It’s Tuesday.
For Tuesday, June 29th, 2021, President Biden has received his daily brief. He travels to Wisconsin today. This afternoon he’ll tour the La Crosse Municipal Transit Utility. After his tour he’ll deliver remarks to highlight the benefits of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework.
He has tweeted so far 3 times for Tuesday.
Besides these unprecedented investments, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework represents the largest federal investment in bridges since the interstate highway system was built and the largest federal investment in public rail since Amtrak was created.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 29, 2021
As a reminder this is a framework the legislation is not currently written, so, for general purpose use, I’m using the White House’s Fact-Sheet on the Bipartisan Framework.
To be fair, the money and what areas would receive that money is what has, according to the bipartisan group, been agreed to.
Public Transit:
Clean Energy:
- Upgrade our power infrastructure, including by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy, including through a new Grid Authority. The Plan is the single largest investment in clean energy transmission in American history.
- Create a first of its kind Infrastructure Financing Authority that will leverage billions of dollars into clean transportation and clean energy.
I’m going to assume that “clean energy” =’s this [at least in part].
Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework.
Amount (billions)
Clean Drinking Water:
According to the chart they agreed to spend $55 billion on Water Infrastructure.
When Monday’s Open Thread was posted, President Biden had tweeted 2 times, he added another 5 tweets, giving him a Monday Tweeting Total of 7 tweets and 0 retweets.
The White House published the following readout of the meeting between President Biden and President Rivlin.
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. met today with President Reuven Rivlin of Israel to honor President Rivlin as he approaches the conclusion of his term and to demonstrate the enduring strength of the U.S.-Israel partnership. President Biden conveyed his unwavering support for Israel’s security and his commitment to deepening the cooperation between the two countries across all fields. The leaders discussed the many challenges facing the region, including the threat posed by Iran. The President emphasized that under his administration, Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. He also assured President Rivlin that the United States remains determined to counter Iran’s malign activity and support for terrorist proxies, which have destabilizing consequences for the region.
The leaders also consulted on opportunities to enhance peace and stability in the Middle East and beyond. In that regard, the President expressed his strong support for the normalization of relations between Israel and other countries in the Arab and Muslim world.
The leaders also discussed recent developments in Gaza and the West Bank and the President emphasized the importance of Israel taking steps to ensure calm, stability, and to support greater economic opportunities for the Palestinian people. President Biden affirmed his view that a negotiated two-state solution remains the best avenue to achieving a lasting peace. The leaders discussed the importance of enhancing efforts to strengthen moderate voices and promote the cause of coexistence while weakening extremists who advocate for hatred and violence.
The President warmly extended an invitation for Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to meet with him soon at the White House and reaffirmed that this administration looks forward to close collaboration with the new Israeli government on the many important issues on the bilateral agenda.
White House.gov. 06/28/2021.
We skip a tweet that will be shared after we talk about his congratulating the Armenia people and Armenia’s Prime Minister.
On June 21st, 2021, Reuters reported; Armenia’s acting prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, kept power in a parliamentary election that boosted his authority despite being widely blamed for a military defeat last year in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, results on Monday showed.
They went on to explain:
Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won 53.92% of votes cast in Sunday’s snap election, preliminary results showed. Former President Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance trailed on 21.04%, and questioned the result, Interfax news agency reported.
Reuters. 06/21/2021.
Pashinyan is quoted as saying “We are determined to work on improving, deepening and developing relations (with CSTO and EAEU countries), and we will definitely move in this direction,” Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Pashinyan as saying in an address broadcast on Facebook.”
The losing party has raised questions about the victory; Opinion polls had put Pashinyan’s party and Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance neck and neck. “These (election) results contradict the processes of public life which we have observed in the past eight months,” the alliance said in a statement, carried by Interfax.
It went on to say that it would not “recognise the results and had started consultations with other parties to organise a collective appeal to Armenia’s constitutional court, RIA reported.”
The AP via U.S. News.com reported on Sunday that “Elections commission head Tigran Mukuchyan rejected the claim, saying it didn’t show that violations affected the outcome. The head of Kocharyan’s bloc, Aram Vardevanyan, said the opposition would lodge an appeal with the constitutional court.”
The skipped tweet relates to the bipartisan infrastructure framework.
He shares a link to an op-ed he “wrote” that appeared at Yahoo.com.
Yahoo says it’s a 6 minute read, therefore I cannot just copy and paste the whole thing.
I was going to post highlights but the gist is, this plan is good, it will help to rebuild roads and bridges, and modernize our infrastructure. He does try in this section to appease the progressive bloc of the Democratic Party who feel this bipartisan deal doesn’t go far enough to address climate change.
While the bill is missing some critical initiatives on climate change that I proposed — initiatives I intend to pass in the reconciliation bill — the infrastructure deal nonetheless represents a crucial step forward in building our clean energy future. It would make the largest investment in clean energy transmission in American history, modernizing our power grid to accelerate the build-out of zero-carbon, renewable energy. It would replace thousands of gas-guzzling buses with clean, electric ones — including 35,000 electric school buses. It would cap abandoned wells leaking methane gas.
And more: The deal would deploy a nationwide network of charging stations for electric vehicles — 500,000 stations in total. It makes historic investments in rail and transit that will get passenger vehicles off the road and reduce fossil fuel consumption. There’s much more work to do to reach our ambitious climate goals, but the investments in this deal are critical in facilitating our transition to a clean energy economy.
Across the country, we will also strengthen and revitalize our natural infrastructure — our coastlines and levees — while preparing our physical infrastructure for wildfires, floods and other extreme weather events.
Yahoo.com. 06/28/2021.
This is my favorite part as a more center type voter at least when it comes to our federal government.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted in this agreement. But that’s what it means to compromise and reach consensus — the very heart of democracy. When we negotiate in good faith, and come together to get big things done, we begin to break the ice that too often has kept us frozen in place and prevented us from solving the real problems Americans face.
Yahoo.com. 06/28/2021.
For his last tweet on Monday he made a bet with Canada’s Prime Minister.
The first game of the best of seven series was held on Monday.
Game 2 is on Wednesday. The details of the bet are unknown.
President Biden’s remarks from Wisconsin are scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. D.C., time.
This is an Open Thread.
