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Hillicon Valley — Data privacy bill challenged

The House Energy and Commerce Committee debated a data privacy proposal intended to set national standards for how companies obtain and manage data, but it is facing an uphill battle as business groups and privacy hawks express disagreements with the bill.  

In other news, Meta announced on Tuesday that it will add new parental control features for its Quest virtual reality headsets. 

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar, Chris Mills Rodrigo and Ines Kagubare. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Data privacy bill faces uphill battle

A new bipartisan data privacy proposal is facing an uphill battle amid opposition from privacy hawks and business groups. 

• Supporters of the current draft of the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) tried to appeal to both sets of critics during a House hearing Tuesday. 
• Groups on both sides of the spectrum have praised the fact that any bipartisan legislation on this issue has come out as a breakthrough, signaling that there is some appetite to fashion the bill into something that can pass through Congress. 

The discussion draft, proposed by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), comes after years of partisan disagreements and false starts. 

Read more here. 

Quest gets parental controls

Meta is adding new parental control features for its Quest virtual reality headsets and updating control features in Instagram, the company announced Tuesday. 

• A new Parent Dashboard for the Quest will give guardians more control over approving teenage users’ purchases and access to viewing Quest usage.
• In order for parents to link to their teen’s account, the teen must initiate the process and both the parent and teen have to agree, according to the announcement. 

The tools will give guardians the ability to approve downloads or purchases of apps that are blocked by default based on age rating. Teens 13 and older will also be able to submit an “Ask to Buy” request that parents can approve or deny from the Oculus mobile app. 

Read more here. 

TRANSFORMATION NEEDED IN CYBERSPACE 

National Cyber Director Chris Inglis said Monday that the administration and federal agencies should prioritize transforming the way they approach and invest in cybersecurity, as previous efforts have “not worked.” 

Ingles was speaking at cyber summit hosted by the Information Technology Industry Council on ways the public and private sector can combat cyber threats. 

• “I think that everything else that we have tried, as nobly intended, has not worked,” Inglis said.  
• “And so in order for us to then change the nature of the game, I think that we have to crowdsource the adversaries the way they’ve crowdsourced us,” he added. 

Read more here. 

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: Why Russia blocked Western social media —  but not YouTube 

Lighter click: peak adulting 

Notable links from around the web: 

Google Says It Bans Gun Ads. It Actually Makes Money From Them. (ProPublica / Craig Silverman and Ruth Talbot) 

Those videos about a foot fetish site going viral on TikTok? A lot of them are sponcon (NBC News / Morgan Sung) 

Amazon Builds Property Empire, Quietly Buying Land Across the US (Bloomberg / Spencer Soper and Natalie Wong) 

One last thing: $2M on 25 railroad projects

The Federal Railroad Administration announced it plans to send up to $2 million in funding toward 25 different projects in 13 states.  

In a statement on Monday, the agency said the money would fund trespassing and suicide prevention grants and include educational outreach aimed at reducing railroad-related suicides. 

• The grants are targeted toward communities and states with high occurrence rates of trespassing and casualties. 
• The states include California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, New York and Ohio. 

Read more here.  

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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Live results: South Carolina, Nevada primaries

The Associated Press is following the election in South Carolina and Nevada.

Follow the live results below.

South Carolina

Nevada

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NotedDC — Inside the Jan. 6 hearing room

Welcome to NotedDC: Your guide to politics, policy and people of consequence in D.C. Sign up here: thehill.com/noted.

For today’s issue we chatted with The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch about the Jan. 6 select committee, how its probe is going and what to expect at its next hearing.

What was the mood in the room on Monday?

Monday was a little different from Thursday night, when we saw a lot more graphic images from the riot and heard particularly compelling testimony from a Capitol Police officer who was injured in the attack. It was especially emotional for widows of other officers in the room as well as lawmakers who were of course there during the attack. Monday switched into a bit more focused gear. We’ve been told to expect new evidence, and for reporters who have spent over a year covering this, we’re lasered in on teasing out what’s new, even as we think about how to relay the bigger picture for a wide audience.

A major player (ex-Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien) couldn’t attend Monday’s hearing. How did that affect things? Any idea if he’ll come later?

Chair Bennie Thompson [D-Miss.] initially said he didn’t know, then reversed later and said he would not. I think Stepien’s absence as his wife went into labor illustrates the extent the committee is very organized around the video clips of depositions it’s already done. It would have been interesting to see Stepien in the witness chair, but we’re beginning to see a pattern where witnesses who are present are not heavily questioned by the panel, who are instead turning largely to prior depositions to make their case.

How have GOP members’ ‘counter programming’ efforts worked so far?

I’m sure for some they have and some they haven’t. The committee managed to get 20 million viewers for their first prime-time hearing. Of course, the daytime hearings aren’t expected to reach such a wide audience, but the panel has already had a chance to reach those who wouldn’t otherwise turn into a congressional hearing. One number that has been sticking with me too, is even amid the partisan breakdown in interest over their work, a CBS News poll found 24 percent said it was somewhat important “to find out what happened that day and who was involved.” I think that shows there is a sort of middle ground group here who might be receptive to what the committee has to present, even if they haven’t been hanging on every word.

This ‘election defense fund’ didn’t exist? Can you break down what it means?

This was essentially a Trump campaign fundraising tool, something one campaign aide said was used to allude to “how money can potentially be used.” They raised $250 million, but it went to a smattering of other efforts. Trump created a separate entity, the Save America PAC, which funneled money to conservative groups run by Trump allies, including $1 million to a charitable foundation run by his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, more than $5 million to the event company that oversaw Trump’s Ellipse rally on Jan. 6 and more than $200,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection. The committee has summed this up as “a big rip off.”

Wednesday’s hearing has been delayed. What should we expect next?

The delay of Wednesday’s hearing is the latest hiccup for the committee, something Rep. Zoe Lofgren [D-Calif.] said was a measure to give the committee’s video team more time to assemble clips. If future hearings are anything like the two we’ve seen so far, these hearings are pretty video intensive, but it does raise questions if the committee will be able to keep up the quick clip they laid out in the first hearing.

One big takeaway?

My big takeaway is that the committee has tons of depositions in its video files and it’s going to keep using them to allow Trump officials, both from the campaign and from his own administration, to make the case against the former president. The committee has promised to lay out some serious allegations, but at a minimum, it seems equipped to slowly grind down on the details, offering clips of officials speaking to Trump wrongdoing again and again and again.  

Democrats turn to Nevada in bid to keep Senate 

Democrats’ fight to keep control of the Senate will largely play out in Nevada this fall, where the GOP is already slamming Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) on high gas prices and inflation.

Polling strongly suggests Tuesday’s primary will cement the race between Cortez Masto, the incumbent running in her first reelection bid, against former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R), who won the endorsement of former President Trump.

• Laxalt, leading his opponent Sam Brown by double digits, has already been on the offense against Cortez Masto, doubling down on Nevada’s second-highest gas prices in the country, record levels of inflation and high unemployment rate.
• “It’s very hard to convince people what they see with their eyes isn’t actually true,” a Nevada GOP strategist told NotedDC. “And to convince them that despite your voting record and party label, you are somehow to be trusted with another term.”

Laxalt pins Cortez Masto as a President Biden loyalist — she votes with his policies at least 95 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight — making it more difficult for her to separate herself from the criticism Biden receives.

• The senator — along with other Democrats such as Arizona Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly — opposed Biden’s decision to lift Title 42, a Trump-era pandemic policy that allowed border officials to quickly expel migrants.
• Cortez Masto also may face a lack of name recognition among newly registered voters. As The Hill’s Julia Manchester notes, Nevada has seen major surges in population growth over the past decade, especially in Latino and Asian American Pacific Islander populations. “Republicans have been continually gaining with Hispanic voters,” the GOP strategist said. “I think Republicans have a tremendous opportunity this cycle to continue that growth.”

The Hill’s Max Greenwood has more on what to expect from Tuesday’s primaries.

QUOTED

“Congress is a snapshot of America, it truly is, and a lot of people, when they watch TV they don’t think that, but there are people that have very different life experiences, particularly in the House.”

— Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) talking to editor-in-chief Bob Cusack at The Hill’s event Chronic Kidney Disease: Forging Patient Centered Solutions

NRA looms over Senate gun talks

The push for the bipartisan gun reform package in the Senate gained momentum Tuesday with GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) announcing he’d likely back it.

But proponents are eagerly watching for how the National Rifle Association (NRA) handles the legislation.

• The Senate proposal excludes much of what the powerful gun rights group lobbies against, like universal background checks, raising the purchase age to 21-years-old and banning any sort of gun or ammunition.
• The Hill’s Alex Bolton reports the NRA won’t comment on the proposal until the full legislative text is published, likely at the end of this week. If they do push back, they could threaten to downgrade their ranking of senators who end up voting for it.

Gun rights advocates previously lobbied the Senate to drop a measure targeting the so-called “boyfriend loophole” when lawmakers reauthorized the Violence Against Women’s Act in March, fearing it would risk Republican support.

• The proposal would include dating partners in a law that bars spouses and cohabitants from owning a firearm if convicted of domestic violence.
• The measure is included in the current gun package. “For myself, I’m comfortable with the framework and if the legislation ends up reflecting what the framework indicates, I’ll be supportive,” McConnell told reporters Thursday.

House sends Supreme Court security bill to Biden

The House passed a bill Tuesday to expand security protections to family members of Supreme Court justices following the arrest of an armed man near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home last week.

House Democrats had pushed to pass a bill that also offered protections to Supreme Court staff, including judicial clerks. But Republicans rebuffed those efforts, saying instead the bill passed by the Senate in May should be sent to Biden’s desk.

Democrats gave up their fight Tuesday, with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) saying that he had “no explanation” for why Republicans were so resistant to including staff members. 

• The bill’s passage comes ahead of the Supreme Court’s potential announcement overturning Roe v. Wade, which could come Wednesday or in the next few weeks.
• Protests erupted last month after Politico published a leaked draft opinion that would overturn the landmark ruling legalizing abortion, with some protests taking place outside of conservative justices’ homes.

The Hill’s Mychael Schnell breaks down why this is a win for House Republicans. 

NUMBER TO KNOW

27

The number of Democrats who voted against the bill to provide security protections to family members of Supreme Court justices.

On The Lawn

President Biden is turning his attention to labor unions this week, an issue that has been prominent throughout his presidency. 

The Hill’s Alex Gangitano reports that Biden’s “high-profile” trip to the convention for the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia on Tuesday comes as Democrats worry they could lose blue-collar workers to Republicans this November.

“The President vowed to be the most pro-union president in U.S. history while on the campaign trail and lately he has ramped up his engagement,” Gangitano said. 

Keep an eye out for the “On The Lawn” series for the latest on Biden’s schedule. 

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Principled Profit: The Hill’s ESG Summit — Wednesday, June 15 at 1 p.m. ET

ESG investing is increasingly popular among investors seeking to make capital decisions based not only on likely financial return but also with an eye toward investing in companies perceived to be creating social good. Join The Hill for a conversation on the growing demand for ESG and how it is transforming the business and investment landscape. Former SEC chair Harvey Pitt, Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Savita Subramanian. RSVP now

That’s it for today. Stay with TheHill.com for the latest and recommend NotedDC to others: thehill.com/noted. See you tomorrow.

Have some news, juicy gossip, insight or other insider info? Send us tips: Elizabeth Crisp and Kelsey Carolan.

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Equilibrium/Sustainability — Historic tundra fire blazing in southwest Alaska

The East Fork Fire, which began with a lightning strike on May 31, is scorching dry grass and shrubs amid the mostly treeless ecosystem, The Associated Press reports.

The blaze was within 3.5 miles of the town of St. Mary’s, Alaska, the AP reported this week. The town is located about 450 miles west of Anchorage.

While the fire began with lightning, climate change is exacerbating the circumstances that make such a fire more likely, NPR reported.

Alaska’s Yukon Kuskokwim Delta region has warmed three times as quickly as the lower 48 states, climate scientist Rick Thoman told NPR.

At 190 square miles, this is the biggest tundra fire the region has ever encountered and the second largest to hit Alaska in more than 40 years, Thoman added.

Smoke from the fire — and from dozens of others blazing in Western Alaska — spread across the state over the weekend, leaving the air unhealthy to breathe in some areas, Alaska Public Media reported. 

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

Today we’ll look at how particulate pollution is cutting people’s lifespans and examine threats involving food and water insecurity. We’ll also visit two Icelandic startups that see opportunity in the challenges climate and the energy transition pose to the grid.

Particulate pollution taking two years off lifespans

Particulate air pollution is slashing global life expectancy by an average of 2.2 years, relative to a hypothetical world that meets international health guidelines, a new report has found. 

• Worldwide exposure to fine particulate patter — PM 2.5, or particles with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less — has an impact on par with that of smoking and more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, according to the University of Chicago’s 2022 Air Quality Life Index. 
• The life expectancy effect of this type of pollution amounts to six times that of HIV/AIDS and 89 times that of conflict and terrorism, researchers observed. 

“It would be a global emergency if Martians came to Earth and sprayed a substance that caused the average person on the planet to lose more than two years of life expectancy,” Michael Greenstone, index co-creator and an economics professor at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, said in a statement. 

“This is similar to the situation that prevails in many parts of the world, except we are spraying the substance, not some invaders from outer space,” Greenstone added. 

A microscopic threat: PM 2.5 poses such a threat that the World Health Organization recently decreased what it deems to be a safe level of exposure from 10 micrograms per cubic meter to 5 micrograms per cubic meter, the authors noted. 

Slowing traffic didn’t help: Even though the economy incurred significant losses during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, average PM 2.5 pollution remained largely unchanged from the year before, the researchers stressed.  

Meanwhile, growing evidence has emerged that even low levels of air pollution can damage human health, the authors added. 

Click here to find out which regions of the world are suffering the most.

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Principled Profit: The Hill’s ESG Summit — Wednesday, June 15 at 1 p.m. ET

ESG investing is increasingly popular among investors seeking to make capital decisions based not only on likely financial return but also with an eye toward investing in companies perceived to be creating social good. Join The Hill for a conversation on the growing demand for ESG and how it is transforming the business and investment landscape. Former SEC chair Harvey Pitt, Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Savita Subramanian. RSVP now

Keeping the lights on in Iceland — and globally 

One key challenge for the future of energy is maintaining transmission in a world of increased unpredictability and ever more dangerous weather. 

That means big money for companies that can help keep the lights — and cell phone service — operational in the midst of ice storms, wildfires and hurricanes.

• Two startups from Iceland — a country with a nearly 100 percent renewable electric grid as well as famously harsh weather — are banking on their ability to export solutions to the rest of the world.
• The Hill got a first-hand look at how these technologies work. This reporting is supported by Green by Iceland, a public-private partnership between the country’s renewable energy business and government.  

While the companies have a long road to commercial sales, their business models highlight key challenges the Icelandic grid is confronting during the energy transition.

GUARDING THE LINES

Icelandic startup Laki Power is piloting a monitoring device to help grid managers tell when their power lines are under threat from ice or fire, CEO Osvaldur Knudsen told Equilibrium. 

Currently, most line-monitoring cameras require their own power sources because they can’t safely draw electricity from the firehose of current moving down high tension lines, Knudsen said.

• Laki’s 60-pound device — which looks like a steel cooler with black button eyes — hangs from high tension lines, from which it pulls about 100 kilowatts of power using a magnetic field.
• That allows the devices — which would be placed every 3 to 12 miles — to power the cameras it uses to scan for either nearby wildfires or frozen power lines.

Line ice is not nice: The cameras, and the algorithms that monitor them for conditions likely to cause icing, allow grid managers to identify ice on power lines.

• Ice makes lines heavy, which means in a windstorm they “can get whipped around like a jump rope, and pull the tower down,” according to Knudsen.
• “And that happens down — it’s starting to just cost millions or tens of millions per day,” he said. 

Watching for fire: Laki’s cameras also have thermal imaging, allowing them to scan the nearby landscape for a spike in heat energy — a telltale sign of wildfire. The system would then notify grid managers when fire might be nearby. 

Market plan: Laki has signed pilot project deals with several national or regional grid systems. The company is testing its ice monitoring software with the government of Turkey and the hydropower authority of Manitoba, Canada. The company is evaluating its fire monitoring capabilities with the Greek national power operator.

The Icelandic startup aims to move from pilot projects to paid commercial business by 2024. 

OFF-GRID WIND POWER

Cellular phone towers in northern states like Alaska have few green options for off-grid power during the dark winters — meaning that most rely on the expensive and climate-unfriendly alternative of on-site diesel generators.  

“They are screaming for solutions for an energy transition, but what’s available? Nothing except solar,” IceWind CEO Sæþór Ásgeirsson told Equilibrium. 

• IceWind produces small, vertical wind turbines that generate around 600 watts of power — enough that the diesel generator can be relegated to backup, Ásgeirsson said.
• While IceWind’s Freya model was sized for off-grid homes in the northern latitudes, the urgent demand from telecom utilities made them “take a bit of a u-turn, market wise,” Ásgeirsson said.  

The company just installed a test project in Illinois with Vertical Bridge, the fifth-largest telecom firm in the U.S, he added. 

Hurricane-proofing: Iceland has no industrial-scale wind tunnels, so Ásgeirsson did low-velocity tests by driving the turbines down the highway on the back of a trailer. 

Finally, after securing sponsorship from a Texas homebuilder, the IceWind team was able to test the technology in a 150-mph wind tunnel in Florida made to simulate category 5 hurricane conditions. 

“We tried to destroy three units, but we only got two,” he said, smiling. “The other one was only  slightly damaged.” 

Solving water insecurity may mitigate hunger: study

Improving access to water could be instrumental in solving the global food crisis, a new study has found.  

People who have trouble obtaining water resources are nearly three times more likely to face food insecurity than those who have reliable access to hydration, according to the study, presented at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting Tuesday.

• Dependable access to water is crucial not only to hydration but also to cooking, farming and hygiene, the authors stressed.
• More than two-thirds of people who were water insecure in 2020 were simultaneously experiencing food insecurity, they noted. 

Global health effects: “Water insecurity is a major global health issue and its impact on biological and social well-being is only likely to grow with climate change,” Hilary Bethancourt of Northwestern University said in a statement before the presentation.

Bethancourt and her colleagues analyzed data collected in 2020 by Northwestern University and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations:

• The data included a sample of more than 31,000 people ages 15 and older in 25 low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. 
• They found that about 18 percent of participants were classified as water insecure — ranging from about 15 percent in Asia to more than 34 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.

A strong link, with some variance: There was a robust connection between water and food insecurity, according to the study.  

The authors acknowledged, however, that this relationship varied from region to region — a finding that they attributed to differences in climate, social services and water infrastructure. 

“These data suggest that we have seen just the tip of the iceberg of understanding the role that water insecurity plays in food, nutrition and well-being in general,” Bethancourt said. 

To read the full story, please click here

Transport Tuesday

Truckers strike in South Korea, electric vehicle manufacturers want tax credits for more cars and a new industry based on old batteries. 

Trucker strike halts South Korean economy 

• Thousands of truckers in South Korea are refusing to drive due to rising fuel costs and wage disputes, crippling supply chains and costing industries about $1.2 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. The strike has led to the shutdown of steel plants, disruptions to car production and delays in shipments of raw materials required for semiconductors. 

EV manufacturers ask Congress to extend tax credits 

• The CEOs of four major car companies — General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Stellantis — sent a letter to Congress demanding an increase in the number of electric vehicles (EVs) eligible for a $7,500 tax credit, The Hill reported. 

One new source of battery materials: Recycling 

• Amid the race to secure the critical materials required for electric vehicle batteries, several recycling startups are pushing to get more use out of America’s existing resources, renewable energy news site Canary Media reported.

EVs of the future

The Hill recently explored what’s next for electric and autonomous vehicles in the series “Driving Into the Future.“ Read all of the coverage here.

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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McConnell boost adds to momentum of Senate gun legislation

A bipartisan framework to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals and boost funding for mental health treatment has strong momentum after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) endorsed it Tuesday.

McConnell says he is planning to vote for legislation based on the framework, which would make him the 11th Republican in the Senate to back it.

That would give the legislation at least 61 votes — one more than necessary to break a filibuster — barring an unexpected meltdown.

“For myself, I’m comfortable with the framework, and if the legislation ends up reflecting what the framework indicates, I’ll be supportive,” McConnell told reporters after the weekly Senate GOP lunch.

Despite his reputation as a staunch partisan, McConnell has been willing to vote against a majority of the Senate Republican Conference at times in order to pass bills he believes are in the nation’s interest.

Last year, he was one of 19 Republicans to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure package and one of 14 Republicans to vote for a one-time exemption to the filibuster on raising the debt ceiling

On Tuesday, he said that passing gun safety legislation in response to the shooting that left 21 people dead in Uvalde “demonstrates to the American people that we can come together, which we have done from time to time on things like infrastructure and postal reform, to make progress for the country.”

Ten other Senate Republicans, led by Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the chief Republican negotiator, have already signed onto the framework, which would provide billions of dollars in mental health grants to states, restrict convicted domestic abusers and individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from buying guns and strengthen background checks for gun buyers between the ages of 18 and 21.

McConnell said a poll of gun owners presented by Cornyn at the Republican lunch on Tuesday showed “support for the provisions of the framework is off the charts” and “overwhelming.”

The GOP leader specifically highlighted the proposal in the framework to give the National Instant Criminal Background Check System access to the juvenile crime records of gun buyers between 18 and 21 years old, praising it as “a step in the right direction.”

Every Democrat is expected to vote for the package, and senators involved in putting the final touches on the text say it could get 65 or more Republican votes.

“I think we’ll be well north of 60. I think things feel different to people back home in their states in a way that we haven’t really seen in decades,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (N.M.), one of the Democratic negotiators, referring to the demand for action in Washington after mass shootings last month in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas.

Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the lead Democratic negotiator, said “the heavy lifting is done” and expressed confidence that the Senate will pass legislation. “All we’re doing now is taking a framework and putting it into legislative text, and I’m confident that we can get there and get there soon,” he said.

He later hailed McConnell’s endorsement as a significant development.

“Obviously we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in today if Sen. McConnell hadn’t given us the space to have this debate,” he said. “Our goal from the beginning was to get as far north of 60 as we could.”

Republican sources familiar with the negotiation said Cornyn thought from the outset that he had a shot of winning as many as 25 Republican votes for a bill that addressed gun violence without stepping on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

He quickly ruled out expanding background checks to include all gun show and internet sales, a proposal negotiated by Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. That proposal, however, wound up getting only four Republican votes on the Senate floor in April of 2013.

Cornyn rejected several Democratic proposals to restrict gun ownership, including universal background checks, banning people between the ages of 18 and 21 from buying assault-style rifles and a 21-day waiting period for 18- to 21-year-olds for all gun purchases.

One of the biggest questions that negotiators need to resolve is how to pay for the legislation. The mental health component alone is expected to cost at least $7 billion.

Republicans initially floated using unspent coronavirus-relief funds to offset the cost of the gun safety bill but received strong pushback from the White House, according to two GOP aides.

Now Cornyn said negotiators are looking at unspent funding from the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Congress passed last year.

Republican senators said Cornyn’s presentation to the GOP conference Tuesday largely echoed what he told “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning.

Cornyn emphasized the legislation will not create a national red flag law to take guns away from people deemed a danger to their community. Instead, the bill would provide money to states to implement their own gun safety laws.

“The goal is to keep guns out of the hands of people with criminal backgrounds and people with mental health problems, which is the current law,” he said.

Cornyn said the bill will provide significant funding to improve mental health treatment and safety at schools.

“This is going to be from infrastructure to staffing to safety officers at schools. We want to come up with a model of best practices to protect our children at schools,” he said.

One Republican senator who attended Tuesday’s lunch said there was “general debate” over the framework within the caucus, with some GOP lawmakers warning about ensuring due process for people who are stripped of their guns under state red flag laws.

“People said what you expected them to say,” the lawmaker said, referring to senators such as Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who last week voiced concern about red flag legislation.

Many Republican lawmakers are waiting to see the legislative text of the proposal and what stance the National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful gun rights group, takes.

The NRA on Sunday said it “will make our position known when the full text of the bill is available for review.”

The gun safety framework has divided McConnell’s leadership team.

Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), an adviser to the leadership team, have endorsed it, but Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.), Republican Conference Vice Chairwoman Joni Ernst (Iowa) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (Fla.) haven’t yet taken a position.

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Lawmakers must act on early childhood investments on behalf of families and businesses

For nearly a century, conventional wisdom held that two defining spheres of American life—work and family—are, and should be, separate and unrelated. Living through the COVID-19 pandemic, however, this understanding has proven painfully misinformed.

Most Americans now understand the needs of families and businesses are intrinsically linked and interdependent. Today, creating a ready, qualified and prosperous workforce requires that we prioritize the needs of young children, particularly those in a critical developmental period of birth to age 3.

Federal legislators now have the ability to make historic investments in programs that will strengthen American families with young children. This includes everything from resurrecting the expanded Child Tax Credit to strengthening health care and affordable housing. 

These are steps that will result in practical outcomes for both supporting a stronger, more skilled workforce and giving children what they need to succeed in education, work and life. We believe the biggest boon to the economy and the future of our nation’s youngest children would be the expansion of high-quality, affordable child care and access to comprehensive paid family and medical leave.

The pandemic puts on full display the critical role of child care in allowing parents to work. According to a ReadyNation report from July 2021, the child care sector, which was already in crisis, “lost one in six workers, for a total of nearly 167,000 jobs lost” during the first year of the pandemic. Even as some sectors are rebounding, the latest figures show child care workers leaving jobs in record numbers. 

Relatedly, we are witnessing the lowest participation rate among women in the workforce since 1988, according to analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and National Women’s Law Center. Lack of child care opportunities is stifling the ability for many women to hold onto their jobs or reenter the workforce. Racial discrepancies have also been impossible to ignore, with Black and Hispanic Americans among the hardest hit by coronavirus layoffs and experiencing the slowest return to work.This affects the economic well-being of entire families and the viability of many businesses.

Investments in child care are not only essential to enable parents to work, but are also an important first step in improving the health of our nation’s youngest children. During the first three years of life, the brains and bodies of infants and toddlers make huge gains in development, making this period of their lives critical for their physical and social emotional development. Negative experiences early in life can lead to long-term health problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and mental health challenges.

Paid parental leave facilitates healthy child development and family bonding during the critical developmental window of early childhood. Paid medical and caregiving leave ensures that illness or injury won’t push families into financial instability and poverty.

Early childhood is our biggest chance to promote lifelong health and well-being. Businesses, pediatricians and other health care professionals can work closely together to improve support structures for parents and caregivers essential to a child’s positive development and future success. However, these two sectors alone cannot solve the child care crisis. Employer incentives and strides in health care must be coupled with robust public investments, including subsidies for families with low incomes and direct assistance to child care providers.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the business community can largely agree that the ability for every family in America, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or zip code, to access high-quality child care and paid leave is critical for building the foundation for our youngest children. Affordable child care helps parents reenter the workforce and helps children build healthy, happy, and productive lives, improving the workforce of tomorrow.

Our country is at its best when we recognize that the needs of families and the needs of the business community are interdependent. We must continue enacting policies that make a powerful commitment to both.

Maxine Clark is the founder and former CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, and Co-Chair of theReadyNation CEO Task Force on Early Childhood.Dr. Moira Szilagyi is President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

Source: TEST FEED1

DACA turns 10 with Dreamers no closer to solid ground

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program turns 10 years old Wednesday, beset by lingering doubts about both its future and the current protections it grants to young immigrants.

The program, known widely as DACA, was instituted in a moment of crisis after then-President Obama hit a brick wall in his legislative attempts to modernize the immigration system.

For around 800,000 so-called “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors, DACA made possible a close-to-normal American life with access to work, education, basic government services and reduced risk of deportation.

But a decade in, DACA is endangered by court actions and political sclerosis, putting its remaining 611,000 beneficiaries at risk of falling back into undocumented status.

“DACA has always been temporary. And because of the temporary nature of the program, the reality is that it’s just not enough. It is simply not enough to provide the long-lasting relief that folks need,” said José Muñoz, a DACA beneficiary and deputy communications director at United We Dream, an immigrant youth advocacy organization.

“So when you think about people who have had DACA for 10 years, many of those people are still undocumented — we still are having to renew every two years. We’re still facing the reality that we’re at the whims, in many ways, of the courts,” added Muñoz.

And younger Dreamers are unable to sign up for the program, which only covers people who arrived in the U.S. before 2007.

That means more than 100,000 such Dreamers will graduate U.S. high schools this year without the possibility of legally joining the job market.

“That’s 100,000 worker-slash-entrepreneurs that could be contributing and innovating more if we just allowed them to literally dream their dreams and achieve the American dream,” said Ramiro Cavazos, CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“We were already challenged with labor issues – workforce issues – even before the pandemic, but now it’s very apparent that we’re just holding ourselves back,” Cavazos added.

The argument for DACA, as well as for protections for other key classes of immigrants, has always been twofold: humanitarian and economic.

But what makes the Dreamer movement is unique in that while it is led by people who are technically undocumented immigrants, they have for the most part grown up accultured to the United States.

“As we think about this 10-year anniversary, it’s really more about celebrating the advocacy [that] actually led to the creation of DACA in the first place. That, I think, is where you find hope — in the people who 10-plus years ago were risking being detained and deported with no protection at all,” Muñoz said.

While DACA is hitting double digits, the Dreamer movement itself is twice as old.

Obama’s announcement of DACA in a Rose Garden ceremony on June 15, 2012 was itself a marker for a decade of activism and heartbreak for Dreamers.

Young undocumented immigrants were dubbed “Dreamers” following the introduction of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (Dream Act) in the spring of 2001 by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and then-Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Dreamers pushed, with allies and foes in both parties, for immigration reform that would recognize their unique status as immigrants whose life experience was uniquely American, despite their lack of papers.

But legislative immigration solutions faltered in Congress throughout the George W. Bush presidency, took second fiddle to passage of the Affordable Care Act in Obama’s first term and came to a screeching halt as partisan rancor intensified in Congress.

In the 20 years since the first Dream Act, immigration has increasingly become a partisan issue and a political red line, particularly for the right flank of the GOP.

Still, a bipartisan group including Durbin, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Raúl Ruiz (D-Calif.) and Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) will commemorate DACA’s anniversary on Wednesday at the Capitol.

While Durbin, Padilla and GOP Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) are holding negotiations, the cards are stacked against a breakthrough deal on citizenship and immigration after 20 years of political stagnation and a decade of court fights over DACA.

The courts made clear that DACA was on shaky ground from the get-go, as U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in 2016 blocked the Obama administration from expanding the program and implementing a similar one, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA).

Stephen Legomsky, who served as chief counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services when DACA was first enacted, wrote in 2016 that the group of states led by Texas purposefully sought to have Hanen hear the case.

“By suing in Brownsville, Texas’s lawyers knew they were likely to land Judge Andrew Hanen, whose earlier vitriolic condemnations of President Obama’s immigration enforcement policies made him an inviting decision-maker. They also knew that the inevitable appeal would have to be filed with the Fifth Circuit, the nation’s most politically conservative federal appeals court,” Legomsky wrote. 

The DAPA case went on to the Supreme Court, which affirmed Hanen’s injunction in a 4-4 ruling; the Court had eight members due to the recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

When former President Trump attempted to rescind DACA in 2017, attorneys general from blue states sued in federal courts in California and New York to keep the program alive.

The Supreme Court ultimately decided that the Trump administration had inappropriately ended DACA, but did not make a call on the program’s legality.

And last year, following a 2018 suit led by Texas, Hanen ruled that DACA itself is illegal and blocked the Biden administration from adding new beneficiaries to the program.

The case will be heard by the conservative Fifth Circuit in July, but it’s likely the fate of the 611,000 DACA beneficiaries will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.

Still, over the last 10 years, DACA’s benefits have left an indelible mark on the U.S. economy and on its beneficiaries. 

According to a new report by FWD.us, the median income of DACA recipients rose from $4,000 in 2012 to $26,000 in 2022. 

And 99 percent of current beneficiaries have finished high school, compared to 77 percent in 2012.

Current DACA recipients also share their homes with 962,000 U.S. citizens, with 42 percent of beneficiaries having become parents to U.S. citizen children.

“If nothing else, I hope 10 years of DACA’s successes reminds Congress of its role in securing permanent protection to millions of undocumented immigrants and makes the case for why expanding opportunities for immigrants benefits all of us in America,” said Mario Carrillo, campaigns director of America’s Voice, whose wife Angie is a DACA recipient.

Source: TEST FEED1

These are the 27 House Democrats who opposed a bill expanding security for Supreme Court families

More than two dozen House Democrats voted against a bill on Tuesday that calls for expanding security protections to family members of Supreme Court justices.

The legislation, titled the Supreme Court Police Parity Act, passed the House in a 396-27 vote, with only Democrats opposing it. Three Republicans and two Democrats did not vote.

The bill cleared the Senate last month by unanimous consent, meaning all 100 members approved the measure, which allowed it to pass without a formal vote.  The legislation now heads to President Biden’s desk for final approval.

The measure seeks to provide “around-the-clock security protection” to family members of Supreme Court justices and “any officer” who works for the bench if the Court Marshall believes it is necessary. Those protections are similar to the security provided to some officials in the executive and legislative branches.

A total of 27 Democrats voted “no” on the bill: Reps. Joyce Beatty (Ohio), Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Jesús García (Ill.), Sylvia Garcia (Texas), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Steven Horsford (Nevada), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Brenda Lawrence (Mich.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Tom Malinowski (N.J.), Marie Newman (Ill.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Bill Pascrell (N.J.), Donald Payne (N.J.), Ed Perlmutter (Colo.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Mikie Sherrill (N.J.), Albio Sires (N.J.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Norma Torres (Calif.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), Maxine Waters (Calif.) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).

Seven of the Democrats who opposed the measure hail from New Jersey, the state where Daniel Anderl, the son of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas, was fatally shot in July 2020 by a man targeting the judge. Salas’ husband was also injured in the incident.

In a statement following the vote, Sherrill, Gottheimer, Watson Coleman, Sires, Pascrell and Malinowski said that while they “fully support expanding security for Supreme Court Justices and their families,” they believe the protections should also be extended to federal judges and their families who encounter similar threats.

“We stood alongside our friend Judge Esther Salas and voted no today because we could not support passing legislation that continues to ignore the pleas of all federal judges for greater security. Federal judges regularly face threats to their safety as well as their families due to their work to protect our communities and our democracy,” the group wrote.

“We believe that Congress had a strong opportunity to improve protections for all federal judges, but the Senate abdicated its responsibility when it ignored our calls for the inclusion of the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act in this bill,” they added.

Politico reported earlier on Tuesday that some Democrats were leaning towards opposing the measure because they wanted Escobar’s bill to bolster physical and cyber security for health care providers.

Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that she voted against the bill as a call to action for gun and abortion legislation.

“I think it’s ridiculous that we have the political will and capacity to pass protections for ourselves so quickly, but for some reason when it comes to kids, people in grocery stores, anybody in a public place, that we somehow can’t get gun safety or we can’t even pass federal protections, to Veronica Escobar’s point, we can’t pass expanded security protections for federal workers who are providing health care and abortion care as well,” she said.

Passage of the bill came after a month-long standoff between the House and Senate. House Democrats wanted to expand the Senate-passed bill — offering protections to Supreme Court staff if the Court Marshall determined it needed — but Republicans in the upper chamber objected to such a move.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday warned that the expanded House version would not clear the Senate, telling reporters “the security issue is related to Supreme Court justices, not nameless staff that no one knows.”

The House ultimately went ahead with the Senate version of the bill.

Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) brought up the bill to expand security protections last month, days after Politico published a draft Supreme Court majority opinion that showed the bench poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. The document, which Chief Justice John Roberts said was authentic, sparked protests nationwide.

Republicans expressed an increased urgency to pass the bill last week, after a man who said he wanted to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh was arrested near the justice’s home and charged with attempted murder.

This story was updated at 5:49 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Taiwan says Chinese attack would hit global economy harder than Ukraine war

Taiwan’s top trade negotiator told Reuters on Tuesday that a Chinese military attack on the island would harm the global economy more than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

John Deng noted that the world relies on Taiwan for computer chips used in electric vehicles and mobile phones, meaning the implications of a Chinese invasion would be sweeping for any industry that relies on the technology.

China has stepped up its military drills and rhetoric toward Taiwan since Russia invaded Ukraine, adding to global fears that China may feel emboldened to invade the island, which it claims historical control of.

Russia’s invasion has sent economic shockwaves across the world, sharply increasing oil and gas prices and raising fears of famine in multiple countries in light of food export bans and other disruptions within the “bread basket” to much of the world.

“The disruption to international supply chains; disruption on the international economic order; and the chance to grow would be much, much (more) significant than this one,” Deng said, comparing the Russian invasion to a potential Chinese one. 

Reuters reported that Taiwan’s chip exports last year were worth $118 billion. Deng said 40 percent of Taiwan’s chip exports go to China, but Taiwanese officials are attempting to diversify further.

President Biden added fuel to tensions between China and Taiwan when he said last month that the United States would be willing to defend Taiwan if China invaded. The White House clarified that the U.S. was still following the “One China” policy and has not changed its stance. 

The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 commits the U.S. to helping Taiwan defend itself but does not commit to direct U.S. engagement, and America has maintained a stance of “strategic ambiguity” on the island’s independence.

After Biden made his comments, China announced it would conduct military drills near Taiwan, which a spokesperson said were a “solemn warning to the recent U.S.-Taiwan collusion activities.” 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Gen. Wei Fenghe, his Chinese counterpart, on Friday that Beijing must avoid “further destabilizing actions” toward Taiwan.

Source: TEST FEED1