts, the U.S. government is investing heavily in monitoring, evaluation, learning, and adaptation.  U.S. government departments and agencies are better integrating U.S. diplomatic, development, and defense tools and enabling more effective, accountable partnerships.  Through these plans, the U.S. government will deepen engagement with key stakeholders in partner countries, as well as with civil society, multilateral and regional organizations, the private sector, and likeminded countries that are also engaged in addressing drivers of conflict in these priority countries and region.
 
For more information on our work to implement the Strategy, please visit this dedicated website.
 

“These plans represent a meaningful, long-term commitment by the United States to building the political and economic resilience of partner societies by making strategic investments in prevention to mitigate the underlying vulnerabilities that can lead to conflict and violence and are critical to achieving lasting peace.”   – President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

home ownership, News & Photo Features

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Tackles Racial and Ethnic Bias in Home Valuations

Critical Progress Made at One-Year Anniversary of the PAVE Action Plan

The Biden-Harris Administration highlighted progress made to ensure that every American who buys a home has the same opportunities to build generational wealth through homeownership. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com


The Biden-Harris Administration highlighted progress made to ensure that every American who buys a home has the same opportunities to build generational wealth through homeownership.
 
One year ago, the Biden-Harris Administration’s Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) – led by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia L. Fudge and White House Domestic Policy Advisor Ambassador Susan Rice – released the PAVE Action Plan, the most wide-ranging set of actions ever announced to advance equity in the home appraisal process. Bias in home valuations limits the ability of Black and brown families to enjoy the financial returns associated with homeownership, thereby contributing to the already sprawling racial wealth gap.
 
In just 12 months, the PAVE Task Force has made critical progress towards fully implementing the Action Plan, including by empowering consumers with new tools and greater awareness of appraisal bias; leveraging data to identify trends and crack down on offenders of appraisal bias; and supporting a well-trained and dynamic appraiser profession.
 
The Action Plan addresses a real harm. For example: at the White House’s release of the Action Plan last year, homeowner Tenisha Tate-Austin spoke about her experience with misvaluation. Her family’s home was appraised at roughly $500,000 more than its initial appraised value after having a white friend stand in for them. Earlier this month, the Tate-Austins settled a housing discrimination lawsuit. The U.S. Department of Justice had filed a statement of interest in their case early last year.
 
Over the last year, the Biden-Harris Administration has executed on the PAVE Action Plan by:

  • Empowering consumers to take action against appraisal bias. Consumers who seek to finance or re-finance a home are often unaware of their options when they receive a lower-than-expected valuation. In January 2023, HUD published draft guidance to make it easier and quicker for prospective borrowers applying for Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans to request a Reconsideration of Value (ROV) on a property if the initial valuation is lower because of suspected illegal bias. This week, HUD awarded $54 million to 182 fair housing organizations across the country. Eligible activities for the funding included testing for appraisal bias, enforcement activities and educating local communities on the issue. Further, earlier this year the federal Appraisal Subcommittee held its first-ever hearing, dedicated to the topic of appraisal bias. The hearing brought together federal agencies and industry experts to define the problem and discuss potential solutions.
     
  • Increasing transparency and leveraging federal data to inform policy and improve enforcement against appraisal bias.  In October 2022, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) published the first-ever publicly available datasets of aggregate statistics on appraisal records, providing the public with access to the data and trends found in appraisal reports. Using these new data, academic researchers have already published new analyses illustrating stark differences in home valuations across racial and ethnic groups.  FHFA, along with HUD, USDA and VA, are working to build a Federal database to share appraisal data across the Federal government; the database could allow agencies to share enhanced oversight and enforcement actions, and could facilitate new research related to property valuation.
     
  • Cultivating an appraiser profession that is well-trained and looks like the communities it serves.  As outlined in the PAVE Action Plan, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking steps to remove unnecessary educational and experience requirements that make it difficult for underrepresented groups to access the profession and to strengthen anti-bias, fair housing, and fair lending training of existing appraisers. In January 2023, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) released new guidance to its appraiser workforce. Among other steps, the guidance enhances oversight procedures to detect potential discriminatory bias in appraisal reports filed by VA fee panel appraisers, and calls upon all VA fee panel appraisers and lender-approved staff to participate in appraisal bias, fair housing, and fair lending training. In addition, last year, the federal Appraisal Subcommittee awarded a grant to the state of Mississippi to create an innovative pathway to appraiser licensure, including for appraisers from underrepresented groups, and with a particular focus on underserved communities within the State where there is a shortage of appraisers. Mississippi’s success has inspired several other states to express interest in replicating the program.

In conjunction with the release of the PAVE Action Plan, last year the Biden-Harris Administration launched pave.hud.gov/gethelp. Consumers who suspect misvaluations due to racial bias may use this portal to learn about their rights and steps they can take to file a discrimination complaint.

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Protection, Joe Biden, President Joe Biden

FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Takes New Actions to Conserve and Restore America’s Lands and Waters

President Establishes New National Monuments in Nevada and Texas; Directs Secretary of Commerce to Consider Expanding Protections for Pacific Remote Islands Which Would Reach Goal of Conserving 30% of U.S. Ocean by 2030

House on Fire, Bears Ears National Monument. During his first year in office, President Biden protected more lands and waters than any president since John F. Kennedy, including by restoring protections for Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments.  Last year, President Biden designated his first new national monument, Camp Hale-Continental Divide in Colorado and most recently, he established two new national monuments: Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and Castner Range National Monument in Texas. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

At the White House Conservation in Action Summit on March 21, President Biden announced major new actions to conserve and restore lands and waters across the nation, including by establishing Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and Castner Range National Monument in Texas. The President also directed the Secretary of Commerce to consider exercising her authority to protect all U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands. These new commitments build on President Biden’s historic climate and environmental record, including delivering on the most ambitious land and water conservation agenda in American history.  

The announcements include:

  • Establishing two new national monuments: Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and Castner Range National Monument in Texas. The designation of these two national monuments demonstrates the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protect historically and culturally significant areas and conserve our nation’s treasured outdoor spaces. Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada will honor Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples while conserving our public lands and growing America’s outdoor recreation economy. In Texas, Castner Range National Monument will expand access to the outdoors for the El Paso community while honoring our nation’s veterans and servicemembers. Together, these new national monuments protect nearly 514,000 acres of public lands.
     
  • Protecting all U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands. The President directed the Secretary of Commerce to consider initiating a new National Marine Sanctuary designation within the next 30 days to protect all U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands. If completed, the new sanctuary would ensure the U.S. will reach the President’s goal of conserving at least 30% of ocean waters under American jurisdiction by 2030.
     
  • New actions to conserve, restore, and expand access to lands and waters. The Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a series of new steps to conserve, restore, and expand access to lands and waters across the country. These include a proposal to modernize the management of America’s public lands, a plan to harness the power of the ocean to fight the climate crisis, a strategy to better conserve wildlife corridors, and new funding to improve access to outdoor recreation, promote Tribal conservation, reduce wildfire risk, and more.

These actions build on more than two years of the Biden-Harris Administration’s progress and historic investments to advance conservation, restoration, and stewardship nationwide:

  • During his first year in office, President Biden protected more lands and waters than any president since John F. Kennedy, including by restoring protections for Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments. Last year, President Biden designated his first new national monument, Camp Hale – Continental Divide in Colorado.
     
  • Thanks to the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden has, over his first two years in office, invested over $10 billion in conservation initiatives – more than any other modern president.
     
  • Under the President’s leadership, the Administration is making unprecedented investments in land, water, and wildlife conservation, including by launching the $1 billion America the Beautiful Challenge. These investments will help meet the President’s goal – set during his first week in office – of conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
     
  • The Biden-Harris Administration has protected nationally-significant lands and waters across the country, including recent actions to restore protections for roadless areas of the Tongass National Forest, prevent future oil and gas leasing in the entire U.S. Arctic Ocean, safeguard Bristol Bay in Alaska and the world-class salmon fishery it supports, and protect America’s most-visited wilderness area, the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. The Administration is also working to protect Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, the Thompson Divide in Colorado, and accelerating restoration efforts in the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay, the Everglades, and the Columbia River Basin.

Establishing Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada

President Biden signed a proclamation establishing the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. This designation will honor Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples by protecting this sacred Nevada landscape and its historically and scientifically important features, while conserving our public lands and growing America’s outdoor recreation economy.

Avi Kwa Ame is considered to be among the most sacred places on Earth by the Mojave, Chemehuevi, and some Southern Paiute people. It is also important to other Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples including the Cocopah, Halchidhoma, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Kumeyaay, Maricopa, Pai Pai, Quechan, Yavapai, and Zuni Tribes. Its scenic peaks include Avi Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain), which is designated as a Traditional Cultural Property on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its religious and cultural importance. The area is also home to the one of the world’s largest Joshua tree forests, and provides continuous habitat or migration corridors for species such as the desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, and Gila monster.

Establishing Castner Range National Monument in Texas

President Biden also signed a proclamation establishing the Castner Range National Monument, in El Paso, Texas. This action will protect the cultural, scientific, and historic objects found within the monument’s boundaries, honor our veterans, servicemembers, and Tribal Nations, and expand access to outdoor recreation on our public lands. 

Located on Fort Bliss, Castner Range served as a training and testing site for the U.S. Army during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The Army ceased training at the site and closed Castner Range in 1966. Once the area is sufficiently remediated to be safe for public access, Castner Range will offer unique opportunities for the El Paso community to experience, explore, and learn from nature. President Biden is committed to expanding access to nature for underserved communities that have historically had less access to our public lands, like those bordering Castner Range. Protecting Castner Range connects the area with the Franklin Mountains State Park, creating continuous habitat for wildlife and improved public access for outdoor recreation. Castner Range also hosts significant cultural sites documenting the history of Tribal Nations, including the Apache and Pueblo peoples and the Comanche Nation, Hopi Tribe, and Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.

Directing Consideration of a Sanctuary to Complete Protections for Waters Around the Pacific Remote Islands

Consistent with the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to conserving 30% of lands and waters by 2030, the President signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of Commerce to, using the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, consider initiating a sanctuary designation within the next 30 days to expand protections around the Pacific Remote Islands southwest of Hawaii. Such protections would encompass areas unaddressed by previous administrations so all areas of U.S. jurisdiction around the islands, atolls, and reef of the Pacific Remote Islands will be protected.

The potential new National Marine Sanctuary identified in the Memorandum would conserve 777,000 square miles, including the existing Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument and currently unprotected submerged lands and waters. The region has a rich ancestral tie to many Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island communities. The process for a potential sanctuary designation would allow the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to further explore the area’s scientific, cultural, and ancestral linkages, and tailor its management accordingly.

The President is also directing the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce to conduct a public process to work with regional Indigenous cultural leaders to appropriately rename the existing Pacific Remote Islands National Monument, and potentially the Islands themselves, to honor the area’s heritage, ancestral pathways, and stopping points for Pacific Island voyagers, and to provide posthumous recognition for young Native Hawaiian men sent to secure U.S. territorial claim to the islands in the run up to World War II.

New Federal and Other Actions to Conserve, Restore, and Expand Access to Lands and Waters

Ocean Climate Action Plan: The Ocean Policy Committee, co-chaired by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is releasing the first-ever United States Ocean Climate Action Plan, a groundbreaking roadmap to harnesses the power of the ocean to advance immediate, transformational steps to protect ocean health and address the climate crisis. Acknowledging that there is no path to a healthy and livable climate without the ocean, the plan outlines new actions on the Administration’s ocean-climate priorities, including efforts to advance climate solutions, promote environmental justice, support healthy communities, and ensure a robust and sustainable ocean economy.

Wildlife Corridors Guidance: The White House Council on Environmental Quality is issuing new guidance to Federal agencies on how to better incorporate ecological connectivity and wildlife corridors into federal planning and decision-making. The guidance highlights the importance of connectivity across terrestrial, marine, and freshwater habitats, encouraging collaboration across management and ownership boundaries with states, Tribes, local governments, and private land owners. This helps deliver on one of the America the Beautiful Initiative’s six early focus areas – supporting collaborative conservation of fish and wildlife habitat and corridors.

Strengthening the Stewardship of America’s Public Lands: The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in the coming weeks is seeking public input on a proposed rule that will help update and modernize the agency’s tools and strategies for managing America’s public lands. With climate change imposing mounting impacts on the nation’s public lands, and the growing importance of public lands for recreation and conservation, the proposed rule would help ensure that the nation’s lands continue to provide abundant and well-connected wildlife habitat, supply clean drinking water, and power local economies.

New Partnership to Protect Military Readiness and Preserve Green Space: The Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense are partnering to allocate $80 million through a combination of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and matching funds from DoD’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program (REPI) to preserve green space around military installations and improve access to outdoor recreation for millions of Americans. The Departments will make the funding available to states through a competitive process that could support projects on Tribal, private, state, or local lands.

$100 Million Tribal Conservation Funding Pledge: Today, Native Americans in Philanthropy, in collaboration with Biodiversity Funders Group and 15 philanthropies, is launching the Tribal Nations Conservation Pledge with an initial commitment of more than $100 million. This is a new platform for philanthropic organizations to support the conservation work of Tribal Nations and public-private partnerships between the Biden-Harris Administration, Tribes, and philanthropy. The pledge calls on funders to commit to a self-determined amount of funding, or a self-determined percentage of annual programmatic funding, to support the biodiversity and conservation efforts of Tribes, inter-Tribal organizations, and Tribal consortia.

America the Beautiful 2022 Annual Report: The Biden-Harris Administration is releasing the 2022 America the Beautiful Annual Report, an update on progress made to support locally-led conservation and restoration efforts and meet the President’s goal to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

New Partnership to Accelerate the Conservation of At-Risk Species: The Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Alliance of Forest Owners and the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement Inc., will announce a memorandum of understanding which formalizes the Wildlife Conservation Initiative, a collaborative partnership focused on advancing the conservation of at-risk and listed species within private working forests nationwide. The announcement comes as the Department of the Interior celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act and highlights the landmark law’s importance in preventing imperiled species’ extinction, promoting the recovery of wildlife, and conserving the habitats upon which they depend. 

Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program: Soon the Federal Highway Administration and the Department of Transportation will open applications for the first-of-its-kind $350 million Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. The program will build infrastructure that is proven to improve roadway safety – particularly in rural communities – and bring down the roughly 200 deaths stemming from more than one million collisions every year between vehicles and wildlife.

Nearly $200 Million to Reduce Wildfire Risk to Communities: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service announced nearly $200 million in Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) program grants to communities across the country. Funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CWDG program is designed to assist communities, including Tribal communities, non-profit organizations, state forestry agencies and Alaska Native corporations with planning for and mitigating wildfire risks to communities and critical infrastructure as the nation faces an ongoing wildfire crisis.

State Wildlife Grants: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is distributing over $56 million for state fish and wildlife agencies through the State Wildlife Grant Program to support conservation and stewardship efforts for imperiled wildlife and their habitats.  

Boating Infrastructure Grants: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is distributing over $20 million in grant funding to assist states and territories in the construction, renovation and maintenance of marinas and other boating facilities for outdoor recreation. Grants will support projects in 20 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to increase outdoor recreation access and waterway stewardship.  

Pactola Reservoir Protection: The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management announced actions to consider protections for cultural and natural resources in the Pactola Reservoir – Rapid Creek Watershed in South Dakota, including drinking water for Rapid City and Ellsworth Air Force Base, from the adverse impacts of mineral exploration and development. The Pactola Reservoir is the largest and deepest reservoir in the Black Hills National Forest, with 14 miles of shoreline and 150-foot depths on 800 acres and provides high quality recreation for communities and visitors

Biden Administration, Gun Violence Prevention, News & Photo Features

FACT SHEET: Biden Announces New Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Our Communities Safer

President Biden’s executive order to reduce gun violence directs the Attorney General to move the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation by clarifying, as appropriate, the statutory definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms, as updated by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. This move would mean fewer guns will be sold without background checks, and therefore fewer guns will end up in the hands of felons and domestic abusers. The President is also directing the Attorney General to develop and implement a plan to prevent former federally licensed firearms dealers, whose licenses have been revoked or surrendered, from continuing to engage in the business of dealing in firearms. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Today, in Monterey Park, California, President Biden announced an Executive Order with the goal of increasing the number of background checks conducted before firearm sales, moving the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation. The Executive Order will also keep more guns out of dangerous hands by increasing the effective use of “red flag” laws, strengthen efforts to hold the gun industry accountable, and accelerate law enforcement efforts to identify and apprehend the shooters menacing our communities. President Biden is also encouraging the Federal Trade Commission to issue a public report analyzing how gun manufacturers market firearms to minors.
 
President Biden traveled to Monterey Park to grieve with the families and community impacted by the mass shooting that claimed 11 lives and injured nine others in January. Monterey Park is part of a growing list of communities all across the country that are forever changed due to gun violence—not only mass shootings, but also daily acts of gun violence that may not make national headlines.
 
Last year, President Biden signed into the law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun violence reduction legislation enacted in nearly 30 years. When celebrating the Act’s passage, he called on Congress to seize the bipartisan momentum and advance additional commonsense steps to reduce gun violence. Again and again, he has called for Congress to act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all gun sales, requiring safe storage of firearms, closing the dating violence restraining order loophole, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.
 
As he continues to call on Congress to act, President Biden will do everything he can to reduce gun violence and save lives. That is why, over the past two years, President Biden has taken more executive action to reduce gun violence than any other president at this point in their presidency.
 
The President’s new Executive Order to reduce gun violence includes the following additional actions, all of which fall within existing executive authority and outside of the right protected by the Second Amendment:
 
Keeping guns out of dangerous hands
 
The Executive Order directs the President’s Cabinet to:

  • Increase the number of background checks by ensuring that all background checks required by law are conducted before firearm purchases, moving the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation. A large majority of Americans support background checks and agree it’s common sense to check whether someone is a felon or domestic abuser before allowing them to buy a gun. The President will continue to call on Congress to pass universal background check legislation. In the meantime, he is directing the Attorney General to do everything he can to ensure that firearms sellers who do not realize they are required to run background checks under existing law, or who are willfully violating existing law, become compliant with background check requirements. Specifically, the President is directing the Attorney General to move the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation by clarifying, as appropriate, the statutory definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms, as updated by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. This move would mean fewer guns will be sold without background checks, and therefore fewer guns will end up in the hands of felons and domestic abusers. The President is also directing the Attorney General to develop and implement a plan to prevent former federally licensed firearms dealers, whose licenses have been revoked or surrendered, from continuing to engage in the business of dealing in firearms.
     
  • Improve public awareness and increase appropriate use of extreme risk protection (“red flag”) orders and safe storage of firearms. 19 states and the District of Columbia have enacted red flag laws, allowing trusted community members to petition a court to determine whether an individual is dangerous, and then to temporarily remove an individual’s access to firearms. However, these laws are only effective if the public knows when and how to use red flag orders. President Biden is directing members of his Cabinet to encourage effective use of extreme risk protection orders, including by partnering with law enforcement, health care providers, educators, and other community leaders. In addition, President Biden is directing members of his Cabinet to expand existing federal campaigns and other efforts to promote safe storage of firearms.
     
  • Address the loss or theft of firearms during shipping. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) data indicates an over 250% increase in the number of firearms reported as lost or stolen during shipment between federally licensed firearms dealers, from roughly 1,700 in 2018 to more than 6,100 in 2022. President Biden is directing the Secretary of Transportation, in consultation with the Department of Justice, to work to reduce the loss or theft of firearms during shipment and to improve reporting of such losses or thefts, including by engaging with carriers and shippers.

 
Holding the gun industry accountable
 
The Executive Order directs the President’s Cabinet to:

  • Provide the public and policymakers with more information regarding federally licensed firearms dealers who are violating the law. Gun dealers violating federal law put us all at risk by increasing the likelihood that firearms will fall into dangerous hands. The President is directing the Attorney General to publicly release, to the fullest extent permissible by law, ATF records from the inspection of firearms dealers cited for violation of federal firearm laws. This information will empower the public and policymakers to better understand the problem, and then improve our laws to hold rogue gun dealers accountable.
     
  • Use the Department of Defense’s acquisition of firearms to further firearm and public safety practices. The Department of Defense buys a large number of firearms and other weapons to protect and serve our country. The President is directing the Secretary of Defense to develop and implement principles to further firearm and public safety practices through Department of Defense acquisition of firearms, consistent with applicable law.

 
President Biden is also encouraging the independent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to issue a public report analyzing how gun manufacturers market firearms to minors and how such manufacturers market firearms to all civilians, including through the use of military imagery.
 
Additional steps to make our communities safer and support communities impacted by gun violence
 
The Executive Order will direct the President’s Cabinet to:

  • Help catch shooters by accelerating federal law enforcement’s reporting of ballistics data. The National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) allows federal, state, and local law enforcement to match fired cartridge casings to the guns from which they were fired, making it easier for law enforcement to connect multiple crime scenes and catch shooters. In order to maximize NIBIN’s effectiveness, federal, state, and local law enforcement all have an important role to play in ensuring timely submission of ballistics data to NIBIN. Today, the President is directing all federal law enforcement agencies to issue rigorous requirements regarding NIBIN data submission and use of this tool.
     
  • Accelerate and intensify implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). BSCA is the most significant gun safety legislative accomplishment in nearly 30 years, and the Biden-Harris Administration is treating it as such by making the most of every opportunity it provides to reduce gun violence. President Biden is directing each agency responsible for the law’s implementation to send a report to him, within 60 days, on progress toward full implementation of BSCA and additional steps they will take to maximize the benefits of the law, including by increasing public awareness and use of the resources made available by BSCA.
     
  • Improve federal support for gun violence survivors, victims and survivors’ families, first responders to gun violence, and communities affected by gun violence. When a hurricane overwhelms a community, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) coordinates federal, state, local, and non-profit organizations in order to assess and meet community needs. However, when a mass shooting overwhelms a community, no coordinated U.S. government mechanism exists to meet short- and long-term needs, such as mental health care for grief and trauma, financial assistance (for example, when a family loses the sole breadwinner or when a small business is shut down due to a lengthy shooting investigation), and food (for example, when the Buffalo shooting closed down the only grocery store in the neighborhood). The President is directing members of his Cabinet to develop a proposal for how the federal government can better support communities after a mass shooting, and identify what additional resources or authorities the executive branch would need from Congress to implement this proposal.
     
  • Advance congressional efforts to prevent the proliferation of firearms undetectable by metal detectors. In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of technology that allows guns to be made with polymers and other materials that are increasingly capable of avoiding detection by metal detectors. President Biden is directing the Attorney General to help Congress modernize and make permanent the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988, which is currently set to expire in December 2023.

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, who had to rejigger 100-year old gun regulation law after the radical rightwing majority on the Supreme Court overturned the law, commented, “Too many families in this country have experienced loss due to gun violence. Too many communities, including my hometown of Buffalo, have been devastated by weapons of war. We have a moral obligation to act — and that’s why New York strengthened our nation-leading gun safety laws, expanding the use of red flag laws to prevent domestic abusers and other dangerous individuals from causing harm to themselves or others.

“President Biden’s new Executive Order brings New York’s approach to a national scale. The Executive Order strengthens rules around individuals with a “red flag” by requiring federally licensed gun dealers to check if an individual is a domestic abuser or convicted felon. It increases federal resources for proven crime-fighting tools, like the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network we are utilizing in Crime Analysis Centers across New York. This EO builds on the major success last year, when President Biden worked closely with Leader Schumer and bipartisan members of Congress to pass the first new gun safety legislation in a generation. This Executive Order is the significant next step our country needed.”

Biden Administration

FACT SHEET: In Face of Voter Suppression, Biden-Harris Administration Take Action Across Government to Promote Access to Voting 

Since their first days in office, President Biden and Vice President Harris have prioritized strengthening our democracy and protecting the sacred right to vote in free, fair, and secure elections. Unconscionably, state legislatures across the country have enacted and continue to introduce laws that make it harder to vote and undermine the will of the people. Congress must restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act and take additional steps to ensure access to the ballot box by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act—critical to fully securing the right to vote in every state. Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to using every tool at its disposal to protect the right to vote. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

As Republicans advance laws intended to suppress voting rights, they are also impeding access to the ballot – undermining, sabotaging and reducing ballot boxes, shutting polling places on college campuses, moving polling places where they are hard to reach without a car, making it unlawful to provide food or water to people standing on line for hours on end, creating Election Police to intimidate voters, giving people false information about their ability to register, then prosecuting them for voter fraud, while ignoring actual voter fraud by those who vote “the right way.” The Biden Administration has worked to counter these efforts. On the 58th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the  White House issued this fact sheet on its whole-of-government efforts to promote access to voting:–Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Today, President Biden is traveling to Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 58th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday. In 1965, John Lewis and other civil rights leaders led peaceful protesters demanding voting rights in a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they were brutally beaten by state troopers. The Nation’s reaction to Bloody Sunday helped produce the long overdue landmark Voting Rights Act, which put in place key protections against racial discrimination in voting and sought to provide equal access to the ballot for every American.

Since their first days in office, President Biden and Vice President Harris have prioritized strengthening our democracy and protecting the sacred right to vote in free, fair, and secure elections. Unconscionably, state legislatures across the country have enacted and continue to introduce laws that make it harder to vote and undermine the will of the people. Congress must restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act and take additional steps to ensure access to the ballot box by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act—it’s the only way we can fully secure the right to vote in every state. 

In December 2022, President Biden signed into law the Electoral Count Reform Act, which establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President, to preserve the will of the people and to protect against the type of attempts to overturn our elections that led to the January 6 insurrection. Congress must apply the same courage and conviction that it took to secure these reforms to passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. President Biden supports eliminating the filibuster to prevent a minority of Senators from blocking action on voting rights—when it comes to protecting majority rule in America, the majority should rule in the United States Senate.

In the meantime, the Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to using every tool at its disposal to protect the right to vote. On March 7, 2021, the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, President Biden signed an executive order directing an all-of-government effort to promote access to voting. As previously outlined, agencies continue leveraging their resources to provide Americans with access to voter registration services and nonpartisan information about elections:

  • U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The ability to vote is both a right and a responsibility that comes with U.S. citizenship. The Department of Homeland Security’s USCIS strives to ensure all newly naturalized citizens understand this privilege and have the opportunity to register to vote following their naturalization ceremony. To improve and strengthen these efforts, USCIS will issue updated policy guidance to its 88 field offices to standardize and lift up best practices for voter registration services, including providing a clear roadmap for how to successfully partner with state and local election administration officials and nonpartisan organizations to provide voter registration applications to all new Americans. In Fiscal Year 2022, USCIS administered the Oath of Allegiance for 967,400 new Americans, across more than 20,000 naturalization ceremonies. Voter registration information and additional resources for newly naturalized Americans are available on the USCIS website for New U.S. Citizens.
     
  • Department of Education. By the end of March, the Department of Education will use StudentAid.gov to help connect borrowers to voter registration services by linking to vote.gov. StudentAid.gov is the Department’s primary customer website about postsecondary education. With more than 355 million visits in 2022, StudentAid.gov provides critical information and tools for students, families, and borrowers as they prepare and plan for college, apply for and receive federal student aid, and repay student loans. Building off guidance issued in April 2022, the Department continues to encourage colleges and career schools to make good-faith efforts to register students to vote.
     
  • Department of Agriculture. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) will enhance efforts to promote access to voting by encouraging all USDA agency field offices to make nonpartisan information about voter registration available in customer service locations, which exist across the country in thousands of rural, suburban, and urban communities.
     
  • Indian Health Service. The Indian Health Service (IHS) will promote access to voting in Indian Country by piloting high-quality voter registration services to patients across five IHS facilities by the end 2023.
     
  • General Services Administration. Vote.gov is now accessible in twelve languages, with more translations coming online soon, and GSA will continue working to enhance the website to make it easier for Americans to register to vote and obtain nonpartisan information about voting.
     
  • Department of Treasury. In addition to supporting the third-party Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) partners in offering voter registration services to individuals who seek tax assistance, Treasury is now providing information about voter registration in the instructions for IRS Form 1040 and in direct mail pieces delivered to approximately 900,000 Americans who receive Social Security Benefits, Railroad Pension benefits, and federal retirement benefits.
     
  • Department of the Interior. In 1993, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, which authorized states to request that federal agencies provide voter registration services. For nearly 30 years, no federal agency was designated as a voter registration agency. Last year, the Department of the Interior became the first agency to be designated as voter registration agency when two Bureau of Indian Education-operated post-secondary institutions—Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico—formed partnerships with state election authorities to provide the opportunity to register to vote. Additionally, because federal public lands are one of the most common touch points between the federal government and the American people, the Department will explore options to expand access to voter registration on public lands across the country.
     
  • Department of Justice. Promoting voting access and education is an important part of preparing individuals who are exiting the criminal justice system for a successful return to society, because encouraging full citizenship helps make them stakeholders in the communities to which they return. The Department has developed a program to educate individuals about their voting rights, specific to each state and territory. The Department is also promoting access to voting for those who remain eligible to vote while in federal custody, including by putting in place procedures to facilitate voter registration and voting.
     
  • Department of Defense. The Federal Voting Assistance Program, which works to ensure Service members and overseas citizens have access to voting, will make the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) for voter registration or ballot request and the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (FWAB) available in seven languages. Additionally, in February 2023, the Department began the Effective Absentee Systems for Elections (EASE) grant program to provide state and local election offices with funding to increase the percentage of ballots successfully returned by Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) voters, reduce the failure rates for UOCAVA voters, and establish and maintain a pipeline of ideas, techniques, and best practices of election officials and the services they provide for UOCAVA voters.
     
  • Department of State. Travel.state.gov now reflects up-to-date information on absentee voting and registration for U.S. citizens abroad. This coming year, the Department will promote Vote.gov in the waiting rooms of its 26 public passport agencies.
Biden Administration, Economic Policies, Economy, Health Care

FACT SHEET: New Data Show 8.2 Million Fewer Americans Struggling with Medical Debt Under Biden Administration

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a new report that shows that the number of Americans with medical debt on their credit reports fell by 8.2 million from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2022 © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

The Administration’s work to strengthen the Affordable Care Act along with new consumer protections lead to continued progress reducing the burden of medical debt.. This fact sheet is provided by the White House:

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a new report that shows that the number of Americans with medical debt on their credit reports fell by 8.2 million from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2022. Today’s report is consistent with a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that found that the number of Americans who are part of families having trouble paying their medical bills declined by 5.5 million between 2020 and 2021. One driver of these declines is the significant increase in the number of insured Americans over this period, a result of the President’s strategy of protecting and strengthening the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and lowering health care costs. The decline also reflects continued actions by the CFPB to highlight problems with inaccurate reporting of debt in collections and put the industry on notice to correct their behavior.

The new data also underscore the importance of the Biden-Harris Administration’s government-wide initiative to reduce the burden of medical debt. Following the Vice President’s April 2022 announcement, medical debt was directly relieved for many low-income Americans. And, informed by research showing that medical debt is not a reliable predictor of financial health, federal agencies are working to eliminate the use of medical debt to assess creditworthiness for participation in government lending programs. Specifically:  

  • The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) implemented a streamlined process to make it easier and faster for lower-income veterans to get their VA medical debt forgiven. The new process – establishing simple criteria to qualify for debt relief and launching a new online debt relief portal – has already provided relief to over 10,000 veterans and saved them more than $10 million in copay debt.
  • Communities across the country – from Cook County, Illinois, to Toledo, Ohio, to New Orleans, Louisiana, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – are using or have passed legislation to use about $16 million American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to purchase medical debt from hospitals and other sources and forgive it, wiping out nearly $1.5 billion in medical debt, a ratio of nearly 100-to-1. Other localities and states have proposed to make similar purchases using ARP funding.
  • The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) validated and approved the use of VantageScore 4.0, along with FICO 10T, for the underwriting of mortgages by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The addition of VantageScore 4.0, which excludes medical debt entirely, marks the first time that a credit score that excludes medical debt has been approved for mortgage underwriting of Enterprise loans.
  • The Small Business Administration (SBA) will take a number of steps to reduce the role of medical debt in the underwriting of loans for its 7(a) guaranteed loan program, including revising its lender Standard Operating Procedures to discourage consideration of medical debt and making technology investments in Lender Match to help borrowers find lenders that exclude medical debt in their credit decisions.

These reductions in medical debt will provide real benefits to many Americans. Reducing medical debt directly impacts household finances by improving credit scores and access to credit. And research shows that households that have their medical debt relieved see improvements in access to medical care, and in physical and mental health outcomes. Since medical debt is disproportionally held among low-income communities, reductions in the burden of medical debt helps advance financial and health equity.
 
The CFPB report also shows that medical debt still accounts for more than 50% of debt in collections tradelines, exceeding the number of debt in collections tradelines from all other sources combined, including credit cards, personal loans, utilities, and phone bills. Getting sick or taking care of loved ones should not mean financial hardship for American families. That is why the Administration has—and will continue—to take action to ease the burden of medical debt and protect consumers from predatory collection practices.
 
Supporting Veterans in Financial Hardship
 
In Spring 2022, VA committed to make it easier and faster for lower-income veterans to get their VA medical debt forgiven. Previously, veterans in financial hardship who needed medical debt relief for VA copayments had to fill out a complex, paper form and navigate complicated eligibility requirements. The application process was confusing, and time-consuming, and as a result, veterans may have been deterred from applying for much needed relief.
 
Since the spring 2022 announcement:

  • VA streamlined the application process, including establishing a simple, standardized criteria to qualify for debt relief and launching a new online debt relief portal to make it easier and faster to apply.
  • Since introducing the new criteria, VA has approved over 93% of debt relief requests, and 42% of relief requests are now submitted via the online portal.  
  • To date, the new streamlined system has provided relief to over 10,000 veterans and saved them more than $10 million combined in unpayable copay debt.

Helping Communities Wipe Out Medical Debt
 
To help relieve the burden of medical debt on their residents as part of the recovery from the COVD-19 pandemic, communities across the country are using American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to support efforts to buy and forgive medical debt. These communities work with partners to purchase medical debt portfolios from hospitals, health systems, and debt collection agencies and forgive the debt. Because medical debts are often available for purchase at pennies on the dollar, these efforts can translate into massive reductions in medical debt.
 
In the programs implemented to date, individuals qualify if they are residents of the given locality and have incomes below a certain threshold or have medical debt in excess of 5% of their annual household income. Individuals whose debt is cancelled are notified by mail and do not need to apply. Communities that have used ARP funds to forgive medical debt include:

  • Cook County, Illinois. In July 2022, Cook County announced the use of $12 million in ARP funds to purchase and forgive up to $1 billion in medical debt. The program has already wiped out the medical debts of 45,000 people worth $26 million.
  • Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio. In November 2022, the Toledo City Council and Lucas County approved a cumulative $1.6 million in ARP funds to buy out medical debt of certain residents. In total, the localities expected that this purchase will wipe out approximately $240 million in debt.
  • New Orleans, Louisiana. In December 2022, the New Orleans City Council included in its annual budget a $1.3 million line item leveraging ARP funds to relieve up to an estimated $130 million in medical debt.
  • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In January 2023, the Pittsburgh City Council approved a plan to use $1 million in ARP funds to eliminate up to an estimated $115 million medical debts for about 24,000 residents.

Taken together, these investments of about $16 million in ARP funding are expected to relieve up to nearly $1.5 billion in medical debt, a ratio of nearly 100-to-1, helping to mend household finances, improve mental health, and remove a barrier to accessing health care. Additional states and cities across the country are also considering using ARP funds to eliminate medical debt including most recently the state of Connecticut, where the governor proposed using $20 million in ARP funds to wipe out debts of about  $2 billion.   
 
Removing Medical Debt from Government Underwriting
 
Research shows that medical debt is not a reliable predictor of overall financial health – predominately reflecting inequities in health insurance coverage and the bad luck of a hospitalization or other medical event. A CFPB report found that including medical debt in credit scores understates consumers’ creditworthiness by 10 points, and including already paid medical debt understates consumers’ creditworthiness by as much as 22 points. This means that the use of medical debt in underwriting can cut off American’s access to credit without improving the accuracy and predictiveness of lending programs.
 
Informed by this research, the Biden-Harris Administration instructed all agencies to eliminate medical debt as a factor in underwriting of credit programs, whenever possible and consistent with law. Since then:

  • In October 2022, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) validated and approved the use of VantageScore 4.0 and FICO 10T for the underwriting of mortgages by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. VantageScore 4.0 excludes medical debt entirely, and marks the first time that a credit score that excludes medical debt has been approved for mortgage underwriting of Enterprise loans.  Moreover, the national credit reporting agencies announced several changes affecting the reporting of medical debt in collections – including that paid medical collection debt would no longer be included on consumer credit reports, an extension of timing for reporting of unpaid medical collection debt from six to twelve months, and a minimum $500 threshold for medical collection debt reporting – meaning that the role of medical debt in FICO 10T will also be reduced. The Enterprises’ automated underwriting systems do not consider medical debt in collections.
  • The Small Business Administration (SBA) will be taking a number of steps to reduce the role of medical debt in the underwriting of loans in the 7a guaranteed loan program.  These steps include revising its Standard Operating Procedures to discourage lenders from considering medical debt and making technology investments in Lender Match to help borrowers find lenders that exclude medical debt from their credit decisions and empower such lenders to underwrite those loans via automated data compilation.
  • In February 2022, VA published a final rule under which it virtually ceased reporting medical debt, and other unfavorable debt, to the credit bureaus. This rule ensures that debt reported better reflects creditworthiness, while saving veterans from further financial struggles simply because they had to take on medical debt. VA is committed to mitigating the burden of medical debt in its Home Loan guarantee program and in the coming months will work with lenders and servicers to discuss how to best maximize the flexibility of their underwriting guidelines related to medical debt collections while monitoring investor reactions and access to capital for VA guaranteed loans

New Data on Medical Debt in Collections
 
The report from the CFPB documents trends in medical debt in collections that are listed on credit reports, with the data extending through the first quarter of 2022. Key findings include:

  • Between the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2022, the number of Americans with medical debt on their credit report fell by 8.2 million, a 17.9% reduction.
  • Medical debt in collections accounts for 57% of collections tradelines, exceeding the total number of collections tradelines from all other sources combined, including credit cards, personal loans, utilities, and phone bills.

One driver of this decline in medical debt is the expansion of health insurance coverage during the Biden-Harris Administration. In the first quarter of 2022, the uninsured rate hit an all-time low of 8.0%, with 4.2 million people gaining coverage between 2020 and the first half of 2022. This milestone does not yet not capture the impact of the most recent increase in Marketplace enrollment, with a record 16.3 million Americans signing up on HealthCare.gov and the state-based Marketplaces during the 2023 Open Enrollment Period. This includes 3.6 million people who are new to the Marketplaces for 2023. Since President Biden took office, the number of people who have signed up for an affordable health care plan through HealthCare.gov has increased by nearly 50%. The Biden-Harris Administration continues to work to create a more fair and transparent health care system for consumers, including by protecting millions of consumers from surprise medical bills through its implementation of the No Surprises Act—preventing about 1 million surprise bills per month—and by advancing hospital price transparency so patients know the upfront price of hospital services.
 
The declines in medical debt also reflect continued actions by the CFPB to highlight problems with inaccurate reporting of debt in collections and put the industry on notice to correct their behavior.
 
The declines in medical debt on credit reports do not yet capture any effects of the Spring 2022 announcement where the three largest credit reporting agencies—Equifax, Experian, and Transunion—stated that they will no longer include certain forms of medical debt on credit reports, including all debts under $500, starting in 2023. While not shown in these data, CFPB estimates these changes will likely result in further reductions in medical debt appearing on credit reports.  
 
The decline in medical debt in collection represents one part of a broader decrease in the financial burden from medical bills during the Biden-Harris Administration. The CFPB report focuses on medical debt reported to credit bureaus, and does not capture medical debt that is placed on credit cards (including hospital credit cards) or paid for with personal loans or hospital payment plans.  However, a CDC report released last month showed that between 2020 and 2021, the number of people in families having problems paying medical bills declined by 5.5 million people, indicating that American families are indeed experiencing across-the-board relief.
 
These findings represent real progress in providing breathing room for American families. At the same time, too many Americans still face crushing burdens from medical debt. The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to fight to ensure that Americans who are sick or are caring for sick loved ones are not hit with a double whammy of illness and medical debt. This includes continuing to help Americans sign up for health insurance; calling on Congress to make permanent the lower premiums for people buying ACA coverage and to close the Medicaid coverage gap; and continuing to reduce the burden of medical debt via sweeping actions by government agencies.

Biden Administration, Infrastructure

Biden Administration Infrastructure Law Funds Gateway Hudson Tunnel, Major Transportation Projects

President Biden announced $292 million to complete a critical early phase of the Gateway Hudson Tunnel Project, thanks to his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Hudson Tunnel Project will improve access to Penn Station, rehabilitate the old North River Tunnel which opened in 1910, build a new tunnel beneath the Palisades, Hudson River, and the waterfront area in Manhattan, and improve reliability for 200,000 weekday passengers on New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) and Amtrak. It will result in 72,000 well-paying jobs © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Continuing the progress implementing the Biden-Harris Administration’s economic agenda, President Biden visited New York on January 31 to announce funding for a critical early phase of the Hudson Tunnel Project and Mega grants for other major infrastructure projects across the country.  The President announced the Administration has awarded nearly $1.2 billion from the infrastructure law’s new National Infrastructure Project Assistance discretionary grant program (Mega) for nine projects across the country, including over $292 million to complete a critical early phase of the Hudson Tunnel Project.

These infrastructure investments will create good-paying jobs – including union jobs and jobs that do not require a college degree. The projects will grow the economy, strengthen supply chains, improve mobility for residents, and make our transportation systems safer for all users.

This announcement comes on the heels of several other announcements of funding for major infrastructure projects, including more than $2 billion to upgrade some our nation’s most economically significant bridges such as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Brent-Spence Bridge through the Bridge Investment Program and $1.5 billion for 26 major projects through the INFRA program.  

These infrastructure improvements are a critical part of President Biden’s economic agenda to build the economy from the bottom up and middle out.

Hudson Tunnel Project

President Biden announced a $292 million Mega grant to Amtrak for Hudson Yards Concrete Casing, Section 3. This funding is part of a $649 million early phase project that will complete the final section of concrete casing intended to preserve future right-of-way for the new passenger rail tunnel under the Hudson River. The concrete casing protects the path of the new tunnel from Penn Station to the Hudson River’s edge.  If this casing were not built now, the foundations from the new Hudson Yards development would likely impede the path of the tunnel and make the project extremely difficult.

The overall Hudson Tunnel Project is an over $16 billion investment that will improve resilience, reliability, and redundancy for New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) and Amtrak train service between New York and New Jersey.  The project will reduce commute times for NJ Transit riders, enhance Amtrak reliability on the Northeast Corridor (NEC), and support the northeast regional economy. Amtrak expects the Hudson Tunnel Project will result in 72,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction with union partnerships for job training. 

The existing North River Tunnel is over 100 years old, built to early 20th century standards, opened for service in 1910, and is the only passenger rail tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. It facilitates more than 200,000 passenger trips per weekday on more than 450 Amtrak and NJ Transit trains servicing New York Penn Station. The tunnel has reached its full capacity of 24 trains per hour, causing bottlenecks and delays. The tunnel has two tubes with one track each.  When one goes out of service for any reason, trains have to wait to go through the working tube.  This creates headaches for NJ Transit commuters and Amtrak travelers and delays that cascade up and down the Northeast Corridor. In 2020, passengers experienced 12,653 minutes of delay due to problems caused by aging tunnel infrastructure. Delays occurred on 54 different days in 2020 and were attributed to a variety of causes involving the electrical power, signal and track systems.

In 2012, millions of gallons of salt water flooded into the tunnel during Superstorm Sandy. Even today, the remnants of seawater that entered the tunnel in 2012 continue to harm the concrete, steel, tracks and third rail, signaling, and electrical components within the tunnel. Today the tunnel requires regular, and occasional emergency, maintenance that disrupts service for hundreds of thousands of riders throughout the region.  Rehabilitation of the tunnel would require a full closure, which will only be possible if a second tunnel existed.

To address those challenges, the Hudson Tunnel Project will rehabilitate the old North River Tunnel; build a new tunnel beneath the Palisades, the Hudson River, and the waterfront area in Manhattan; construct new surface alignment from Secaucus to the new tunnel portal in North Bergen; construct ventilation shafts and fan plants in New Jersey and New York; and make track modifications near Penn Station. When the project is done, the redundant capacity provided by a second tunnel will mean fewer delays and less risk for catastrophic disruption.

The project is part of the larger Gateway Program which envisions expanding and rebuilding the rail line between Newark, New Jersey and New York City through a number of projects, including the new Portal North Bridge, which broke ground last year and is supported by $900 million in federal funding.

Today’s Mega grant announcement is the first of several funding announcements for the project expected this year and the most significant federal funding for the Gateway Hudson Tunnel Project to date. 

The Administration is committed to providing the billions of dollars in funding necessary to ensure that this critical project is completed. Later this year, if and when additional milestones are met by the states and other parties, a full funding agreement will be completed.

President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak, with a $66 billion investment in rail. After waiting years for new federal funding, 2023 will be a year in which major rail projects along the 450-mile Northeast Corridor between Washington, DC, and Boston, receive their first significant funding.

New Mega Project Grants

The Mega grant program, created by the infrastructure law, funds projects that are too large or complex for traditional funding programs. Eligible projects include highway, bridge, freight, port, passenger rail, and public transportation projects that are a part of one of the other project types.   The Mega program will invest a total of $5 billion through 2026 to help rebuild the United States’ infrastructure for the benefit of residents now and for generations to come.

Beyond the Hudson Tunnel concrete casing project, the Administration is announcing projects of regional and national economic significance that are receiving Mega grant awards including:

  • $250 million for the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio, part of a total investment of $1.6 Billion from the infrastructure law to build a new companion bridge and rehab an existing bridge along a major freight corridor on I-75. Earlier this month, the President and Senate Minority Leader McConnell visited the Brent Spence Bridge to announce this funding.
  • $150 million to the Louisiana Department of Transportation for the Calcasieu River Bridge Replacement which will increase capacity on a critical stretch of Interstate 10 which is an important freight route;
  • $117 million to the Metra Commuter Railroad in Illinois to make improvements on the Metra Union Pacific-North line on a two-mile corridor from the Addison to Fullerton rail bridges, replacing approximately 11 bridges, 4 miles of track structure, and more than 1.75 miles of retaining walls along Metra’s UP-N line;
  • $110 to the North Carolina Department of Transportation to replace the Alligator River Bridge on U.S. Highway 64 with a modern high-rise fixed span bridge along the primary east-west route in northeastern North Carolina between I-95 and the Outer Banks;
  • $85 million to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation for I-44 and US-75 improvements along a critical urban freight corridor near Tulsa, including vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements;
  • $78 million to the City of Philadelphia to make improvements along approximately 12.3 miles of Roosevelt Boulevard, from North Broad Street to the Bucks County line including making traffic signal upgrades, constructing intersection and roadway reconfigurations, constructing median barriers and pedestrian refuge islands, making corridor access management improvements, constructing complete streets improvements for accessibility, pedestrian, and bicycle improvements, as well as installing new business access and transit lanes;
  • $60 million to the Mississippi Department of Transportation to widen I-10 in Harrison and Hancock counties along a major freight corridor of regional significance; and,
  • $30 million to the California Department of Transportation (Santa Cruz County) for the Watsonville-Cruz Multimodal Corridor Program which will construct approximately 2.5 miles of State Route 1 auxiliary lanes and a Bus on Shoulder facility between Freedom Boulevard and State Park Drive, construct approximately 1.25 miles of the New Coastal Rail Trail within Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line right-of-way, and fund the purchase of 4 new zero-emission buses.