Tag Archives: President Joe Biden

Senate Republicans block U.S. debt-limit hike again

By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats on Tuesday to head off a potentially crippling U.S. credit default, raising questions about whether partisan tensions in Congress will threaten the nation’s economy.

With federal government funding due to expire on Thursday and borrowing authority set to run out on Oct. 18, Democrats who narrowly control both chambers of Congress are working to head off twin fiscal disasters while simultaneously trying to advance Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda.

So far, Republicans have prevented them from doing so.

Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday blocked a vote that would have suspended the nation’s $28.4 trillion debt limit. Senate Republicans a day earlier defeated legislation that would have raised the debt limit and extended government funding.

Lawmakers now have just three days to avert a possible government shutdown by midnight Thursday, the end of the current fiscal year. Failure to do so could result in furloughs for hundreds of thousands of federal workers in the middle of a public health crisis.

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives and Senate said they would soon advance spending bills to head off a shutdown.

Fiscal brinkmanship has become a regular feature of U.S. politics thanks to ongoing partisan polarization.

The most recent government shutdown, occurring during the presidency of Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, lasted 35 days before ending in January 2019.

A government shutdown or a default would be a setback for the Democrats, who ahead of next year’s congressional elections have portrayed themselves as the party of responsible government after Trump’s chaotic presidency.

Democrats are also struggling to unite behind two pillars of Biden’s domestic policy agenda: a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion social spending package.

OCT. 18 DEADLINE

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers that the government would run out of options to service the debt by Oct. 18. Republicans have refused to cooperate to raise the debt limit, saying they do not want to help Democrats spend more money. Democrats point out that much of the nation’s debt was incurred under Trump.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer proposed holding a vote to raise the debt limit that could pass with just the support of the chamber’s 48 Democrats and the two independents allied with them as long as Republicans agreed to allow the vote to occur.

“If Republicans really want to see the debt limit raised without providing a single vote, I’m prepared to hold that vote,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

But McConnell blocked the vote, saying Democrats should fold the debt-ceiling increase into a $3.5 trillion spending bill that would expand the nation’s social safety net. Democrats have already set up special rules that would allow that package to pass the Senate without Republican support.

Democrats are still negotiating the size and content of that package. It could take several weeks to clear Congress and reach Biden’s desk, dangerously close to the debt-limit deadline.

Schumer called that approach a “non starter.”

Democrats had originally planned to handle the social-spending bill, championed by the party’s left wing, in tandem with a $1.1 trillion infrastructure package that has drawn bipartisan support. But they have scheduled a House vote on the infrastructure bill on Thursday even though the social-spending bill is still being negotiated.

Lawmakers on the party’s left insisted that Congress must first pass the social spending bill.

“We articulated this position more than three months ago, and today it is still unchanged,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Will Dunham and Jonathan Oatis)

Biden, Democrats may limit free college, childcare to shrink reconciliation bill -sources

By Jarrett Renshaw

(Reuters) -The White House and U.S. Democrats are weighing attaching or strengthening income caps to a number of key agenda items, including electric vehicle rebates and free community college, to shrink the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill and pacify spending hawks, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.

Discussions about these income limits, known as means tests in Washington lingo, come as Democrats struggle to agree on the size of the sprawling social safety net and climate change package, a signature piece of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to comment on whether the administration would agree to income caps on things like free community college, but did note that means tests are common and that the president has supported placing income restrictions on government programs.

“Every family is not eligible for the child tax credit in this country. Every person is not eligible for the earned income tax credit,” Psaki noted.

The $3.5 trillion Biden proposal outlined earlier this year included free community college, expanded child tax credits and universal preschool for any U.S. citizen. But Democrats are now considering whether to cap eligibility based on income, the two sources told Reuters.

They’re also discussing limiting who can receive tax credits for electric cars.

The White House, for example, want to create a $7,500 tax credit for any taxpayers who purchase electric cars.

A House Democratic version of the bill said individual taxpayers must have an adjusted gross income of no more than $400,000 to get the credit, but Senate Democrats are considering a lower threshold that could go as low as $100,000, sources said.

Democrats are also considering whether to lower the income threshold for eligibility of the expanded child tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of the year unless Democrats make good on their promise to extend the added benefit by four years.

Currently, the tax credit phases out for married couples making over $400,000, but Democrats are considering lowering the cap, sources say.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)

For asylum advocates, border expulsions strain faith in Biden

By Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Confused and tired-looking toddlers clung to their parents at Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti on Tuesday, among the 360 family members rapidly expelled from the U.S. over the past three days.

These scenes came after U.S. border agents on horseback on Sunday used whip-like reins to block Haitian migrants wading across the Rio Grande with food and supplies from Mexico to a squalid encampment with nearly 10,000 people on the Texas side.

The images triggered anguish among some current U.S. officials interviewed by Reuters who said they once had high hopes that U.S. President Joe Biden would quickly reverse the hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump and, as he promised, “restore humanity and American values” to the immigration system.

Outside the government, disillusioned immigration advocates point to Biden’s refusal to repeal Trump’s most sweeping policy known as Title 42 – that allows border agents to quickly expel most migrants to Mexico or their home countries without a chance to apply for asylum.

Biden extended the March 2020 policy put in place by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, arguing it remained necessary as a public health measure amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These deterrence (and) expulsion measures deny due process to asylum seekers and place them in harm’s way. That is a human rights violation,” Michael Knowles, president of AFGE Local 1924, the union that represents the asylum officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) told Reuters.

“Our members are outraged by the mistreatment of migrants and the refusal of our border authorities to allow them to have their asylum claims heard.”

Three other USCIS employees expressed similar concerns to Reuters, as did an official at another government agency.

Asylum officers interview migrants and refugees to determine if they need protection in the United States, while Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents oversee border security and detention.

Top Democratic lawmakers joined in the criticism. The dwindling goodwill among allies comes as Biden’s immigration agenda was dealt a blow on Sunday when the Senate parliamentarian ruled Democratic proposals to give legal status to millions of immigrants in the United States could not be included in a budget reconciliation bill.

‘WHAT DO THEY BELIEVE IN?’

Biden did exempt unaccompanied children from Title 42 expulsions early in his presidency. But he has included families, even after a federal judge on Thursday ordered the government to stop expelling them. The administration is appealing the order.

A two-week stay on the order was “to allow the government time to organize itself,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union suing the administration over the policy, “not to round up as many people as possible to expel them, and certainly not to expel desperate Haitian asylum seekers.”

The Trump administration argued many asylum claims were false and issued a flurry of policies to limit protections, moves that were often criticized by the USCIS’ union headed by Knowles.

One of the USCIS officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press said it was understood it would take time to roll back the Trump-era measures, but that some are now losing patience in the face of slow reform.

“It’s appalling, disgusting,” the official said. “What do they believe in, if this is acceptable?” Some colleagues were considering whether to leave their jobs, the official said.

Another USCIS official spoke of being “personally mortified.”

USCIS referred a request for comment to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who did not immediately respond.

RECORD CROSSINGS

On Tuesday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Title 42 was being applied to the fullest extent possible, while at the same time condemning the actions of the agents on horseback saying the incident was being investigated and those involved had been assigned administrative duties.

As Biden is facing criticism from the left, Republicans say he has encouraged illegal migration by moving too fast to reverse other Trump-era immigration reforms.

In recent months, the number of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border increased to 20-year highs with close to 200,000 encounters in August alone, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, though that is counting individuals who may have crossed multiple times.

Early in his presidency, Biden took several executive actions cheered by immigration groups – such as ending Trump’s travel bans on several Muslim-majority countries and scrapping a policy that sent asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for U.S. court hearings. He also exempted unaccompanied minors from Title 42 expulsions and reduced the number of families being expelled.

In a letter to Congress, retired Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott said Biden’s reversals created a crisis at the border and constituted “a national security threat.” Unlike the USCIS union, the unions representing border and ICE agents have been vocal Trump backers.

Earlier this year, Biden also extended deportation relief to around 150,000 Haitians already living in the United States with Temporary Protected Status, though the benefits do not apply to anyone who arrived after July 29.

Biden acknowledged conditions are dire in the Caribbean country that has long struggled with violence and recently suffered a presidential assassination and a major earthquake.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Donna Bryson and Aurora Ellis)

Biden urged to end Haitian border expulsions, Mexico detains migrants

By Daina Beth Solomon

CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden faced pressure on Tuesday to halt the expulsion of asylum seekers to Haiti from a Texas border camp, as worries about their safety compounded disquiet at images of officials on horseback using reins as whips against migrants.

Several hundred have been sent to Haiti from the camp in Del Rio, Texas, since Sunday. Thousands more have been moved into U.S. detention for processing and more flights are due to leave on Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged fellow Democrat Biden to put an immediate end to the expulsions, adding to similar calls from several United Nations agencies.

Schumer said sending Haitians back to their home country, where a presidential assassination, rising gang violence and a major earthquake have spread chaos in recent weeks, “defies common sense.”

“It also defies common decency,” he said, calling images taken in recent days of mounted U.S. border agents using horse reins like whips “completely unacceptable.”

“The images turn your stomach. It must be stopped.”

The sprawling camp containing up to 10,000 mostly Haitian migrants under a bridge spanning the Rio Grande is a new flashpoint for the White House, already grappling with record numbers of border arrivals that Republican Senator Mitt Romney on Tuesday called a “disaster.”

The camp’s population peaked at up to 14,000 at the weekend, but has since diminished.

Mexican authorities also appeared to be detaining some of the migrants, who have regularly crossed back over to Mexico to get food.

A Reuters crew witnessed migrants who appeared to be Haitian detained on the streets of Ciudad Acuna across the river from the main camp on Monday by agents flanked by Mexico’s National Guard.

In one encounter, several migrants yelled and protested as agents boarded them into a National Immigration Institute (INM) van. INM did not immediately respond to a requests for comment.

The clashes at the border were also criticized by Mayorkas, who pushed ahead on Tuesday with moving migrants out of the camp to be flown to Haiti.

Speaking to CNN, Mayorkas said 4,000 Haitians had been moved from the camp. It was not clear if all of those were to be expelled from the United States, although he announced four flights were expected on Tuesday.

HOPE

Despite the risk of being returned to Haiti after sometimes years-long journeys through Latin America to reach the United States, the hope of being let in meant many migrants remain in the camp.

Carly Pierre, 40, said he was staying in the U.S. camp because he saw a chance to make it into the country with his wife and two children, ages 3 and 5, after several years living in Brazil.

“There are deportees, and there are people who will make it in,” he said, shorts still wet from having crossed the river to buy ice and soda at a convenience store on the Mexican side.

Despite the outcry over mistreatment and anger in Del Rio about the camp, Mayorkas emphasized that U.S. border agents were delivering medical attention and were working with the Red Cross.

In Ciudad Acuna, residents were also bringing relief to the migrants, after a couple of hundred gathered in a shady area resting on pieces of cardboard and blankets.

Jessica de la Garza, 22, who helped organize a drive on Facebook to collect donations, early on Tuesday distributed coffee, water, milk, sandwiches, cereal, beans and diapers.

“They say, ‘Thank you Mexico,’ because we are helping a little. The need is great, and so is the empathy.”

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Ciudad Acuna, Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Rosalba O’Brien)

White House asks Congress for funding on Afghanistan and hurricanes

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s aides on Tuesday asked Congress for billions in new funds to deal with hurricanes and other natural disasters as well as the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan.

The White House said in a blog post at least $24 billion in new money will be needed for disasters, including Hurricane Ida, and $6.4 billion will be needed for the Afghan evacuation and refugee resettlement.

The request for Congress to pass a short-term funding bill known as a continuing resolution underscored the financial strain posed by two crises that have occupied Biden in recent days.

It also set up a coming showdown with Congress over whether it will fund the full set of Biden’s policy priorities or even ongoing government functions by raising what is known as the debt ceiling.

About 124,000 people were evacuated last month from Kabul in a U.S.-led airlift of U.S. and other foreign citizens as well as vulnerable Afghans as the Taliban took control of the country during the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The evacuation was one of the largest airlifts in history but thousands of at-risk Afghans and about 100 U.S. citizens have remained behind.

Meanwhile, Biden was traveling in flood-damaged New Jersey on Tuesday, one of several states suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. The president has sought to highlight the financial toll of stronger storms whipped up by climate change.

Biden’s acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Shalanda Young, said in a blog post that some of the temporary funding would go to still-unmet needs from prior hurricanes and wildfires even as the government responds to Hurricane Ida.

She also said most of the funds directed toward the Afghan effort would be for sites to process refugees from the country recently overtaken by the Taliban as well as public health screenings and resettlement resources.

The funding measure would give lawmakers additional time to negotiate over Biden’s proposals to spend trillions on new social safety net programs, infrastructure and other priorities he wants to fund with tax hikes on corporations and wealthy individuals.

Biden in May proposed a $6 trillion budget plan for the fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1, reflecting a sharp increase including measures for climate resilience. Lawmakers are also tangling over separate, Biden-backed legislation that would spent $1 trillion on infrastructure and $3.5 trillion on social safety net spending.

Young said the short-term spending bill “will allow movement toward bipartisan agreement on smart, full-year appropriations bills that reinvest in core priorities, meet the needs of American families, businesses and communities, and lay a strong foundation for the future.”

Congressional debate is expected to heat up in the coming weeks over whether lawmakers will raise the debt ceiling, the government’s ability to borrow to pay for programs it has already authorized. The Treasury is due to run out of money sometime in October.

Biden’s Democratic Party controls the House of Representatives and Senate by only narrow margins, with the balance of power at stake in elections next year.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Chris Reese and Alistair Bell)

Biden to outline plan to curb coronavirus Delta variant as cases grow

By Steve Holland and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON/ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Thursday will present a six-pronged strategy intended to fight the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus Delta variant and increase U.S. COVID-19 vaccinations, the White House said on Tuesday.

The United States, which leads the world in COVID-19 cases and deaths, is struggling to stem a wave of infections driven by the variant even as officials try to persuade Americans who have resisted vaccination to get the shots. Rising case loads have raised concerns as children head back to school, while also rattling investors and upending company return-to-office plans.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters traveling with Biden aboard Air Force One that he will lay out the six-pronged strategy “working across the public and private sectors to help continue to get the pandemic under control.”

Asked about possible new mandates, Psaki said the White House would offer more details later about the plan and acknowledged that the federal government cannot broadly mandate that Americans get vaccinated.

“We need to continue to take more steps to make sure school districts are prepared and make sure communities across the country are prepared,” Psaki added.

On Wednesday, Biden is scheduled to meet with White House COVID-19 advisers.

The United States has recorded roughly 650,000 COVID-19 deaths and last week exceeded 40 million cases. Reuters data shows that more than 20,800 people have died in the United States from COVID-19 in the past two weeks, up about 67% from the prior two-week period.

Hospitalizations have grown, with seven U.S. states – Alaska, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Tennessee and Washington – reporting records this month.

Biden previously announced plans to offer booster shots more widely, pending regulatory approval. His chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said officials are still aiming to do so starting the week of Sept. 20.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisers are scheduled to meet on Sept. 17 to consider a possible third shot of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE’s two-dose vaccine, the only COVID-19 vaccine yet to receive full approval from the agency.

Fauci told CNN Pfizer’s third shot appears likely to be rolled out first, with Moderna Inc’s version “close behind.” Moderna has sought full FDA approval of its two-dose vaccine.

Booster doses are already approved by U.S. regulators for people with compromised immune systems.

U.S. officials have said they expect vaccines to be approved for children younger than 12 this winter. With U.S. students already starting a new school year, battles over public health efforts including mandates that pupils wear masks erupted in many places across the country.

In the private sector, increasing numbers of U.S. employers have imposed vaccine mandates for employees. The Biden administration has hailed efforts by businesses, universities and others to bolster vaccinations.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 62.3% of Americans have received at least one vaccine dose and 53% – 176 million people – are fully vaccinated. Counting the population eligible for vaccines – people 12 and older – 72.9% have received at least one dose and 62% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

(Reporting by Steve Holland in Washington and Nadita Bose aboard Air Force One; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham)

Biden puts focus on climate change, domestic priorities on flood damage trip

By Nandita Bose

HILLSBOROUGH TOWNSHIP, N.J. (Reuters) – President Joe Biden visited flood-damaged New Jersey on Tuesday to survey the upheaval caused by Hurricane Ida, putting a focus on climate change and domestic priorities after weeks of public attention on the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Biden promised federal aid and urged national unity during a trip to storm-hit Louisiana on Friday after Ida devastated parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast and unleashed even deadlier flooding in the Northeast.

On Tuesday, he will be briefed by local leaders in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey, and tour a neighborhood in Manville that was hit hard by the storm.

Later, he will visit a neighborhood in New York City’s Queens borough and deliver remarks there.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Biden would emphasize that one out of three Americans lives in counties that have been impacted by severe weather events in recent months.

“The average costs of extreme weather are getting bigger, and no one is immune from climate change,” Psaki said, referencing what Biden would address in his remarks.

The president’s flood damage trips revive a familiar role of consoler-in-chief, a shift from the time he has spent staunchly defending his decision to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the deadly aftermath that ensued.

Although the Afghanistan issue is not behind him – the United States is still working to get Americans left in the country out, and resettling tens of thousands of evacuees – Biden is expected to focus in the coming days on a fight to protect women’s reproductive rights in the wake of a new Texas anti-abortion law, the end of extended unemployment benefits for many Americans, and new measures to fight COVID-19.

On Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, he will visit the three sites where hijacked U.S. domestic planes crashed, and next week, he plans to visit California to boost Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom’s effort to stay in office amid a recall election.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said on Tuesday it would take “months more likely than weeks” to complete cleanup, repairs and rebuilding after his state was ravaged by flooding and a tornado from the remnants of Storm Ida. He told CNN that Biden, who has issued disaster declarations for six of the state’s counties, had been “pitch perfect” in his response to the storm’s destruction.

Dozens of people have died from the hurricane’s destruction and some states are still grappling with widespread power outages and water-filled homes.

Speaking briefly to reporters on Monday evening after a trip to his home state of Delaware, Biden declared that Tuesday would be a “big day.” The president has used the storm to highlight the need for infrastructure spending in a bill he is working to get through Congress.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Peter Szekely; Writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by Heather Timmons, Dan Grebler and Bernadette Baum)

Biden to visit Louisiana to see Hurricane Ida damage, New Jersey death toll rises

By Steve Holland and Devika Krishna Kumar

WASHINGTON/NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden travels to Louisiana on Friday to get a first-hand look at the destruction wrought by Hurricane Ida, the monster storm that devastated the southern portion of the state and left 1 million people without power.

Biden is to meet Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards and local officials about the hurricane, which is providing the president with a tough test just after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Hurricane Ida struck the Gulf coast last weekend and carved a northern path through the eastern United States, culminating in torrential rains and widespread flooding in New York, New Jersey and surrounding areas on Wednesday.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Friday said the state had confirmed an additional two deaths overnight, bringing its total to 25. He said at least six people were still missing, meaning the death toll would likely climb higher.

“We’re still not out of the woods,” he told NBC News’ “Today” program, adding that his biggest concern following the wreckage was grappling with remaining high waters and damage. “We’re going to clean up … but it may be a long road.”

The fifth most powerful hurricane to strike the United States came ashore in southern Louisiana on Sunday, knocking out power for more than a million customers and water for another 600,000 people, creating miserable conditions for the afflicted, who were also enduring suffocating heat and humidity.

At least nine deaths were reported in Louisiana, with at least another 46 killed in the Northeast.

“My message to everyone affected is: ‘We’re all in this together. The nation is here to help,'” Biden said on Thursday.

Biden will tour a neighborhood in LaPlace, a small community about 35 miles west of New Orleans that was devastated by flooding, downed trees and other storm damage, and deliver remarks about his administration’s response.

He will take an aerial tour of hard hit communities, including Laffite, Grand Isle, Port Fourchon and Lafourche Parish, before meeting with local leaders in Galliano, Louisiana, the White House said.

Officials who have flown over the storm damage reported astounding scenes of small towns turned into piles of matchsticks and massive vessels hurled about by the wind.

Edwards said he would present Biden with a long list of needs including fuel shipments as most of the area’s refining capacity was knocked offline and mile-long lines have formed at gas stations and emergency supply distribution centers.

At Biden’s direction, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Thursday authorized an exchange of 1.5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to Exxon Mobil to relieve fuel disruptions in the wake of the hurricane.

Several refineries remained cut off from crude and products supplies from the south via ship and barge after portions of the Mississippi River were closed by several sunken vessels.

“This is the first such exchange from the SPR in four years and demonstrates that the president will use every authority available to him to support effective response and recovery activities in the region,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said late on Thursday.

Biden has also urged private insurance companies to pay homeowners who left in advance of the storm but not necessarily under a mandatory evacuation order.

“Don’t hide behind the fine print and technicality. Do your job. Keep your commitments to your communities that you insure. Do the right thing and pay your policy holders what you owe them to cover the cost of temporary housing in the midst of a natural disaster. Help those in need,” he said.

While Louisiana tried to recover from the storm, the New York area was still dealing with crippling floods from Ida.

People across large swaths of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut spent Thursday coping with water-logged basements, power outages, damaged roofs and calls for help from friends and relatives stranded by flooding.

At least 16 have died in the state of New York, officials said, including 13 in New York City where deaths of people trapped in flooded basements highlighted the risk of increasingly extreme weather events.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told MSNBC on Friday that there would be a need to implement travel bans and evacuations more frequently ahead of storms. He said he was putting together a new task force to tackle the issue.

“We’ve got to change the whole way of thinking” in how to prepare for storms, de Blasio said. “We’re going to need them to do things differently.”

Biden approved an emergency declaration in New Jersey and New York and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts, the White House said late on Thursday.

(Reporting By Steve Holland and Devika Krishna Kumar; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Kanishka Singh and Susan Heavey, editing by Ross Colvin, Michael Perry and Steve Orlofsky)

Biden tells Energy Dept.: use all tools to bring fuel to storm-hit areas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday he has directed the Department of Energy to use all tools, including the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), to keep gasoline flowing in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida.

“It’s important to know that the region hit by it (Ida) is a key center of our nation’s oil production and refining infrastructure…that’s why we’re not waiting to assess the full impact of the storm,” Biden said.

The strategic reserve has four major storage facilities, two in Texas and two in Louisiana, to deliver crude to nearby refineries for fuel production. It was developed in the 1970s after the Arab oil embargo spiked gasoline prices, but has been tapped recently after unusual fuel disruptions like hurricanes.

Ida cut through multiple U.S. regions, devastating parts of Louisiana. On Wednesday rains caused massive flooding in the U.S. Northeast.

Presidents can authorize loans of SPR oil, known as exchange agreements, to private companies. After 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, refineries borrowed 5.2 million barrels, repaid in early 2018 with interest.

Presidents can also direct the Energy Department to hold emergency sales of crude, such as in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.

In 2014 the department also created the 1 million barrel Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve after Superstorm Sandy caused fuel shortages in the region.

Roughly 1.5 million barrels of daily offshore crude production is currently shut in, according to federal data from Wednesday. U.S. energy companies, prevalent along the Gulf Coast, were straining to get operations working again due to lingering loss of electrical power and other problems related to storm damage.

Biden noted that the Environmental Protection Agency approved emergency fuel waivers for Louisiana and Mississippi to increase the availability of gasoline. The EPA issued the waivers this week, allowing winter-grade fuel to be sold out of season to avoid shortages.

The SPR had 621.3 million barrels of crude in stock as of last week, according to the Energy Department, the lowest since August 2003, data showed.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Nandita Bose and Timothy Gardner in Washington; additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by David Gregorio)

Biden enlists White House counsel to fight Texas abortion law

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Thursday said he is launching a “whole-of-government effort,” including from the White House counsel, to combat a strict new Texas abortion law after an overnight Supreme Court decision let it stand.

Biden, a Democrat and a Catholic who has shifted to the left on abortion in recent years to be more in line with his party’s base, called the law that bans any abortion after six weeks an “unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional rights.”

The president said in a statement he was directing the office of the White House counsel and his Gender Policy Council to review how the government could “ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions… and what legal tools we have to insulate women and providers from the impact of Texas’ bizarre scheme of outsourced enforcement to private parties.”

The White House will specifically look at what measures can be taken through the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, Biden said.

The White House has called for the “codification” of abortion rights that are currently protected by the court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision through legislation in Congress, but has not outlined any specific steps that it is taking to back any such law.

A plurality of Americans believe that abortion should be legal up until the fetus is capable of living on its own, and they remain largely supportive of Roe v. Wade, a Reuters/Ipsos poll in June showed. The responses are split along party lines, with 70% of Democrats, 35% of Republicans and 47% of independents agreeing abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

Biden’s Democrats have control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives with slim majorities and he is seeking to push through legislation on infrastructure and other Democratic priorities in the coming weeks.

The House will debate and vote on legislation stopping states from enacting restrictive anti-abortion regulations like the one just approved by Texas, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)