Tag: Administration

Categories
Politics

Biden Administration to Use Federal Civil Rights Workplace to Deter States From Faculty Masks Bans

Biden Administration to Use Federal Civil Rights Office to Deter States From School Mask Bans

The nation’s most vulnerable students, namely students with disabilities, low-income students and students of color, have suffered the deepest setbacks when districts pivoted to remote learning, and their disproportionate disengagement has long drawn concern from education leaders and civil rights watchdogs.

Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, students are entitled to a free, appropriate public education, known as FAPE, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin.

The department could initiate its own investigations into districts, if state policies and actions rise to potential violations of students’ civil rights. It could also review complaints from parents and advocates who make the case that prohibiting masks mandates is, in effect, a civil rights violation because it could deny a student their right to an education by putting them in harm’s way in school. Such investigations could result in resolution agreements, as many investigations by the office often do, and in the most extreme cases result in revocation of federal funding.

Dr. Cardona said conversations with parents of children with autism, respiratory illness or weak immune systems, “who rely on school for socialization and the important building blocks of learning,” had contributed to his sense of urgency.

“I’ve heard those parents, saying ‘Miguel, because of these policies, my child cannot access their school, I would be putting them in harm’s way,’” Dr. Cardona said. “And to me, that goes against a free appropriate public education. That goes against of the fundamental beliefs of educators across the country to protect their students and provide a well rounded education.”

The administration will also send letters to six states — Arizona, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah — admonishing governors’ efforts to ban universal masking in schools.

Last week, Dr. Cardona sent similar letters to the governors of Texas and Florida, reminding them that districts had both the funding and the discretion to implement safety measures that the C.D.C. recommended for schools. The secretary also made clear that he supported district leaders who defied the governors’ orders.

Categories
Politics

Democratic Sen. Menendez rips Biden administration for ‘flawed’ Afghanistan pullout

Democratic Sen. Menendez rips Biden administration for 'flawed' Afghanistan pullout

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) questions Zalmay Khalilzad, special envoy for reconciliation to Afghanistan, during a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan.

Susan Walsh | Swimming pool | Reuters

Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, vowed to hold the Biden administration accountable for the botched execution of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

In a long statement Tuesday, the New Jersey Democrat issued one of the harshest criticisms of President Joe Biden from within the party.

“In implementing this flawed plan, I am disappointed that the Biden administration clearly failed to properly assess the impact of a swift US withdrawal.

“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will continue to exercise its oversight role with a hearing on US policy towards Afghanistan, including the Trump administration’s flawed negotiations with the Taliban and the Biden administration’s flawed execution of the US withdrawal,” added he added.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Menendez’s testimony.

Menendez’s censure comes just days after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan when political leaders and government security forces fled Kabul. Analysts say the well-wired withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, a plan drafted by the Trump administration and implemented by Biden, is responsible for the Taliban’s rapid advance last week.

The Taliban have so far promised amnesty to former government officials and are currently working with US forces to keep Kabul airport open for military and civilian flights.

CNBC policy

Read more about CNBC’s political coverage:

But Menendez, who called on the Biden government in May to reconsider its planned troop withdrawal, said Tuesday that he intends to use his leadership on the Foreign Relations Committee to “address the looming humanitarian and human rights disaster under a Taliban-led regime” to tackle.

“Our nation’s reputation is at stake and our entire government must make every effort to achieve that goal,” he added. “In connection with our withdrawal and its aftermath, there has been clear policy enforcement and intelligence failures.”

Senator Jim Risch, the senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, raised similar frustrations on Monday, saying in a press release that the exit of the Biden administration leaves the US vulnerable to future harm.

“This hasty and political decision to withdraw without taking our counter-terrorism priorities into account will allow Afghanistan to serve as the future platform for terrorist attacks against the United States and our partners,” said the Idaho Republican.

Biden defended the withdrawal in a blunt speech on Monday. He described the war in Afghanistan as a lost cause for the US and pointed out how quickly Afghan troops fell to the Taliban. He also said, “The money stops with me.”

Categories
Health

As Virus Circumstances Surge, Biden Administration Encourages Extra Use of Antibody Remedies

As Virus Cases Surge, Biden Administration Encourages More Use of Antibody Treatments

WASHINGTON – Amid crowded hospitals and a relentless increase in Delta variant cases across the country, the Biden government on Thursday renewed its call on health care providers to use monoclonal antibody treatments that can help Covid-19 patients at risk of becoming very sick become.

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a White House Racial Health Advisor, said at a press conference that federal surge teams deployed to severely affected states were working to increase acceptance and confidence in the antibody drugs. They have already been given to more than 600,000 people in the United States during the pandemic, she said to prevent hospitalizations and save lives. President Donald J. Trump received such treatment when he was diagnosed with Covid-19 last year before being approved for emergency use.

In states where vaccination has stalled and cases have soared, treatments have become an important part of the federal strategy to reduce the number of the worst outbreaks, underscoring how many Americans remain at risk.

The distribution of doses ordered from medical providers increased fivefold from June to July. According to the Ministry of Health, around 75 percent of the orders come from regions of the country with low vaccination rates.

The government “remains ready to support states and territories and jurisdictions across the country to bring more people into contact with the treatments,” said Dr. Nunez-Smith on Thursday, despite stressing that vaccinations are still the best option for preventing Covid-19.

Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator, said the Biden government has dispatched more than 500 federal workers to assist state health officials and hospitals in fighting the Delta variant, including rescue workers in Louisiana and Mississippi and Centers for Disease Control and prevention teams in Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri.

Dr. Nunez-Smith said the government was providing virtual drug delivery training to doctors and health care officials in Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. In Arizona, federal teams are offering the treatments at two locations, where none of the Covid-19 patients who received them were subsequently hospitalized.

The treatments, which the federal government pays for and makes available to patients free of charge, mimic antibodies that the immune system naturally produces to fight the coronavirus. When given to patients soon after symptoms appear, typically by intravenous infusion, they have been shown to greatly reduce hospital stays and deaths. There is also evidence that it may have the potential to completely prevent the disease in certain people exposed to the virus. Unlike coronavirus vaccines, which take up to six weeks to provide full protection, the antibody treatments can be given to patients who are already ill with immediate effect.

The latest data from the Ministry of Health shows that almost half of the distributed range of treatments had been used by more than 6,000 hospitals and other provider locations by the end of last year. The federal government relies on providers and state health authorities to report their usage numbers and does not track the demographics of the patients receiving the medication.

Dr. Nunez-Smith said shipments to Florida, which is experiencing a devastating surge in virus cases, increased eight-fold in the last month, and more than 108,000 treatment courses were shipped across the country in July.

Updated

Aug. 12, 2021, 5:51 p.m. ET

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday unveiled a “rapid response unit” for conducting Regeneron treatment in Jacksonville and said the state would establish similar locations in other cities.

Interest in the monoclonal antibodies was low throughout the pandemic. When they were approved last year, Regeneron and Eli Lilly’s treatments were expected to be in high demand and act as a bridge in fighting the pandemic before the vaccinations ramp up. They were tirelessly promoted by Mr. Trump, who called Regeneron treatment a “cure,” and by senior health officials in his administration.

Even so, they ended up on refrigerator shelves in many places, even during the recent power surges. Many hospitals and clinics did not prioritize treatments because they were time consuming and difficult to administer when they needed to be administered via an intravenous infusion. Doctors can now give the most commonly used Regeneron treatment, subcutaneously or by injection.

Understand the state of vaccination and masking requirements in the United States

    • Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in public places indoors in areas with outbreaks, a reversal of the guidelines offered in May. See where the CDC guidelines would apply and where states have implemented their own mask guidelines. The battle over masks is controversial in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.
    • Vaccination regulations. . . and B.Factories. Private companies are increasingly demanding coronavirus vaccines for employees with different approaches. Such mandates are legally permissible and have been confirmed in legal challenges.
    • College and Universities. More than 400 colleges and universities require a vaccination against Covid-19. Almost all of them are in states that voted for President Biden.
    • schools. On August 11, California announced that teachers and staff at both public and private schools would have to get vaccinated or have regular tests, the first state in the nation to do so. A survey published in August found that many American parents of school-age children are opposed to mandatory vaccines for students but are more supportive of masking requirements for students, teachers, and staff who do not have a vaccination.
    • Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and large health systems require their employees to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, due to rising case numbers due to the Delta variant and persistently low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their workforce.
    • new York. On August 3, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that workers and customers would be required to provide proof of vaccination when dining indoors, gyms, performances, and other indoor situations. City hospital staff must also be vaccinated or have weekly tests. Similar rules apply to employees in New York State.
    • At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would make coronavirus vaccinations compulsory for the country’s 1.3 million active soldiers “by mid-September at the latest. President Biden announced that all civil federal employees would need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or undergo regular tests, social distancing, mask requirements and travel restrictions.

“These are important tools,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who worked with Regeneron on a study that showed that the company’s antibody treatment could potentially prevent Covid-19 if given to people living with someone infected with the coronavirus . “They have shown significant therapeutic effects.”

Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital who reviewed the study, said the evidence of the benefits of antibody treatments has only grown stronger in recent months. He said more needs to be done to educate doctors and patients about how effective they can be.

“Patients need to know that they have to call their doctors and ask about treatments,” he said. “In 2020, people with mild covid were told to stay home. That message needs to become a more proactive one. “

Regeneron has aired a number of television commercials for his treatment this year.

Virtually all Covid-19 patients who receive monoclonal antibodies during the delta surge will receive the type made by Regeneron, one of three approved by the Food and Drug Administration during the pandemic. The company estimated last week that its treatment is now reaching more than a quarter of eligible patients, up from less than 5 percent at the start of the pandemic.

The FDA last month expanded its emergency approval for Regeneron treatment so that it can be used to attempt to prevent Covid-19 in a small number of high-risk patients. This includes people with certain health conditions who are not vaccinated or who may not develop an adequate immune response, who have been exposed to the virus, or who live in nursing homes or prisons. It, like the other monoclonal antibody treatments, had previously only been available to high-risk patients who had already tested positive for the virus.

The federal government indefinitely suspended delivery of Eli Lilly’s first approved monoclonal antibody treatment in June, as new laboratory data suggested it wouldn’t work well in cases caused by the beta and gamma variants.

The government has not ordered any doses of a third treatment of GlaxoSmithKline and Vir that has been minimally used to date. Kathleen Quinn, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, said the treatment is available at health facilities in 26 states and US territories.

Categories
World News

Biden administration has plans to require most international guests to be vaccinated.

Biden administration has plans to require most foreign visitors to be vaccinated.

The Biden administration is developing plans to require all foreign travelers to the United States to be vaccinated against Covid-19, with limited exceptions, according to an administration official with knowledge of the developing policy.

The plan, first reported by Reuters, will be part of a new system to be put in place after the current restrictions on travel into the country are lifted, but officials have yet to determine when that might be done.

President Biden has been under pressure for months to ease restrictions on people wishing to travel to the United States, particularly as other countries, including England, Scotland and Canada, relax their own measures.

But White House officials have said in recent days that there is no plan to lift current restrictions anytime soon, in light of the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

“Given where we are today,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters last week, “with the Delta variant, we will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point.”

That stance was reiterated on Wednesday evening by White House officials who said that there was no timetable yet for requiring foreign travelers to be inoculated.

“The interagency working groups are working to develop a plan for a consistent and safe international travel policy, in order to have a new system ready for when we can reopen travel,” the administration official, who was not authorized to publicly detail the plan, wrote in an email. “This includes a phased approach that over time will mean, with limited exceptions, that foreign nationals traveling to the United States (from all countries) need to be fully vaccinated.”

Travelers from Iran, China, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, the Republic of Ireland and Europe’s Schengen area — spanning 29 countries, city-states and micro-states — are currently barred from entering the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control, unless they are a U.S. citizen or they spend 14 days before arrival in a country that is not on that list.

The United States began restricting travel by foreigners in January 2020, when former President Donald Trump cut off some travel from China in the hope of preventing the spread of the virus. That effort largely failed.

But health officials pressed the Trump administration to expand travel bans to much of Europe during the first surge of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, and more countries have been added to the ban as the original virus and several variants have spread rapidly from country to country.

This week, the Biden administration said that it would keep in place Title 42, a public health rule that allows the government to turn back people attempting to enter the United States from its southern border.

The decision, confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday, amounted to a shift by the administration, which had been working on plans to begin lifting the rule this summer, more than a year after it was imposed by the Trump administration.

Categories
Politics

Choose orders Biden administration to cease approving new DACA purposes

Judge orders Biden administration to stop approving new DACA applications

A federal judge in southern Texas on Friday ordered the Biden administration to stop granting new applications to the Obama-era immigration program that shielded hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.

The order declared that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, was “created in violation of the law and whose existence violates the law.”

But current recipients of DACA won’t immediately have their status pulled as a result of the order, the judge noted.

The ruling, which puts in jeopardy the program that President Joe Biden had sought to preserve, came as news outlets reported arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border hitting their highest levels in more than a decade.

Former President Donald Trump had sought to end DACA, but his effort was blocked in 2020 by the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that his order to wind the program down was unlawfully “arbitrary and capricious.”

In a five-page order Friday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen declared, “From this date forward, the United States of America, its departments, agencies, officers, agents, and employees are hereby enjoined from administering the DACA program.”

Those entities are also barred from reimplementing the program without compliance with another law that governs federal regulatory procedure, Hanen’s order said.

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The judge’s order said that the DACA program, created in 2012 through a policy memorandum from then-President Barack Obama’s Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, was “illegally implemented.”

But since hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients now rely on DACA, Hanen’s order reasoned that “it is not equitable for a government program that has engendered such significant reliance to terminate suddenly.”

“Nothing in this injunction should be read as ordering DHS or any other governmental entity to cancel or otherwise terminate DACA status for any individual who currently is, as of this date, a DACA recipient in good standing,” Hanen wrote.

“Further, nothing in this injunction requires DHS or the Department of Justice to take any immigration, deportation, or criminal action against any DACA recipient, applicant, or any other individual that either would not otherwise take,” he wrote.

Omar Jadwat, head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement that Hanen’s ruling “is wrong and is subject to appeal.”

Jadwat called on the Democrat-majority Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship for the “Dreamers” and other undocumented people in the U.S.

“Dreamers’ futures shouldn’t be in the hands of the courts,” he said.

Categories
Politics

North Dakota Sues the Biden Administration Over Oil and Gasoline Leases

North Dakota Sues the Biden Administration Over Oil and Gas Leases

The state of North Dakota has sued the Biden government for suspending new state and waterway oil and gas leases, claiming that doing so has cost the state nearly $ 5 billion in lost revenue and more than half a billion barrels of oil in the ground will hold.

President Biden ordered the suspension days after he took office as part of his climate change agenda – but the move was blocked in federal court in June so states can proceed with new leases.

North Dakota joins 14 other states with Republican attorneys general who have filed lawsuits over the moratorium on new leases.

The Interior Ministry, the federal agency that oversees oil and gas leases, declined to comment.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the North Dakota County, the state called the moratorium illegal and said the Home Office had exceeded its powers to suspend the sale of leases.

It also alleged that the suspension of two North Dakota leases, originally scheduled for March and June, has already cost the state tens of millions in lost revenue.

North Dakota is the second largest producer of oil and gas in the United States, and more than half of the state government’s revenue comes from oil and gas taxes.

“This significant damage to North Dakota will increase rapidly,” the lawsuit said, as the “illegal federal government moratorium may continue”.

If the moratorium continues next year, the lawsuit said, leases on nearly 150,000 acres of North Dakota would be blocked, preventing the construction of more than 1,000 oil and gas wells and the production of 555 million barrels of oil. The estimated total loss of revenue is $ 4.77 billion.

“I took these steps to protect the North Dakota economy, the jobs of our hardworking citizens, and North Dakota’s right to control its own natural resources,” said Wayne Stenehjem, the North Dakota attorney general, in a Explanation.

Categories
Health

Biden administration says it will not hit Fourth of July objectives

Biden administration says it won't hit Fourth of July goals

The Biden administration said Tuesday that it is unlikely to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of getting 70% of American adults to receive one or more vaccinations by July 4th.

White House Covid Tsar Jeff Zients said the government has reached its 70 percent target for people 30 and older and is well on its way to achieving it by July 4th for those 27 and older.

“We believe it will take a few more weeks to reach 70% of adults with at least one vaccination, including those aged 18-26,” he said.

Still, Zients insisted that the White House “exceeded our highest expectations” in its vaccination program and achieved a vision for Biden in March of gathering friends and family safely to celebrate the holiday.

Biden set two goals in early May: to have 70% of adults in the United States given at least one vaccination, and to fully vaccinate 160 million American adults by Independence Day.

About 65% of American adults will have had one or more injections by Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A CNBC analysis of the CDC data shows that with the current vaccination schedule, about 67% of adults are at least partially vaccinated by the fourth.

According to CDC data, around 144 million people aged 18 and over are fully vaccinated, on the way to reaching around 151 million if the current pace of daily vaccinations reported remains constant.

United States President Joe Biden speaks during an event in the South Court Auditorium of the White House on June 2, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

When Biden first announced his two goals on May 4th, the US was well on its way to scoring both. However, according to CDC data, the vaccination rate has fallen in the weeks since the seven-day average from 2.2 million vaccinations per day in all age groups to 1.1 million on June 21.

The government has easily met its previous vaccination goals in the first 100 days of the president’s tenure. Biden initially targeted 100 million vaccinations in 100 days, which was criticized as being too easy, and achieved it on day 58. The White House raised the target to 200 million vaccinations, which it surpassed on the 92nd day of the presidency.

Amid the vaccination campaign, nationwide case numbers have dropped to levels not seen since the early days of the pandemic, although the risk of disease remains for the unvaccinated.

Zients said many younger Americans are less eager to get a vaccination and stressed the importance of vaccinations for this age group due to the spread of the Delta variant.

Biden warned on Friday that the highly contagious variant, first identified in India, appears to be “particularly dangerous” for young people.

“The data is clear: if you are not vaccinated, there is a risk that you will become seriously ill, or die, or spread,” Biden said during a White House press conference.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have already reached Biden’s goal, led by Vermont, Hawaii and Massachusetts, where more than 80% of adults are at least partially vaccinated.

Other states are lagging behind, 17 of which are below the 60% mark. These include Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, and Alabama, each of which less than 50% of its adult residents hit one or more shots.

“Our work doesn’t stop on July 4th or at 70%,” said Zients, calling Biden’s goals a “goal worth striving for in order to make progress in a short period of time.”

“We want every American in every community to be protected and free from fear of the virus,” Zients said.

– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

Categories
Politics

Fugees’ Pras, Jho Low charged in scheme to get Trump administration to drop probe

Fugees' Pras, Jho Low charged in scheme to get Trump administration to drop probe

In this April 23, 2015 file photo, Jho Low, Director of the Jynwel Foundation, poses at the launch of the Global Daily website in Washington, D.C.

Stuart Ramson | Invision for the United Nations Foundation

A federal grand jury has hit the fugitive Malaysia financier Jho Low and Fugees rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel with new criminal charges, accusing them of running a back-channel campaign to get the Trump administration to drop an investigation of Low and the 1MDB investment company and to have a Chinese dissident returned to China.

The new charges against Low, 39, and the 48-year-old Michel come six months after former President Donald Trump pardoned former top Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy in connection with his guilty plea in October for his role in the illegal lobbying effort on Low’s behalf.

CNBC has reached out to Broidy’s lawyer to ask whether Broidy testified before the grand jury that indicted Low and Michel.

Because of his pardon, Broidy would be unable to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if called to testify at a grand jury investigating his activities related to Low and Michel.

Broidy, who is a Los Angeles-based businessman, was paid $9 million for his efforts on their behalf, with “the expectation of tens of millions more in success fees,” federal authorities have said.

Low and Michel were charged two years ago in federal court in Washington, D.C., with allegedly illegally funneling millions of dollars of Low’s money to support the 2012 presidential campaign of then-President Barack Obama.

Pras Michel of the Hip hop group the Fugees performs on August 1, 1996 in New York City, New York.

Al Pereira | Michael Ochs Archives | Getty Images

CNBC Politics

Read more of CNBC’s politics coverage:

The indictment issued Thursday by a grand jury in Washington accuses Low and Michel of conspiring with Broidy, a woman named Nickie Lum Davis and others “to engage in undisclosed lobbying campaigns at the direction of Low and the Vice Minister of Public Security for the People’s Republic of China, respectively,” according to the Justice Department.

The goals of those campaigns were “both to have the 1MDB embezzlement investigation and forfeiture proceedings involving Low and others dropped and to have a Chinese dissident sent back to China.”

That dissident is understood to be billionaire Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Kwok and Miles Guo.

The new indictment also accuses Michel and Low of conspiring to commit money laundering related to the foreign influence campaigns, the Justice Department said. Michel is additionally charged with witness tampering and conspiracy to make false statements to banks.

Davis pleaded guilty in August to violating the foreign lobbying act as part of the Justice Department’s probe involving 1MDB. 

Also in August, Trump’s former senior advisor Steve Bannon was arrested on Guo’s yacht, off the coast of Connecticut, on federal criminal charges accusing him and others of defrauding thousands of donors through a crowdfunding campaign to privately build sections of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump pardoned Bannon on his last night in office in January, the same time he pardoned Broidy.

The investment bank Goldman Sachs last year entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department related to the conspiracy in which the bank and its Malaysian unit violated U.S. bribery laws by paying Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials to get business from 1MDB.

Goldman, which received around $600 million in fees for bond deals that funded the bank, agreed to pay more than $2.9 billion as part of that deferred prosecution agreement.

Categories
Politics

Biden Administration Strikes to Unkink Provide Chain Bottlenecks

Biden Administration Moves to Unkink Supply Chain Bottlenecks

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday planned to issue a swath of actions and recommendations meant to address supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and decrease reliance on other countries for crucial goods by increasing domestic production capacity.

In a call on Monday evening detailing the plan to reporters, White House officials said the administration had created a task force that would “tackle near-term bottlenecks” in construction, transportation, semiconductor production and agriculture.

The officials also outlined steps that had been taken to address an executive order from President Biden that required a review of critical supply chains in four product areas where the United States relies on imports: semiconductors, high-capacity batteries, pharmaceuticals and their active ingredients, and critical minerals and strategic materials, like rare earths.

“This is about making sure the United States can meet every challenge we face in the new era,” Mr. Biden said in February, when he signed the order.

The review has been governmentwide, the officials said: Cabinet members were ordered to provide reports to the White House within 100 days. The move was intended to address concerns about supply chain resiliency and long-term competition with China.

The Department of Health and Human Services, for instance, will use $60 million from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill to develop technologies to increase domestic production of active ingredients in key pharmaceuticals. The Interior Department will work to identify sites where critical minerals could be produced in the United States. And several agencies will work on creating supply chains for new technologies that will reduce reliance on imports of key materials.

The Biden administration also signaled that it was prepared to use trade policy to bolster domestic supplies of key minerals and components. As part of that effort, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said it would establish a so-called strike force that could propose actions against overseas companies deemed to be engaged in unfair trade practices.

The Commerce Department will evaluate whether to investigate the global trade of neodymium magnets under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The Trump administration wielded that law to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, after concluding that domestic production of those materials was essential for national security.

As part of his plans to address climate change, Mr. Biden wants Americans to drive millions of new electric vehicles and get more of their energy from renewable sources like wind and solar power. But experts have long pointed out that the shift to cleaner energy will require vast supplies of critical minerals, many of which are currently produced and processed overseas.

Most of the world’s lithium, a key ingredient in the batteries that power electric vehicles, is mined in Australia, China, Chile and Argentina. China dominates global production of rare earth minerals such as neodymium, used to make magnets in wind turbines. It has also largely cornered the market in lithium-ion batteries, accounting for 77 percent of the world’s capacity for producing battery cells and 80 percent of its raw-material refining, according to BloombergNEF, an energy research group.

The United States lags far behind other countries in manufacturing many clean energy technologies, leaving it heavily reliant on imports.

The Biden administration has vowed to bring back more of that manufacturing and mining, but progress has been slow. In the United States, companies are racing to unlock lithium supplies in states like Nevada and North Dakota, though those efforts face opposition because of their environmental effects. The country also has only one mine that produces rare earth minerals, in Mountain Pass, Calif.

As part of its announcement on Tuesday, the Biden administration said it would work to identify new domestic sites where such critical minerals could be mined with environmental safeguards, asking Congress to increase funding for a mapping program at the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Energy Department announced that it would offer loans for companies that could sustainably refine, process and recycle rare earths and other materials used in electric vehicles. The agency on Tuesday will also release a plan to develop a domestic supply chain for lithium-ion batteries.

The Energy Department has $17.7 billion in authority to issue loans under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, which Congress created in 2007 and used in 2010 to support the electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla in its early days. In its announcement, the agency said it would seek to offer loans to manufacturers of advanced battery technology that established factories in the United States. It also announced a new policy in which future funding of new clean-energy technologies would require recipients to “substantially manufacture those products in the United States.”

Semiconductors — a key component in cars and electronic devices — were also another key research area for officials, though they did not describe immediate plans to increase production. A global semiconductor shortage has forced several American auto plants to close or scale back production and sent the administration scrambling to appeal to allies like Taiwan for emergency supplies. Instead, the 100-day review report said Congress should support a $50 billion investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research.

The findings are partly a push for the president’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan, which could fund some of the research and job training to bring American workers up to speed on producing advanced technologies like semiconductors.

The effort comes as the Senate is poised to pass a huge industrial policy bill to counter China’s rising influence, a rare bipartisan development as lawmakers suddenly embrace an enormous investment in semiconductor manufacturing, artificial intelligence research, robotics, quantum computing and a range of other technologies.

Categories
Politics

Biden Administration Clears three Guantánamo Detainees for Launch

Biden Administration Clears 3 Guantánamo Detainees for Release

The Biden government has approved three detainees in Guantánamo Bay for release to countries that have agreed to impose security conditions on them, including the oldest of the remaining prisoners of war, lawyers and government officials in the United States, said Monday.

The permits increased the number of 40 prisoners currently in war prison who were approved for transfer to other countries to nine. However, it is unclear where the three men will go or when, in part because the State Department will have to make diplomatic and security agreements with countries to accommodate them.

Some of the other detainees who have been released for release over the years have waited a decade for another country to agree to accept them. In some cases, countries are asked to continue detaining detainees or bring them to justice. In most cases, they will be asked to prevent them from traveling abroad for at least two years.

Among those granted permission is Saifullah Paracha, 73, from Pakistan, who was captured in Thailand in 2003. Not only is he the oldest of the inmates, but he has also been referred to as one of the sick with heart disease and diabetes, and high blood pressure.

The other two were Abdul Rabbani, 54, also a Pakistani citizen, and Uthman Abdul al-Rahim Uthman, 40, a Yemeni. None of them have been charged with any crime by the United States in the two decades they have been in custody.

Of the other detainees who remained, 12 were charged with war crimes, one was convicted and 19 are considered too dangerous to be placed in another country’s custody.

The news that the men had been allowed to be released originally came from their lawyers, who heard about it from prisoners in phone calls between lawyer and client. Two government officials upheld the three dismissal decisions, but on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss them.

The decision to approve the three releases was made early last week by the attorney general, the director of the national intelligence service, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the secretaries of defense, homeland security and state. All have representatives who sit on the Periodic Review Board, the organization that assesses the threat posed by the detainees.

Mr. Rabbani was captured during a 2002 security police raid in Karachi, Pakistan, with his brother, who is also held as a prisoner of war in Guantánamo Bay. Both Rabbani brothers were held by the CIA for more than 500 days before being placed in US military custody.

Mr. Uthman was held the longest of the three. He was brought to Guantánamo as a suspected member of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard corps within days of the opening of Camp X-Ray in January 2002. Most recently, he was rejected for release in 2018, also because he “lacked credible plans to support himself during the transfer” and he had not said how his family could support him.

Despite a commitment to renew efforts by the Obama administration to end the detention operations at the naval base in Cuba, the Biden administration has yet to restart renditions. It currently has not appointed a senior US official to negotiate business with other countries.

The Trump administration shut down the office of the Special Envoy for the Closure of Guantánamo and transferred only one prisoner, a seasoned Saudi terrorist who was repatriated in 2018 to serve his war criminal sentence in a former jihadist rehabilitation center.

The last known US rendition of a prisoner from Guantánamo to Pakistan was in 2008. The US stopped repatriating Yemenis in 2010 because it feared that the Yemen government could not monitor the men and prevent them from coming back to join an Al Qaeda franchise there.

Mr. Paracha, a former businessman and long-time legal resident of New York, was captured in July 2003 during an FBI stab operation in Thailand. He was lured from his home in Karachi, Pakistan, to Bangkok to discuss what turned out to be a sham merchandising deal with representatives from Kmart. Instead, secret service agents seized, covered and shackled him and flew him to Afghanistan.

He was viewed by US intelligence as an intermediary who helped the man accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohammed’s nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi, with financial transactions in Pakistan after the attacks. Both men are charged with conspiring in the September 11th attacks, a capital incident.

Mr Paracha admitted having secured about $ 500,000 for her, but said he was unaware of her identity or her ties to al-Qaeda. He claimed he helped them as he would any other Muslim.

At the time of Mr. Paracha’s capture, his eldest son, Uzair Paracha, was arrested in the United States on suspicion of supporting terrorism. Uzair Paracha was then tried, his conviction overturned, and returned to Pakistan last year in an agreement with prosecutors to drop the case if he gives up his permanent residence status.

Saifullah Paracha’s younger son, Mustafa Paracha, said in an interview last year that his father would like to spend time with his family after his return to Pakistan and that his first concern is to attend to his health needs. At the beginning of his detention, US military doctors flew a cardiac catheterization laboratory and surgical team to Guantánamo, but he refused to consent to the procedure because of concerns about the quality of medical care available there.

Typically, the Periodic Review Secretariat, which manages the Board of Directors, publishes the justifications for the release decisions on its website. The decisions usually contain a recommendation on how to ensure safety and the committee’s recommendations on rehabilitation, repatriation or resettlement of the prisoner who has been admitted for transfer. But it hadn’t done that until Monday evening.