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      Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agenda

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      Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agendaWest Virginia senator refuses to support funding for climate crisis and says he will not back tax raises for wealthy Americans Joe Biden has promised executive action on climate change after Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator who has repeatedly thwarted his own party while making millions in the coal industry, refused to support more funding for climate action.Did Joe Manchin block climate action to benefit his financial interests?Read moreIn another blow to Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, the West Virginia senator also came out against tax raises for wealthy Americans.Manchin’s opposition became clear on Thursday night. On Friday, with Biden in Saudi Arabia, the White House issued a statement.Biden said: “Action on climate change and clean energy remains more urgent than ever.“So let me be clear: if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment.“My actions will create jobs, improve our energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains, protect us from oil and gas price hikes in the future, and address climate change. I will not back down: the opportunity to create jobs and build a clean energy future is too important to relent.”Biden and Democrats hope to include environmental measures in a $1tn version of the $2tn Build Back Better spending bill Manchin killed last year in dramatic fashion.Then, the Biden White House angrily accused Manchin of breaching “commitments to the president and [his] colleagues in the House and Senate”. Bridges were rebuilt but on Thursday night Manchin appeared to reach for the dynamite once again.According to a Democrat briefed on negotiations, Manchin told Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, he would oppose legislation if it included climate or green energy provisions or higher taxes on the rich and corporations.The Democrat also said Manchin told Schumer he would support a new spending package only if it was limited to curbing pharmaceutical prices and extending federal subsidies for buying healthcare insurance.Manchin disputed that version of events in a call to a West Virginia radio show. He said he told Schumer he would not commit to environmental or tax measures until he saw the inflation rate for July, which is due out on 10 August, and the size of the expected interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve at the end of July.“Let’s wait until that comes out, so we know that we’re going down a path that won’t be inflammatory, to add more to inflation,” Manchin said. “I can’t make that decision … on taxes … and also on the energy and climate because it takes the taxes to pay for the investment into clean technology that I’m in favor of. But I’m not going to do something and overreach that causes more problem.”Manchin said he asked Schumer for time.“I said, ‘Chuck, can we just wait. How much more and how much damaging is that going to be?’ He took that as a no, I guess, and came out with this big thing last night, and I don’t know why they did that.”In Riyadh, Biden told reporters: “I’m not going away. I’m using every power I have as president to continue to fulfill my pledge to move toward dealing with global warming.”Asked if Manchin had been “negotiating in good faith”, Biden said: “I didn’t negotiate with Joe Manchin.”In his earlier statement, Biden also promised progress on healthcare.He said: “After decades of fierce opposition from powerful special interests, Democrats have come together, beaten back the pharmaceutical industry and are prepared to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices and to prevent an increase in health insurance premiums for millions of families with coverage under the Affordable Care Act.“Families all over the nation will sleep easier if Congress takes this action. The Senate should move forward, pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it.”To pass legislation, Democrats are dependent on Manchin’s vote in a Senate divided 50-50 and controlled by the vice-president, Kamala Harris.In March last year, Manchin backed Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief package after tense negotiations during which, according to the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Biden told him: “Joe, please don’t kill my bill.”But the senator has since stood in the way of much of Biden’s agenda, from the Build Back Better package to measures which would require reform to the filibuster, the Senate rule which requires a 60-vote supermajority for most legislation.Democrats and progressives have argued for scrapping or reforming the filibuster in order to legislate on key issues under attack from the right, including voting rights and abortion.But Manchin and others opposed to such moves, prominently including Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, are in part aligned with Biden, a former senator opposed to abolishing the filibuster entirely.Manchin will not face re-election as the only Democrat in statewide office in West Virginia, a state with a powerful coal industry lobby, until 2024. His business, Enersystems, has earned millions of dollars as the only supplier of low-grade coal to a high-polluting power plant near Fairmont, West Virginia.‘A modern-day villain’: Joe Manchin condemned for killing US climate actionRead moreAccording to campaign finance filings, in 2021-22 Manchin is the senator who has received most money from donors in coal mining, natural gas transmission and distribution and oil and gas. He is second for donations from alternate energy production and services.Climate advocates reacted angrily to Manchin’s move.“It’s outrageous that Manchin and the Republican party have killed climate legislation this Congress,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity advocacy group.Norm Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said: “Senators have told me and others that negotiating with Joe Manchin is like negotiating with an Etch-a-Sketch. It appears to be a coal-powered Etch-a-Sketch.”John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, said: “It seems odd that Senator Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity. But we can’t throw in the towel on the planet.”TopicsJoe ManchinClimate crisisUS politicsDemocratsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and China

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      Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and ChinaAnalysis: US president aiming to convince Jeddah to increase oil supply in order to calm global energy markets00:24Joe Biden landed in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah to a tepid welcome from the Saudi crown prince whose country he once pledged to make a “pariah” on the world stage.While Saudi Arabia announced it would open its airspace to flights from Israel, making Biden the first US president to fly directly from Tel Aviv to the kingdom, expectations of further gains during his visit remained low. The US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told journalists onboard Air Force One not to expect any bilateral announcements in response to American demands that Saudi Arabia pump more oil to calm global energy markets after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Fist bumps as Joe Biden arrives to reset ties with ‘pariah’ Saudi ArabiaRead moreSaudi Arabia is keen to prove its independence from US interests as it increasingly courts Russia and China.“From the start, my aim was to reorient – but not rupture – relations with a country that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post prior to his visit, sidestepping his pledge on the campaign trail to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah”, and the later release of a US intelligence report stating that Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, “approved” an operation to capture and murder the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.“It’s a completely different Saudi Arabia, one that in many ways has modernised and opened up a bit, but is also seeing greater crackdowns – and the Biden administration is brutally aware of all this,” said Dina Esfandiary of the NGO Crisis Group.Biden’s visit means carefully stage-managing relations with Prince Mohammed, the Kingdom’s powerful de facto ruler, who observers say has the upper hand as Biden courts his goodwill at a time of rising global oil prices mounting a challenge to his presidency domestically.The two shared a fist bump on Biden’s arrival, although the president later warmly shook hands with the king, Salman bin Abdulaziz. At the start of the president’s Middle East trip, officials said he would avoid close contact such as shaking hands as a precaution against Covid.The US president is under intense pressure to repair the fragile relationship between two nations, one that traditionally relied on the kingdom liberally supplying oil to the global market in exchange for the US’s backing in areas of security and defence.This has increasingly shifted in recent years, exacerbated as the relationship between Biden and Prince Mohammed has soured and Saudi Arabia looks to Russia and China to diversify its interests.“The message from Saudi is you can’t tell us what to do, we’ll help you as far as it suits us but we won’t go against our own interests,” said Esfandiary.Cinzia Bianco, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed. “The Saudi leadership has learned to do without seeking validation from the United States, and Bin Salman in particular – he’s learned to survive and maybe even thrive within the region and to some degree internationally, without getting validation from the US administration,” she said.Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said that, with the visit to Saudi Arabia, Biden was reneging on previous promises to prioritise human rights. “It’s a very huge backing down actually,” Cengiz told the Associated Press. “It’s heartbreaking and disappointing. And Biden will lose his moral authority by putting oil and expediency over principles and values.”Saudi Arabia’s recent cooperation with Russia has included an agreement for Rosatom, a Russian state company, to build a nuclear power plant in the kingdom, as well as signing an agreement last year to “explore ways to develop military to strengthen the military and defence cooperation” between the two countries according to the deputy defence minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman.China is historically the largest importer of Saudi Arabian oil, while the kingdom has bought Chinese arms including drones and fighter aircraft. Last November, US intelligence agencies concluded that Saudi Arabia is manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China, according to satellite imagery.Bianco stressed that the US administration saw Biden’s visit as a vital opportunity to intervene and warm relations before Saudi Arabia moves ahead with Chinese and Russian deals that largely remain in their infancy. “The US administration sees an opportunity to undo all of that or take a step back and create some space,” she said. “There’s a lot on paper rather than in reality, and there’s still space for the administration to try to create some distance between Saudi Arabia, Russia and China.”Yet as Biden landed in Jeddah to discuss how to increase the global supply of oil in order to bring down prices, doubts persisted as to whether he would fly home with anything to show for his visit at all. Shortly before his arrival, Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia had more than doubled its imports of Russian oil in order to free up more of its own crude for export, shunning demands for sanctions from the west while increasing profit margins amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“Maybe the US administration had good intentions when it began setting up this trip, but ultimately it’s making them look bad – they’re losing the public relations war,” said Esfandiary. “It’s not clear that they’re going to make any gains, my sense is that everyone will walk away disappointed.”TopicsUS foreign policyJoe BidenUS politicsSaudi ArabiaMiddle East and north AfricaBiden administrationMohammed bin SalmananalysisReuse this content More

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      ‘Groundswells of change’: Black activists welcome evolution in gun violence debate

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      ‘Groundswells of change’: Black activists welcome evolution in gun violence debateThe Safer Communities Act finally addressed prevention efforts with $250m dedicated to funding violence interrupters In 2013, a month after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a group of Black pastors and other activists visited the Obama White House to press the administration to do more to prevent gun violence in communities of color.Obama had just released his post-Newtown gun violence prevention plan, which did not include any funding for community violence prevention efforts, and which made no mention of the disparate impact of gun violence on Black Americans.When the clergy members expressed their frustration at the White House’s lack of response, an Obama staffer told them that there was no support nationally to address urban gun violence, and that Americans’ political will was focused on “the issue of gun violence that affected suburban areas – schools where white kids were killed”.Some of those same Black pastors who visited the White House in 2013 were invited back for a ceremony on the South Lawn earlier this week.Senate breakthrough clears way for toughening US gun lawsRead moreCongress had finally passed a modest set of gun violence prevention compromises in the wake of yet another school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. This time, community violence prevention efforts were fully on the agenda, with Congress endorsing $250m dedicated to funding violence interrupters and other community-based efforts.“This is a full circle moment,” said Pastor Michael McBride, the national director of the Live Free Campaign, which works to reduce gun violence and mass incarceration. McBride was one the clergy members who had spoken out publicly about his disappointment with the Obama administration, including then-vice-president Joe Biden, after Newtown.Both Democrats and some Republicans were now willing to dedicate federal dollars to “targeting interventions and resources at those at the highest risk of shooting and being shot”, McBride said.And the $250m in federal funding for community programs was desperately needed, he added: “Many violence interrupter programs in cities are usually funded seasonally, or unevenly, and certainly not to the scale of the problem.”Biden’s speech at the South Lawn ceremony touting the country’s progress in preventing gun violence was interrupted by an objection from Manuel Oliver, who lost his 17-year-old son Joaquin Oliver in the Parkland school shooting in Florida in 2018, and who insisted that more needs to be done.‘Partial victories’For many violence prevention activists, the struggles of the continuing gun violence crisis were balanced against the value of marking the fact that they had made progress. Some activists who have worked for decades on the issue said they saw changes worth noting in political rhetoric and action, from the White House.The Rev Jeff Brown, a Boston-based minister who was one of the collaborators in “the Boston miracle”, a successful effort to reduce gun homicides in the 1990s, was also at the event on Monday, and said it was good “feeling that hope, that you know, we’re being heard”.It had been an “abject disappointment” to Brown in 2013 that the country’s first African American president had, in his view, ignored the calls for more action and funding to prevent daily gun violence.The federal funding for community violence interventions in the post-Uvalde violence prevention compromise bill that Congress passed, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, was “just the start”, Brown said, and “the honest truth is that we really need more”.In his speeches on gun violence, Biden, a longtime booster of police departments, now sometimes highlights the importance of prevention work by violence interrupters, many of whom are formerly incarcerated or have other criminal justice system involvement in their past.To hear the president of the United States legitimize the contributions of violence interrupters is powerful, said Teny Gross, a longtime violence intervention advocate who runs the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.Eddie Bocagnegra, who worked for years as an outreach worker in the streets of Chicago, has become a senior adviser to Biden’s justice department, an appointment that recognizes the expertise of on-the-ground violence prevention workers with deep ties in the community.“These are groundswells of change,” Gross said.Advocates say the shifts they have begun to see in the gun debate are bigger than the Biden administration. In the past decade, McBride said, organizers have pushed well-funded national gun control groups, which have often been led by wealthier white activists, to raise awareness about community intervention programs, not simply fight for new gun laws. They have also tried to win allies in law enforcement, and convince some police officials that civilian intervention programs can benefit public safety.McBride said there was some progress in reframing the debate, from a “crime and punishment framework”, to a “public health framework”, that is no longer as focused on defining violence as an issue of “personal moral ineptitude”.At the same time, advocates said, the past months have been heavy for anyone working in gun violence prevention. Gun sales spiked during the pandemic. In between brutal mass shootings, a conservative-dominated supreme court dramatically expanded the scope of gun rights, in a ruling that is expected to eviscerate existing gun control regulations.Gross, who runs a violence intervention organization in Chicago, says he feels like the sorcerer’s apprentice in Disney’s Fantasia: the small progress they make is overwhelmed by a situation that has spiraled out of control.Over the Fourth of July weekend in Chicago, the daughter of one of his staff members was shot, multiple staff members were shot on multiple days, and then, on 4 July itself, there was a mass shooting targeting a parade in Highland Park that left seven people dead and 30 others wounded.“We are drowning in guns,” Gross said.Still, Gross said, it was important to take a moment to acknowledge the progress that organizers had made, through years of meetings in church basements, knocking on doors, and flying from city to city across the country.“Organizing – the power of the people – it still works, even if there are partial victories,” McBride said.TopicsUS gun controlGuns and liesUS politicsTexas school shootingNewtown shootingJoe BidenBiden administrationObama administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden defends human rights record ahead of Saudi visit

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      Joe Biden defends human rights record ahead of Saudi visitPresident says he will not avoid rights issues but skirts commitment to discuss Khashoggi murder00:47Joe Biden has defended his imminent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he will not avoid human rights issues on the final leg of his Middle East tour, despite refusing to commit to mentioning the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he meets the kingdom’s crown prince.Speaking during a news conference with the interim Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem on Thursday, the US leader said his stance on Khashoggi’s killing was “absolutely” clear.US intelligence services concluded last year that Khashoggi’s 2018 killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was approved by the powerful heir to the throne, Mohammed bin Salman. On the campaign trail, the president vowed to turn the conservative Gulf kingdom into a “pariah state”, but the turmoil in global oil markets unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced a U-turn.“I have never been quiet about talking about human rights,” the president said. “The reason I am going to Saudi Arabia though, is much broader, it’s to promote US interests.“And so there are so many issues at stake, I want to make clear that we can continue to lead in the region and not create a vacuum; a vacuum that is filled by China and/or Russia.”Biden embarked on his first visit to the region as president with engagements in Israel on Wednesday, a trip dominated by the threat posed to the region by the growing military capabilities of Iran and its proxies around the Middle East.Joe Biden arrives in Middle East at time of rapid changeRead moreThe Biden administration hopes that Israel’s new relationships with several Arab states – including a gradual warming of ties with Saudi Arabia, which vies with Tehran for regional hegemony – will strengthen a fledgling regional alliance against Iran.After a cursory meeting with Palestinian leaders in Bethlehem on Friday, the president will fly to the Saudi city of Jeddah with the aim of convincing Gulf oil producers to increase supply, as well as lobbying for fully integrating Israel into the emerging regional defence architecture.Iran was top of the agenda for Israeli officials on the second day of Biden’s visit, during which the president pledged that the US was prepared to use “all elements of its national power” to deny Iran nuclear weapons.The “Jerusalem declaration”, a joint communique issued by Biden and Lapid after their meeting, reaffirmed an “ironclad” US commitment to Israel’s security, as well as Israel’s right to defend itself.The two countries, however, continue to disagree on the utility of rescuing the landmark nuclear deal with Iran, abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018. Talks to revive the accord began in April 2021, but have made little progress.The Islamic Republic could still be prevented from enriching uranium to the level needed to manufacture a nuclear bomb, Biden said, and “Diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome”, although the US is “not going to wait forever”.Lapid, on the other hand, said: “The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear programme, the free world will use force.”The Jerusalem declaration offered little to the Palestinians other than a brief reaffirmation of Biden’s commitment to a two-state solution to the conflict. Israel made no mention of the peace process, instead promising to improve the economy and quality of life for the 5 million people living in the occupied Palestinian territories.Biden has declined a request for an audience from the family of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, who the US state department concluded was accidentally killed by the Israeli army in May.The family, who accused Biden’s administration of siding with Israel by not calling for a criminal investigation, have instead been invited for talks in Washington. Protests demanding justice for Abu Aqleh are planned for Friday morning outside a US-funded hospital in East Jerusalem which Biden is scheduled to visit.Palestinian expectations for Biden’s trip to Bethlehem are low; Washington has not pressured Israel to return to the peace process, nor moved to curb Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.The administration has also not fulfilled a promise to reopen a US mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which was closed by Trump after he recognised the divided city as Israel’s capital in 2017.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationIsraelSaudi ArabiaJamal KhashoggiPalestinian territoriesIrannewsReuse this content More

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      Democratic voters say Biden could be doing a lot more for the climate crisis

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      Democratic voters say Biden could be doing a lot more for the climate crisisA Pew survey found more Americans favor stricter environmental laws and regulations – even at an economic cost More than 80% of Democrats think the government is not doing enough to tackle the climate crisis, according to a large nationwide survey that found younger voters across both parties are most frustrated with the pace of political action on green issues.Overall, Americans are largely split along party lines in how they view Joe Biden’s record on pressing climate and environmental challenges like clean water and air quality, according to the Pew Research Center survey of more than 10,000 adults.Just 15% of Republicans think the president’s climate policies are taking the country in the right direction compared with 79% of Democrats.Global dismay as supreme court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tattersRead moreBut worryingly for Biden, whose popularity among his own party has fallen steeply according to recent polls, almost two-thirds of those broadly supportive Democrats think he could be doing a lot more to tackle the climate crisis. As it stands, the US is unlikely to meet its pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as Biden’s climate legislation has been stonewalled by fossil fuel friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the entire Republican party.The political stagnation is shocking given that 71% of those polled by Pew said their community had suffered an extreme weather event in the past year. This included severe floods or storms (43%), heatwaves (42%), droughts or water shortages (31%), large wildfires (21%), and shoreline erosion due to rising sea levels (16%). Overall, more than eight in ten of those affected by extreme weather believe the climate crisis contributed to the event.The survey was conducted over the first week of May – before the supreme court’s monumental decision limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to set standards and emissions. In another sign that the conservative justices do not reflect the views of most Americans, Pew found that 72% of Americans favor requiring energy companies to use more renewable sources such as wind and solar, while 68% support linking corporate taxes to carbon emissions.The results are an indication of Biden’s struggle to translate rhetoric – he has called climate change “the existential threat to human existence as we know it” – into tangible action. Any hopes of passing significant climate legislation could be essentially snuffed out within weeks if the Republicans come out on top in the November midterms, with dire long-term implications for people suffering worsening heatwaves, droughts, floods and other impacts in the US and overseas.Yet the need for urgent transformative political action could not be clearer. The US was battered by 20 separate billion-dollar climate and weather disasters in 2021, one of the most catastrophic climate years on record, which led to at least 688 deaths, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).After a myriad of dangerous backward steps under Donald Trump, climate action was expected to be a top priority of the Biden administration after the US rejoined the Paris climate agreement and passed a major infrastructure bill with funding for adaptation and renewables.But Biden’s Build Back Better bill, championed as the most aggressive action ever proposed to combat global heating, has been sunk by the opposition of Manchin, who holds a crucial swing vote in an evenly split US Senate.Democrats still hope to scramble about $300bn in clean energy spending in a separate bill before the Senate begins its summer recess in August, after which focus will switch to midterm elections that are expected to go badly for the party. But there is no guarantee Manchin will agree to this, given his objections to support for electric vehicles and a reluctance to do anything that sidelines fossil fuels, an industry in which he is personally invested in via a coal trading company.“If there’s people that don’t want to produce more fossils, then you got a problem,” Manchin said on Monday, citing fears that reduced oil production will further add to inflation.Scientists have said the world must cut emissions in half this decade if disastrous heating is to be avoided, and there is little chance this will happen without swift action from the US. Biden’s administration is now reportedly contemplating allowing various polluting projects, such as a gas pipeline in West Virginia, as well as oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, in return for Manchin’s support to bolster renewable energy.This previously unthinkable trade-off by the White House has dismayed climate activists already critical of Biden’s call for increased oil production to bring down gasoline prices and his failure to meet a campaign promise to halt fossil fuel leases on public land.“Locking in decades of deadly, planet-heating fossil fuels is an outrageous trade that negates the benefits of an ever-weaker climate bill,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Pandering to Manchin has proven disastrous, and continuing to do so will have catastrophic consequences.”Despite Manchin’s fear mongering, according to the Pew survey 53% of Americans believe stricter environmental laws are worth any associated cost to the economy – though this is down from 65% in 2019. On this issue, the partisan divide is actually widening: three-quarters of Republicans say stricter environmental laws would hurt jobs and the economy – up 20 percentage points from 2019. Among Democrats, only 21% have a negative view of stricter environmental laws and regulations, up from 14% in 2019.There is some common ground across the political divide. The vast majority of Americans (90%) say they favor planting a trillion or so trees to absorb carbon emissions to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and 79% favor tax credits to encourage businesses to develop technology to capture and store carbon.But despite record high fuel prices Biden, and whoever succeeds him in the Oval Office, has an uphill battle persuading Americans to give up gas-guzzling cars. Pew found that 55% of people oppose phasing out new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035.TopicsClimate crisisBiden administrationJoe BidenDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Why is US inflation so high – and how long will it last?

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      Why is US inflation so high – and how long will it last? Soaring prices a top concern for many Americans, and likely influencing many voters in a midterm election year Inflation in the US is at a 40-year high – an astounding 9.1% year-over-year, according to a government report released Wednesday.Prices have climbed every month, while consumer confidence has hit record lows. Inflation is now a top concern for many Americans, and is likely influencing many voters in a midterm election year.What is driving this inflation, however, is not new: rather, it is largely the fallout of two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here is what we know.Why is inflation in the US so high?The Covid-19 pandemic strapped the US economy on to a rollercoaster. In early 2020, nationwide lockdowns caused millions of Americans to be temporarily laid off from their jobs. Then president Donald Trump responded by signing a $2tn aid package aimed at directly helping businesses and individuals, including stimulus checks that put money directly into people’s pockets. It would ultimately be the first of three stimulus packages, together pumping an eye-watering $5tn into the economy.That summer, businesses slowly started to reopen. But it would take another year and a half for the unemployment rate to fall back to where it was before the pandemic, and with wages rising due to a tight labor market, consumer spending started to climb: people wanted new homes, restaurant meals, appliances and furniture.As the demand for goods soared, supply remained constrained – because of the infamous supply chain crisis, which is only just now starting to ease. At the peak of the crisis, ports were clogged with ships trying to dock, containers were falling into the ocean and there was a shortage of truck drivers. The war in Ukraine, along with China’s own coronavirus lockdown in the spring of this year, also played roles in keeping supply tight during 2022. That means higher prices.What sectors are driving inflation?Gas, food and housing prices have all soared, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year-over-year, gas prices are up 7.5% – though Joe Biden has called the inflation rate “out-of-date”, as gas prices have been falling the last few weeks.Prices have also gone up at grocery stores, particularly for fruit, vegetables and non-alcoholic beverages. Grocery prices over the last year have risen 12.2% – the highest increase since April 1979. Home prices and rent have increased too – up 5.6% compared with last year.How long will inflation last?No one can really predict, nor do we know if it has peaked, because so many factors are at play. Gas prices are going down, it’s true, but it’s unclear whether that will be enough to send inflation downward as well.The Federal Reserve, headed by Jerome Powell, has been aggressive in its response to inflation, raising interest rates twice this year. Early reports indicate that the Fed is looking at yet another three-point interest rate hike at the end of the month.What are the lasting effects of inflation?High, long-lasting inflation is worrisome because it decreases the value of currency, weakening the purchasing power of the American dollar and eroding savings.The Fed’s control of interest rates is its most powerful tool to curb inflation. But it is a tough balancing act, as it risks a recession. A slowdown in investments could have a cascading effect on jobs and spending, though it remains too early to predict any recession – not that that has stopped certain people, and banks, from doing so.And there are some things inflation doesn’t necessarily affect. The unemployment rate has held steady at 3.6% – around the same rate as before the pandemic. And the economy has shown other signs of resilience – particularly in jobs, which grew 372,000 in June.TopicsUS economyEconomicsConsumer spendingFederal ReserveBiden administrationUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More

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      Migrant deaths show Biden needs to change immigration policy: Politics Weekly America

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      At the end of June, authorities in San Antonio, Texas, opened the back of an abandoned truck to find the bodies of more than 50 migrants inside – people who had made the journey across the southern border in extreme heat. The news led to scrutiny, from all sides, of the Biden administration’s approach to immigration, with Republicans saying it was too weak and Democrats, too harsh.
      Jonathan Freedland speaks to Silvia Rodriguez Vega and Pedro Gerson about the steps the US government could take to prevent further deaths at the border

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      Follow Silvia’s work on her upcoming book here Buy tickets for a Guardian live event where John Harris and John Crace discusss the end of the Johnson era Subscribe to The Guardian’s Women’s Football Weekly podcast on Apple, Spotify, and Acast Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling plan

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      Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling planPolicy would ban new ocean drilling but allow up to 11 lease sales in Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast Joe Biden’s administration on Friday unveiled a five-year offshore oil and gas drilling development plan that blocks all new drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within US territorial waters while allowing some lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast.The plan, which has not been finalized, could allow up to 11 lease sales but gives the interior department the right to make none. It comes two days after the US supreme court curbed the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to respond to the climate crisis.Environmental groups criticized the plan, and some expressed concern that the administration was backing away from the president’s “no more drilling” pledge during a March 2020 one-on-one debate with Bernie Sanders.Biden at the time said, “No more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore – no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill – period.”Environmental groups also argued that new leasing would impede the Biden administration’s goal to cut carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030 in an effort to keep global heating under the threshold of 1.5C (2.7F).“President Biden campaigned on climate leadership, but he seems poised to let us down at the worst possible moment,” said Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The reckless approval of yet more offshore drilling would mean more oil spills, more dead wildlife and more polluted communities. We need a five-year plan with no new leases.”Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch said: “President Biden has called the climate crisis the existential threat of our time, but the administration continues to pursue policies that will only make it worse.”On Friday, the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, said she and the president “had made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy”. The department’s proposal, she said, was “an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing”.California passes first sweeping US law to reduce single-use plasticRead moreThe proposal to sell off 11 leases must go through a series of reviews and a period of public comment that is likely to be contentious. Most of the new leases would be offered in parts of the western and central Gulf of Mexico, far from where legislators have outlawed new drilling near Florida.The executive director of Healthy Gulf, Cyn Sarthou, said the organization was troubled by the apparent change of policy.“Now is not the time to continue business as usual,” Sarthou said. “The continuing threat posed by climate change requires the nation to focus on a transition to renewable energy.”Nearly 95% of US offshore oil production and 71% of offshore natural gas production occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. About 15% of oil production comes from offshore drilling.The proposed leases come after sales in two regions of the Gulf were abandoned because of legal challenges.Advocates for the oil industry welcomed the new proposal, including the Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.“Our allies across the free world are in desperate need of American oil and gas,” Manchin said in a statement. “I am disappointed to see that ‘zero’ lease sales is even an option on the table.”One of the proposed new leases could be granted in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, an area that is already highly vulnerable to the effects of climate breakdown. “This decision is incredibly disappointing in the face of ongoing climate impacts that are already being deeply felt by our community around Alaska,” said the advocacy director at Cook Inletkeeper, Liz Mering.Mering added: “Alaskans have worked to ensure that Lower Cook Inlet remains this incredible place for our fisheries and tourism industry, which support a thriving local economy. Thirty-three years after the horrific Exxon Valdez disaster, Alaskans still remember and recognize the risk of more oil fouling our waters, killing our fish and hurting Alaskans.”The proposal came a day after the administration held its first auction of onshore lease sales, drawing bids of $22m from energy companies seeking drilling rights on about 110 square miles of public land across Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.After the sale, the Western Environmental Law Center attorney Melissa Hornbein said: “Overwhelming scientific evidence shows us that burning fossil fuels from existing leases on federal lands is incompatible with a livable climate.”TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenOilGasUS politicsCommoditiesClimate crisisnewsReuse this content More