In news that absolutely no one will have heard about (unless you happen to be a regular reader of Scientific American), President Biden's Department of Housing and Urban Development will cover the costs of air conditioning (“cooling”) for 1.6 million public housing residents.
The Biden Administration has taken an important step to protect the nation's 1.6 million public housing residents from the heat by agreeing to: Pay for air conditioning For those asking: Forecasters are saying this summer could be the hottest on record.
The move by the Department of Housing and Urban Development comes as people seeking assistance are urging HUD to go a step further and formally agree to pay for air conditioning costs for all residents, whether they request assistance or not.
For years, HUD required most residents to pay for air conditioning under policies enacted decades ago, when cooling was considered a luxury and before global warming drove temperatures to record highs.
From the HUD press release:
Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced new guidelines for the use of HUD funds to help mitigate the impacts of extreme heat on the approximately 1.6 million public housing residents who are particularly vulnerable, including seniors, young children, and people with chronic illnesses. These new options allow PHAs to increase residents' energy bill allowances or waive cooling surcharges, allowing residents to use their air conditioning during periods of extreme heat or extreme weather.
I hope that people who live in public housing will vote for President Biden this fall because this measure, Project 2025, whole Trump's plans for actual real governance, which, by the way, were never mentioned during the debate.
Here's another bit of news that most people probably haven't heard about.
of Biden The administration announced Wednesday that it would provide $375 million in funding for renewable energy projects, primarily through the Inflation Control Act (IRA).
Funds announced by the Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack This includes $275 million through the Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program, an IRA program dedicated to renewable electrification in rural areas. Funding will be provided to communities in Alaska, Arizona, Kentucky and Nebraska. The two largest grants will go to a battery energy storage system in Fairbanks, Alaska, and the Soldotna substation on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, both of which will receive $100 million.
I went to Soldotna and Kenai twice. I was really happy to have electricity when I was there and I'm sure the people I was staying with were happy too. Electricity is very convenient for cooking salmon. Trump's Project 2025 will eliminate all renewable energy projects.
this:
The Biden administration said on Wednesday Inflation Penalty 64 days Prescription drugs The third quarter of this year Cost reduction For certain older Americans who are covered by Medicare.
president Joe Biden Reducing drug prices is an important pillar of the U.S. healthcare policy. Re-election pledge Towards 2024 Regulations President Biden's inflation-fighting bill would require drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare, the federal health care program for Americans over 65, if they raise drug prices faster than the rate of inflation.
This is because Medicare Negotiate Contracts with manufacturers lower the price of prescription drugs. On average, Americans pay Pay 2-3 times the price According to the Biden administration, Americans pay more for prescription drugs than patients in other developed countries.
Pfizer is one of the drug companies that is probably unhappy with the cost savings to consumers. That's a shame. How are they going to stay in business? Yes, Trump's Project 2025 would repeal the entire Anti-Inflation Act, including the efforts mentioned above. That's it.
Or this:
of Biden The government has announced measures to increase affordable housing as housing costs and rents continue to rise.
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen Intention Announce new initiatives To address housing supply, the Treasury Department announced new measures on Monday. In its announcement, the Treasury Department said the new measures will “strengthen” programs and policies that address affordable housing, such as tax incentives and fiscal recovery programs.
[***]
The efforts include establishing a new program to provide an additional $100 million in affordable housing funding over the next three years and encouraging the Federal Home Loan Banks to increase spending on housing programs.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to hear about funding more affordable housing, when no one is actually looking for a place to live.
And finally this:
Washington — The Department of the Interior today awarded $126.7 million to the states of Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, New York and Ohio to address historic contamination through President Biden's Invest in America plan.
Orphaned oil and gas wells pollute backyards, recreational areas and community spaces across the country. Many of these wells contaminate surface and groundwater, emit toxic air pollutants and pose serious health and safety threats to the air we breathe and the water we drink through methane leaks. Methane is a major contributor to climate change and a “super pollutant” that is many times more capable of trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Plugging orphaned wells supports the Biden-Harris Administration's broader efforts under the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan.
With this funding, the five states will jointly plug approximately 600 wells and further inventory undocumented orphan wells in preparation for future plugging activities.
Well, if the contamination has been there long enough to be called “legacy” contamination, shouldn't we respect that condition and leave it there?
All of these measures were announced this week alone. These projects and initiatives, and over 1000 like them, would not happen if Trump were back in power. They would all be eliminated on day one under Project 2025. Yes, the one CNN never asked about.
One could argue that Biden should have brought it up. But really? A detailed plan to turn the country into an extreme Christian nationalist regime, including loyalty tests, mass deportations, buying off the FBI and Justice Department to use them as Trump's secret police, shutting down the Departments of Energy and Education, replacing the Department of Homeland Security, and eviscerating all efforts to fight climate change? Was that not worthy of questioning by these moderators?
Please. CNN was not only useless, it was awful.
On a completely unrelated note, writer Eve Babitz described the man as “the Bing Crosby of hell.”
