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      Gina McCarthy, White House climate adviser, reportedly to step down

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      Gina McCarthy, White House climate adviser, reportedly to step downTwo sources reported that she was planning to leave her job in the coming months, being ‘frustrated by the slow pace of climate progress’ White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy is planning to step down, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations, likely ending a tenure marked by ambitious emissions targets but failure in securing major US carbon-cutting legislation.McCarthy, 67, had initially planned to remain in the White House for about a year, hoping to help federal agencies implement President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate legislation, but those efforts stalled amid intraparty opposition from key Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin.Climate action has been ‘a calamity’, says Senate Democrat Sheldon WhitehouseRead moreMcCarthy has already delayed her departure, and told one Reuters source that she plans to leave as soon as next month.White House spokesman Vedant Patel said on Thursday: “This is not true and there are no such plans under way and no personnel announcements to make.”“Gina and her entire team continue to be laser focused on delivering on President Biden’s clean energy agenda,” he said in an email.Multiple news outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, separately reported that McCarthy had told confidantes that she was planning to leave her job in the coming months, with the Times reporting that she had said she was “frustrated by the slow pace of climate progress”.A Politico poll from December found that 80% of Americans who labeled themselves left-leaning said that the Biden administration is doing too little to address climate change. McCarthy publicly responded to that sentiment in February, Politico reported, saying, “We understand people’s frustration. Would we all like to be running faster and faster? Yes, we would.”The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian on the reports of McCarthy’s plans.McCarthy, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator during the Obama administration, was selected by Biden to a new role leading domestic climate policy coordination at the White House. She serves as a domestic counterpart to John Kerry, who Biden appointed as his special international envoy on climate change.Her deputy, Ali Zaidi, who served as a climate policy adviser in the Obama White House, is seen as her likely replacement, the Washington Post reported.Biden came into office with an ambitious climate agenda, pegged to a $555bn plan to transition to cleaner energy in all aspects of American life. Before those policies stalled, McCarthy, a regulatory expert, was going to be tasked with implementing the plan across multiple agencies.Biden had promised to wean the nation off fossil fuels, but has now found himself looking for ways to increase global supply of oil and other carbon-rich energy products amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine and high gas prices that advisers see damaging his standing with voters.McCarthy’s position was a key demand by the liberal wing of the Democratic party and an illustration of Biden’s commitment to the cause. Not replacing her could be seen as a retreat by the environmental community.TopicsBiden administrationUS politicsClimate crisisnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden administration extends public transport mask mandate by two weeks

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      Biden administration extends public transport mask mandate by two weeksCDC says it is extending order, which was set to expire on 18 April, to allow more time to study Omicron subvariant The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it is extending the US nationwide mask requirement for public transit for 15 days as it monitors an uptick in Covid-19 cases.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was extending the order, which was set to expire on 18 April, until 3 May to allow more time to study the BA.2 Omicron subvariant that is now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the US.“In order to assess the potential impact the rise of cases has on severe disease, including hospitalizations and deaths, and healthcare system capacity, the CDC order will remain in place at this time,” the agency said in a statement.When the Transportation Security Administration, which enforces the rule for planes, buses, trains and transit hubs, extended the requirement last month, it said the CDC had been hoping to roll out a more flexible masking strategy that would have replaced the nationwide requirement.The mask mandate is the most visible vestige of government restrictions to control the pandemic, and possibly the most controversial. A surge of abusive and sometimes violent incidents on airplanes has been attributed mostly to disputes over mask-wearing.Critics have seized on the fact that states have rolled back rules requiring masks in restaurants, stores and other indoor settings, and yet Covid-19 cases have fallen sharply since the Omicron variant peaked in mid-January.There has been a slight increase in cases in recent weeks, driven by the BA.2 strain, with daily confirmed cases nationwide rising from about 25,000 per day to more than 30,000. Those figures are an undercount since many people now test positive on at-home tests that are not reported to public health agencies.Severe illnesses and deaths tend to lag infections by several weeks. The CDC is awaiting indications of whether the increase in cases correlates to a rise in adverse outcomes before announcing a less restrictive mask policy for travel.TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenOmicron variantCoronavirusUS politicsInfectious diseasesnewsReuse this content More

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      McConnell will ‘make Biden a moderate’ if Republicans retake Congress

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      McConnell will ‘make Biden a moderate’ if Republicans retake Congress Senate minority leader projects ‘pretty good beating’ for Biden administration in November midterms The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Sunday Republicans will force Joe Biden to govern as a “moderate” if the GOP retakes Congress in November.Liz Cheney disputes report January 6 panel split over Trump criminal referralRead moreSpeaking to Fox News Sunday, McConnell attacked Biden on subjects including reported crime increases in large US cities, the decision to extend a moratorium on repaying student loan debts, and the administration’s attempt to lift a Trump policy that allowed border patrol agents to turn away migrants at the southern border, ostensibly to prevent the spread of coronavirus.“This administration just can’t seem to get their act together,” McConnell said. “I think they’re headed toward a pretty good beating in the fall election.”If that beating were to materialize, giving Republicans control of the Senate and House, McConnell said his party would try to confine Biden to the center of an increasingly polarized political spectrum.“Let me put it this way – Biden ran as a moderate,” McConnell said. “If I’m the majority leader in the Senate, and [House minority leader] Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the House, we’ll make sure Joe Biden is a moderate.”Without delving into specifics, McConnell outlined a broad set of policy priorities, including reducing crime, overhauling education, pursuing cheaper gasoline prices and investing in defense following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.McConnell said Biden’s low poll numbers reflected dissatisfaction with his administration’s response to all those problems.“I like the president personally,” McConnell said. “It’s clear to me personality is not what is driving his unpopularity.”McConnell did not mention – and was not asked about – whether he would seek to block any further Biden nominations to the supreme court, which for now has a 6-3 conservative majority.In a recent interview with Axios, McConnell would not commit to hearings for any potential nominees if he led the Senate at any point before the 2024 presidential election, Republicans’ next opportunity to retake the White House. ‘TV is like a poll’: Trump endorses Dr Oz for Pennsylvania Senate nominationRead moreLast year, he said the GOP would block a Biden supreme court nominee if it controlled the Senate in 2024, an election year. McConnell blocked Barack Obama’s final nominee, Merrick Garland, from even receiving a hearing in 2016, citing that year’s presidential election. In 2020, he oversaw the confirmation of Donald Trump’s third nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, shortly before polling day.McConnell’s comments on Sunday echoed some of the remarks he made in the interview with Axios, when he predicted that Biden would “finally be the moderate he campaigned as” if the Democrats lost their congressional majority in November.The Democrats hold a 12-seat advantage in the House and generally hold a single-vote edge in the 50-50 Senate, where vice-president Kamala Harris can serve as tiebreaker.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS CongressUS SenateUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Does the White House have a communication problem? Politics Weekly America podcast

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      Recent reports suggest the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is leaving her role to become a political commentator. This comes after the press team went into crisis control mode when President Joe Biden went off script in talking about Vladimir Putin. The polls show Biden is still proving unpopular with voters. This week, Jonathan Freedland and Bill Clinton’s former adviser Paul Begala discuss what the team behind Biden can do to change the narrative

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      Listen to this week’s episode of Politics Weekly UK with John Harris Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Biden extends pause on federal student loan payments to end of August

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      Biden extends pause on federal student loan payments to end of AugustNearly 37 million borrowers have been affected by the pause, with a delay of $195bn of payments since start of pandemic Joe Biden announced the pause on federal student loan collections in the US will be extended until 31 August.The pause on federal student loans first started at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 under the Trump administration. This is the seventh time the pause has seen an extension since then.“We are still recovering from the pandemic and the unprecedented economic disruption it caused,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that data from the Federal Reserve suggested that if collections were to resume, “millions of student loan borrowers would face significant economic hardship, and delinquencies and defaults could threaten Americans’ financial stability”.Nearly 37 million borrowers have been affected by the pause, with a delay of $195bn of payments since the start of the pandemic, according to the Federal Reserve of New York.In addition to the extension, the White House announced that borrowers who have defaulted or are delinquent on their loans will get a “fresh start” on their payments once collection resumes. Consequences experienced by borrowers who have defaulted on their student loans include having tax refunds withheld, wage garnishment and diminished social security benefits.“During the pause, we will continue our preparations to give borrowers a fresh start and to ensure that all borrowers have access to repayment plans that meet their financial situations and needs,” the education secretary, Miguel Cardona, said in a statement.Advocates for those with student debt, who have been pushing the Biden administration to extend the pause for weeks, praised the continuation of the pause but noted that the five-month extension was too short for borrowers and for the Department of Education to get ready to restart collections.“The pause is a temporary measure that should be in service of a long-term fix, or borrowers may be back in the same crunch four months from now,” Abby Shafroth, interim director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Loan Borrower Assistance Project, said in a statement.The announcement of the extension also comes off the back of a rally held in Washington DC on Monday urging Biden to cancel student debt outright. Calls for Biden to cancel student loans have gained momentum over the course of the pandemic. At the end of March, dozens of Democratic lawmakers signed a letter asking Biden to extend the pause until at least the end of the year and “provide meaningful student debt cancellation”.Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who signed the letter, tweeted on Tuesday that extensions could be read as “savvy politics” but still leave borrowers with instability.“I don’t think those folks understand the panic and disorder it causes people to get so close to these deadlines just to extend the uncertainty,” she tweeted.I think some folks read these extensions as savvy politics, but I don’t think those folks understand the panic and disorder it causes people to get so close to these deadlines just to extend the uncertainty. It doesn’t have the affect people think it does.We should cancel them. https://t.co/ZvkGRwliLT— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 5, 2022
      The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who also signed the letter, said that the extension was “a very good thing” but added that Biden should move forward with broader debt cancellation.“The president should go further and forgive $50,000 in student loans permanently. It’s a huge burden on so many people,” Schumer told reporters on Wednesday.As a candidate for president, Biden supported the idea of cancelling at least $10,000 of student loans per person. Since entering office, Biden has been mum on any plans to cancel student debt.Last month, Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, suggested that the administration was considering policies that go beyond a pause extension saying: “The question whether or not there’s some executive action on student debt forgiveness when payments resume is a decision we’re going to take before payments resume.”TopicsUS educationBiden administrationHigher educationUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      CDC announces revamp plans, hires outside official for review

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      CDC announces revamp plans, hires outside official for reviewThe one-month review follows criticism for its pandemic response including initial delays in developing a coronavirus test The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday announced plans to revamp itself, with director Rochelle Walensky hiring an outside senior federal health official to conduct a one-month review.James Macrae, an associate administrator in the Department of Health and Human Services, will join CDC on a one-month assignment from 11 April to listen to and engage with the agency’s Covid-19 response activities, Walensky said in an email to her colleagues.Biden names Ashish Jha as new White House Covid-19 response coordinatorRead moreMacrae will provide Walensky insight into how CDC’s programs can be strengthened.She has also asked three senior officials at CDC to gather feedback on the agency’s current structure and solicit suggestions for strategic change.The review follows criticism for its response during the pandemic, from delays in developing a coronavirus test initially to its guidance over masking, isolation and quarantine being called confusing.“As we’ve challenged our state and local partners, we know that now is the time for CDC to integrate the lessons learned into a strategy for the future,” Walensky said in a separate statement.Walensky said the review will allow CDC to develop new systems and processes, with a keen focus on the agency’s core capabilities like public health workforce, laboratory capacity and rapid response to disease outbreaks. TopicsCoronavirusInfectious diseasesBiden administrationVaccines and immunisationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More