Associates from significant electric utility companies will meet up with with President Biden now to advocate for sweeping new clean up vitality tax credits and define their initiatives to create a small-carbon power method.
Structured by the Edison Electrical Institute, a trade association for trader-owned utilities, the meeting will characteristic electrical utility CEOs from businesses about the region. Confirmed attendees contain Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison Intercontinental, the father or mother corporation of Southern California Edison Southern Co. President and CEO Tom Fanning Nick Akins, chairman, president and CEO of American Electric powered Electric power and Exelon Senior Govt Vice President and Main Running Officer Calvin Butler.
EEI explained to E&E News yesterday that it is inquiring for a 100 percent direct fork out solution for all thoroughly clean energy credits a new tax credit for present nuclear electricity crops and new credits for energy storage, transmission lines and hydrogen. In addition, EEI has called for expanding tax breaks for electrical automobiles and EV infrastructure, as well as for the possibility to decide on among generation tax credits and expenditure tax credits for photo voltaic jobs.
The assembly will come as progressive Democrats and clean power teams are pushing for renewed conversations about the stalled “Build Back again Much better Act” (E&E Everyday, Feb. 8). The proposal has $320 billion in tax breaks for renewable power initiatives, transmission lines, electrical power storage and other assets, but it strike a roadblock in the narrowly divided Senate in December, when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) introduced he would not support it.
Offered the uncertain long run of the “Build Back Better Act,” EEI and its member companies want Congress to enact legislation that features “forward-considering steps to handle climate adjust,” including an expansive, technological innovation-neutral thoroughly clean strength tax offer, EEI President Tom Kuhn said in a assertion about the assembly.
AEP, for case in point, is concentrated specially on pushing for the tax provisions in “Build Again Improved,” which would assist spur much more clean up power jobs and reduced charges for buyers, claimed spokesperson Tammy Ridout.
“We go on to operate on advancing guidelines that will assistance a thoroughly clean, reliable, resilient and cost-effective electricity technique,” Ridout mentioned.
According to Kuhn’s assertion, the trade group has hosted much more than 100 meetings in excess of the very last calendar year in between utility CEOs and customers of Congress or Biden administration officers to focus on its priorities.
“The President has created it distinct that developing modern, climate-resilient infrastructure is critical to his economic strategy and to a clean up vitality potential, and EEI’s member businesses have an understanding of that we have a vital role to enjoy — and the prospect of a lifetime — to construct this cleanse strength future and to build additional union work,” Kuhn explained.
EEI’s member utilities are dedicated to expanding transmission traces and other infrastructure to assistance cleanse electricity and electric transportation, whilst making sure that electrical power is reliable, Kuhn added.
Responsible for about 25 percent of greenhouse gasoline emissions in the United States, the electric powered electric power sector is viewed as a key part in efforts to construct a carbon-cost-free electrical power method and to address climate change. A 2020 examine from Princeton University scientists, for illustration, discovered that wind and photo voltaic ability as properly as electric buildings and vehicles would will need to quickly develop this decade in buy for the United States to accomplish web-zero greenhouse fuel emissions by midcentury.
Biden has set a objective of 100 per cent carbon-totally free electricity by 2035, but quite a few electric utilities have not committed to that timeline. As of 2020, about 40 p.c of electrical electrical power from trader-owned utilities arrived from all-natural gasoline, whilst about 19.5 percent arrived from nuclear electrical power, 19 per cent from coal, and 20.5 per cent from renewable means.
Independently, EEI is also providing an annual update at the Nasdaq MarketSite currently for investors and analysts on utilities’ function in the changeover to carbon-cost-free ability, among the other matters.
“Our information will be as crystal clear in New York as it is in Washington — America’s electric powered organizations are working just about every day to get the vitality we offer as thoroughly clean as we can as rapid as we can, when keeping the trustworthiness and affordability that our prospects worth,” Kuhn explained.
Reporters Kristi E. Swartz and Jeffrey Tomich contributed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he attends his yearly close-of-year news conference in Moscow, Russia, December 23, 2021.
Evgenia Novozhenina | Reuters
The U.S. has despatched the clearest message yet that Russia, its key financial sectors as effectively as its chief Vladimir Putin, could face the severest sanctions it has at any time confronted if it invades Ukraine.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden intimated that his Russian counterpart could face individual sanctions should really Moscow give a greenlight for its army to invade.
Russia has all over 100,000 troops and armed service components stationed at several points alongside its border with Ukraine and there are heightened fears it is preparing to invade its neighbor, although Moscow has consistently denied that it is arranging to do so.
Western allies are having no probabilities with NATO inserting its forces on standby and reinforcing its positions in Eastern Europe with additional ships and fighter jets. The U.S. has set hundreds of troops on heightened inform, this means they are all set to deploy to the region need to the disaster escalate.
The U.S., the U.K. and the EU have previously explained that Russia will be subjected to new sanctions on key individuals and sectors of its overall economy if it does invade Ukraine. Russia has previously observed sectors like energy, finance and protection targeted by previous rounds of sanctions for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
But the U.S. gave its clearest sign but on Tuesday that it will appear to cripple Russia’s economic climate — which would most likely guide to huge force on Putin, both of those from the Russian persons and the country’s enterprise leaders — if Moscow invades its neighbor once more.
Biden mentioned Tuesday that he would experience obliged to beef up NATO defenses in Poland and Romania, in Japanese Europe, and when requested whether he could see himself imposing sanctions on the Russian president individually, he replied, “Yes, I would see that.”
The U.K. has signaled it could do the exact same with the country’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss saying, “we are not ruling out everything” when asked if Putin could be sanctioned, Reuters noted Wednesday.
Threats of personalized sanctions versus Putin would be a huge phase up from prior actions against the Russian state and could see the West goal Putin’s prosperity and inhibit his vacation, though no further more specifics have been disclosed.
The Kremlin responded to people comments on Wednesday, indicating any private sanctions on Putin would be politically harmful, but not distressing, according to Reuters.
The measures they’re looking at assortment from additional economical sanctions to the use of “novel export controls” that could significantly impede Russia’s accessibility to U.S.-designed technology components, identical to these utilised from Chinese know-how giant Huawei.
“The gradualism of the past is out, and this time we are going to start at the top rated of the escalation ladder and keep there. We’ve created endeavours to signal this intention incredibly evidently,” a person senior White Property formal said on the contact on Tuesday.
Officials explained the U.S. was also organized to impose export controls — which would primarily block Russia from obtaining U.S.-originated software and technological innovation in an effort and hard work to hurt essential economic sectors in Russia. These could hurt “Putin’s strategic ambitions to industrialize his economic climate pretty tough,” they mentioned.
These controls, they observed, “would impair areas that are of great importance to him, whether it is really in synthetic intelligence or quantum computing, or protection, or aerospace, or other important sectors.”
Which is not an exhaustive record with “all options” quite significantly on the desk, the formal added, expressing “we are united with Allies and partners to decisively impose significant consequences on Russia if it even more invades Ukraine.”
When questioned if export controls could effect global offer chains, one particular formal mentioned that there would be a nominal effects “since we’re speaking about denying to Russia downstream goods that are vital to its possess ambitions to establish significant-tech abilities in aerospace and defense, lasers and sensors, maritime, AI, robotics, quantum, et cetera.”
“And in every of these offer chains, we and/or our allies and partners layout and develop the technological innovation. And the export command would deny to Russia a advanced enter that it are not able to change by means of domestic generation or alternate provides.”
This kind of sectors, the official observed, had been intentionally earmarked as ones that “Putin himself has championed as the way ahead for Russia to diversify its economic system outside of oil and gasoline” — yet another sector that the U.S. could find to undermine if Russia weaponizes energy supplies.
Europe’s strength sphere has grow to be anything of a battleground for Russia and the U.S. in the latest years and the situation has come to the fore as tensions have developed around Ukraine.
Russia supplies the EU with around 40{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of its normal gas materials, and has crafted a large gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, so it can send gas materials specifically to Germany, bypassing Ukraine. The U.S., which would like to raise its have liquefied pure fuel exports to Europe, has condemned the challenge as harmful Europe’s electricity security.
In truth, the Biden administration has been wanting at ways to protected electricity for European allies in scenario Moscow decides to lower its vitality provides to the location in a bid to extract concessions more than Ukraine.
A person senior administration official, who declined to be named in order to share particulars of ongoing strategies, instructed CNBC Tuesday that the administration was coordinating with significant customers and suppliers of liquefied organic gasoline to make certain a diversion of provides to Europe if important.
Some analysts have pointed out that the latest indicators coming from the U.S. on prospective sanctions on Russia are the strongest they’ve noticed.
“I have been checking U.S. sanctions language on Russia since 2014 and what we are observing below is a substantial step up,” Timothy Ash, a senior rising markets sovereign strategist at Bluebay Asset Administration, stated Tuesday evening in a exploration observe.
“The U.S. officers are expressing to Putin ‘bring it on, you go into Ukraine we are likely to sanction you to hell, and check out retaliation via reducing energy materials to Europe. We are setting up for that — we will get Europe through the winter season and you will finish up as the loser.’ The U.S. is attempting to help Europe crack its electrical power dependence on Russia,” he observed.
Shut followers of Russian politics imagine that the latest surge in tensions about Ukraine demonstrates Moscow’s (and extra specifically, Putin’s) bid to reverse the growth of Western impact in Russia’s back garden, and previous territories, considering the fact that the conclusion of the Cold War and slide of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Sanctions remain one of the couple options open to the West as there is minimal urge for food to have interaction in a army conflict with Russia. Ukraine is not a member of NATO and, as such, the navy alliance is not obliged to protect it.
But Western allies want to end Russia from managing and coercing (and invading) its neighbors. Russia, meanwhile, wants legal assurances that Ukraine will never be equipped to join NATO and for a rollback of the alliance’s deployments in East Europe. The U.S. and NATO have refused those needs.
“The Western allies have confined room for concessions” when it will come to Russia, according to Andrius Tursa, Central and Eastern Europe advisor at Teneo Intelligence.
“They would chance undermining the reliability of the U.S. and NATO security guarantees, which sort the backbone of the submit-Cold War protection architecture in Europe. Right after all, the demise of the write-up-Cold War security buy would seem to be a person of the Kremlin’s essential objectives,” he famous Tuesday.
“Even if the existing crisis is resolved via diplomacy, relations in between Russia and the West surface to have approached a much more hostile and unpredictable section. The Kremlin’s perception of the US – and by extension NATO – as its most important geopolitical rival is not likely to dissipate until eventually there are any significant adjustments in Russia’s political management.”
Marketplaces have been on edge this 7 days as Ukraine concerns have dominated world-wide headlines, and there is minimal certainty over what Putin will do future.
On Tuesday, Holger Schmieding, main economist at Berenberg Financial institution, pointed out that “the heightened threat that he may perhaps invade Ukraine has started out to have an impact on marketplaces … this is not our foundation case. Even now, it is between the tail pitfalls that we need to have to ponder. Like other observers, we do not know what Putin is up to and what may perhaps transpire upcoming.”
Schmieding explained that Putin experienced presently obtained some victories at dwelling from the crisis around Ukraine, with greater oil and gas charges a boon to electrical power exporter Russia.
“Experiencing mounting concerns about falling residing standards at household, Putin is now reaping windfall gains from the surge in oil and purely natural gasoline prices,” Schmieding mentioned, adding that “with his sabre rattling, he has already achieved some thing. The entire world is talking about him. The U.S. and Russia are speaking about the fate of Europe, at times even with out Europe itself present at the desk.”
“Putin can present this to his domestic viewers as a return to the instances of the Cold War when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were being the two world gamers that mattered most.”
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The Supreme Court on Thursday issued mixed rulings in a pair of cases hard Biden administration COVID-19 vaccine mandates, allowing the requirement for selected wellness treatment staff to go into influence when blocking enforcement of a mandate for companies with 100 or additional employees.
The latter, an Occupational Security and Wellness Administration rule that took influence on Monday, stated that businesses with at least 100 staff necessary to have to have personnel to get vaccinated, or get analyzed weekly and wear a mask.
The Courtroom dominated that OSHA lacked the authority to impose such a mandate mainly because the law that developed OSHA “empowers the Secretary to set place of work protection expectations, not broad general public wellbeing measures.”
President Joe Biden ((Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Periods via Getty Pictures) / Getty Visuals)
“Whilst COVID-19 is a possibility that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an occupational hazard in most,” the Court docket dominated. “COVID–19 can and does distribute at house, in faculties, throughout sporting situations, and all over the place else that people today obtain. That form of common hazard is no distinct from the day-to-working day risks that all encounter from crime, air pollution, or any amount of communicable diseases.”
Virginia Legal professional General-elect Jason Miyares discuses the struggle against coronavirus vaccine federal mandates as SCOTUS determination looms.
For these explanations, the OSHA mandate “would considerably develop” the agency’s authority over and above the boundaries Congress established, the Courtroom ruled.
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By contrast, in Biden v. Missouri, the Court docket ruled that Well being and Human Companies Secretary Xavier Becerra did have the authority to call for all overall health treatment personnel at institutions that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding to get the jab, except if they get medical or spiritual exemptions.
Overall health and Human Companies Secretary Xavier Becerra speaks all through a Globe AIDS Working day commemoration in the East Place of the White Dwelling in Washington, DC on December 1, 2021. (Image by MANDEL NGAN/AFP through Getty Photos / Getty Photographs)
While numerous states argued that HHS did not have the scope to concern these types of a mandate, the Courtroom famous that “healthcare amenities that desire to take part in Medicare and Medicaid have normally been obligated to satisfy a host of ailments that handle the secure and powerful provision of healthcare, not only sound accounting.”
This is a creating story. Verify back again for updates.
The Supreme Court docket on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from implementing its sweeping vaccine-or-exam demands for large non-public companies, but permitted a vaccine mandate to stand for medical facilities that consider Medicare or Medicaid payments, Art Of Landscaping.
The rulings arrived three days after the Occupational Safety and Wellness Administration’s emergency measure for firms started off to acquire result.
The mandate expected that personnel at firms with 100 or extra personnel get vaccinated or post a detrimental Covid check weekly to enter the workplace. It also necessary unvaccinated staff to dress in masks indoors at operate.
“Though Congress has indisputably provided OSHA the electric power to control occupational dangers, it has not presented that agency the electric power to control public health a lot more broadly,” the courtroom wrote in an unsigned opinion.
“Requiring the vaccination of 84 million People, chosen merely mainly because they perform for employers with much more than 100 staff, unquestionably falls in the latter category,” the court docket wrote.
A demonstrator holds a “Freedoms & Mandates You should not Combine” signal outdoors the U.S. Supreme Court docket in the course of arguments on two federal coronavirus vaccine mandate actions in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Jan. 7, 2022.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
Liberal Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, writing that the the greater part has usurped the electrical power of Congress, the president and OSHA without legal foundation.
“In the face of a even now-raging pandemic, this Court docket tells the company billed with guarding worker basic safety that it may not do so in all the workplaces wanted,” they mentioned in their dissent.
“As illness and death continue on to mount, this Court docket tells the agency that it can not answer in the most efficient way feasible. Without having authorized basis, the Court docket usurps a final decision that rightfully belongs to some others. It undercuts the ability of the accountable federal officers, acting perfectly within just the scope of their authority, to defend American employees from grave hazard,” they wrote.
President Joe Biden, in a statement, said the Supreme Court selected to block requirements that are everyday living-saving for employees. Biden termed on states and companies to phase up and voluntarily institute vaccination prerequisites to shield staff, consumers and the broader neighborhood.
“The Court has dominated that my administration simply cannot use the authority granted to it by Congress to demand this evaluate, but that does not prevent me from applying my voice as President to advocate for companies to do the suitable matter to safeguard Americans’ health and financial system,” Biden stated.
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh referred to as the court’s choice a significant setback for the health and basic safety of workers, vowing OSHA would use its existing authority to make certain companies are defending personnel. The American Medical Affiliation, a single of the biggest doctors’ teams in the nation, reported it was “deeply let down.”
“In the confront of a continually evolving COVID-19 pandemic that poses a significant risk to the wellness of our nation, the Supreme Court currently halted one of the most effective resources in the battle versus even further transmission and loss of life from this intense virus,” AMA President Gerald Harmon stated.
In a different, concurrently unveiled ruling on the administration’s vaccination principles for wellness-treatment personnel, a 5-4 the vast majority sided with the Biden administration.
“We concur with the Government that the [Health and Human Services] Secretary’s rule falls inside of the authorities that Congress has conferred upon him,” stated the the greater part, writing that the rule “fits neatly within the language of the statute.”
“Immediately after all, guaranteeing that suppliers choose methods to stay clear of transmitting a dangerous virus to their individuals is steady with the elementary basic principle of the health care job: 1st, do no damage,” the bulk opinion go through.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, 4 of the 6 conservatives on the 9-seat bench, dissented.
“I do not think that the Federal Governing administration is likely to be ready to show that Congress has authorized the unparalleled step of compelling over 10,000,000 health care workers to be vaccinated on suffering of being fired,” Alito wrote in his dissent.
Biden, in a assertion, mentioned the vaccine requirement for well being-treatment personnel will conserve the lives of individuals, health professionals and nurses. “We will enforce it,” the president explained of the mandate.
OSHA, which polices workplace security for the Labor Section, issued the business enterprise mandate underneath its emergency power established by Congress. OSHA can shortcut the normal rulemaking method, which can acquire a long time, if the Labor secretary determines a new office security conventional is vital to protect personnel from a grave danger.
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The court’s choice to strike down the enterprise mandate comes as the pandemic rages throughout the U.S., with the hugely contagious omicron variant driving an unprecedented surge of new bacterial infections. The U.S. is reporting 786,000 new infections every day on average, a pandemic report and a 37{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} improve in excess of past 7 days, in accordance to CNBC analysis of details from Johns Hopkins College.
Hospitalizations have also achieved a pandemic significant centered on federal knowledge likely again to the summer of 2020. There are 149,000 Americans in U.S. hospitals with Covid, according to a seven-working day common of facts from the Division of Overall health and Human Expert services, up 27{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} more than the earlier week.
The vaccine-or-check principles confronted a raft of lawsuits from 27 states with Republican lawyers typical or governors, private enterprises, religious groups and national field associations such as the National Retail Federation, the American Trucking Associations and the Nationwide Federation of Impartial Company.
The NRF, in a statement, referred to as the Supreme Courtroom ruling a “victory,” urging the Biden administration “to discard this unlawful mandate and as an alternative perform with companies, staff members and general public wellness industry experts on realistic means to boost vaccination charges and mitigate the unfold of the virus in 2022.”
The mandates were the most expansive use of electrical power by the federal govt to secure employees from Covid since the pandemic began. Taken with each other, the Biden administration estimated that the rules for organizations and wellbeing care staff would utilize to somewhere around 100 million People.
But both equally procedures experienced been in flux well before the Supreme Courtroom took them on. The OSHA policies had been blocked in November by a conservative federal appeals court, then reinstated by a different court docket months later.
The White Property at the time urged enterprises to abide by the community security specifications even if they were being not being enforced.
Some organizations have accomplished so, and many others have implemented their personal policies. A quantity of substantial businesses, including Citigroup, Nike and Columbia Sportswear, in new days have explained they would get started firing unvaccinated workers.
— CNBC’s Christina Wilkie contributed to this report.
The mandates, governing passenger autos, SUVs and light vans from model years 2023 by means of 2026, symbolize the toughest-at any time expectations of the form. However, the administration did not bow to the requires of environmentalists to tighten a suite of proposed credits and incentives that give automakers more flexibility to fulfill the necessities.
Despite the fact that environmentalists and administration officials had warned individuals provisions risked undercutting actual, actual-planet emissions reductions, automakers stressed the flexibilities are vital to assembly the new specifications. Without having them, the business would not have been equipped to independently satisfy design yr 2020 specifications, in accordance to a new EPA assessment.
In the last rule, the EPA said it would go on properly overcounting the gross sales of EVs and satisfying automakers with excess credit rating for technologies that make cars and trucks a lot more gasoline successful but never automatically display up in tailpipe readings.
Flexibilities shielded
“Automakers are in a solid position to satisfy these last standards,” the EPA explained. Nevertheless, “the system contains averaging, credit banking and investing provisions to aid the business in meeting benchmarks by means of a multiyear arranging procedure.”
Those flexibilities could be important in the out decades, as annual emissions advancements get tougher. For design 12 months 2023, the EPA is requiring a combined fleet-vast average of 202 grams of carbon dioxide for every mile — a 9.8 per cent increase in stringency around the comfortable Trump-era benchmarks for product calendar year 2022. In product yr 2024, needs would tighten an further 5.1 percent, adopted by a different 6.6 per cent in design year 2025 and 10.3 p.c in model calendar year 2026.
The up-to-date benchmarks established the phase for a further layer of auto requirements governing a number of pollutants for design year 2027 and past. The EPA is by now working to build that following era of demands, which it reported will govern gentle- and medium-obligation cars by at minimum model yr 2030.
Lots of Republicans, which include Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the rating GOP member on the House and Strength and Commerce Committee oppose the further emissions restrictions, calling them “radical.”
“As folks wrestle to extend their previous dollar to afford to pay for reputable transportation amid increasing gasoline charges, this administration is now asserting far more control around the vehicles we travel to function, just take our youngsters to college, and reside our life,” the New York Times quoted her as indicating in summer months. “It’s also a radical force for electric autos that will make The us far more dependent on Chinese offer chains and hurt our global aggressive edge.”
The EPA approximated the new demands would yield $190 billion in web benefits tied to general public overall health improvements, gasoline savings and avoided emissions — some 3 billion tons truly worth by means of 2050. While the benchmarks are envisioned to enhance the price tag of cars and trucks, the EPA estimates gasoline price savings will in the end exceed that initial price tag boost by extra than $1,000 over the life span of an average model year 2026 motor vehicle.
The EPA’s remaining necessities signify the type of govt motion Biden can hire to bring about deep greenhouse gasoline emissions cuts, even devoid of help from Congress.
“Today’s government action will unlock virtually hundreds of billions in gas financial savings for American shoppers,” reported Ali Zaidi, deputy national local climate adviser. “It’s element of a broader win-gain playbook for our customers, personnel and setting.”
The UAW endorsed the new restrictions:
“President Joe Biden and EPA Administrator Michael Regan have created a earn-win for UAW users, the U.S. production workforce and our setting by putting into place nationwide 2023 to 2026 Model Calendar year gentle-obligation emission restrictions that are very good for our air excellent, maintain and increase both equally American work and our economic climate,” the union reported in a assertion.
“Heritage has shown that robust expectations primarily based on input from stakeholders that include American staff at the table can be an chance for each position retention, occupation generation and environmental protections.”
Bloomberg, Hannah Lutz and Automotive Information staff members contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced the purchase of a half-billion, at-home rapid COVID-19 tests and the mobilization of 1,000 military medical personnel to overburdened hospitals, as officials confront for a new surge in infections driven by the omicron variant.
The president unveiled the stepped-up measures in a speech from the White House as the nation – already fatigued by a pandemic that’s lasted nearly two years – faces rising COVID-19 infections.
Biden said Americans will be able to request the free-at-home COVID-19 tests be mailed to their homes by accessing an online website. It comes as shortages have led to long lines and overwhelmed hospitals in hot spots while Americans crisscross the country for the holiday season.
“I know you’re tired. I know you’re frustrated. We all want this to be over,” Biden said in his remarks from the White House State Dining Room “But we’re still in it. And this is a critical moment. But we also have more tools than we’ve ever had before.”
Americans will not be able to request the at-home tests online until January, meaning they can’t access the kits before millions are expected to travel for Christmas. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration is still working through details of the program, including how many kits will be available for households and whether some groups would be prioritized.
The 500 million tests – among eight versions approved by the Food and Drug Administration – are in addition to 50 million tests the federal government began distributing this month to community health centers. Biden said his administration has also worked to make it easier to search online to find nearby COVID-19 tests.
‘No this is not March 2020,’ Biden says
The U.S. has lagged behind other nations in testing capacity. Pressed by reporters about the shortages, Biden said, “I don’t think anybody anticipated that this was going to be as rapidly spreading as it did.”
Biden thanked Americans for their “perseverance and courage” and returned to a familiar message: urging Americans to get vaccinated and receive their third booster shot. He stressed the unvaccinated face a greater likelihood of hospitalization or death from COVID-19.
“If you’re not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned,” Biden said. He told people who are vaccinated to “remain vigilant” and wear face masks indoors in public settings but said they are protected from severe illness and death.
“If you got your booster shot, if you are vaccinated and follow the precautions that we all know well, you should feel comfortable celebrating Christmas and the holidays as you plan. You’ve done the right thing.”
Despite the urgency, Biden rejected concerns that the U.S. could return to where it was in March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic started.
“No, this is not March of 2020. Two hundred million people are fully vaccinated. We’re prepared. We know more. We just have to stay focused.”
Biden pointed to stockpiled medical equipment at hospitals as another difference. And because of greater overall knowledge about the virus, Biden said schools don’t need to shut down like last year.
“We should all be concerned about omicron but not panicked,” Biden said.
The president also announced plans to send six emergency response teams to Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire and Vermont and will stand up new federal testing sites with the first location in New York City this week.
“This free testing is going to help reduce the waiting lines,” Biden said. “Sometimes it’s hours. We’re going to continue to add federal testing sites where needed, so if you want an immediate test, there’s a place where you can go get it.”
Some major U.S. cities announced new restrictions on Monday to address a spike in COVID-19 cases. The District of Columbia re-imposed its mask mandate and said city employees would be required to get vaccinated, including receiving a booster shot, while Los Angeles officials said its New Year’s Eve party planned for downtown will be streamed with no in-person audience.
Why the US lags behind on rapid testing
The administration has taken some previous steps to expand access to test kits, but experts have criticized the government for not doing more – particularly for not making tests as cheap and easy to get as they are in the United Kingdom and some other countries. White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Dec. 6 dismissed the idea of sending free tests to all American households, drawing criticism from many health experts.
“Should we just send one to every American?” Psaki said, raising issues such as the cost of doing so.
Part of the reason the U.S. hasn’t been able to keep up with the demand for testing stems from regulation of the industry, according to Michael Mina, an epidemiologist and testing expert who serves as chief science officer at biotech software company eMed.
Mina said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been regulating rapid COVID-19 tests as medical devices instead of a public health tool, requiring companies to conduct clinical trials that cost millions of dollars and last months. That slowsthe process of getting tests in the hands of American consumers, he said, and only a handful of COVID-19 rapid test manufacturers have kits available in the U.S., compared to the global market.
“We’re in a pandemic, a fast-moving respiratory infectious disease, and speed of a result is much more important for a public health test than sensitivity,” Mina said. “This is about (stopping)transmission. Nobody is talking about a new test for medical purposes.”
Looking abroad, the U.K. has been able to stand up one of the most robust rapid test distribution programs in the world, Mina said, because they recognized the need for a more efficient regulatory framework to deal with the speed of this virus’ transmission.
“They immediately saw the need to think about these tests differently,” Mina said of the U.K. “And in two years it’s just unfathomable, in my view, that we have not recognized that the way we’re were evaluating rapid tests is just antiquated.”
Biden has tried to make more tests available ahead of the holiday season. Earlier this month, he unveiled his winter strategy amid growing fears of the highly transmissible omicron variant, which included requiring private health insurance companies to cover the total cost of at-home COVID-19 tests next year and distributing free, at-home tests through health centers and rural clinics.
The White House also announced a $1 billion investment to boost the supply of at-home rapid COVID-19 tests in October, with the aim of making millions of rapid tests available to Americans as the holiday season ramped up.
But images of long lines at drive-through testing sites and the words “sold out” next to images of at-home testing kits on pharmacy websites raises questions about whether the White House is doing enough to battle an expected explosive surge, particularly as Americans travel for the holidays and the omicron variant begins to spread at a faster clip.
“It’s spotty. In some places you can easily get a test. But in other places, you can’t,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top coronavirus adviser said during remarks at the National Press Club Monday. “I know that. I’ve tried myself.”
‘Viral blizzard’ is coming
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who led the Food and Drug Administration for the first two years of the Trump administration, said the government is “probably not” doing all it can to provide access to rapid antigen testing.
During a meeting with the USA TODAY Editorial Board earlier this month, Gottlieb said the country has a “critical window” to make COVID-19 tests more ubiquitous as omicron spreads more widely. People need to test themselves not just once before attending a gathering or other higher-risk environment; they need to test the day before, the day of and the day after, he said.
“Flooding the market with diagnostic home diagnostic tests for the next four months, to me, makes eminent sense,” Gottlieb said, “and the best way to do that is to directly subsidize it.”
Michael Osterholm, who advised Biden on COVID-19 during the presidential transition, warned last week that a “viral blizzard” is coming. Osterholm said on CNN that millions of Americans are likely to be infected by omicron over the next three-to-eight weeks.
“That will be overlaid on top of delta,” he said, “and we’re not yet sure exactly how that’s going to work out.” Delta is another highly contagious variant of the coronavirus.
Dr. Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist who advised Biden’s transition team on COVID-19, said the president needs to refocus the conversation around hospitalizations and deaths, rather than infections and cases.
In places like New York City, where the population is highly vaccinated, cases are on the rise but hospitalizations are not. But in places with low vaccination rates, a surge in cases could lead to a surge in hospitalizations and deaths and overwhelm the health care systems.
“It’s tragic because we have those tools to move beyond this, but we’re just not using them,” Gounder said. “I think people need to understand vaccines work best at a population level, they’re not on/off switches at the individual level.”
Just over 60{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
As he urged the unvaccinated to get their shots, Biden noted that former President Donald Trump, who has many followers hesitant of getting the COVID-19 vaccine, said over the weekend that he received his booster shot.
“Maybe one of the few things he and I agree on,” Biden said.
Republicans make up an increasingly disproportionate share of those who remain unvaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health research organization that has been tracking vaccinations. Political partisanship trumps age, race, education level or insurance status as a predictor of whether someone is vaccinated.
Biden’s efforts to impose vaccine requirements on many workers have been impeded by the courts.
While a federal appeals court on Friday reinstated a federal rule that workers at larger businesses get vaccinated or be regularly tested, the Labor Department announcedit would give businesses more time to comply because of the uncertainty created by legal challenges.
Workers who are not fully vaccinated won’t have to be regularly tested for the coronavirus until Feb. 9, more than a month after the original deadline of Jan. 4.
The administration is also fighting challenges to requirements that health care workers and federal contractors be vaccinated.
“These rules are going to keep workers safe, and keeping workers safe will help keep businesses open,” Biden said. Acknowledging the requirements might not be popular, he said it is meant “not to control your life but to save your life.”
Biden released his winter strategy on Dec. 2, a day after the first confirmed case of the omicron variant in the USA was announced. Now, the variant has been found in at least 39 states. It’s expected to become the dominant strain in the coming weeks.
The plan included:
Requiring travelers entering the country by air to test negative for the coronavirus within a day of departure, regardless of vaccination status or nationality, instead of within three days.
Extending through March 18 the requirement that masks be worn on airplanes, trains and public transportation.
Requiring private health insurance companies to cover 100{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the cost of at-home tests for the coronavirus, beginning in mid-January.
Launching a public education campaign to encourage 100 million adults to get boosters, with a special focus on seniors.
Deploying emergency response teams to support strained hospital system, help with the administration of lifesaving monoclonal antibody treatments and conduct outbreak investigations.
