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Biden Touts ‘American Manufacturing Comeback,’ New Tennessee Plant

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that an Australian company that makes chargers for electric vehicles will build a manufacturing facility in Tennessee, while reiterating his commitment to make the U.S. government’s fleet of cars electric. 

The new plant will produce up to 30,000 electric vehicle chargers per year and create 500 local jobs, according to Biden and the Brisbane-based company, Tritium. State officials said production is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2022. 

Biden touted “an American manufacturing comeback.” Tritium’s chargers will “use American parts, American iron, American steel,” and will be installed by union workers, Biden said. He said the federal government’s fleet of 600,000 vehicles will “end up being electric vehicles.” 

“The benefits are going to ripple through thousands of miles in every direction and these jobs will multiply,” Biden said, adding the manufacturing plants will lead to a growth in steel mills, small parts suppliers and construction sites throughout the country. 

Tritium CEO Jane Hunter appeared alongside Biden at the White House and said Biden’s policies “have contributed to enormous demand” for Tritium products in the United States. This “directly led us to pivot and change our global manufacturing strategy.” 

Biden also announced that this week, the White House will roll out a state-by-state allocation of $5 billion in funding for electric vehicle chargers. He used the speech to highlight contributions by U.S. companies involved in manufacturing electric vehicles including Tesla, a company Biden has refrained from naming in the past. 

Biden has made rebuilding American manufacturing a key of his economic agenda, including pushing for billions of dollars of public and private investments in the electric vehicle industry. The bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year provided money for a sprawling network of electric vehicle charging stations across the country. 

Biden has said electric cars will be more climate-friendly and affordable for American families, and the White House has set a target of half the vehicles sold in the United States to be electric or plug-in hybrids by 2030. 

The Tritium announcement is the latest in recent weeks by major companies announcing investments in U.S. manufacturing and jobs, including Intel, General Motors and Boeing. More than $200 billion in investments in domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, electric vehicles, aircraft, and batteries have been announced since 2021. 

 
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House OKs Bill Easing Budget Strains on Postal Service

Congress would lift onerous budget requirements that have helped push the Postal Service deeply into debt and would require it to continue delivering mail six days per week under bipartisan legislation the House approved Tuesday.  

The election-year bill, coming at a time of widespread complaints about slower mail service, would also require the Postal Service to display online how efficiently it delivers mail to communities. 

The Postal Service is supposed to sustain itself with postage sales and other services but has suffered 14 straight years of losses. The reasons include growing worker compensation and benefit costs plus steady declines in mail volume, even as it delivers to 1 million additional locations every year.  

Postal Service officials have said that without congressional action, it would run out of cash by 2024, a frequent warning from the service. It has estimated it will lose $160 billion over the coming decade.  

Those pressures have brought the two parties together for a measure aimed at helping the Postal Service, its employees, businesses that use it and disgruntled voters who rely on it for delivery of prescription drugs, checks and other packages. Tuesday’s vote was 342-92, a rare show of partisan agreement, with all Democrats and most Republicans backing it. 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said the Postal Service “provides service to every American, no matter where they live, binding us together in a way no other organization does.”  

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, that committee’s top Republican, said “the days of letters alone driving Postal Service revenue are not coming back.” The bill, he said, will “help it succeed into the 21st century.”  

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’s planning a vote before a recess that starts after next week. The bill has 14 GOP sponsors and, with strong Democratic support expected, seems on track to gain the 60 votes most bills need for Senate passage.  

Over the years, some lawmakers have wanted to impose tougher requirements for faster service by the Postal Service, while others have favored privatizing some services. The compromise omits controversial proposals.  

There has been talk over the years of reducing deliveries to five days per week, which could save more than $1 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability Office, the accounting agency of Congress. That idea has proven politically toxic and has not been pursued. 

The bill would also require the Postal Service to set up an online dashboard that would be searchable by ZIP code to show how long it takes to deliver letters and packages.  

The measure is supported by President Joe Biden, the Postal Service, postal worker unions, industries that use the service and others. 

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the bill would help “provide the American people with the delivery service they expect and deserve.” Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, called the bill “outstanding” in an interview. 

One of the bill’s few critics was Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who said its changes fell short. 

“It has failed to make a profit, it has failed the American people, and everyone who has a mailbox knows it,” he said.  

The bill would end a requirement that the Postal Service finance, in advance, health care benefits for current and retired workers for the next 75 years. That obligation, which private companies and federal agencies do not face, was imposed in 2006. That ended up being the year that the Postal Service’s mail volume peaked and its financial fortunes steadily worsened. 

The Postal Service hasn’t made those payments since 2012. Overall it faces unpaid obligations of $63 billion, according to its most recent annual report. The bill forgives much of that debt. 

Instead of those obligations, the Postal Service would pay current retirees’ actual health care costs that aren’t covered by Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older people.  

The legislation would also require future Postal Service retirees to enroll in Medicare, which about 3 in 4 do now. The shift would save the Postal Service money by having Medicare cover much of its costs. 

Proponents say the changes would save tens of billions of dollars over the next decade. 

The Postal Service had a successful 2021 holiday season, delivering 97% of shipments on time during two weeks in December, according to ShipMatrix, which analyzes shipping package data. In 2020 more than a third of first-class mail was late by Christmas Day. 

Since the Postal Service has its own finance system, it is not counted as part of the federal budget. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would save the government $1 billion over the next 10 years. 

That is largely because retirees’ prescription drug expenses under Medicare would be covered by required discounts from pharmaceutical makers. 

 
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VOA Interview: US Ambassador to OSCE on Russia-Ukraine Crisis

U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Michael Carpenter spoke with VOA’s Russian service Monday to discuss the situation along the Russia-Ukraine border.

Carpenter said the allies and its partners are trying “to see if the Kremlin is interested in pursuing a diplomatic solution to this crisis, to seeking to de-escalate the situation along Ukraine’s border, which is very dire.”

Here is a transcript of the interview, edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in Washington and French President (Emmanuel) Macron is in Moscow. What are your expectations from these negotiations, and what could be the result of these massive diplomatic efforts?

U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter: Well, I think you’re right. It’s a massive diplomatic effort. We’re trying, with our allies and partners, to see if the Kremlin is interested in pursuing a diplomatic solution to this crisis, to seeking to de-escalate the situation along Ukraine’s border, which is very dire. The military buildup is really unprecedented. And so, naturally, we’re consulting very closely with allies and partners. We are here at the OSCE. We are at NATO. We’re doing it bilaterally, telegraphing to (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin that there will be intense repercussions, both in terms of sanctions, in terms of export controls, in terms of military force posture, if he invades Ukraine, but also holding out hope for the potential for a diplomatic solution, as well.

VOA: How united is the West now in its response to Russian aggressive actions? We saw Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visiting Putin quite recently.

Carpenter: Well, I think if you step back and look at the entire NATO alliance, I think we’re actually extremely united in an unprecedented way. When we launched a discussion of the crisis in European security here at the OSCE on January 13, really every state spoke out in support of a dialogue, which could be read as a condemnation of Russia’s position. Russia was really alone, and so I think they’re seeing that also in terms of the fact that we’ve had the North Atlantic Council, the European Council, as well as the G-7 (Group of Seven), all speaking in the same language about massive and unprecedented consequences in the event of a Russian military escalation. So, I don’t know that President Putin was counting on this, but the West is in fact very united right now.

VOA: How confident is the United States that Russia is in the final stages of preparing for an invasion of Ukraine? And what is that confidence based on? Can the United States convince OSCE partners of the reality of this threat?

Carpenter: Well look, here’s what I can tell you, that we have well over 100,000 combat-ready troops on the border. We have all of the equipment that would be necessary for invasion that is in place. And by that I mean attack helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, munitions supplies, medical supplies, engineering — all of the enablers that you would need to launch an invasion within a matter of days. And so, when you look at that military capability, you can’t just sit back and wait to see what happens. You have to be prepared, and you have to rally allies and partners to respond in the event that there is an invasion. At the end of the day, I can’t tell you what is in President Putin’s mind. I can’t tell you whether he will invade or not and when he might do it. But what I can tell you is that that capability is of extreme concern.

VOA: What mechanisms does Washington have within the OSCE that it could use now? Because we have the U.S. Helsinki Commission, we have very strong bipartisan statements on Russia from this commission, and we have you as a representative of the executive branch. So, what mechanism can you use?

Carpenter: What we are trying to do is to sharpen the choices for the Kremlin to present them with. On the one hand, a set of very severe consequences if they choose to act militarily, as I said: sanctions, export controls, substantially beefing up NATO’s force posture on the eastern flank. You’re already seeing it in terms of the fact that we’ve had now approximately 3,000 U.S. troops deploying to the European theater on a temporary basis. But if Russia invades Ukraine, a lot of other things are potentially on the table, as well. And then at the same time, holding out that option for diplomacy, including here at the OSCE, on things that the Russians have said in the past, that they do care about, things like deconfliction risk reduction, potentially even new forms of conventional arms control and transparency. If they’re interested in those things, then the OSCE is the place where we can develop the actual instruments, potentially even legally binding agreements, if we get far enough. That would satisfy our concerns and the Russian concerns. But right now, we’re in the process of elaborating these two sets of options and hoping very much that the Russians choose the option of diplomacy.

VOA: You just mentioned binding agreements. What is off the table?

Carpenter: Well first of all, any sort of agreements in terms of military transparency, confidence-building, reciprocal restraint — all of those would need to be negotiated and adhered to by all of our allies and partners. So, nothing about Europe without Europe. You’ve heard the various officials say that in the past as very much our mantra. Second of all, anything we do we’re not going to compromise on the core principles of the European security order, which means no acceding to spheres of influence, no ability of one state to dictate what sort of alliances another state gets to choose. None of that. So first, principles are going to be kept intact. But as I said, there is certainly room for confidence-building, risk reduction, new forms of conventional arms control if we get that far.

VOA: You’ve been studying in Russia for a very long time, both as an official and as an expert. Why do you think Vladimir Putin needed to create this crisis?

Carpenter: Well, I can’t tell you. As a U.S. official, I can’t speculate on what President Putin is thinking. What I can tell you is that there was this massive buildup in April, followed by an even more comprehensive, I would say buildup right now, which has all the hallmarks of a potential invasion of Ukraine. Why is President Putin doing it this time? Is it to seek concessions? Is it to try to escalate the situation militarily to Russia’s advantage? We don’t know. But we have to act from the premise that he may escalate militarily, and therefore, we have to telegraph that the costs that would result from that would be strategically catastrophic for Russia. So that both the Russian leadership and the Russian people understand that if this path is chosen — and let’s again, God forbid, that we go down this path — but if it is chosen, those repercussions and consequences will be massive.

VOA: Yesterday’s statement by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that the Belarussian army will act jointly with the Russian army, what does this mean for you? How does it change the perspective on the situation? Belarus is a member of OSCE, as well.

Carpenter: Yes, Belarus is a member of the OSCE, and in the past, they have said repeatedly that they would never allow their country to serve as a launching pad for an invasion of a neighbor. And so, that language you’ve just cited has shifted a little bit, which is of extreme concern. We expect that there could be as many as 30,000 Russian troops deployed to Belarus, together with short-range ballistic missiles and other types of equipment that, in fact, would serve as a launching pad for a potential invasion. So, we’re watching the situation very closely. It’s very concerning what the Belarusian Ministry of Defense has said, with regards to the purpose of these exercises, frankly, doesn’t square with the reality on Belarus’ southern border, which is that there is no threat whatsoever from Ukraine. So, I think it deserves to be watched very, very closely.
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US Ambassador to OSCE Michael Carpenter on Russia-Ukraine Crisis

U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Michael Carpenter spoke with VOA’s Russian service Monday to discuss the situation along the Russia-Ukraine border. Carpenter spoke to VOA’s Danila Galperovich.
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US Taking the Fight Against Terrorism to the App Store

More than a decade ago, technology giant Apple began telling its smartphone customers that if something was worth doing, “There’s an app for that.”

Starting now, the same can be said of fighting terrorism.

The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Monday launched its aCTknowledge mobile app, ready for download from the Apple app store and from the NCTC website.

“The app is a one stop shop to get unclassified counterterrorism information,” a NCTC official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the center’s foray into mobile apps.

Officials said a version should also be available in the coming months from Google Play, and that the information will also be available in a desktop version. 

But while the app is public, access to the full suite of features is limited to counterterrorism professionals.

NCTC officials say the initial rollout is limited to officials with the U.S. federal government and in the U.S. military.  State and local counterterrorism officials will also be getting access in the near future.

“This is a tremendous evolution of our information sharing efforts,” a NCTC expert who helped develop the aCTknowledge app told reporters.

“We’re moving from a weekly, regularized information sharing effort (via email) to a daily, near real time effort,” the expert said. “Our ability to send push notifications to partners using the app is really going to change the community, in general, because we’ll be able to immediately level-set everyone’s understanding of a counterterrorism event as it occurs.”

Like other apps, NCTC’s aCTknowledge will enable users to get notifications, search for information and follow for updates on specific terms or topics.

NCTC says the nature of the new mobile app will also allow it to see what type of information its various government partners are looking for, and make sure that data or training is made available.

Although the information being shared on the app is unclassified, officials are taking precautions to protect the systems from hackers and others who might try to misuse it.

“You’re required to use your official government email address to register,” a second NCTC expert said, speaking like the other on the condition of anonymity. “And then we have an established vetting criteria to make sure that applicants have a validated need to know.”

Officials say many of the app’s features were designed with the help of state and local first responders, including police and fire departments from across the United States.

“With the release of aCTknowledge, NCTC is delivering on our mission to innovate how we share intelligence products with our partners,” NCTC Director Christy Abizaid said in a statement late Monday. “The app empowers its users with the information they need to protect their communities from potential threats.” 
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Supreme Court Sides With GOP in Alabama Election Map Case

The Supreme Court on Monday put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power. The high court order boosts Republican chances to hold six of the state’s seven seats in the House of Representatives.  

The court’s action, by a 5-4 vote, means the upcoming elections will be conducted under a map drawn by Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature that contains one majority-Black district, represented by a Black Democrat, in a state in which more than a quarter of the population is Black. 

A three-judge lower court, including two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, had ruled that the state had likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the political power of Black voters by not creating a second district in which they made up a majority, or close to it. 

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, part of the conservative majority, said the lower court acted too close to the 2022 election cycle. 

Chief Justice John Roberts joined his three more liberal colleagues in dissent. 

The justices will at some later date decide whether the map produced by the state violates the landmark voting rights law, a case that could call into question “decades of this Court’s precedent about Section 2 of the VRA,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent.  

That decision presumably will govern elections in 2024 through the end of the decade in Alabama and could affect minority political representation elsewhere in the country, too.  

Alabama lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional districts following the results of the 2020 census. Several groups of voters sued, arguing that the new maps diluted the voting power of Black residents. 

In a unanimous ruling in late January, the three judges said that the groups were likely to succeed in showing that the state had violated the Voting Rights Act. As a result, the panel ordered lawmakers to redraw the districts so Black voters would be a majority, or close to it, in two districts, not one. The ruling ran more than 200 pages. 

The panel wrote that “we do not regard the question … as a close one.” 

Alabama asked the Supreme Court to put the ruling on hold while it appeals, and the justices agreed. The state argued that it drew the new map guided by race-neutral principles and that the new map is similar to past maps. 

More than a dozen mostly Republican-led states had filed a brief urging the justices to side with Alabama and allow it to use the maps it originally drew. 

Deuel Ross, a lawyer for Alabamians who sued, called the state’s congressional districts “a textbook case of a Voting Rights Act violation” and said the high court’s decision to intervene is disheartening. 

The facts are clear, Ross, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “Alabama’s current congressional map violates the Voting Rights Act,” he said. “The litigation will continue, and we are confident that Black Alabamians will eventually have the congressional map they deserve — one that fairly represents all voters.” 

Roberts, who typically votes against consideration of race, wrote that he shares some of Alabama’s concerns, but still would have let the redrawn districts govern the 2022 election and have future elections governed by the ultimate outcome in the case. 

Kavanaugh, writing to explain his vote, stressed that the court has repeatedly declined in the past to change the rules close to an election. 

“When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear and settled. Late judicial tinkering with election laws can lead to disruption and to unanticipated and unfair consequences for candidates, political parties, and voters, among others. It is one thing for a State on its own to toy with its election laws close to a State’s elections. But it is quite another thing for a federal court to swoop in and re-do a State’s election laws in the period close to an election,” he wrote in an opinion Alito joined.  

Taking issue with Kavanaugh, Kagan noted that the lower court ruled months before any votes will be cast.  

She criticized the conservatives for using the emergency application process known as the shadow docket “to signal or make changes in the law, without anything approaching full briefing and argument.”   

 
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Pence: Trump Is ‘Wrong’ to Say Election Could Have Been Overturned

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday directly rebutted Donald Trump’s false claims that Pence somehow could have overturned the results of the 2020 election, saying that the former president was simply “wrong.”

In a speech to the conservative Federalist Society in Florida, Pence addressed Trump’s intensifying efforts this week to advance the false narrative that he could have done something to prevent Joe Biden from taking office.

“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said. “I had no right to overturn the election.”

While Pence in the past has defended his actions on January 6 and has said that he and Trump will likely never see “eye to eye” on what happened that day, the remarks Friday marked his most forceful rebuttal of Trump to date. And they come as Pence has been laying the groundwork for a potential run for president in 2024, which could put him in direct competition with his former boss, who has also been teasing a comeback run.

In a statement Tuesday, Trump said the committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol should instead look into “why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval.” And on Sunday, he blasted Pence, falsely declaring that “he could have overturned the Election!”

Vice presidents play only a ceremonial role in the counting of Electoral College votes, and any attempt to interfere in the count would have represented a profound break from precedent and democratic norms.

Pence, in his remarks Friday, described January 6, 2021, as “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol.”

Pence was inside the building, presiding over the joint session of Congress to certify the presidential election, when a mob of Trump’s supporters violently smashed inside, assaulting police officers and hunting down lawmakers. Pence, who had released a statement earlier that day to make clear he had no authority to overturn the will of the voters, was rushed to safety as some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence!”

Pence framed his actions that day as in line with his duty as a constitutional conservative.

“The American people must know that we will always keep our oath to the Constitution, even when it would be politically expedient to do otherwise,” he told the group Friday. He noted that, under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, “elections are conducted at the state level, not by Congress” and that “the only role of Congress with respect to the Electoral College is to open and count votes submitted and certified by the states. No more, no less.”

“Frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president,” he added. “Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”

Pence also acknowledged the lingering anger among many in Trump’s base. But he said: “The truth is, there’s more at stake than our party or political fortunes. Men and women, if we lose faith in the Constitution, we won’t just lose elections — we’ll lose our country.”
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