Biden Bits: “Are the Backbone of Our Country”…

September 6, 2024 12:00 pm EDT Tiff Biden Tweets (Open Thread) Comments Off on Biden Bits: “Are the Backbone of Our Country”…
Biden Tweets Logo. Image by Lenny Ghoul.

President Biden’s public schedule for 09/06/2024:


10:00 AM Closed Press
The President receives the President’s Daily Brief
11:30 AM Joint Base Andrews Overhang Out-of-Town Pool
Out-of-Town Pool Call Time
12:20 PM South Lawn Open Press
The President departs the White House en route to Joint Base Andrews
12:40 PM Joint Base Andrews Out-of-Town Pool
The President departs Joint Base Andrews en route to Detroit, Michigan
1:15 PM Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Julie Su Gaggle Aboard Air Force One
2:10 PM Open Press
The President arrives in Detroit, Michigan
3:15 PM Open Press
The President will deliver remarks discussing how his Investing in America agenda is benefiting communities across Michigan and ensuring Americans have a brighter, more prosperous future
4:40 PM Out-of-Town Pool
The President departs Ann Arbor, Michigan en route to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
6:25 PM Philadelphia International Airport Out-of-Town Pool
The President arrives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
6:35 PM Philadelphia International Airport Out-of-Town Pool
The President departs Philadelphia, Pennsylvania en route to Wilmington, Delaware
6:50 PM Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su will gaggle aboard Air Force One en route to Ann Arbor, Michigan
The President arrives in Wilmington, Delaware

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Julie Su Gaggle Aboard Air Force One @1:15 PM D.C., time:

President Biden Delivers Remarks Discussing his Investing in America Agenda @3:15 PM D.C., time:

From the White House…

09/06/2024:

FACT SHEET: Days After Labor Day, Biden-⁠Harris Administration Issues Executive Order to Promote Good Jobs Through Investing in America Agenda

“Wall Street did not build America; the middle class built America, and unions built the middle class.” – President Biden on Labor Day, 2024

Today, President Biden will travel to Michigan to sign a landmark Executive Order on Investing in America and Investing in American Workers (“Good Jobs EO”), which will help ensure that the Biden-Harris Investing in America agenda continues to promote good, high-quality jobs with paths to the middle class. The Good Jobs EO promotes strong labor standards such as family-sustaining wages, workplace safety, and the free and fair opportunity to join a union, and encourages agencies to implement these standards through their Investing in America programs. President Biden will sign the Good Jobs EO during a visit to UA Local 190’s Job Training Center, where he will meet with union workers and apprentices who have benefitted from the President’s agenda. The event is part of a broader tour to profile the workers and communities across America who are reaping the rewards of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda.
 
The Biden-Harris Administration is the most pro-union administration in American history. The President and Vice President’s Investing in America agenda—including the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act—have already created hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the President and Vice President have been clear that their Administration will use every tool at their disposal to ensure these jobs are good-paying jobs with the free and fair chance to join a union.
 
The President’s Good Jobs EO calls on agencies to adopt a series of high-road labor standards that have long been recognized to lead to both better jobs and on-time, high-quality delivery of federally funded projects. With this Executive Order, the Biden-Harris Administration is the first in history to specify a clear list of labor standards that all Federal agencies should look to prioritize.
 
By mobilizing once-in-a-generation public- and private-sector investments, the Biden-Harris Investing in America agenda is transforming our economy—onshoring manufacturing, modernizing our nation’s infrastructure, and building a clean energy economy. The United States has created nearly 16 million jobs since President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, with the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years. Already, their Investing in America agenda has catalyzed over $900 billion in private-sector investment in clean energy and manufacturing. Last year, clean energy jobs grew at double the rate of job growth in the rest of the economy and clean energy unionization rates reached the highest level in history. The Good Jobs EO builds on that momentum and will ensure that these investments continue to improve opportunities for millions of Americans.

The Good Jobs EO calls on agencies to adopt the following labor standards:

  • Promoting worker voice, through Project Labor Agreements (PLAs), Community Benefits Agreements, voluntary union recognition, and neutrality with respect to union organizing. These instruments, which agencies are encouraged to prioritize where appropriate and consistent with law, mark the strongest package of priorities that any Administration has taken to help promote the free and fair choice to join a union through federally funded and federally supported projects.
  • Providing tools to promote high-wage jobs, through prevailing wage standards and other equitable compensation practices, such as prioritizing equal pay and pay transparency. This Administration is taking ground-breaking steps to raise wages by directing agencies to consider incentivizing specific high-wage standards for manufacturing grants—going beyond long-standing Davis-Bacon requirements that only apply to construction jobs.
  • Promoting worker economic security, by directing agencies to consider prioritizing projects that supply the benefits that workers need—including child and dependent care to health insurance, paid leave, and retirement benefits.
  • Supporting workforce development through registered apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships, labor-management partnerships, and partnerships with training organizations including community colleges, public workforce boards, and the American Climate Corps.
  • Leveling the playing field, by encouraging grantees to develop equitable workforce plans and offering project supports that promote fair hiring and management practices as the projects develop.
  • Supporting workplace safety by encouraging agencies to prioritize reporting structures that help ensure compliance with all workplace health and safety laws.

To oversee agencies in their implementation of these labor standards, the Good Jobs EO creates a new Investing in Good Jobs Task Force (Task Force) in the Executive Office of the President. The Task Force will coordinate policy development that drives the creation of high-quality jobs and ensures project delivery. The Task Force will be co-chaired by the Secretary of Labor and the Director of the National Economic Council and include Seniors Advisors to the President and members of the President’s Cabinet.

In addition, the Good Jobs EO outlines strategies for agencies to enact these standards across their grant programs, consistent with applicable law:

  • Incentivize these strong labor standards to the greatest extent possible by including application evaluation criteria related to strong labor standards. This includes, consistent with relevant statutes, prioritizing applicants who employ Project Labor Agreements and Community Benefit Agreements in funding opportunities.
  • Issue guidance or best practices to promote and implement these priorities.
  • Collect data on job quality to further encourage best practices and increase accountability. This includes embedding checkboxes on high-road labor standards into grant applications—a proven strategy that has yielded 22 PLA commitments and 34 new registered apprenticeship programs during a pilot study at the Department of Transportation.
  • Conduct pre-award negotiations for key programs and projects as appropriate, and include ensuing commitments in grant agreements.
  • Develop staff expertise to ensure every agency has in-house knowledge of strong labor standards and how their investments can promote and support good jobs.

Today’s actions build on many previous Biden-Harris Administration actions to support good jobs, including union jobs, such as:

  • Created the Made in America office, to ensure that American-made construction materials are used on infrastructure projects.
  • Published a final rule from the Department of Treasury implementing prevailing wage and apprenticeship bonus credits for clean energy projects funded by the President’s Inflation Reduction Act to ensure clean energy workers are paid good wages and that these projects create equitable pipelines to these good jobs.
  • Implemented a new rule to require Project Labor Agreements on nearly all major federal construction projects of over $35 million, so federal construction projects will be delivered on time and on budget with good wages and well-trained workers.
  • Signed the Butch Lewis Act as part of the American Rescue Plan to save the pensions of more than one million hard-working union workers and retirees.
  • Designated nine Workforce Hubs across the country to ensure we have the skilled, diverse workforce needed to carry out this Administration’s historic investments.
  • Published a new rule restoring and extending overtime pay protections to millions of workers.
  • Published the first update to Davis-Bacon prevailing wages in nearly 40 years, which will increase pay for one million construction workers over time.
  • Proposed a new rule from the Department of Labor that would protect 36 million indoor and outdoor workers from extreme heat on the job.
  • Signed a Registered Apprenticeship Executive Order to bolster apprenticeships in the federal workforce. Since then, federal agencies including the Departments Agriculture, Defense, Education Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, and Treasury, and the Architect of the Capitol and U.S. Agency for Global Media have identified potential opportunities for developing new and scaling existing registered apprenticeships to create pathways to good jobs, including in mission-critical occupations.
  • Through the CHIPS Act, provided $200 million in dedicated CHIPS funding for training and workforce development to ensure local communities have access to the jobs of the future in upcoming projects and introduced a requirement that companies receiving grants under the CHIPS Act over $150 million create a plan to ensure access to quality, affordable child care for their employees.
  • Invested nearly $730 million in Registered Apprenticeships, leading to more than 1 million registered apprentices receiving earn-as-you-learn training for in-demand jobs.
  • Vocally supported unions, including becoming the first sitting President to walk a picket line.
  • The NLRB expanded remedies available to workers when their employers engage in unionbusting, to now include all direct and foreseeable pecuniary harm, such as financial loss from credit card debt, medical bills, or missed rent payments.

“Investing in America” Tweets

From Wednesday…

Remarks by President Biden Highlighting How His Investing in America Agenda is Benefitting Communities Across Wisconsin and Ensuring Americans Have a Brighter, More Prosperous Future | Westby, WI; the YouTube is 27 minutes and 18 seconds long.

Here in Westby, you know, I’m proud to announce that my — my investments — that through my investments, the most significant climate change law ever — and, by the way, it is a $369 billion bill.  It’s called the — we — we should have named it what it was, but it — but any rate.  (Laughter.)

The Department of Agriculture is able, from that legislation, to announce $7.3 billion — (applause) — in grants to 16 electric co-ops nationwide to help rural communities transition to clean, affordable, reliable energy. 

It’s the most significant, transformative investment in electritia- — in electrification and clean energy for rural America since FDR’s New Deal nearly 90 years ago.  And that’s not hyper- — that’s a fact.  And it includes Dairyland Power Cooperative, that will receive $580 million to develop — (applause) — and purchase solar power, wind power, energy storage right here in Wisconsin and all across the Midwest. 

Remarks by President Biden Highlighting How His Investing in America Agenda is Benefitting Communities Across Wisconsin and Ensuring Americans Have a Brighter, More Prosperous Future | Westby, WI; the YouTube is 27 minutes and 18 seconds long. 09/05/2024.

And, folks, I’ve kept my commitment to be president for all America and all Americans, including rural America.  Your communities are the backbone — and that’s not hyper- — you’re the backbone of this country.  You deserve the same resources as folks in our cities and our suburbs.  And that’s what today’s announcement is all about: generating rural power for rural America. 

Remarks by President Biden Highlighting How His Investing in America Agenda is Benefitting Communities Across Wisconsin and Ensuring Americans Have a Brighter, More Prosperous Future | Westby, WI; the YouTube is 27 minutes and 18 seconds long. 09/05/2024.

Because of our historic actions, we’re going to reduce by 43 million tons greenhouse gas pollution every single year as a consequence of these investments.  (Applause.)  That is the equivalent of removing pollution from more than 10 million gas-powered vehicles — 10 million.  That’s going to save $265 billion [$256 million] in health care costs because of better, cleaner quality of air — people aren’t breathing polluted air and getting sick.  That comes from the NIH.  It matters, folks.  You know it. 

Remarks by President Biden Highlighting How His Investing in America Agenda is Benefitting Communities Across Wisconsin and Ensuring Americans Have a Brighter, More Prosperous Future | Westby, WI; the YouTube is 27 minutes and 18 seconds long. 09/05/2024.

From the White House…

09/05/2024:

President Biden opened his remarks on Thursday by addressing the school shooting in GA, that left two students, and two teachers dead. Nine others were wounded in the shooting, but are expected to make a full recovery. The shooter, 14, will be charged as an adult following the mass shooting at Apalachee High School. Thursday evening officials announced that they have also arrested the shooters father in connection to the school shooting.

The video clip is 44 seconds long.

President Biden: Students, just young teenagers, educators just doing their job. A community like so many around the country, just getting back to school and a joyous and exciting time. Absolutely shattered. Shattered. I directed my team to immediately ensure that we’re doing everything we can to provide support. The Department of Justice and the FBI are working closely with the state and local law enforcement in investigating this. We’re grateful to the school personnel and first responders who proved and prevented more people from being killed or injured and brought the suspect to custody. But as a nation, we cannot continue to accept the carnage of gun violence.


“New” from the White House…

09/06/2024:

09/05/2024:

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About Tiff 3038 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.