3 FEBRUARY

10 Days of Action

President Biden is wrapping up his 10 Days of Action to tackle four “overlapping” crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, economic downturn, climate change and racial inequity. Of these issues, executive orders tackling COVID-19 and climate change took centre stage. The Biden administration's 200-page National Strategy for COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness presents a detailed and comprehensive plan. The public health plan faces a number of challenges, chief among them that many Americans are reluctant to be vaccinated as well as the fact that 20 million existing vaccine doses are currently unaccounted for. The fate of the US$1.9 trillion COVID economic relief package currently before Congress will speak volumes about the prospects for unity Biden repeatedly called for in his inauguration speech.

Biden's early move on climate change seems to have dominated the news cycle, particularly in Australia, with the early action taken on the Paris Climate Agreement, halting the Keystone gas pipeline and banning fracking on federal lands. To get a handle on the latest climate action by Biden, read this United States Studies Centre (USSC) summary.

Over on Capitol Hill, the divisions in the Republican Party are becoming more evident. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has taken a more public stance in supporting Congresswoman Liz Cheney in her vote for Trump’s impeachment and condemning freshman Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for spreading conspiracy theories, saying “Somebody who's suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.'s airplane is not living in reality,” about Taylor Greene.

Just as important but attracting less media attention has been the consistent and concise messages from the Biden administration on the importance of China as a foreign policy priority, along with the importance of alliances in rising to the China challenge. The Biden administration has already declared the persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang to be genocide, and said that the United States must "impose costs" on China for its actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and prioritised building upon existing allied arrangements like the Quad.

Head to the USSC's First 100 days hub for more of the latest Washington news and analysis or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram.

NEWS WRAP

The trillion-dollar disagreement

All talk, no action? | President Biden has met with Republican senators in a bid to secure bipartisan support for his US$1.9 trillion COVID relief plan. During the nearly two-hour meeting, the 10-member GOP group countered the president's proposal with a more conservative US$618 billion package. Though no deal was made, Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) described the meeting as a "good exchange of views" but urged President Biden to follow through with his campaign promise of promise of bipartisanship and national unity. READ MORE HERE
A notable defence | Donald Trump's office announced attorneys David Schoen and Bruce L Caster will be heading the former President's legal team in his upcoming impeachment trial, likely arguing the trial is unconstitutional. Mr Schoen previously represented Roger Stone, a former associate of Trump, while Mr Castor famously refused to prosecute Bill Cosby on allegations of sexual assault and sued Cosby's accuser for defamation. READ MORE HERE
Game over on GameStock frenzy | Shares in the now infamous US video game retailer GameStock have plunged as much as 60 per cent in early trading, indicating a possible end to the Reddit-induced trading saga. GameStop stocks targeted on the Reddit forum WallStreetBets cost US hedge funds billions of dollars on severely-shorted stocks. Shares dropped to US$90 on Tuesday after a high of US$483 late last week. READ MORE HERE
Biden's bid for SCOTUS delays | The Biden administration has asked the Supreme Court to delay the consideration of the funding of former President Trump's border wall construction and the so-called "remain in Mexico" policy. The two major cases are scheduled for oral arguments in the coming weeks and were the subject of two of President Biden's recent executive orders. It is expected the Supreme Court will agree to the postponement, which would likely result in the cases being pronounced dead as a legal matter. READ MORE HERE

People recognise that you guys have been on the receiving end of the Chinese bully. President Biden, everything in his character down to the bottom of soul, does not like a bully. He will not put up with it.

Ambassador John Berry (ret)
President of the American Australian Association
The Canberra Times | 1 February 2021

VIDEO

Mia Love on the future of
the Republican Party

The fallout from Donald Trump's presidency and extreme political polarisation has sparked questions of the future of the Republican Party. Last year, USSC hosted Mia Love, the first black Republican woman to be elected to US Congress for a conversation with ABC's US politics analyst and presenter of Planet America John Barron and USSC CEO Professor Simon Jackman on the future of the GOP which, even then, was being called in to question. Watch the full event HERE.

Catch this and other recent webinars on the USSC YouTube channel!

ANALYSIS

Biden’s ambitious climate change agenda: First days

Jim Orchard
Energy Analyst

Mere hours after being inaugurated, President Biden signed a raft of executive orders and other proclamations, all dealing with high profile topics and, in many cases, fulfilling commitments he made during the campaign. But the climate-related actions on the first day, and the subsequent actions taken in the following days, are just the beginning of a wide-ranging and ambitious climate change agenda.

The executive orders

President Biden signed two key climate-related executive orders on his first day as president. One started the 30-day waiting period before the United States re-joins the Paris Climate Accord (Paris Agreement) and the other, Executive Order 13990, ordered government departments and agencies to address “Federal regulations and other actions during the last 4 years that conflict with these important national objectives, and to immediately commence work to confront the climate crisis.” In other words, President Biden’s orders reinstated rules and regulations that were weakened or removed by the Trump administration.

The headline-grabbing item in the second executive order was the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline project stretching from Montana’s Canadian border to Nebraska. This project, which was disallowed under President Obama and then given the green light by President Trump, was intended to increase the volume of crude oil which could be moved from the tar sands fields in the Canadian province of Alberta to refineries in Illinois, Texas and Oklahoma. Biden’s executive order delighted the climate community, for whom the pipeline had a totemic symbolism akin to the Adani mine in Australia. However, it disappointed the Canadians including Prime Minister Trudeau, who had been a project supporter.

This same executive order also included measures aimed at:

limiting carbon emissions from a range of sources including coal-fired power plants, cars and trucks;
improving efficiency standards for vehicles and appliances;
reinstating wetland protections; and
lowering limits on mercury emissions.

Many of the efforts will have the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff reverse work they did over the past four years, but the Department of the Interior will also have work to do — including pausing oil and gas drilling on federal land and banning it outright in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, another highly symbolic move.

This is an excerpt from Dr Orchard's latest USSC publication.
Click below to read the full article.

VIRTUAL EVENT

US politics and policy series

A review from Australia

The United States Studies Centre and Perth USAsia Centre host a monthly web series reviewing the latest in US politics and policy and what this means for Australia.

With the transition of power behind, a new administration and Congress ahead, there is much to discuss and interpret.

Co-hosted by CEO's Professor Simon Jackman and Professor Gordon Flake, each month the pair will be joined by experts and insiders from across the globe.

WHEN:
Friday, 5 February 2021, 1pm AEDT (Sydney)
Friday, 5 February 2021, 10am AWST (Perth)
Thursday, 4 February 2021, 9pm EST (Washington DC)

COST:
Free, but registration is essential

You can also subscribe to have event invitations and reminders sent straight to your inbox so you never have to miss an event!

REGISTER NOW

BY THE NUMBERS

Biden's COVID-19 vaccine rollout

Sarah Hamilton
Research Associate for Data Insights

The United States is well on the way to meeting President Biden’s 100 million shots by the first 100 days target. In his presidency's first 14 days, 17.1 million COVID-19 vaccinations have been administered, meaning just under eight per cent of the total population having received at least one dose.

Biden’s new goal of increasing the target to 150 million shots in 100 days is still a fair way off, with the current daily vaccine rollout averaging 1.2 million. However, this target could be within reach with the government securing an additional 200 million doses.

A number of states are leading the way in vaccination rollout with West Virginia, New Mexico, North Dakota and Connecticut having vaccinated over 12 per cent of their population. Alabama has vaccinated the lowest percentage of their residents at 7.5 per cent.