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GM Tells White Home It Agrees to Tighter Emissions Guidelines

GM Tells White House It Agrees to Tighter Emissions Rules

General Motors on Wednesday told the Biden administration that it would agree to tighter federal fuel economy and tailpipe pollution rules, along the lines of what California has already agreed to with five other auto companies.

The move is a step by the nation’s largest automaker away from its position during the Trump administration, when G.M.’s chief executive officer, Mary Barra, asked President Donald J. Trump to relax Obama-era auto pollution rules.

President Biden is seeking to reinstate those restrictions as part of his efforts to cut climate-warming pollution, and he hopes to propose new draft auto pollution rules as soon as next month.

Ms. Barra stopped short of endorsing Mr. Biden’s desire to fully reimpose or strengthen the Obama-era auto pollution standards, which to date stand as the strongest policy ever imposed by the federal government to fight climate change. And she also asked the administration to augment the federal rules with provisions that would give incentives to auto companies that are investing in electric vehicles, although she did not specify what those incentives should be.

Just weeks after Mr. Biden’s election, Ms. Barra dropped her company’s support of the Trump administration’s efforts to nullify California’s rules on tailpipe emissions. And days after the new president’s inauguration, she announced that after 2035 her company would sell only vehicles that have zero emissions, a target in line with Mr. Biden’s pledge to cut the United States’ emissions 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

This week, in a letter to Michael Regan, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Ms. Barra wrote, “G.M. supports the emissions reduction goals of California through model year ’26,” adding, “the auto industry is embarking upon a profound transition as we do our part to achieve the country’s climate commitments.”

The Obama-era climate rules, which G.M. sought to loosen, required automakers to build vehicles by 2025 that achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon. The rules would have eliminated about six billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetime of the vehicles. Mr. Trump rolled back Mr. Obama’s standards from 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 to 40 miles per gallon and revoked California’s legal authority to set its own state-level standard.

California reached a separate deal with Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, BMW and Volvo under which they would be required to increase their average fuel economy to about 51 miles per gallon by 2026.

Ms. Barra said that her company would now support those standards at the federal level — alongside a program to give some form of credit or incentive to electric vehicle manufacturers like her own company.

Negotiations on the new auto pollution standards are ongoing alongside White House talks to reach a deal on infrastructure legislation, which Mr. Biden hopes will include generous spending on tax credits for electric vehicle manufacturers and consumers, as well as direct government investments in 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations.

Nick Conger, an E.P.A. spokesman, said in an email that Mr. Regan had spoken this week with leaders from auto manufacturers and that the “conversations have been constructive as the agency moves forward on actions to address emissions from cars and light-duty trucks.”

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White Home Outlines Plan to Ship 25 Million Vaccine Photographs Overseas

White House Outlines Plan to Send 25 Million Vaccine Shots Abroad

Mr. Biden came into office vowing to restore America’s position as a leader in global health, and he has been under increasing pressure from activists, as well as some business leaders, to do more to address the global vaccine shortage. Earlier this year, he said he was reluctant to give away vaccine doses until the United States had enough for its own population, though he did promise in March to send a total of four million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to Mexico and Canada.

Those doses, it turned out, were made at a Baltimore facility owned by Emergent BioSolutions, where production has since been put on hold after an incident of contamination.

Mr. Biden’s pledge to donate 80 million doses involves vaccines made by four manufacturers. Besides AstraZeneca, they are Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, the last three of which have received U.S. emergency authorization for their vaccines. The president announced last month that his administration would send 20 million doses of the authorized vaccines overseas in June — the first time he had pledged to give away doses that could be used in the United States. Officials did not say on Thursday why that number had been increased by five million.

Last month, Mr. Biden announced he would send one million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine to South Korea; a plane carrying those doses was expected to take off Thursday evening, Mr. Zients said.

Mr. Biden has also pledged to donate up to 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, but those doses, also made at the Emergent plant, are not authorized for domestic use and cannot be released until regulators deem them safe. In March, his administration committed to providing financial support to help Biological E, a major vaccine manufacturer in India, produce at least one billion doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of 2022.

The president has described the vaccine donations as part of an “entirely new effort” to increase vaccine supplies and vastly expand manufacturing capacity, most of it in the United States. To broaden supply further, Mr. Biden recently announced he would support waiving intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines. He also put Mr. Zients in charge of developing a global vaccine strategy.

But activists say simply donating excess doses and supporting the waiver is not enough. They argue that Mr. Biden must create the conditions for pharmaceutical companies to transfer their intellectual property to vaccine makers overseas, so that other countries can stand up their own vaccine manufacturing operations.

Mr. Zients also said the United States was lifting the Defense Production Act’s “priority rating” for three vaccine makers — AstraZeneca, Novavax and Sanofi. None of those vaccines are authorized for U.S. use, and the shift means that U.S.-based companies that supply the vaccine makers will be able to “make their own decisions on which orders to fulfill first,” Mr. Zients said.

Abdi Latif Dahir contributed reporting.

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Health

White Home lays out plan to share tens of millions of doses with poorer nations

White House lays out plan to share millions of doses with poorer nations

The Oxford-AstraZeneca covid vaccine.

Karwai Tang | Getty Images

The U.S. government will share the majority of its donated Covid-19 vaccine doses through COVAX, the World Health Organization-led program that provides shots to countries in need, the White House announced Thursday.

The Biden administration has committed to donating at least 20 million doses of Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson as well as 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccines, which has not yet been authorized for use in the United States.

The U.S. plans to allocate 75% of the vaccines through the COVAX global vaccine sharing program, the White House in an email. Of the first 25 million doses, about 6 million will go to countries in South and Central America, 7 million to Asia and 5 million to Africa, the White House said. About 6 million will go to neighboring countries and U.S. allies.

At least 25% of shots will be kept for immediate U.S. needs and for “countries in need, those experiencing surges, immediate neighbors, and other countries that have requested immediate U.S. assistance,” according to the plan.

The administration is donating the shots to “save lives” and thwart the emergence of new variants,  national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Thursday.

“The United States is not doing this as some kind of back-and-forth deal where we are getting something in return,” Sullivan said at a White House briefing. “We are giving these for a single purpose. It is the purpose of ending this pandemic.”

The announcement comes as world leaders urge wealthy nations such as the U.S. to donate Covid shots to other countries. While the U.S. has returned to some form of normality as more Americans get vaccinated and new cases fall, other countries, like India, have experienced huge outbreaks.

Just last week, the WHO said Africa needed at least 20 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine within six weeks to get the second round of shots to people who have received the first.

The head of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations told Reuters that leaders of the Group of 7 rich nations must donate shots urgently to avoid an outcome akin to the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 million people.

“It’s a moral imperative if we want to avoid situations like Peru, if we want to avoid impacts that could rival those of the 1918 flu, we must send vaccine to countries to protect their health-care workers and protect the vulnerable populations now,” Richard Hatchett, chief executive of CEPI which co-runs the COVAX vaccine sharing facility, told Reuters.

In addition to donating the doses, the White House also announced it is lifting restrictions as part of the Defense Production Act that gave the U.S. priority for vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Novavax.

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CDC director testifies earlier than Home lawmakers on company’s finances

‘We are following the science’

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CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky testifies before Congress Wednesday about the agency’s annual budget as the US battles the Covid-19 pandemic that killed nearly 600,000 Americans.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, the deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also testified before the subcommittee on home remedies, labor, health and human services, education and related facilities on Wednesday.

The hearing comes just over a week after Schuchat announced her resignation from the health department after 33 years. It also comes because the agency has received criticism of its updated guidelines on face masks for fully vaccinated Americans.

The CDC announced on May 13 that fully vaccinated individuals would no longer need to wear face masks or stay 6 feet away in most environments, whether indoors or outdoors. Unvaccinated individuals should continue to wear masks as they continue to be at risk of mild or serious illness, death, and the risk of spreading the disease to others.

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Household meets with Biden, Harris at White Home

Family meets with Biden, Harris at White House

Gianna Floyd, daughter of George Floyd, along with other family members and lawyers, raise fists and say his name while facing reporters at the White House following their meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington, U.S., May 25, 2021.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

WASHINGTON — Members of George Floyd’s family met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Tuesday, to mark the first anniversary of Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died on May 25, 2020, after then-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Floyd was unarmed.

Floyd’s death sparked worldwide calls for racial justice in policing and a reimagining of law enforcement. Following the hourlong meeting, the Floyd family spoke to reporters outside the White House.

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“Being here today is an honor,” said Terrence Floyd, a brother of George Floyd. “To meet with the president and vice president, and for them to show their concern for our family and to give an ear to our concerns and how we feel in this situation. It was a very productive conversation, and we thank everyone for the love.”

In a statement, Biden said the Floyd family “has shown extraordinary courage, especially [George Floyd’s] young daughter Gianna, who I met again today. The day before her father’s funeral a year ago, Jill and I met the family and she told me, ‘Daddy changed the world.’ He has.”

Despite the global response to Floyd’s murder, Congress has yet to pass a bill to reform policing.

Bipartisan negotiators have worked for weeks to tweak the House-passed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in order to win enough Republican support to get it through the Senate. Negotiators include Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., and Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., who are expected to continue talks this week.

Floyd family lawyer Ben Crump said members of the family would meet with senators later in the day Tuesday.

A Marine holds the door as Gianna Floyd, the daughter of George Floyd, walks into the White House, Tuesday, May 25, 2021, in Washington.

Evan Vucci | AP

Earlier this year, Biden called on Congress to pass a policing reform bill and send it to his desk before the first anniversary of Floyd’s death. That deadline passed Tuesday, but Biden stressed that he was willing to wait longer to make sure the bill contained genuine accountability measures.

“So he’s going to be patient and make sure it’s the right bill and not a rushed bill,” said Crump.

“We have to act,” said Biden. “We face an inflection point.”

Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd said that a Congress that voted to protect wildlife could vote to protect Black lives.

“If you can make federal laws to protect the bird that is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color,” he said.

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Fauci testifies earlier than U.S. Home on NIH finances

Fauci testifies before U.S. House on NIH budget

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Officials from the National Institutes of Health testified before Congress Tuesday the agency’s annual budget as the nation battles the Covid-19 pandemic.

Witnesses include the White House Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who also directs the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases within the NIH, and directors of the country’s top medical institutions.

NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins also testifies before the House Committee on Appropriations and the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, along with Dr. Diana W. Bianchi, the director of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development by Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Other witnesses are Dr. Gary H. Gibbons, the director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; Dr. Norman E. Sharples, the director of the National Cancer Institute, and Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

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Biden to host George Floyd household at White Home

Biden to host George Floyd family at White House

Rodney Floyd and Philonise Floyd, brothers of George Floyd, and Brandon Williams, nephew of George Floyd, check in at a security entrance at the Hennepin County Government Center on April 9, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty Images

President Joe Biden will host George Floyd’s family at the White House on Tuesday, an administration official has confirmed to CNBC.

The visit marks the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s death, which triggered international protests against police brutality and racism in the criminal justice system.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes.

Chauvin was found guilty of murder and manslaughter in April. His sentencing date is set for June.

The Floyd family’s visit to the White House comes as lawmakers attempt to create bipartisan legislation on police reform that could pass through both chambers of Congress.

The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in March. The police reform bill seeks to ban chokeholds, carotid holds and no-knock warrants as well as end qualified immunity.

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However, lawmakers have struggled to find a compromise that can win enough support in the evenly divided Senate.

Congress is set to miss the president’s deadline to pass the legislation by the anniversary of Floyd’s death. At least 10 Senate Republicans are needed for the bill’s passage due to the chamber’s filibuster rule.

“It would be a contribution to rebuilding trust in communities,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday with respect to the bill’s potential passage. “Obviously, there’s more that needs to be done beyond that; that’s not the only step — far from it.”

A point of contention in the negotiations has been on qualified immunity, which makes it difficult to sue individual officers.

Ten House Democrats are pushing congressional leaders not to scrap the provision seeking to end qualified immunity. But some GOP senators are concerned that ending it would make officers and departments vulnerable to a rash of lawsuits.

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White Home makes $1.7 trillion infrastructure counteroffer to GOP

White House makes $1.7 trillion infrastructure counteroffer to GOP

WASHINGTON – White House staff working on a bipartisan infrastructure deal made a counter-offer to Republican senators on Friday, cutting the Biden administration’s original proposal by $ 600 billion.

Within hours, these Republicans tossed cold water on the new proposal, saying the sides seemed “further apart” after the apparent progress in the negotiations.

The latest offer would cost $ 1.7 trillion over a decade, according to a White House memo to West Virginia Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who leads negotiations for the GOP.

To reduce the original plan from $ 2.3 trillion to $ 1.7 trillion, the White House agrees:

  • Shift funding for research and development, small business and supply chain improvements from this package to separate laws being discussed in Congress.
  • Reduce rural broadband funding from its original $ 100 billion offering to $ 65 billion. This would be in line with the Republicans’ proposal for expanded broadband funding.
  • Reduction of new funding requests for “roads, bridges and major infrastructure projects” from an original USD 159 billion to USD 120 billion.

The memo said that Biden hoped the proposed changes to his original offer would “fuel further bipartisan cooperation and progress”.

It was immediately apparent, however, that little progress had been made over the past week on the key elements of a bill. This includes the basic definition of “infrastructure” and the payment mechanisms.

Republicans have proposed their own $ 568 billion infrastructure bill, with an emphasis on hard infrastructure, rural broadband, and transit.

In the Biden counteroffer, these are all areas that would be shortened.

An aide for Moore Capito responded to the offer in a statement Friday, still calling the White House proposal “well beyond the realm of what Congress can do with bipartisan support”.

“After today’s meeting, the groups seem further apart after two meetings with White House staff than they did after meeting President Biden,” she said.

The White House memo is also noteworthy for what Biden did not agree to compromise on.

For example, the White House hasn’t stepped back from the $ 400 billion Biden proposed to fund home and community elderly care. Republicans argue that this does not fit the definition of “infrastructure”.

Biden’s offering also includes information on his proposed funding for electric vehicles, veterans hospitals, and labor training, all of which have been questioned by Republicans.

On the pay side, the White House counteroffer still contains one of the GOP’s problems: an increase in the corporate tax rate.

Senate Minority Chairman Mitch McConnell said any infrastructure plan that included a corporate tax increase would be opposed by the entire Republican caucus.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki described Friday’s counterproposal as “the art of looking for common ground.”

Biden’s negotiators presented the counteroffer to Republican senators during a video conference that began shortly after lunch on Friday.

The White House team consisted of Presidential Advisor Steve Ricchetti, Legislative Director Louisa Terrell, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

As the second week of formal negotiations ended on Friday, Republicans and Democrats seemed no closer to a bipartisan compromise than they were at the beginning.

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White Home sees world minimal company tax as key to broader multilateral strategy

Biden to propose capital gains tax hike to fund education, child care: reports

U.S. President Joe Biden will address jobs and the economy at the White House in Washington on April 7, 2021.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

The White House stressed Friday that its efforts to introduce a global minimum corporate tax are a top priority for President Joe Biden and are more than just a topic of conversation for economists around the world.

Daleep Singh, who serves as both Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC that efforts to get allies to adopt a minimum tax are motivated by both economic and national security factors.

“It’s not just a tax issue. It’s about: How do we fund initiatives that we believe are central to our domestic renewal?” he said.

Singh stated that the Association for Economic Co-operation and Development behind the minimum tax would allow all members to compete just for their ability to promote innovation and the ingenuity of their respective workforce.

The U.S. Treasury Department has taken the lead in convincing today’s nations to introduce a global minimum tax. The department announced its 15% target on Thursday and said it was encouraged by early conversations with foreign officials over the past week.

A global minimum tax would also allow governments to better generate revenue for domestic projects that the Biden government believes are important to national security, Singh said.

“Our national security strategy is based on the renewal of the country. The kind of challenges I described earlier – the inequality we are witnessing, the tremendous importance of dealing with an existential climate crisis, people leaving the world of work – the government must play a more active role in addressing these challenges. “

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The Treasury Department quickly realized that the 15% proposition below which some had forecast should be viewed as some kind of floor and that subsequent discussions could ultimately drive it up.

As Head of Department, Secretary Janet Yellen has repeatedly stressed the importance of stopping an international “race to the bottom” on global corporate tax rates. If a coalition of countries approves the 15% rate, it could help governments increase revenues and prevent certain jurisdictions from monopolizing the market for inclusion.

Countries with lower enterprise rates like Ireland and its 12.5% ​​rate have historically expressed doubts about efforts to garner support for a unified approach. Even some defectors of the plan could jeopardize the initiative by setting lower rates and effectively inviting companies to move there.

According to a study by the Tax Foundation 2020, the average top enterprise rate among OECD countries is 23.5%.

However, advocates of a global minimum argue that some countries routinely attract companies with much more relaxed tax regimes through various tax breaks and incentives.

When asked how the government intends to persuade low-tax countries to agree to Washington’s plans, Singh and his colleagues stressed the importance of a level playing field for tax policy.

“We are very clear: companies have been competing on the basis of [countries’] Tax rates. This is a destructive race to the bottom that makes everyone worse off. Especially employees who generate an ever larger share of our tax revenue, “he said.

“Our proposal is therefore to agree on a minimum tax rate for companies around the world. Then we will compete for our ability to innovate, the dynamism of our workforce and our technological edge,” added Singh.

That may be why the Biden government opted for a flexible benchmark: low enough not to scare skeptical countries, but open to change in the future.

The tax rate “corresponds to the minimum tax for highly profitable companies proposed by the Biden Administration, so 15% is where Biden believes the lowest corporate tax rate when all deductions are fully factored in,” said Raymond James analyst, Ed Mills in CNBC an email Thursday evening.

“This is lower than President Obama’s proposed 19% and recognizes that even 15% will be a tough task,” he added.

The Biden administration is in the midst of fierce negotiations at home, particularly over two massive laws that would fundamentally change parts of the US economy.

The infrastructural American employment plan would invest several hundred billion dollars in rebuilding hard infrastructure, but also in financing scientific innovations, paying for household help and building around 500,000 charging stations for electric vehicles.

Its parallel proposal, the American Families Plan, provides $ 1.8 trillion to fund social programs that include paid family vacations and a free community college.

The White House hopes to fund much of that expense through its Made In America tax plan, a major overhaul of the tax code designed to expand the IRS to combat tax evasion and end the reinforced base for valuation of inherited capital Profits and introduction of the global minimum tax.

The Biden team has also proposed raising the U.S. corporate rate to between 25% and 28%. He wants households making more than $ 1 million a year to pay more for capital gains and close the interest income gap.

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White Home Says Courting Apps Can Assist Vaccinated (and Frisky) Discover Love

White House Says Dating Apps Can Help Vaccinated (and Frisky) Find Love

“According to one of the websites, OkCupid, people who view their vaccination status are 14 percent more likely to get a match,” Slavitt said as a Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s foremost infectious disease expert and somewhat of a sex symbol in some circles, seemed to be suppressing the laughter. Mr Slavitt added, “In all seriousness, people are interested in other things in life besides their vaccine.”

Highlighting the work of tech companies that can get Americans where they are – on their phones – has been a cornerstone of the Biden government’s effort to address vaccine access concerns and hesitation and people who have not yet received a shot have to remember that could help the country get out of the pandemic. Providers administer an average of 1.83 million doses per day, a decrease of around 46 percent from the high of 3.38 million on April 13, according to federal data.

This month, the president said that Uber and Lyft, two of the country’s largest ridesharing services, would be offering free rides to vaccination sites from Monday through July 4, highlighting the benefits of a shot without actually hiring one, and establishing two classes of Americans, vaccinated and not vaccinated.

On Friday, the final message from the White House was: Get a shot, get a date.

Mr Slavitt said popular apps like Tinder, OkCupid and Hinge – along with a number of others including BLK, which is aimed at black singles and Chispa, which is marketed to Latinos – will add features aimed at reaching a population of young people who can have been largely isolated from each other during the pandemic and will promote the idea that getting a shot might help users with their intentions. Tinder plans to roll out a feature that will allow users to find vaccination sites nearby.

Mr Slavitt said Friday that the effort that could reach over 50 million people in the United States is not an official partnership with the companies. However, the White House played an important role in getting them to participate, an administrative official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to comment publicly on the effort.