Tag Archives: President Joe Biden

U.S. Senate negotiates limits in Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 bill before vote

By Susan Cornwell and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill would phase out $1,400 payments to high-income Americans in a compromise with moderate Democratic senators, according to lawmakers and media reports.

The Democratic-controlled Senate expects to open debate on the package as early as Wednesday, with a final vote for passage seen later in the week. Before the bill hits the chamber floor, Democrats are negotiating limits to a measure Republicans have attacked as wasteful.

Senate Democrats said the proposal, which would block Americans earning $80,000 per year or more and couples earning $160,000 or more from receiving the $1,400 payments, was a good solution.

The income cutoff had been higher – $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for couples filing jointly – in the House-passed version of the legislation.

“It’s an appropriate way of bringing this to a successful conclusion,” Senator Michael Bennet told reporters. Senator Debbie Stabenow said the caps would be “a reasonable compromise.”

The 100-seat chamber, where control is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, is due to consider a motion to begin 20 hours of debate on the sweeping legislation, according to a Senate Democratic aide. A vote to proceed could be an early indicator of how much Republican opposition the package faces.

The bill would pay for vaccines and medical supplies, boost jobless assistance and send a new round of emergency financial aid to households, small businesses and state and local governments. Democrats aim to get it to Biden to sign into law before March 14, when some current benefits expire.

Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have denounced the bill as a Democratic “wish list” containing provisions unrelated to the pandemic, which has killed more than 517,000 Americans and left millions more jobless.

But it is not clear that McConnell can replicate the monolithic party unity on display last Saturday, when the House of Representatives approved the bill with all Republicans in opposition.

Before the legislation comes to a final vote, Democrats will have to sort out a welter of competing ideas as they seek to advance the bill.

First to go will be a minimum-wage increase, which the Senate parliamentarian said last week could not be included in the package if Democrats want to invoke a special procedure that would allow them to pass the bill with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes needed to advance most legislation in the chamber.

With Democrats and their allies controlling 50 seats, Vice President Kamala Harris might need to give them a tie-breaking vote.

STICKING POINTS

Democrats have, however, shown no interest in dropping another partisan sticking point: $350 billion in aid for state and local governments, which face rising costs and uncertain tax revenues because of the pandemic. But they are negotiating what to include in that figure, with some advocating for spending on rural broadband internet service, a priority for senators from states with large rural populations.

A Reuters analysis found that Democratic-leaning states would get a larger share of that money this time around than they did under the first $150 billion of state and local aid that Congress approved last year.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a key centrist, pushed to scale back enhanced unemployment benefits to $300 per week from $400. Lawmakers may also opt to discontinue those benefits if unemployment in a given state drops below a certain level, according to a Democratic aide.

The Senate could vote on the bill by the end of the week. The House would then have to sign off on the changes before Congress could send it on to Biden to sign into law.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone, Peter Cooney, Steve Orlofsky and Jonathan Oatis)

Israeli defense chief sees ‘special security arrangement’ with Gulf allies

By Dan Williams

KEREM SHALOM, Israel (Reuters) – Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday it intends to develop a “special security arrangement” with Gulf Arab allies, who share common concerns over Iran.

The United Arab Emirate and Bahrain established formal relations with Israel last year. As part of their U.S.-backed rapprochement, Israel and the UAE have proposed defense and military cooperation.

On a visit to an Israel-Gaza border crossing, Defense Minister Benny Gantz played down a report by public radio Kan that Israel was considering a defense agreement with Gulf Arab countries, but said security ties would be pursued.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a defense pact but we are going to develop defense relations with every country that we have relations with,” Gantz told Reuters.

“We have this process of setting up (a) special security arrangement, and within this arrangement we can continue and develop our relations,” he said.

Gantz declined to go into details on what such an arrangement would entail.

He signaled that Israel had no opposition to the sale, approved during former U.S. President Donald Trump’s last days in office, of 50 Lockheed Martin’s F-35 stealth jets to the UAE. The deal is now under review by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration.

Asked about Israel’s view of the sale, Gantz said Israel’s “qualitative military edge” must be preserved by the United States, adding that the advanced warplane was already in the country’s arsenal.

On Monday, the UAE’s ambassador to Israel took up his post, pledging to build up new bilateral relations. Israel opened an embassy in Abu Dhabi in January.

Their so-called U.S.-brokered “Abraham Accords,” joined by Bahrain, have uncorked tourism and commerce between Israel and Gulf Arab countries. Palestinians have been critical of the rapprochement, worried that their own unmet statehood goal might be sidelined.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S. Senate Democrats drop minimum wage plan for $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Democrats, anxious for Congress to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill within the next two weeks, have resolved a potential sticking point for getting the sweeping legislation through the narrowly divided Senate.

The House of Representatives narrowly approved the bill to fight the pandemic and boost the economy early Saturday. The action now moves to the Senate, where Democrats do not expect much if any Republican help, even though polls indicate a majority of Americans – around 70% – favor the measure.

Over the weekend, top Democrats abandoned a controversial plan to use U.S. tax policy as an incentive for businesses to more than double the minimum wage to $15 per hour, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The proposal would have complicated Senate passage.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris may have to cast a tie-breaking vote in a chamber where Republicans control 50 seats and Democrats and their allies control the other 50. Even this outcome depends on all the Democrats staying united behind the first major bill to come through Congress in the Biden administration.

“We’re moving ahead with a bill that probably will get no Republican votes in the Senate, but will have broad Republican support in the country,” Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.

Republicans in Congress say the plan is too expensive and includes things like transportation projects that have nothing to do with relief for COVID-19.

“It’s $1.9 trillion, more than half of it won’t even be spent in this calendar year … So how could it be about COVID relief? No one expects a year from now that we’ll be in the COVID crisis we are in now,” Republican Senator Rob Portman told ABC’s “This Week.”

STICKING POINT RESOLVED

The House-passed COVID-19 aid bill would raise the national hourly minimum wage for the first time since 2009, to $15 from $7.25. But the Senate’s rules expert said the wage hike could not be included as long as Democrats are using a maneuver that allows the coronavirus bill to pass with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes needed to advance most legislation in the 100-seat chamber.

Democrats dropped the plan to get around this setback by using the tax code to push for a higher wage after running into a number of political and practical hurdles.

That decision resolved a potential sticking point for the legislation. While progressives want the wage increase kept in the COVID-19 bill, some moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin favor a smaller increase in the minimum wage, to about $11 an hour.

Both chambers must pass the same version of the bill before sending it to Biden for signing into law. Democrats want this to happen by March 14, when enhanced unemployment benefits expire.

The measure would pay for vaccines and send a new round of aid to households, small businesses and state and local governments. The big-ticket items include $1,400 direct payments to individuals, a $400-per-week federal unemployment benefit through Aug. 29, and help for those in difficulty paying rents and home mortgages during the pandemic.

Democrats say the package is needed to fight a pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Mary Milliken, Nick Zieminski and Chizu Nomiyama)

Syria condemns ‘cowardly’ U.S. air strikes on Iran-backed militias

By John Davison and Maha El Dahan

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Syria condemned U.S. air strikes against Iran-backed militias in the east of the country on Friday as a cowardly act and urged President Joe Biden not to follow “the law of the jungle”.

An Iraqi militia official close to Iran said the strikes killed one fighter and wounded four, but U.S. officials said they were limited in scope to show Biden’s administration will act firmly while trying to avoid a big regional escalation.

Washington and Tehran are seeking maximum leverage in attempts to return to the Iran nuclear deal.

“Syria condemns in the strongest terms the U.S. cowardly attack on areas in Deir al-Zor near the Syrian-Iraqi border,” the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement.

“It (the U.S. administration) is supposed to stick to international legitimacy, not to the law of the jungle as (did) the previous administration.”

Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, also criticized the strikes and called for “unconditional respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria.”

“What has happened is very dangerous and could lead to an escalation in the whole region,” a Russian parliamentarian, Vladimir Dzhabarov, was quoted as saying by RIA news agency.

The strikes, early on Friday Middle Eastern time, targeted militia sites on the Syrian side of the Iraqi-Syrian border, where groups backed by Iran control an important crossing for weapons, personnel and goods.

Western officials and some Iraqi officials accuse Iran-backed groups of involvement in deadly rocket attacks against U.S. sites and personnel in Iraq in the last month.

ATTACKS ON U.S. FORCES IN IRAQ

The Iraqi militia official close to Iran said Friday’s air strikes had hit positions of the Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group along the border.

Local sources and a medical source in eastern Syria told Reuters at least 17 people had been killed, but gave no further details. That toll could not be confirmed.

In recent attacks, a non-American contractor was killed at a U.S. military based at Erbil International Airport in Kurdish-run northern Iraq on Feb. 15 and, in the days that followed, rockets were fired at a base hosting U.S. forces, and near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Biden’s decision to strike only in Syria and not in Iraq gives Iraq’s government breathing room as it investigates the Erbil attack, which also wounded Americans.

Kataib Hezbollah has denied involvement in recent attacks against U.S. interests. Iran denies involvement in attacks on U.S. sites.

Several attacks, including the one on Erbil airport, have been claimed by little-known groups which some Iraqi and Western officials say are a front for established Iran-backed groups such as Kataib Hezbollah.

LIMITED RESPONSE

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement on Thursday that U.S. forces had conducted air strikes against infrastructure used by Iranian-backed militant groups.

“President Biden will act to protect American and Coalition personnel. At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq,” Kirby said.

He said the strikes destroyed multiple facilities at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decision to carry out the strikes was meant to signal that, while the United States wanted to punish the militias, it did not want the situation to spiral into a bigger conflict.

The Iraqi military issued a statement saying it had not exchanged information with the United States over the targeting of locations in Syria, and that cooperation with the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq was limited to fighting Islamic State.

It was not clear how, or whether, the U.S. strikes might affect efforts to coax Iran back into negotiations about both sides resuming compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.

(Reporting by John Davison, Amina Ismail, Baghdad newsroom, Maha El Dahan in Beirut, Kinda Makieh in Damascus, and Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart in Washington, and by Thomas Balmforth and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Moscow, editing by Timothy Heritage)

Biden administration to distribute more than 25 million masks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration will deliver more than 25 million masks to community health centers, food pantries and soup kitchens this spring as part of its battle against the coronavirus pandemic, the White House said on Wednesday.

U.S. health authorities recommend mask wearing as a critical measure to help slow the spread of disease and the White House said low-income Americans still don’t have access to masks.

The government will deliver the masks to more than 1,300 community health centers and 60,000 food pantries and soup kitchens between March and May, the White House said.

The masks are expected to reach between 12 million and 15 million Americans, it said.

Democratic President Joe Biden issued a mask mandate when he took office in January as the pandemic raged on, requiring masks and physical distancing in all federal buildings and the development of a testing program for federal employees for COVID-19.

Shortly afterward, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a sweeping order requiring the use of face masks on nearly all forms of public transportation.

The White House said two-thirds of the people served by community health Centers live in poverty, 60% are racial and/or ethnic minorities, and nearly 1.4 million are homeless.

“These masks will be no cost, high-quality, washable, and consistent with the mask guidance from the CDC. All of these masks will be made in America, and will not impact availability of masks for health care workers,” the statement said.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. public power/natgas groups urge Biden to cap prices in last week’s freeze

(Reuters) – Trade groups representing U.S. public power and natural gas companies urged President Joe Biden to declare a gas emergency for last week’s extreme weather and authorize the secretary of energy to cap the price of gas.

In a Feb. 19 letter to Biden, the American Public Power Association (APPA) and the American Public Gas Association (APGA) said the recent cold weather in the Midwest and Texas boosted demand for electricity at the same time power generation was constrained due to freezing gas wells and pipelines.

Officials at APPA, APGA and the U.S Department of Energy were not immediately available for comment on whether the administration could or would retroactively change gas prices.

That forced utilities and other energy suppliers to pay billions of dollars to buy gas and power for their customers. In addition to heating homes and businesses, gas also powers much of the power generation in Texas and other states affected by the freeze.

Gas prices, which usually trade around $3 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), rocketed to over $300 per mmBtu at some hubs, while power prices, which usually trade around $25 per megawatt hour in Texas, soared to over $10,000 at times.

One public-owned power plant spent $78 million for four days of gas supply, the groups said, noting the fuel for that plant cost only $18 million for all of 2020.

“If no relief is provided, these staggering costs will ultimately have to be borne by utility customers,” the groups said.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Jonathan Oatis)

Israel aims to resolve Iran disputes with Biden at adviser level

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel hopes to prevent personal tension between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden over their differences on the Iranian nuclear question by delegating talks on the topic to their senior staff, an Israeli official said.

Netanyahu’s foreign-policy fortunes have waned since Biden succeeded Republican president Donald Trump, who withdrew the United States from world powers’ 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, deeming it too advantageous for Tehran – a view Israel shared.

Biden, a Democrat, wants to rejoin the deal. That has set the stage for possible new strains in the U.S.-Israel alliance.

On Monday, Netanyahu conferred with Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi to present a united Israeli front on Iran – even as the conservative premier runs against the two centrists in a March election.

An official briefed on Monday’s meeting said it was agreed that Israeli misgivings about, and proposed improvements to, the deal would be relayed by Netanyahu’s National Security Council to the counterpart National Security Council in the White House.

“The intent is to work everything out at that level, and to keep that communication channel open,” the official told Reuters on Tuesday on condition on anonymity. “Obviously this has benefits where there is a risk of a ‘cold shoulder’ at chief-executive level.”

Citing unnamed sources involved in the meeting, Israel’s Army Radio reported the Netanyahu and the other ministers had decided to keep disputes with Biden “under the radar” for now.

Netanyahu’s office declined comment.

When the 2015 deal was being put together, Netanyahu’s opposition – including in a speech he delivered to the U.S. Congress – led to feuds with the then Democratic administration of Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president.

Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that Israel was “in close contact” with Washington on the issue and asserted that a return to the 2015 deal would “pave Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal”.

Israel previously hinted it might shun Iran talks with Washington in the event of a new deal that it still opposes, lest such engagement give the impression of consent.

Iran, which denies seeking the bomb, began breaching the deal in 2019, following the U.S. withdrawal. It has recently stepped up violations and was cool to an administration announcement on Thursday that Washington was ready to talk about a mutual return to compliance.

Israel is reputed to have the region’s only nuclear arsenal, something it neither confirms nor denies under an “ambiguity” policy designed to ward off foes while avoiding arms races.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by William Maclean)

Biden to revise small business loans to reach smaller, minority firms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will launch changes on Monday to the main U.S. coronavirus aid program for small businesses to try to reach smaller, minority-owned firms and sole proprietors left behind in previous rounds of aid.

Biden administration officials said that for two weeks starting on Wednesday, the Small Business Administration will only accept applications for forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from firms with fewer than 20 employees to ensure that they are not crowded out by larger firms.

The changes, to be formally announced by Biden on Monday afternoon, come as small business bankers say demand for Paycheck Protection loans is slowing as firms reopen. The White House released a fact sheet outlining the changes on Monday morning.

When the PPP was launched in April 2020 at the height of coronavirus lockdowns under a $3 trillion relief bill, its initial $349 billion ran out in two weeks. Congress approved another $320 billion in May, but the program expired in August with about $130 billion in unused funds.

The program was re-launched on Jan. 19 with $284 billion in new funds from a coronavirus aid bill passed at the end of December, and a Biden administration official said about $150 billion of PPP money is still available.

But Biden administration officials said there are still many minority and very small firms in low-income areas that have not been able to receive aid.

The changes aim to make it easier for firms with no employees — sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed people such as house cleaners and personal care providers — that could not qualify previously because of business cost deductions.

The Small Business Administration will revise the rules to match the approach used to allow small farmers and ranchers to receive aid, the businesses said.

The officials said the program will also set aside $1 billion for businesses without employees in low- and moderate-income areas, which are 70% owned by women and people of color.

The SBA will provide new guidance making it clear that legal U.S. residents who are not citizens, such as green card holders, cannot be excluded from the program. The Biden Administration will also eliminate exclusions that prohibit a business owner who is delinquent on student loans from participating in the program.

Business owners with non-fraud felony arrests or convictions in the previous year are excluded from the program. However, Biden administration officials said they will adopt bipartisan Senate proposals to remove this restriction, unless the applicant is currently incarcerated.

According to the White House fact sheet, the Biden administration is also improving the program’s operations by strengthening and streamlining fraud checks, revamping the loan application and government web sites that communicate with small businesses, talking more with borrowers about their needs, and deepening the government’s relationship with lenders.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Chizu Nomiyama)

U.S. begins admitting asylum seekers blocked by Trump, with thousands more waiting

By Mimi Dwyer and Ted Hesson

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Reuters) – The United States will on Friday begin rolling back one of former President Donald Trump’s strictest immigration policies, allowing in the first of thousands of asylum seekers who have been forced to wait in Mexico for their cases to be heard.

President Joe Biden pledged while campaigning to immediately rescind the Trump policy, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Under the program more than 65,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers were denied entry and sent back across the border pending court hearings. Most returned home but some stayed in Mexico in sometimes squalid or dangerous conditions, vulnerable to kidnapping and other violence.

Now they will be allowed into the United States to wait for their applications to be heard in immigration courts. The effort will start slowly, with only limited numbers of people being admitted on Friday at the port of entry in San Ysidro, California.

It will expand to two additional ports of entry in Texas, including one near a migrant encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, in the coming week, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman.

The administration estimates that only 25,000 people out of the more than 65,000 enrolled in MPP still have active immigration court cases and is set to begin processing that group on Friday. But it has cautioned that the efforts will take time.

Biden officials say they expect eventually to process 300 people per day at two of the ports.

The Biden administration is treading carefully, wary that the policy shift could encourage more migrants to trek to the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. officials say anyone who seeks to enter and is not a member of the MPP program will be immediately expelled.

A group of Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Biden on Feb. 10 that said allowing MPP migrants to enter the United States “sends the signal that our borders are open.”

The United States, Mexico and international organizations have scrambled in recent days to figure out how to register migrants online and by phone, transport them to the border, test them for COVID-19 and get them to their destinations in the United States, people familiar with the effort said.

The fast-moving process and lack of information from U.S. officials has frustrated some advocates eager to assist the effort.

The situation has taken on urgency as a winter storm has brought frigid temperatures to much of the southern United States and northern Mexico.

Migrants in the sprawling Matamoros encampment have reported children and families struggling to stay warm in makeshift tents lacking insulation or other protection from the cold. The camp has grown in recent weeks as migrants anticipate the end of the MPP program, but DHS has said that processing will not begin there until Feb. 22.

On Thursday, Honduran asylum seeker Antonia Maldonado served hot chocolate from a steaming pot on a stove made from the inside of a washing machine to other asylum seekers in Matamoros shivering in the near freezing weather.

She has been taking goodbye photographs and making plans to leave with her partner, Disón Valladares, a fellow asylum seeker she met on the journey to Matamoros.

“He wants me to go first, and I want him to go first,” she said. They are hopeful that once they enter the United States they will be able to marry.

Those seeking asylum may not have their cases resolved for years due to COVID-related immigration court closures and existing backlogs, according to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the pro-immigrant American Immigration Council.

The delay would give the Biden administration time to reverse some Trump policies that sought to make it harder to obtain asylum, he said.

In the meantime, migrants will be released to the United States and enrolled in so-called “alternatives to detention” while awaiting their hearings, a U.S. official said last week. Such programs can include check-ins with immigration authorities as well as ankle bracelet monitoring.

(Reporting by Mimi Dwyer in Los Angeles, Ted Hesson in Washington and Laura Gottesdiener in Matamoros, Mexico; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)

Democrats roll out Biden immigration bill without Republican backers

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats will on Thursday formally introduce President Joe Biden’s sweeping immigration bill in Congress, a measure that would provide a path to U.S. citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, but the proposal faces long odds to passage.

The bill would greatly increase both family-based and employment-based legal immigration and allow certain previously deported immigrants to apply to return for humanitarian reasons. Key elements of the bill were first unveiled in January.

The legislation, which is expected to be hundreds of pages long, takes an aggressive pro-immigration approach. It has not received public support from Republicans, making it unlikely that it will be enacted.

Democrats hold a majority in the House of Representatives, but the Senate is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. Democrats would need to win over 10 Senate Republicans to avoid a “filibuster,” a procedural hurdle that can delay or block legislation from coming to a vote.

“We know the path forward will demand negotiations with others, but we are not going to make concessions out of the gate,” Senator Robert Menendez, who will be the lead sponsor of the bill in the Senate, said on a call with reporters. “We will never win an argument that we don’t have the courage to make.”

Menendez said he had spoken with some Republican senators who are interested in parts of the legislation, but declined to name the lawmakers. Democrats would consider any avenue to accomplish immigration reform, including using a procedural move to pass a bill in the Senate with only 51 votes, he added.

Democrats are simultaneously pushing ahead with several smaller-scale immigration bills, including a measure that would offer a path to citizenship to so-called “Dreamer” immigrants living in the United States illegally after entering as children.

“I salute the president for putting forth the legislation that he did,” House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday during a separate news conference. “There are others that want to do piecemeal and that may be a good approach, too.”

Some Republican senators have already expressed opposition to major provisions of the Biden bill.

The criticism was echoed on Thursday by Heritage Action, the political wing of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“This latest move would only further harm American workers already struggling from our health and economic national crises caused by the ongoing pandemic and our government’s response,” said Jessica Anderson, the organization’s executive director.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Makini Brice in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin, Aurora Ellis and Howard Goller)