As promised…
It’s Tuesday…
President Biden’s public schedule for 06/27/2023:
| 10:00 AM Presidential Daily Briefing | The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing The White HouseClosed Press |
| 1:00 PM Press Briefing | Press Briefing by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton James S. Brady Press Briefing Room |
| 4:10 PM Leaves White House | The President departs the White House en route to Chevy Chase, Maryland South Grounds In-Town Travel Pool |
| 5:15 PM Campaign Event | The President participates in a campaign reception Chevy Chase, MD Restricted In-Town Travel Pool |
| 6:45 PM Campaign Event | The President participates in a campaign reception Chevy Chase, MDRestricted In-Town Travel Pool |
| 7:30 PM Leaves Chevy Chase, Maryland | The President departs Chevy Chase, Maryland en route to the White House Chevy Chase, MD In-Town Travel Pool |
| 8:00 PM Arrives @ the White House | The President arrives at the White House South Grounds In-Town Travel Pool |
Press Briefing:
High Speed Internet for All Tweets
From Monday…
The YouTube is 21 minutes and 34 seconds long. President Biden’s remarks can be found here. Remarks by Vice President Harris can be found here.
From Tuesday…
The video clip is 14 seconds long.
President Biden:
For around 24 million Americans across this country, there is no high-speed Internet. And for millions more, their Internet connection is limited or unreliable.
White House.gov. 06/26/2023.
High-speed Internet isn’t a luxury anymore; it’s become an absolute necessity. That’s why we acted as soon as we did — as soon as we came to office — with the American Rescue Plan.
The White House posted the following fact-sheet; Biden-Harris Administration Announces Over $40 Billion to Connect Everyone in America to Affordable, Reliable, High-Speed Internet (06/26/2023):
Largest Internet Funding Announcement in History Kicks Off Administration-Wide Investing in America Tour
High-speed internet is no longer a luxury – it is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school, access health care, and to stay connected with family and friends. Yet, more than 8.5 million households and small businesses are in areas where there is no high-speed internet infrastructure, and millions more struggle with limited or unreliable internet options. Just like Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Act brought electricity to nearly every home and farm in America, President Biden and Vice President Harris are delivering on their historic commitment to connect everyone in America to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by the end of the decade.
Today, the Department of Commerce announced funding for each state, territory and the District of Columbia for high-speed internet infrastructure deployment through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program—a $42.45 billion grant program created in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the Department of Commerce. This announcement—the largest internet funding announcement in history—kicks off the three-week Administration-wide Investing in America tour, where President Biden, Vice President Harris, First Lady Jill Biden, Cabinet members, and Senior Administration Officials will fan out across the country to highlight investments, jobs, and projects made possible by President Biden’s economic agenda.
Among the highlights:
White House.gov. 06/26/2023.
- Awards range from $27 million to over $3.3 Billion, with every state receiving a minimum of $107 million.
- 19 states received allocations over $1 billion with the top 10 allocations in Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
- With these allocations and other Biden administration investments, all 50 states, DC, and the territories now have the resources to connect every resident and small business to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by 2030.
Details related to the BEAD allocation for the states, D.C., and territories, as well as the total Federal investment in high-speed internet in each State and Territory are available here.
In addition to helping connect everyone in America to high-speed internet, this funding will support manufacturing jobs and crowd in private sector investment by using materials Made in America. For example, anticipating this major investment in high-speed internet infrastructure deployment, earlier this year, fiber optic cable manufacturers CommScope and Corning announced $47 million and $500 million expansions of their domestic manufacturing capacity, which will create hundreds of good-paying American jobs in North Carolina. These investments are part of the nearly $500 billion in private sector manufacturing and clean energy investments spurred by the President’s Investing in America agenda. The Investing in America agenda represents the most significant upgrade to our nation’s infrastructure in generations—an investment larger than FDR’s Rural Electrification effort, Eisenhower’s effort to build the Interstate Highway system, and the construction of the Panama Canal.
White House.gov. 06/26/2023.
Internet for All
Today’s announcement of BEAD funds is just one component of the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to ensure that everyone in America has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. In recent weeks, the Administration has announced over $700 million in USDA ReConnect awards, over $900 million in NTIA Middle Mile awards and launched the Online for All campaign to increase ACP enrollment and visibility. Beyond BEAD, billions have already been announced or distributed to all states and territories to build out high-speed internet infrastructure by the Biden-Harris Administration.
In addition to BEAD, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes:
White House.gov. 06/26/2023.
- $14.2 billion for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides eligible households up to $30/month (up to $75/month on qualifying Tribal Lands) off their internet bill, as well as a one-time $100 toward a desktop, laptop or tablet computer offered by participating internet service providers. Thanks to commitments by over 20 internet service providers, millions of Americans are using the Affordable Connectivity Program to access internet for free. Today, 19 million Americans are enrolled in this program. Households can check their eligibility and sign up at GetInternet.gov.
- $2.75 billion for the Digital Equity Act, which provides grants to ensure communities have the skills and support needed to take advantage of high-speed internet connections;
- An additional $2 billion for the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, which provides grants to federally recognized Tribal governments, Tribal organizations, Tribal Colleges and Universities, the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, and Alaska Native Corporations for high-speed internet deployment on Tribal lands, as well as for telehealth, distance learning, high-speed internet affordability, and digital inclusion;
- $2 billion for the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Reconnect Program, which provides loans and grants primarily to build high-speed internet infrastructure in eligible rural areas;
- $1 billion for the Middle Mile Program, which provides funding for the “middle mile” backbone of internet networks.
President Biden’s American Rescue Plan also included over $25 billion for high-speed internet, including:
- The Department of Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund (CPF) provides $10 billion to states, territories, and Tribes for which high-speed internet is an eligible use. Today, over $7 billion has already been dedicated to high-speed internet deployment and connectivity across 45 states;
- The Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) delivered funding across the country to support the response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. About $8 billion is being used by states, territories, Tribes, and local governments for high-speed internet deployment and connectivity; and,
- The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) $7 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund program helped schools and libraries close the “homework gap,” providing schools and libraries with 10.5 million connected devices and over 5 million internet connections.
Additional information on Biden-Harris high-speed internet programs and funding is available at InternetForAll.Gov.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Tweet
From Monday…
Press release from IBEW.org (06/20/2023):
After months of negotiations, the IBEW’s Railroad members at four of the largest U.S. freight carriers finally have what they’ve long sought but that many working people take for granted: paid sick days.
This is a big deal, said Railroad Department Director Al Russo, because the paid-sick-days issue, which nearly caused a nationwide shutdown of freight rail just before Christmas, had consistently been rejected by the carriers. It was not part of last December’s congressionally implemented update of the national collective bargaining agreement between the freight lines and the IBEW and 11 other railroad-related unions.
“We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
“We know that many of our members weren’t happy with our original agreement,” Russo said, “but through it all, we had faith that our friends in the White House and Congress would keep up the pressure on our railroad employers to get us the sick day benefits we deserve. Until we negotiated these new individual agreements with these carriers, an IBEW member who called out sick was not compensated.”
While President Joe Biden was calling on Congress in November to pass legislation to implement the agreement, he stressed that he would continue to encourage the railroads to guarantee paid sick time for their employees.
“I share workers’ concern about the inability to take leave to recover from illness or care for a sick family member,” Biden said. “I have pressed legislation and proposals to advance the cause of paid leave in my two years in office and will continue to do so.” [Statement from President Joe Biden on Averting a Rail Shutdown (11/28/2022].
That pressure, plus the IBEW’s ongoing efforts, is paying off at last. The IBEW and BNSF Railway reached an agreement April 20 to grant members four short-notice, paid sick days, with the ability to also convert up to three personal days to sick days. The union reached similar understandings with CSX and Union Pacific on March 22, and with Norfolk Southern on March 10. Unused sick time at the end of a year can be paid out or rolled into a worker’s 401(k) retirement account.
Under the Railway Labor Act, national railroad labor agreements don’t expire. Instead, the parties enter a “status quo” position: Workers remain on the job with no changes to their pay and benefits until a replacement contract is approved. The current national pact was first reached last summer by negotiators from the railroad unions, the railroads, the Labor Department and the White House.
“We’ve been playing the long game on this, too,” Russo said. “We never stopped applying pressure on the companies or on Congress.”
On Feb. 8, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote a letter to the leaders of six Class I railroads, urging them to guarantee at least seven paid sick days for all of their workers.
“Last year, the companies you lead made over $22 billion in profits,” Sanders wrote, noting that they had cut 30% of the workforce over the last six years. “Guaranteeing seven paid sick days to rail workers would cost your industry just $321 million.”
Russo is grateful that Sanders stepped in. “We truly compliment his effort to bring dignity to workers in the rail industry,” he said. “Without it, we very likely would not have gotten what we have gained today.”
Sick leave had always been a sticking point in negotiations toward a national rail contract update, which began in late 2019.
After almost 2½ years of ongoing refusal by the Class I rail carriers to accept the unions’ good-faith settlement offers or to offer their own, the IBEW and the other unions sought help from the National Mediation Board in early 2022. By July, the carriers still hadn’t budged.
Once the mediators determined that negotiations were at an impasse, Biden appointed a Presidential Emergency Board to hear testimony from both camps. While this board made a number of positive recommendations in its proposal — including improved health care benefits and one additional personal day — guaranteed paid sick days still was not among them.
Even so, the IBEW said Sept. 1 that it had reached a tentative agreement with the rail carriers that included the board’s recommendations. Negotiations with the other labor coalition unions continued toward a Sept. 15 deadline, but when it became obvious that the bargaining parties would not reach consensus by then, Biden asked then-Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh to assemble the sides and reach an acceptable agreement that would head off a national freight rail strike.
On deadline day, the parties reached an agreement on an updated contract that included the biggest wage increases in 47 years. Over the next several weeks, while acknowledging that the agreement was less than perfect, the IBEW and several of its fellow coalition unions voted to ratify the agreement. A handful of others, however, did not, instead threatening a December freight rail strike.
Biden, citing the potential economic impact of a national freight rail strike during the winter holidays, on Nov. 28 called on Congress to impose the emergency board’s agreement.
Since then, several other railroad-related unions have also seen success in negotiating for similar sick-day benefits. These 12 unions represent more than 105,000 railroad workers.
“Biden deserves a lot of the credit for achieving this goal for us,” Russo said. “He and his team continued to work behind the scenes to get all of rail labor a fair agreement for paid sick leave.”
Russo said talks are continuing toward reaching a sick-days agreements with Canadian Pacific and Kansas City, recently designated a Class I rail carrier by the Surface Transportation Board.
IBEW.org. 06/20/2023.
Anniversary of Three Landmark Marriage Equality Supreme Court Rulings Tweet
From Monday…
Show more =’s continued attacks against the LGBTQI+ community, work remains. Congress must pass the Equality Act to protect the rights of all LGBTQI+ Americans.
His full statement:
Today marks the anniversary of three landmark Supreme Court cases which were consequential in affirming the basic truth that every American should have the right to marry the person they love. Ten years ago today, the Supreme Court rulings in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry made significant strides laying the groundwork for marriage equality in our country. They were followed two years later, to the day, by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, finally allowing millions of LGBTQI+ Americans to marry who they love.
These monumental cases moved our country forward, and they were made possible because of the courageous couples and unrelenting advocates in the LGBTQI+ community who, for decades, fought for these hard-won rights. Last year, I was proud to build on their legacy by signing into law the Respect for Marriage Act – guaranteeing the rights and protections which LGBTQI+ Americans are entitled to – surrounded by many of the plaintiffs from these cases. But more work lies ahead, and I continue to call on Congress to pass the Equality Act, to codify additional protections to combat the increased attacks on the rights and safety of those in the LGBTQI+ community.
As we conclude Pride month, we’re once again reminded that we must never stop fighting to reach full equality for all LGBTQI+ – and all – Americans.
White House.gov. 06/26/2023.
Economy Tweets
From Monday…
From Tuesday…
To Halodoc for giving me two days off…
This is an Open Thread.
