Statements and Releases

Planned Parenthood
St. Paul, Minnesota

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon, everyone.  I first want to thank the governor, Tim Walz, for your leadership both for this beautiful state, but nationally you’ve been a great friend and advisor to the President and me.  And thank you for all of that.

GOVERNOR WALZ: Thank you.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Congresswoman — I mean, just an extraordinary leader.  She is strong, she is powerful, she is committed, and always working on behalf of the people of the state.  And I thank you, and thank you for traveling with me to be here today. 

REPRESENTATIVE MCCOLLUM:  It was an honor.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  And, Mayor, thank you, as well.  We shared a lot of stories about your leadership.  And I know that you have a lot of support here in the city for the work that you have done.  Thank you for that.

So, many of you have asked why am I here at this at — this facility, in particular.  And I will tell you, it is because, right now in our country, we are facing a very serious health crisis.  And the crisis is affecting many, many people in our country, most of whom are, frankly, silently suffering after the United States Supreme Court took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America.

In states around our country, extremists have proposed and passed laws that have denied women access to reproductive healthcare.  And the stories abound. 

I have heard stories of — and have met with women who had miscarriages in — in toilets.  Women who were being denied emergency care because the healthcare providers there, at an emergency room, were afraid that because of the laws in their state, that they could be criminalized, sent to prison for providing healthcare.

So, I’m here at this healthcare clinic to uplift the work that is happening in Minnesota as an example of what true leadership looks like, which is to understand it is only right and fair that people have access to the healthcare they need and that they have access to healthcare in an environment where they are treated with dignity and respect. 

And please do understand that when we talk about a clinic such as this, it is absolutely about healthcare and reproductive healthcare.  So, everyone get ready for the language: uterus.  (Laughter.)  That part of the body needs a lot of medical care from time to time.  (Laughter.)

Issues like fibroids — we can handle this — breast cancer screenings, contraceptive care — that is the kind of work that happens here, in addition, of course, to abortion care.

So, to have laws in states that have caused clinics like this to shut down so that women have no access within any reasonable distance of where they live to get this vital care that is necessary to address their health needs and concerns.

So, again, I say thank you to the governor, the congresswoman, the mayor, and the doctor and all those who work here, and the staff. 

This work includes having people here who go out and talk to young people — our young people in high schools.  And sadly, in so many places around our country, Sex Ed is a thing of the past, which leaves our young people to learn about their bodies and reproductive systems on social media — often with a profound amount of misinformation, which leaves them confused about what is happening to their own bodies.

The work that happens here is about providing assistance to women who do not live in the state of Minnesota, because, sadly, this state exists in a neighborhood where laws have been passed to deny people reproductive healthcare.  And so, women have to travel here. 

You know, the majority of women who receive an abortion are mothers.  God help her that she’s got affordable childcare.  If she is working, God help her she’s got paid family leave so she can figure out how is she going to get to the place that will provide her the care she needs. 

Well, the work that happens in a clinic like this includes answering those questions for someone who might be in great distress, letting her know what is available to her in terms of transportation, in terms of housing or a hotel, what is available to her in terms of assistance for her childcare needs.

So, I’ll close with this.  In this environment, these attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and, in many instances, just plain old immoral. 

How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest.  We have to be a nation that trusts women.  (Applause.)

And with that, I will introduce this extraordinary healthcare provider.  And, Doctor, please. 

DR. TRAXLER:  Thank you.  Thank you so much. 

I have to use my notes, folks.  (Laughter.)  I’m not used to doing this. 

So, good afternoon, everyone.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon.

DR. TRAXLER:  I’m Sarah Traxler.  I’m the Chief Medical Officer here at Planned Parenthood North Central States.  I’m a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist with a subspecialty in complex family planning, and I also have my masters of science in health policy. 

I am a proud abortion provider.  And I’m honored that Vice President Kamala Harris has visited our clinic today.  It’s a historic moment and one that demonstrates how critically important access to reproductive healthcare is to people and their families across the country.

So, thank you so much —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.

DR. TRAXLER:  — for being here today.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.

DR. TRAXLER:  Thank you.

After the Dobbs decision a year and a half ago, Minnesota has become a bastion of access for abortion care.  But abortion rights are not only a Minnesota issue; it is a national issue. 

Our Planned Parenthood has seen a 25 percent increase in abortions here in Minnesota since Roe was overturned.  We’ve seen nearly 100 percent increase in patients coming here from outside of our state. 

This is not by accident.  Surrounding states have been limiting and banning abortion, while Minnesota, with the help of our governor, has been increasing access. 

Since Roe was overturned, I’ve cared for patients from everywhere, from nearby states like South Dakota and North Dakota and Wisconsin, but from far-away states like Texas, Alabama, Wyoming, Florida, Oklahoma, Missouri, and the list goes on. 

I’ve seen patients who’ve flown from places like Louisiana only to have me tell her that her complex pregnancy condition would keep her from having her abortion here with me, forcing her to continue a dangerous pregnancy because hospital-based care was not available to her in her home state. 

Traveling to access essential healthcare can be intimidating and overwhelming.  It is not an easy thing to do, as we have all pretended that it is. 

Like the experience of our patient who traveled from a small rural town and became lost in downtown Minneapolis with a dead cell phone after her flight landed.  We were able to get her a Lyft driver, our patient navigators, and she described that Lyft driver as a savior for her.  And like our patient who drove hundreds and hundreds of miles through blizzard conditions just to get her abortion. 

Our new abortion landscape is difficult, it is dangerous, and it is putting my patients and healthcare providers at severe risk.  I’ve talked to my colleagues practicing in states where abortion is now illegal, and they are unnecessarily struggling with decisions around providing ethical, proper medical care and conflicting with the law.  This should never happen.

Thankfully, providing abortion care has gotten less complicated in Minnesota.  Here, I’m trusted as a provider and an expert to work with my patients to provide the best care possible. 

To know that I’m trusted to do my job is a comfort to me, but it should be the standard everywhere.  Private medical decisions should be made between patients and their doctors without interference from politicians or the protesters standing outside on the street in front of our clinic today.

You know, I didn’t always feel this way.  I came to understand bodily autonomy after a long history of being anti-abortion and having a very distorted point of view about abortion care.  It wasn’t until a friend told me her abortion story that I came to see the light. 

After hearing her, knowing her history, I knew that an abortion was the right choice for her, for her life, for her future and nobody else’s.  And it dawned on me.  If she is making the right decision for her life, then there are countless other people who are making the right decision for their lives.  And no one should be interfering in that.

From my — from that point on, my awakening into understanding bodily autonomy and freedom grew to the point that I am today.

Everyone should have the right to access healthcare.  Your ZIP Code shouldn’t dictate the care that you can access.  Your race, your socioeconomic status — none of that should determine it.

So, in 2024 and beyond, we will keep fighting, we will keep working until we live in a world where everyone can access the care they decide is best for their futures and their bodies and in their own community.

Thank you.  (Applause.)

AIDE:  We’re going to take a couple of questions, and we’re — we’re going to start with Rochelle from the Star Tribune.

Q    Hi, Madam Vice President.  Why do you think it took so long for a sitting president or vice president to visit an abortion provider?  And, also, how concerned are you about the 20 percent who voted uncommitted in the Minnesota presidential primary?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I’ll tell you, the reason I’m here is because this is a healthcare crisis.  And I think that of the many stories that we can tell — excuse me.  (Coughs.)

Of the many stories that we need to tell about what has happened after the Dobbs decision, one of them is that part of this healthcare crisis is the clinics like this that have had to shut down and what that has meant to leave no options with any reasonable geographic area for so many women who need this essential care.

And, again, it runs the gamut of reproductive healthcare.  So, yes, it is abortion care.  It is also, as I mentioned earlier, essential and critical reproductive healthcare like paps, like breast cancer screenings, things of that nature.

So, I’m here to highlight that of the many, I believe, potentially intended consequences of the Dobbs decision, one of them has been for healthcare providers such as this in the states that have banned or outlawed access to reproductive care — clinics like this to shut down.  And it’s a travesty.  It’s a travesty.

Q    Madam Vice President, can I —

AIDE:  We’re going to go to our next question, Madam Vice President.  Darlene, right to your left, with the AP.

Q    Hi.  Thank you.  We were not able to go with you on the tour, obviously.  Can you give us a sense of what you saw back there —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

Q    — and also what you learned by coming here today?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, what I saw were, I don’t know, maybe two dozen healthcare workers who really care —
really care about their patients and who understand that in the healthcare delivery system, regardless of your gender or your healthcare need, I think we should all expect and certainly we all desire that you will be treated with dignity and you’ll be treated in an environment where you feel safe.  And by that, I mean safe to be free from judgment, to be in an environment where you are actually and really listened to, where your needs and your expression of your needs are taken seriously.

And walking through this clinic, that’s what I saw are people who have dedicated their lives to the profession of providing healthcare in a safe place that gives people dignity.
And I think we should all want that for each other.

AIDE:  Thank you, Vice President.  We’ll going to Nick at the New York Times.

Q    Madam Vice President, what do you see as your role on this issue, given that the administration has run up to the limit of what it can do to protect abortion rights and Congress is unlikely to pass a bill codifying them?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, Congress will pass that bill when we win back the House.  (Applause.)  And so, I am sure of that.

And I think that the — the point — one of the points that must be made on this issue, as we attempt to uplift the real stories and the real consequences of the Dobbs decision is to remind people elections matter.  Elections matter. 

What happened here in Minnesota, with the reelection of the governor and the turning of the state legislature is what has led to ensuring that these fundamental rights are intact and are protected.  Elections matter.

And let me be very clear about this.  When it comes to national elections and who sits in the United States Congress on this, there’s a fundamental point on this issue that I think most people agree with, which is that one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling women what to do with their body.  If she chooses, she will consult with — with her priest, her pastor, her rabbi, her imam.  But it’s not for the government to tell her what she can and cannot do with her own body.

Q    And so, what do you see as your role on this issue?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  My role is to do what I just did, which is to articulate exactly these points and to continue to articulate them and to organize folks around what I know is an issue that is impacting more people than you’ll ever really know, who, as I said earlier, are silently suffering.

And so, we who have the ability to have a bouquet of microphones in front of us, as I do, I take on then the responsibility of uplifting these stories and reminding people — with some belief, by the way, when I do it, that the vast majority of Americans do have empathy and that, even if they don’t agree that this would be the best decision for them,
would agree that other people should not be suffering the way they are.

AIDE:  Thank you, Vice President.  We have one more question right here from Patricia —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yes.

AIDE:  — at Bloomberg.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yes.  Hi.

Q    Madam Vice President, Roe was always an imperfect vessel.  What exactly would you like to see replace it?  What form should it take?  What should the scope of it be?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  What we want is to put back in place the protections that the Supreme Court took away, which is to codify, put into law the protections of Roe v. Wade.  That’s what we want.

AIDE:  Madam Vice President, thank you so much. 

                               END           

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It is important that we maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steel workers. I told our steel workers I have their backs, and I meant it. U.S. Steel has been an iconic American steel company for more than a century, and it is vital for it to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated.

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WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to serve as key leaders in his Administration:

• Jennifer Lynn Homendy, Nominee for Chair and Member of the National Transportation Safety Board
• Kelly Adams-Smith, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Moldova
• Jeremey Neitzke, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Lesotho
• Peter W. Lord, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Senegal and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as the Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau

Jennifer Lynn Homendy, Nominee for Chair and Member of the National Transportation Safety Board

Jennifer Lynn Homendy is the 15th Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). She is the fourth woman to serve as Chair since the agency was created in 1967. As Chair, Homendy is the agency’s chief executive, managing an annual budget of $140 million and more than 440 full-time employees across the country. Homendy has also served as the NTSB’s 44th Board Member since 2018. She has presided over numerous public meetings to deliberate and finalize NTSB investigations in all modes of transportation, provided expert testimony at the federal and state levels on a wide range of transportation safety issues, and launched with the NTSB “Go Team” on myriad investigations. She is a staunch advocate for improving safety across all modes of transportation.

From 2004 to 2018, Homendy served as the Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials for the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to that, she held positions with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, American Iron and Steel Institute, and National Federation of Independent Business.

Homendy is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and is pursuing a Master of Transportation Safety Administration degree at the Institute for Global Road Safety and Security at Clemson University. Homendy is a native of Plainville, Connecticut, and currently resides in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with her husband, their daughter, and two dogs.

Kelly Adams-Smith, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Moldova

Kelly Adams-Smith, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, is currently Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the European Union. Prior to that, Adams-Smith was the Senior Coordinator for National Security Affairs in the Office of the Vice President. Previously, she served as Chargé d’Affaires, ad interim. and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic. She has also served as Economic Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in London, as Deputy Executive Secretary of the White House National Security Council, and as a faculty member at the National War College. Other overseas assignments include Sofia, Bulgaria; Tallinn, Estonia; and Moscow, Russia. Washington assignments include operations officer at the State Department’s Operations Center.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Adams-Smith was a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of Commerce. A New Jersey native, Adams-Smith holds a B.A. from American University and an A.M. from Harvard University. She is the recipient of a Presidential Distinguished Service Award. Her languages include Russian, Bulgarian, Estonian and Czech.

Jeremey Neitzke, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Lesotho

Jeremey Neitzke, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Counselor, is currently Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique. Prior to that, Neitzke served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Lilongwe, Malawi. Other assignments include Management Counselor in both Buenos Aires, Argentina and Bridgetown, Barbados. In Washington, Neitzke served in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, where he oversaw a wide variety of conflict response efforts. Other overseas assignments include Maputo, Durban, and Panama City. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya.

Son of parents from Illinois and South Dakota, Neitzke holds a B.S. from Truman State University and a Masters in National Resource Strategy from the National Defense University. He speaks Portuguese and Spanish.

Peter W. Lord, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Senegal and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as the Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau

Peter W. Lord, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Counselor, currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Africa, Sudan, and South Sudan in the Bureau of African Affairs at the Department of State. He has previously served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Windhoek, Namibia and the U.S. Mission to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as well as the Director of the Office of Southern African Affairs, Deputy Director of the Office of East African Affairs, and Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Other diplomatic postings include Malawi, Syria, Iraq, and the United Kingdom. A native of Florida, he holds a B.A. in philosophy and French literature from Furman University and a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College. He speaks French and some Arabic.

 

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Jill and I are heartbroken by the recent loss of Nex Benedict. Every young person deserves to have the fundamental right and freedom to be who they are, and feel safe and supported at school and in their communities. Nex Benedict, a kid who just wanted to be accepted, should still be here with us today. 

Nonbinary and transgender people are some of the bravest Americans I know. But nobody should have to be brave just to be themselves. In memory of Nex, we must all recommit to our work to end discrimination and address the suicide crisis impacting too many nonbinary and transgender children. Bullying is hurtful and cruel, and no one should face the bullying that Nex did. Parents and schools must take reports of bullying seriously. My prayers are with Nex’s family, friends, and all who loved them – and to all LGBTQI+ Americans for whom this tragedy feels so personal, know this: I will always have your back.

To LGBTQI+ young people across the country – you are loved exactly as you are. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or alone, you can call or text 988, the National Crisis Hotline, and dial the number ‘3’ to talk to a counselor who has been specifically trained to support LGBTQI+ youth.

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On Tuesday, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention (OGVP) virtually convened nearly 300 leaders from across the nation to provide further details and answer questions related to the President’s budget proposals to keep communities safe from gun violence. The attendees included state and local leaders, public safety officials, and organizations focused on reducing community violence.

During the virtual briefing, OGVP Deputy Directors Gregory Jackson and Rob Wilcox highlighted key parts of the President’s budget proposal including, but not limited to:

• $7.3 billion to replenish the Crime Victims Fund to better support survivors and families of those lost to gun violence;
• $5 billion to expand Community Violence Intervention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Justice (DOJ) over the next 10 years;
• $17.7 billion for DOJ law enforcement, including $2 billion for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to implement the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), which represents an increase of more than 30 percent since 2021;
• $800 million in increased funding for the Violence Against Women Act programs to combat gender-based violence;
• $10.9 billion in support of the President’s goal to recruit, train, support, and hire 100,000 additional police officers for effective, accountable community policing;
• $1.2 billion over five years to launch a new Violent Crime Reduction and Prevention Fund to give federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial law enforcement the dedicated, seasoned support they need to focus on violent crime;
• $60 million to expand research on the causes, impacts and solutions to gun violence; and
• $51 million to support the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) implementation of the enhanced background checks for attempted buyers of firearms under 21, which was created by the BSCA.

During the briefing, OGVP also discussed how communities are already seeing the positive impacts of the President’s strategy to prevent and reduce crime and gun violence nationwide. Cities around the country are experiencing historic declines in violent crime, and homicides are estimated to be down nationally 12% from 2022 to 2023. By comparison, during the final year of the prior administration in 2020, the United States saw the largest increase in murders ever recorded. Key provisions created by the BSCA are starting to deliver results to protect communities from gun violence, including enhanced background check provisions that have enabled the DOJ to stop more than 600 illegal gun purchases by prohibited persons under 21 years old and the first-ever federal gun trafficking and straw purchasing law.

More information on the President’s budget to reduce crime and make our communities safer can be found here.

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In 2022, the President and First Lady reignited the Cancer Moonshot with the goals of reducing the cancer death rate in the United States by at least half by 2047—preventing more than 4 million cancer deaths—and improving the experience of people who are touched by cancer. The President also established a Cancer Cabinet to mobilize the entire Biden-Harris Administration in pursuit of these ambitious goals.

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a critical action to bring us closer to achieving these goals and advance President Biden’s historic commitment to environmental justice. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing a final rule that will significantly strengthen and update Clean Air Act standards for ethylene oxide (EtO) emitted into the air from commercial sterilizing facilities. EtO is a highly potent carcinogen that can be particularly harmful to children and communities that are already overburdened by pollution. The new rule will safeguard public health by cutting emissions of EtO from these facilities by over 90 percent. This represents an important step to advance the Biden Cancer Moonshot’s efforts to prevent cancer before it starts by protecting communities around the country from cancer risk from EtO emitted at these facilities.

One of the uses of EtO is for medical device sterilization, a critical function that ensures a safe supply of medical devices for patients and hospitals. The Biden-Harris Administration believes securing our supply of medical devices is essential, and EPA worked closely with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop a final rule that protects communities located near sterilizing facilities while also mitigating and managing the potential risk of medical device shortages, or other unintended supply disruptions, to products Americans need to support positive health outcomes as sterilizing facilities adjust to the new standards in an orderly way.

The Clean Air Act authorizes the President to provide a compliance exemption for a facility subject to this type of emission standard for a period of up to two years “if the President determines that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.” The risk of unintended disruption to the supply of critical medical devices would implicate the national security interests of the United States; therefore, it would be appropriate to exercise this authority if a sterilizer of medical devices was working in good faith to come into compliance with the rule, but the technology to implement these standards was not available for installation in the facility. 

The federal government will provide more information in the coming months about how such compliance exemptions from EPA’s commercial sterilization rule may be made available, if necessary. 

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In the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that halted access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the state, Jennifer Klein, Assistant to the President and Director of the Gender Policy Council, and Tom Perez, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, convened legislative leaders to discuss their efforts to protect access to fertility care across the country.

Legislative leaders spoke about the devastating impact that the Alabama Supreme Court decision had on women and families across the state, as well as its implications for other states. Legislators discussed strategies to combat extreme legislation restricting reproductive freedom, including  access to IVF and other fertility services, and also discussed efforts to improve access to fertility care, including through comprehensive insurance coverage.

White House senior officials thanked the legislators for their leadership and reaffirmed the importance of state partners in responding to attacks on reproductive freedom, as well as the President and Vice President’s ongoing commitment to protecting access to reproductive health care, including IVF, and calling on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law.

Speakers at the convening included:

• Alabama State House Democratic Leader Anthony Daniels
• Florida State Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book
• Minnesota State Senator Erin Maye Quade
• Washington State Senator Noel Frame

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Today, in support of President Biden’s Unity Agenda efforts to beat the overdose crisis, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing the White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose. The Challenge is a nationwide call-to-action to stakeholders across all sectors to save lives by committing to increase training on and access to lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medications.

An overdose can happen anywhere, to anyone. That’s why President Biden has worked to strengthen not only the whole-of-government response, but also the whole-of-society response to this public health and public safety crisis. Since day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic action to address the overdose crisis, including investing over $100 billion to disrupt the flow of illicit drugs and expand access to treatment. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved naloxone—a life-saving opioid overdose reversal medication—for non-prescription, over-the-counter use for the first time ever.

Today, we’re calling on organizations and businesses—big and small, public and private—across the country to help ensure all communities are ready to use this life-saving tool to reduce opioid deaths. As the drug supply has gotten more dangerous and lethal, we’re asking allies to join us because we all must do our part to keep communities safe.

To help more Americans save lives, the Biden-Harris Administration is encouraging leaders to commit to take simple measures that work, including training employees on opioid overdose reversal medications, keeping the medications in first aid kits, and distributing the medications to employees and customers so they might save a life at home, work, or in their communities.

Organizations may make a commitment here and share a story of how their efforts saved a life here. Several organizations and businesses are already stepping up across industries by taking the following actions and making the following commitments:

Air Travel

• Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) announced in February that naloxone is available in Automated External Defibrillator (AED) cabinets at pre-security and post-security locations at O’Hare and Midway International Airports. There are 196 AED cabinets with naloxone at O’Hare and 32 at Midway. CDA has trained approximately 390 aviation security officers and airport-based Chicago Police Department officers on naloxone, and plans to offer training to more airport personnel in coming months.

• Seventeen US-based airlines are voluntarily equipping their aircraft with opioid overdose reversal medications. For example, Southwest Airlines has naloxone in emergency medical kits aboard 65% of aircraft, with intentions to stock 100% by end-of-year, and has already saved a life. American Airlines has naloxone aboard every plane. The company trains flight attendants on the medications, where to access them, and how to administer doses guided by on-call physicians.

Entertainment

• Insomniac Events, experience-creators behind large music festivals and live events, commits to ensuring naloxone access at all of their festivals and events nationwide in partnership with End Overdose, which provides voluntary overdose education to attendees. Together, they trained more than 100,000 festival attendees on overdose response and provided over 1.8 million with overdose resources.

Hospitality

• Ohio Hotel & Lodging Association (OHLA) partners with state and local agencies and health departments to provide naloxone to Ohio’s hotels. Currently, 20% of hotels have naloxone onsite; OHLA’s goal is 100% adoption. OHLA also produced a naloxone training video for hotel professionals to respond to overdose, resulting in lives saved.

Labor Worksites

• The Alliance for Naloxone Safety in the Workplace, a collaboration of 23 construction organizations nationally, is committed to providing overdose prevention education and training to construction workers. They recently released a free toolkit containing free training, organizational policy templates, comprehensive FAQs, and more.

• Fishing Partnership Support Services, a nonprofit that works to improve the lives and livelihoods of commercial fishermen and their families, employs Community Health Workers to offer overdose training to fishermen and coastal community members in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. As a result, over 2,000 people in the East Coast fishing community carry naloxone. 

• Massachusetts Building Trades Unions and the Building Trades Employers Association partner to distribute naloxone to contractors at construction sites. They have distributed at least 600 doses to date.

• Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA), National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA), and The Association of Union Constructors (TAUC) represent over 10,000 union contractors, providing employment for hundreds of thousands of skilled trade workers in the United States. These organizations, in collaboration with union partners, trained thousands of workers on substance use disorder and overdose prevention, and distributed a limited quantity of naloxone. MCAA, NECA, SMACNA, and TAUC endorse having naloxone at all construction sites and urge employers to make the lifesaving medication available to their workforce.

• Meredith Management and John Moriarty & Associates partnered with the Police Assisted Addiction & Recovery Initiative to become Recovery Friendly Worksites, which offers onsite overdose reversal kits and training on overdose prevention to building trades employees. Just weeks after launching, a person’s life was saved at work. Now, over 1,000 tradespersons in Boston are trained to respond to an overdose and can access free naloxone.  

• Ryan Companies, a national commercial real estate services provider, commits to distribute naloxone and provide overdose response training to its nearly 2,000 employees, as well as place naloxone in each first aid kit at over 300 construction sites and offices, in partnership with SAFE Project, a national nonprofit that has trained 10,000 people nationwide.

Schools & Other Places of Learning

• American Library Association and the Public Library Association provide resources to public libraries to address the overdose crisis, including support for training library staff, distributing naloxone and overdose aid kits to the public, and hosting public education programs. For example, Michigan’s Lyon Township Public Library partners with Alliance of Coalitions for Healthy Communities and South Lyon Community Coalition to provide naloxone and overdose education and training to staff and the public.

• Arlington Public Schools’ (APS) is increasing awareness of and access to naloxone. APS trained over 2,000 staff members, most of whom now carry the medication daily, and installed naloxone boxes on every floor at all middle and high schools. APS policy now permits students, grades 9 to 12, to carry naloxone at school with parent or guardian consent; 422 high schoolers have such consent.

• Houston Independent School District (HISD) serves 185,000 students across 274 schools. HISDPolice trains officers on naloxone, which they carry to treat any student, employee, or community member who may be experiencing overdose.

• Los Angeles Unified School District, America’s second largest school district, has naloxone at all K-12 schools, early education centers, and adult education centers. School site and health care staff are trained on naloxone. Recently, District policy allows all students to carry naloxone at school. Since January 2023, the District has used naloxone approximately 50 times to save lives.

• The University of Texas at Austin (UT) leads an opioid overdose prevention program that has equipped residence hall staff, campus police, and campus libraries with naloxone and overdose response training. Naloxone is also available for free and anonymously to UT Austin’s entire community. As of March 2024, UT Austin has trained 3,412 students, staff, and faculty on overdose response and distributed 2,280 naloxone doses.

State & Local Transit Systems

• Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD)¸ Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), New Jersey Transit Police Department, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) train and equip officers and safety staff with naloxone so they can help people on trains and at stations. MBTA is working to make naloxone available at all Red Line Heavy Rail Stations. Collectively, these transit systems have administered over 2,000 doses of naloxone to save lives.

Expanding access to opioid overdose reversal medications is a key part of the National Drug Control Strategy, and the Biden-Harris Administration has made historic investments and taken historic action over the past three years to deliver on this priority. This includes:

• Making naloxone available over-the-counter. For the first time ever, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved naloxone, a life-saving opioid overdose reversal medication, for non-prescription, over-the-counter purchase at grocery stores and pharmacies across the country. In addition, the FDA is making it easier for harm reduction organizations to obtain naloxone directly from manufacturers and distributors to increase the public’s access to this lifesaving medicine.

• Delivering support to states and Tribes. The Biden-Harris Administration has invested historic amounts of funding in the State Opioid Response (SOR) grant program to make opioid overdose reversal medications available at no cost to residents of states and Tribes. Using SOR funds, states and Tribes have purchased nearly 10 million opioid overdose reversal medication kits and helped to reverse more than 600,000 overdoses. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is supporting states and Tribes with technical assistance, policy academies, and convenings to ensure SOR funds are used to help saturate hard-hit communities with opioid overdose reversal medications.

• Increasing awareness of opioid overdose reversal medications. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), in partnership with the Ad Council, launched a social media campaign, Real Deal on Fentanyl, to reach young people with critical messaging about the dangers of fentanyl and the life-saving effect of opioid overdose reversal medications. Its Spanish-language companion site, La Realidad sobre el Fentanilo, launched in March 2024.

• Increasing education on opioid overdose reversal medications. Last month, the Biden-Harris Administration marked two years of advancements in the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Overdose Prevention Strategy by releasing the updated Overdose Prevention and Response Toolkit. The toolkit provides updated guidance on preventing overdoses and responding to opioid- or stimulant-involved overdoses, and offers population-specific guidance to people who use drugs, people who take prescription opioids, first responders, healthcare practitioners, and other audiences. This builds on many bold actions that HHS has taken to beat the overdose crisis, including updated federal regulations for opioid treatment programs to expand access to treatment for the first time in two decades, and the announcement that HHS grant funds may now be used to purchase xylazine test strips, where permitted by law.

• Investing in harm reduction services. Evidence-based harm reduction services, including the distribution of opioid overdose reversal medications, save lives. In President Biden’s FY2024 budget request, he calls for an additional $100 million for harm reduction services—funding that will help distribute more opioid overdose reversal medications.

• Increasing access to life-saving medications in federal facilities. HHS and the General Services Administration (GSA) issued new guidance that encourages all federal facilities to include life-saving opioid overdose reversal medications in their safety stations for use during overdose emergencies.

• Strengthening a whole-of-society response:
  • HHS and the  Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) called on public health departments and health care systems to work with housing providers, community development organizations, and other housing agencies to help expand access to opioid overdose reversal medications in the communities they serve. Housing providers play a critical role in ensuring that all public spaces have life-saving medications available and that more people are prepared to use the medications during emergencies.

• The White House and the U.S. Department of Education called on schools, colleges, and universities to have opioid overdose reversal medications on-site and ensure that students and employees are prepared to use these medications to save a life on or near their campuses.

In addition to expanding access to lifesaving overdose reversal medication, the Biden-Harris Administration has also invested more funding and broken more barriers to treatment than any previous administration. The Biden-Harris Administration has not only taken historic policy actions, but also invested historic amounts of funding to help make these policy changes a reality. President Biden is investing $83 billion in treatment, which is 42% more than was made under the previous Administration.

Saving lives is the North Star of the National Drug Control Strategy, and this effort requires more than just federal resources. We must come together. In memory of those we have lost and to protect those at risk of overdose, the Administration is refocusing the Nation’s attention on the devastation caused by illicit fentanyl, reaffirming our collective commitment to beating this crisis, and doubling down on efforts to empower all Americans to save lives.

Join us at whitehouse.gov/SaveLivesFromOverdose.

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Today, President Biden will travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to announce $3.3 billion to reconnect and rebuild communities in more than 40 states, including  those that were divided by transportation infrastructure decades ago and have long been overlooked. These projects will increase access to health care, schools, jobs, places of worship, and other essential services and opportunities, and will strengthen communities by covering highways with public spaces, creating new transit routes, adding sidewalks, bridges, bike lanes, and more.

Coming off President Biden’s State of the Union Address, today’s announcement is part of the President’s broader vision to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and leave no community behind. To date, the President’s Investing in America agenda has mobilized 47,000 infrastructure projects across the nation and $650 billion in private sector manufacturing and clean energy investments that are revitalizing communities, creating good-paying jobs, and improving the health and safety of families across the country. President Biden is building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down – that means investing in all of America to make sure everyone has a fair shot and to ensure a comeback story for thousands of communities.

At its best, transportation infrastructure connects people to opportunity and spurs economic growth. But historically, some of our nation’s infrastructure investments and decisions have done the opposite.  The Department of Transportation estimates that at least one million people and businesses were displaced by decades of harmful urban renewal projects and legacy policy decisions in the buildout of the Federal highway system. Highways and rail lines have disproportionately torn through Black and other communities of color and low-income communities, displacing residents and businesses, stifling economic development, and cutting communities off from essentials such as groceries, jobs, transportation, and health care.

Through the Department of Transportation’s first-of-its-kind Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Program, funded by both the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-Harris Administration will help rectify the damage done by past transportation projects and drive economic growth in communities in every corner of the country. This program is a key component of the Administration’s commitment to advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities as defined in President Biden’s executive order. This program also advances the President’s commitment to delivering a convenient, efficient, and clean transportation system, including in proximity to affordable housing. Additionally, this program is a key component of the Administration’s commitment to environmental justice, including to deliver for disadvantaged communities as part of President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative.

In Milwaukee, President Biden will announce $36 million for the 6th Street Complete Streets Project.

In the 1960s, the construction of I-94/I-43 in Milwaukee led to the demolition of roughly 17,000 homes and 1,000 businesses, as neighborhoods in the path of the highway were displaced and surrounding roads like 6th Street were widened to accommodate interstate traffic. This resulted in the creation of a street that prioritized fast-moving car traffic over the people who live, walk, work, and shop in these neighborhoods. The 6th Street Complete Streets Project will reconnect communities along more than two and a half miles of the 6th Street corridor, providing wider sidewalks for children walking to school, safe bike lanes for residents and visitors, dedicated bus lanes for faster transit, new trees to provide shade, and green infrastructure to prevent sewage from flowing into the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan. These improvements will make the roadway and surrounding communities safer, greener, and more welcoming.

Other projects across the country that will benefit from the funding announced today include the following:

• “The Stitch” in Atlanta, Georgia is receiving $158 million to reconnect midtown to downtown Atlanta. When constructed, I-75 and I-85—now called the Downtown Connector—sliced through Sweet Auburn, cutting it off from Downtown and displacing hundreds of homes and businesses in the working-class neighborhoods. The project will create a 14-acre mixed-use development cap on three-quarters of the Downtown Connector—increasing access to jobs, housing, education, and healthcare and creating public parks, plazas, and surface streets for walking and biking.
• The Chinatown Stitch in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is receiving $159 million to construct a cap over the Vine Street Expressway in Chinatown, which has been home to a Chinese-American immigrant community since the mid-1800s. The Expressway was constructed in the late 1980s and 1990s, demolishing significant portions of the neighborhood and displacing residents and businesses. The Chinatown Stitch project will cover about two and a half blocks of Expressway, creating new public green space, improving neighborhood connections, and creating equitable mixed-use development opportunities and inclusive mobility options.
• The I-5 Rose Corridor Project in Portland, Oregon, is receiving $450 million to construct a highway cover and a pedestrian and bicycle-only bridge. The project will reconnect the predominantly Black neighborhood of Albina and improve safety and congestion along the interstate corridor with the highest crash rate in the state while supporting new community space and future development.
• The RIVER East Toledo project in Toledo, Ohio is receiving $29 million to reconnect residents of Toledo’s historic east side with the downtown riverfront. Decades of disinvestment and deindustrialization have turned this once thriving working-class immigrant community into one of the city’s most disadvantaged communities, with high poverty rates, heavy environmental burdens, and disproportionate barriers to safe transportation access. This project will make safety improvements along the roadway, add bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and add trees and streetscaping.
• The I-81 Viaduct Project in Syracuse, New York is receiving $180 million to reconnect residents with a community grid that will disperse traffic among a network of neighborhood streets. A key feature of the community grid is the Business Loop, which will connect residents, including residents in low-income housing on either side of Almond Street, with economic opportunities. The project will also add active transportation – including sidewalks, bike paths, new shared use paths, and enhanced and new parks and public spaces – which will further reconnect and reinvigorate the neighborhoods.
• The Reconnecting 4th Ave N. in Birmingham, Alabama, is receiving $15 million to redesign Birmingham’s Black Main Street to convert the one-way road to a two-way road, reconnecting downtown neighborhoods and businesses that were divided by the construction of Interstate 65 in the 1960s. The project encompasses the Historic 4th Avenue Business District, a once thriving hub of Black businesses and community in Birmingham.
• Removing Barriers and Creating Legacy – A Multimodal Approach in Los Angeles County, California is receiving $139 million to create 14 miles of bus priority lanes on four corridors and implement mobility hubs. Los Angeles County has the greatest concentration of roadway fatalities in the nation, with almost double the concentration of fatalities than the second highest county. With the separation of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, the project will reduce collisions by up to an estimated 49%. These investments will directly benefit approximately one million disadvantaged Angelenos.

Today’s announcement builds on other investments the Biden-Harris Administration is making through the President’s Investing in America agenda to reconnect communities across the country. In Buffalo, NY, the Administration is investing $56 million to reconnect the east and west sides of the Kensington Expressway, which cuts through a predominantly Black community – adding safe crossing options, investing in green spaces and parks, and attracting new businesses. In Detroit, MI, the Administration is investing $105 million to replace the sunken I-375 that cuts through the prosperous and vibrant Black neighborhoods of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, replacing it with a new lower-speed boulevard with pedestrian walkways. In New York City, NY, the Administration is investing $150 million to reconnect communities divided by the Cross Bronx Expressway between the Harlem River and the Hutchinson River Parkway, which is one of the most congested stretches of interstate in the U.S. with some of the highest rates of traffic, air pollution, and collisions. And in Pelham, AL, the Administration is investing $42 million to construct a bridge and eliminate two at-grade crossings on Shelby County Road 52 to ensure that stalled or slow trains do not prevent first responders and other vehicles from crossing the city.  

In addition to the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Program, the Biden-Harris Administration has already announced $285 billion in transportation projects across the country, funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These projects advance equity, improve safety, reduce pollution, and connect communities with jobs, school, and health care, and make it easier for families and loved ones to come together. To date, the Administration has launched local roadway safety projects in over 1,000 communities across the country in cities and rural communities – with a focus on improving safety for cyclists and pedestrians, especially benefitting disadvantaged communities that have been historically left behind. The Administration is also investing $108 billion in public transit – the largest investment in public transit in our nation’s history – benefitting low-income communities that are more likely to rely on public transit for access to jobs, education, and health care.

The Biden-Harris Administration has also invested over $150 million to protect fenceline communities from harmful air pollution, and made available nearly $3 billion via the Environmental and Climate Justice Program at the Environmental Protection Agency to help local organizations engage meaningfully in infrastructure and other investment decisions that impact their communities, increasing access for local voices and participation for historically underserved and overburdened populations.  

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President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. welcomed President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland for a joint meeting at the White House on March 12.  This historic visit marked the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO and underscores our two nations’ ironclad commitment to the NATO Alliance, which makes us all safer.  The leaders committed to ensuring continued support of Ukraine’s self-defense against Russia’s war of aggression.  They also discussed the strong U.S.-Polish energy security partnership and the enduring importance of democratic values.
 
At the meeting, President Biden shared the United States will move forward with a new $2 billion Foreign Military Financing (FMF) direct loan to Poland to bolster its security and support its defense modernization using previously appropriated congressional funds. This loan will enable Poland’s purchase of additional U.S. defense equipment, further  supporting U.S. jobs and our deepening security relationship. The President also shared that the United States will offer to sell Poland 96 AH-64 Apache helicopters.  This is a major step to provide Poland’s armed forces with cutting-edge capability to defend itself, strengthen NATO interoperability, and further bolster the U.S. defense industry.

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Today, on Equal Pay Day, we celebrate how far we have come—and how far we have yet to go—in closing the gender pay gap.  Under the Biden-Harris Administration, America has seen an unprecedented—and equitable—economic recovery, building back an economy that is the strongest in the world. Women’s labor force participation is the highest it has been in decades, and the gender pay gap is the narrowest it has ever been on record.

At the same time, President Biden recognizes we still have work left to do. Women workers are still paid on average only 84 cents for every dollar paid to men. And the disparities are even greater for many women of color. These inequities cost women more than $1 trillion every year, and add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars lost over the course of a career for individual workers.

President Biden and Vice President Harris remain committed to closing gender and racial wage gaps and ensuring all people have a fair and equal opportunity to participate in the labor force and support their families. Closing wage gaps is critical to strengthening and growing the economy. This Equal Pay Day, the Biden-Harris Administration reaffirms its commitment to tackling pay gaps and announces new efforts to continue to build our understanding of pay disparities, address inequities, and support women’s economic security.

These actions will:

• Promote equitable access to good-paying jobs. Last week, the President signed the Executive Order on Scaling and Expanding the Use of Registered Apprenticeships, which will expand and diversify Registered Apprenticeship programs, benefitting women and other underrepresented workers by increasing access to high-quality pathways to good-paying, family-sustaining jobs.
• Support equal pay and further understanding of pay inequities. Today, for the first time, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is making available aggregate pay data from 2017 and 2018—collected from private employers and Federal contractors with 100 or more employees—via a user-friendly interactive tool, allowing researchers, stakeholders, and the public to better understand pay disparities based on sex, race/ethnicity, geography, industry, job category, and more.
• Address occupational segregation. Today, the Department of Labor (DOL) is issuing an update to the Bearing the Cost report, analyzing the impact of “occupational segregation” on women’s economic security, particularly for Black and Hispanic women. Occupational segregation—the overrepresentation of women and people of color in occupations and industries that pay less, and their underrepresentation in occupations and industries that pay more—is a key contributor to pay inequity. DOL found that, over the course of a year, Black women lost $42.7 billion and Hispanic women lost $53.3 billion in wages compared to white men due to the impacts of occupational segregation.

Today’s announcements follow recent actions the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to further pay equity and transparency. On Equal Pay Day 2022, the President issued an Executive Order that committed to eliminate discriminatory pay practices in the Federal government and Federal contracting workforces. In January 2024, the Administration made good on that promise by committing to:

• Advance pay equity for Federal workers. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published a final rule ensuring that more than 80 Federal agencies will no longer consider an individual’s non-Federal current or past pay when determining the salaries of Federal employees.  Ending the consideration of salary history in pay-setting decisions is a proven way to curb pay discrimination that often follows workers from job to job.
• Promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in Federal contracting by advancing pay equity and pay transparency laws. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council issued a proposal to prohibit Federal contractors and subcontractors from seeking and considering information about job applicants’ compensation history for employment decisions for personnel working on or in connection with a government contract. In addition, the proposal would require Federal contractors and subcontractors to disclose expected salary ranges in job postings, a policy shown to reduce pay inequities. These proposals will also help Federal contractors recruit, diversify, and retain talent; improve job satisfaction and performance; and reduce turnover—all factors associated with promoting the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of the Federal contractor workforce.
• Affirm equal pay obligations for Federal contractors. DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued new guidance clarifying existing protections against discrimination in hiring or pay decisions. The guidance will help Federal contractors and employees understand when reliance on an individual’s compensation history for hiring or pay decisions may result in unlawful discrimination.

These efforts build upon actions the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to close gender and racial wage gaps and strengthen women’s economic security, which has led to the lowest unemployment rate among women since 1953. These include:

• Ensuring women have access to good-paying jobs being created by the President’s Investing in America agenda. The Biden-Harris Administration’s investments through the American Rescue Plan (ARP), Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have created thousands of good-paying jobs in industries of the future. The Administration has taken steps to ensure increased access to these jobs, including for women, people of color, and members of other communities currently underrepresented in these growing sectors have equitable access to these careers. These steps include:
  
  • Launching the Good Jobs Initiative. DOL’s Good Jobs Initiative provides critical information to workers, employers, and government agencies to improve job quality, empower workers, and ensure workers, especially those from underserved communities, can access good union jobs free from discrimination and harassment. The Initiative is dedicated to advancing the Departments of Labor and Commerce’s Good Jobs Principles, which address recruitment and hiring; diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; and pay. Key implementing agencies have signed memoranda of understanding with DOL to support the Good Jobs Initiative, promote equitable workforce development, and ensure workers have what they need to deliver on the President’s once-in-a-generation Investing in America agenda. 
  • Expanding access to good-paying construction jobs. To ensure women can access the almost 200,000 new construction jobs expected from the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments, the Department of Commerce launched the Million Women in Construction initiative, which calls on chip manufacturers, construction companies and unions to bring one million women into the construction industry over the next decade, roughly doubling women’s representation in the industry. DOL also launched the Mega Construction Project (Megaproject) Program, which fosters equal employment opportunity on designated BIL- and CHIPS-funded construction projects through intensive on-the-ground assistance to remove hiring barriers and promote consideration of a diverse pool of qualified workers, including women, people of color, veterans, and people with disabilities.
  • Improving access to child care for the semiconductor workforce through CHIPS and Science Act implementation requirements. The Department of Commerce’s implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act included a historic requirement that applicants requesting over $150 million in direct funding submit plans to provide accessible, affordable, high-quality child care. 
• Increasing access to affordable care and supporting caregivers. Access to affordable, high-quality care is essential to ensuring parents, especially moms, can participate fully in the workforce. From day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has focused on ways to lower child care costs for hardworking families and improve wages for child care workers. The ARP Child Care Stabilization program delivered historic support to over 225,000 child care programs serving as many as 10 million children across the country. Over 90% of the child care programs that have received assistance are women-owned. The Council of Economic Advisors found that this stabilization funding supported savings for families with young children, raised the real wages of child care workers, and helped hundreds of thousands of women with young children enter or re-enter the workforce.

In addition, in April 2023, President Biden signed an Executive Order with more than 50 directives to nearly every cabinet-level agency to increase access to affordable, high-quality care and boost job quality for early educators and long-term care workers, who are disproportionately women of color. Among the many actions agencies have taken, the Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule strengthening the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program and lowering child care costs for more than 100,000 families. 

• Increasing the minimum wage. The President issued Executive Orders directing the Administration to work toward ensuring that employees working on Federal contracts and Federal employees earned at least a $15 per hour minimum wage. Those directives went into effect in January 2022, raising the wages of about 370,000 Federal employees and employees of Federal contractors. In addition to helping the government do its work more efficiently, these directives take a step towards narrowing racial and gender disparities in income, as many low paid workers are women and people of color. The order also eliminates the subminimum wage for workers with disabilities on Federal contracts. The President has called on Congress to raise the Federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, so that American workers can have a job that delivers dignity and to make greater strides towards pay equity.
• Supporting women-owned businesses and entrepreneurs. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, Small Business Administration-backed loans to women-owned small businesses are up more than 60 percent, totaling $5.1 billion in lending to women-owned businesses in FY23. And a new report found that from 2019 to 2023, women’s small business formation surged, substantially outpacing overall formation. This Administration has invested $70 million in the Women Business Centers (WBC) network, expanding it for the first time into all 50 states and tripling the number of WBCs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and other minority-serving institutions. President Biden is also investing $10 billion through the ARP State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) to help States, territories, and Tribal governments leverage tens of billions more in matching public and private dollars to support small businesses across the United States, with a particular focus on historically underserved entrepreneurs, including women business owners. The ARP Restaurant Revitalization Fund helped over 40,000 women-owned restaurants and bars—thanks in part to steps taken by the Administration to ensure that women-owned and socially and economically disadvantaged businesses were able to access assistance.

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My top economic priority is lowering costs and today’s report shows we continue to make progress on that front. Inflation is down two-thirds from its peak and annual core inflation is the lowest since May 2021. Wages are rising faster than prices over the last year and since the pandemic. Prices for key household purchases like gas, milk, eggs, and appliances are lower than a year ago. Inflation is down while unemployment has remained below 4% for the longest stretch in more than 50 years.

But as I said in my State of the Union, we have more to do to lower costs and give the middle class a fair shot. The Budget I put forward yesterday would take on Big Pharma to lower prescription drug costs. It would lower rents by building or preserving two million homes. It would lower costs for health care, child care, and education. And it would cut taxes for hardworking families while making billionaires pay their fair share. Congressional Republicans have no plan to lower costs—their only plan is more tax giveaways for big corporations and the wealthy while cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. I won’t let them.

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Today, our hearts are heavy. Jill and I are devastated to learn that American Itay Chen was killed by Hamas during its brutal terrorist assault on October 7.
 
In December, Itay’s father and brother joined me at the White House, to share the agony and uncertainty they’ve faced as they prayed for the safe return of their loved one. No one should have to endure even one day of what they have gone through. At the end of our meeting, they gave me a menorah—a solemn reminder that light will always dispel the darkness, and evil will not win.
 
Today, as we join Itay’s parents, brothers, and family in grieving this tragic loss, we keep this reminder close to our hearts. And I reaffirm my pledge to all the families of those still held hostage: we are with you. We will never stop working to bring your loved ones home.

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1. Led to the Strongest Jobs Recovery on Record and the Strongest Recovery in the World: When President Biden came into office, there was tremendous economic uncertainty. Unemployment was at 6.4% when President Biden took office. Unemployment was not projected to drop below 4% until the end of 2025 in CBO’s February 2021 (Pre-ARP) Forecast. Instead, unemployment was below 4% for the past 25 months in a row – the strongest record in more than five decades. 

• ARP drove historic 3-year job growth with 15 million jobs added since President Biden took office.
• Not only recovered all the lost jobs but added an additional 5.5 million more jobs versus pre-Covid.
• Powered the strongest recovery in the world: After the American Rescue Plan passed, the U.S. saw by far the fastest recovery in the G7, with significantly higher real wage growth. US has lower apples to apples core inflation than all major European allies.

1. Powered the Most Equitable Recovery in Memory: In past recessions, persistent high long-term and youth unemployment as well as high numbers foreclosures and evictions led to long-term harms – “scarring” for millions of Americans and hard, long roads back for Black and Latino Americans. President Biden’s Rescue Plan ensured that didn’t happen this time:

• Historic drops in unemployment for Black and Latino workers: With the strong recovery powered by ARP, Black unemployment saw its largest 1-year drop since the early 1980s and reached its lowest-ever annual rate in 2023; Hispanic unemployment saw its fastest 1-year drop and reached its lowest 2-year rate ever in 2022 & 2023.  
• Least scarring in any recovery in memory: The American Rescue Plan led to the fastest drop in long-term and youth unemployment ever. It kept foreclosures historically low and evictions 20% below historic avgs.
• Led to dramatic reduction in inequality: Economists have found that the strong post-ARP labor market’s wage increases for middle-income and lower-income workers erased nearly 40% of the rise in wage inequality increases from the previous four decades.
• Lowest women’s annual unemployment rate since 1953: This recovery has seen a dramatic decline in women’s unemployment to an average of 3.5% in 2023, the lowest annual average since 1953.
• Strong recovery for Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian communities: Asian American unemployment averaged 2.9% over the last two years and AA NHPI small business formation surged. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander unemployment also fell by half from a 9% avg. in 2020 to 4% in 2022-2023.

1. Led to the Largest Federal Investments in Preventing Crime, Reducing Violence, and Investing in Public Safety in History. Since the passage of the American Rescue Plan, we’ve had the largest federal investment in advancing public safety and preventing violence in our history through ARP funding and other federal funding.

• Over $15 billion in ARP funds committed to preventing crime and reducing violence, with investments by over 1,000 state and local governments to avoid cuts to police budgets, hire more police officers for safe, effective, and accountable community policing, ensure first responders have the equipment they need to do their jobs, and expand evidence-based community violence intervention and prevention programs.
• That includes $1.2 billion for Medicaid Mobile Crisis Intervention Services – the American Rescue Plan included $1.2 billion to fund mobile crisis intervention units staffed with mental health professionals & trained peers. 
• It also includes $1 billion in Family Violence Prevention and Services Program to reduce domestic violence with immediate crisis intervention, health supports, and safety.

1. American Rescue Plan’s Expansion of the Affordable Care Act Led to Record-Breaking Health Care Enrollment and Savings: ARP substantially increased consumer subsidies, eligibility to middle-income families and provided strong incentives for states to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act. Result:

• ARP/IRA-extended ACA extension led to over 21 million Americans enrolling in coverage, an increase of 9 million from when POTUS took office.
• Thanks to the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act, millions of Americans are saving an average of $800 a year on premiums. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to keeping health insurance premiums low, giving families more breathing room and the peace of mind that health insurance brings. To do that, the President is calling on Congress to make the expanded premium tax credits that the Inflation Reduction Act extended permanent.
• Provided health coverage to 3 million Americans who would have otherwise had no health insurance.
• Provided affordable health coverage to millions of middle-class Americans who were previously excluded from receiving consumer subsidies.
• Provided more than $3 billion in Medicaid funding to North Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Dakota for Medicaid expansion, covering over one million people.
• Gave states an easier pathway to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage for a full 12 months – ensuring access to critical care for nearly 700,000 women in 45 states and the District of Columbia.

1. Largest Small Business Boom in History Due to ARP-Driven Strong Recovery and Small Business Investments: The Biden-Harris Administration:

• Increased COVID EIDL to $2 million while increasing anti-fraud controls.
• Reformed PPP to more equitably distribute funds to the smallest businesses.
• Restaurant Revitalization Fund helped over 100,000 restaurants, bars, and food trucks stay open.
• Shuttered Venues Program provided relief to 13,000 venues.
• Invested a historic $10 Billion in the State Small Business Credit Initiative leveraging up to $100 billion in capital for small businesses.
• Invested in innovative Community Navigators program that delivered training to over 350,000 entrepreneurs and 1:1 counseling services to over 33,000 small business owners
• Invested $125 million through the Capital Readiness Program to 43 non-profit community-based organizations to help underserved entrepreneurs launch and scale their small businesses – winners ranged from Asian/Pacific Islander Chamber of Commerce to Urban League of Greater Atlanta.
  This, and the strong recovery that ARP powered, led to:
• A record 16 million new business applications over the past 3 years; 55% higher than year before pandemic.
• Share of Black households owning a business has more than doubled, and Latino and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander small business formation surged as well.  
• Women-owned businesses formation substantially outpaced overall business formation.

1. Led to Lowest Child Poverty Rate in American History: The American Rescue Plan expanded the Child Tax Credit, made it fully refundable, and delivered it monthly in 2021. This historic expansion drove:

• Child poverty cut nearly in half to lowest rate ever.
• Black child poverty cut by over 50%, Hispanic child poverty cut by 43%, and dramatic drops in Native American, white and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander child poverty—all record lows.
• Over 9 million children in rural areas benefited from the expanded credit.
• 5 million children in Veteran and active-duty families benefited from the expanded credit.
• Child Tax Credit payments were delivered reliably with the first ever monthly payment – on the 15th of each month with 90% using direct deposit.
• Over 60 million children in 40 million working families received largest Child Tax Credit in history.
• Historic expansion to ~240,000 Puerto Rican families: For the first time, ARP permanently made Puerto Rican families eligible for the same Child Tax Credit as other American families. ARP also quadrupled funding available for Puerto Rico’s Earned Income Tax Credit.

1. Funded a Historic Vaccination Campaign: ARP provided $160 billion to support vaccination, therapeutics, testing and mitigation, PPE, and the broader COVID Response effort. This led to:

• Over 230 million Americans are fully vaccinated, up from 3.5 million when President Biden took office, while closing the racial gap in vaccine access.

1. First-Ever National Eviction Policy Called “The most important eviction prevention policy in American history.” 

• Emergency Rental Assistance and other American Rescue Plan assistance helped over 8 million hard-pressed renters stay in their homes without sacrificing other basic needs.  
• Emergency Rental Assistance and Other ARP housing policies cut eviction filings to 20% below historic averages since start of Biden-Harris Administration.
• Called the “the most important eviction prevention policy in American history” by Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize Winner author of “Evicted” – and the “deepest investment the federal government has made in low-income renters since the nation launched its public housing system.”
• HUD Emergency Housing Vouchers have already helped 47,500 households at risk of homelessness lease their own rental housing – supporting those at risk of or experiencing homelessness or housing instability, and those fleeing domestic violence.

1. Helped Keep Over 225,000 Child Care Programs Open and Provided Historic Nationwide Support for Medicaid Home-Based Care

• American Rescue Plan Stabilization Assistance has reached over 225,000 Child Care Providers – that employ 1 million child care workers – and have the capacity to serve as many as 10 million children.
• Led to lower child care costs by $1,250 per child, helped bring hundreds of thousands of women with young children into the workforce, and increased wages for child care workers by 10%, according to Council of Economic Advisors Report.
• More than 8-in-10 licensed child care centers nationwide received ARP assistance.
• Benefited 30,000 rural child care programs – in most states, 97% of rural counties or more received aid.
• Invested $37 billion to expand access to home-based care and support direct care workers: Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, President Biden delivered $37 billion that all 50 states and the District of Columbia chose to invest to expand access to home care and improve the quality of caregiving jobs.

1. Investing in ALL of America:

• For First Time in History, Direct Relief to Every Town, City, County, Tribe and State – No Matter How Big or Small, Urban or Rural – So they Could Design their Own Recovery:
• Before ARP, 70% of cities forecasted layoffs or major cuts in services and half of states were freezing or cutting jobs. Today, cities and states have funds to invest in major challenges – like public safety, housing, workforce, and rehiring, instead of making dramatic cuts.
• ARP provided direct fiscal relief to every state & territory and 30,000 cities and towns – while previous plans reached only 154 local governments or fewer. This has led to:
• Immediately reversed planned layoffs in cities and states across the country – and helped drive a recovery of 1.3 million state and local jobs, recovering all of the state and local jobs lost in roughly one-third the time it took to recover state and local jobs after the Great Recession.
• Major investments in critical areas:
  • $25 billion to jumpstart universal broadband access – including Broadband Connections for 18 million students through the Emergency Connectivity Fund so that schools and libraries could close the homework gap.
  • $12.8 billion in State & Local Funds invested in over 4,300 workforce investments by state and local governments.
  • Over $20 billion in State & Local Funds invested in water infrastructure.
  • $18.5 billion in State & Local Funds invested in housing – expanding supply, investing in homeless services, and providing 3.7 million additional households rent, mortgage, and utility relief.
    
• Largest Ever Investment in Tribal Communities
• ARP provided largest one-time investment in Tribal communities in history – providing more than $32 billion specifically allocated for Tribal communities and Native people, including $20 billion in Fiscal Recovery Funds that were quickly and directly distributed to Tribal governments in 2021 to stabilize Tribal economies devastated by the pandemic.
• Invested in first-ever Tribal Small Business Credit Initiative Awards.
• Focus on Tribal Communities in Place-Based grants including $45 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBB-RC) grant to the Mountain Plains Regional Native CDFI Coalition to grow the Native finance sector and expand economic opportunity.
  
• Investing in Rural America: Innovative rural-focused investments include:
• ARP provided direct fiscal recovery funding to every single rural government so that they could avoid painful layoffs and design their own recovery. Past recovery bills only sent direct fiscal relief to largest cities.
• ARP Child Care Stabilization Reached 30,000 rural child care programs – in most states, 97% of rural counties or more received aid.
• USDA invested $1 billion to expand independent meat and poultry processing capacity to give farmers more market options and fairer prices, and reduce reliance on a handful of meat and poultry corporations.
• Rural unemployment rates in 2023 were at their lowest point (3.6 percent) since before 1990.
• Full rural jobs recovery: Rural employment has returned fully to pre-COVID levels.

1. Major Investment in Workforce Training and Connecting Americans to Good Jobs:

• Tens of billions from the American Rescue Plan have gone to workforce training efforts, including $12.8 billion in State and Local Funds invested in over 4,300 workforce investments across the country, including pre-apprenticeships and other programs to prepare for new infrastructure, health care & care jobs.
• $500 million in competitive Good Jobs Challenge Awards for 32 Workforce High-Quality Training Partnerships across the country.
• $1 billion Competitive Build Back Better Regional Challenge – 21 Winners won between $25 million and $65 million to execute transformational projects and revitalize local industries. Projects include developing workforce training programs, connecting workers to jobs, and other transformational investments.
• Historic investment in expanding and supporting our health care workforce, including:
  
• $1.1 billion investment in the community health workforce, including in mental health workforce.
• Rapid deployment of 14,000+ community outreach workers (in 150+ national & local organizations). For example, the Association of Asian/Pacific Community Health Organizations used American Rescue Plan funds to establish the CHW Workforce Collaborative (the Collaborative). The Collaborative has since hired, trained, and deployed more than 250 CHWs who speak over 36 Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander languages in 12 continental U.S. states and Hawaii.
• Establishment of the first-of-its-kind public health AmeriCorps to build and train the next generation of public health leaders, already serving 82 organizations across the country and supporting more than 3,000 AmeriCorps members.
• Supporting the largest field in history (over 22,700 providers) for the National Health Service Corps, Nurse Corps, and Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery programs, treating more than 23.6 million patients in underserved communities.

1. Provided recovery funding for more than 15,000 School Districts to Safely Reopen K-12 Schools, Support Academic Recovery, and Invest in Student Mental Health:

• ARP provided critical relief to more than 15,000 school districts to reopen safely, support academic recovery, and invest in student mental health.
• Data from school district plans show that schools are using these funds well, focusing on efforts to support academic recovery:
  • Nearly 60% of funds are committed to investments like staffing, tutoring, afterschool and summer learning programs, new instructional resources and materials, and mental and physical health supports.
  • Another 23% is going to keep schools operating safely, including providing PPE and updating school facilities. This includes investments in lead abatement and nearly $10 billion for HVAC.
  • Nearly half of school districts invested in summer learning programs which proven to boost math scores.

     This has led to:

• Going from 46% of schools that had safely opened to full-time in-person teaching to 100%: In January 2021, CDC data showed that just 46% of schools were open full-time in-person. Today, all schools are open.
• Led to a major increase in staffing and investments to address student mental health: Schools now employ 31% more school social workers and 31% more school nurses than pre-pandemic. School districts have added more than 600,000 local education jobs since January 2021 and recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

1. Eighteen Million College Students Have Received Direct Financial Assistance from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund that was expanded by ARP:

• Colleges reached an estimated 18 million students with direct financial assistance from the Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEERF) fund since the beginning of 2021.
• Direct financial assistance for an estimated 6 million community college students.
• 80% of Pell Grant recipients received direct financial relief in 2021.
• An estimated 450,000 students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) received direct financial assistance. In 2021, 77% of HBCUs used HEERF funds to discharge unpaid student balances.

1. Historic Investment in Pension Security for up to 3 million Union workers & retirees: ARP’s Special Financial Assistance is the most significant investment in pension security for union workers and retirees in the past 50 years.

• Over 200 multiemployer plans that were on pace to become insolvent in the near term will now have solvency and able to pay full benefits until at least 2051.
• Preventing a wave of multi-employer insolvencies for 2-3 million workers who would have seen major cuts to their earned retirement benefits.
• Pension cuts reversed for over 80,000 workers and retirees in 18 “MPRA” multiemployer plans
• Most significant effort to protect the solvency of the multiemployer pension system in almost 50 years.

1. First-Ever Summer Nutrition Benefit for Students w/ Nationwide Reach – Extended Permanently:

• ARP created the first-ever summer nutrition benefit with nationwide reach, helping children who rely on free and reduced-price school meals afford food over the summer.
• 30 million young people: Reached the families of 30 million students.
• Permanent: Congress extended this innovative program permanently in 2022’s Omnibus bill, the first major new permanent food assistance program in nearly five decades.

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A fair housing market and access to quality and affordable housing are critical to the fulfillment of the American dream, and no one understands that better than Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. When I took office, we inherited a broken housing system, with fair housing and civil rights protections badly dismantled under the prior administration. On Day One, Marcia got to work rebuilding the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and over the past three years she has been a strong voice for expanding efforts to build generational wealth through homeownership and lowering costs and promoting fairness for America’s renters. 
 
Under Marcia’s transformational leadership, we have worked hard to lower housing costs and increase supply. We’ve proposed the largest investment in affordable housing in U.S. history. We’ve taken steps to aggressively combat racial discrimination in housing by ensuring home appraisals are more fair and by strengthening programs to redress the negative impacts of redlining. Thanks to Secretary Fudge, we’ve helped first-time homebuyers, and we are working to cut the cost of renting. And there are more housing units under construction right now than at any time in the last 50 years.
 
From her time as a mayor, to her years as a fierce advocate in the U.S. House of Representatives, Marcia’s vision, passion, and focus on increasing economic opportunity have been assets to our country. I’m grateful for all of her contributions toward a housing system that works for all Americans, and I wish her well in her next chapter. 
 

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When Secretary Fudge departs, Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman will serve as Acting Secretary. 

The post Statement from President Joe Biden on Secretary Marcia L. Fudge appeared first on The White House.

Since taking office, President Biden has delivered on the most ambitious climate, conservation, and environmental justice agenda in history—taking bold action to reduce climate pollution across every sector of the economy, protecting more than 26 million acres of lands and waters, and restoring the vital role of science in guiding federal decision-making. The Administration continues to implement the President’s historic Investing in America agenda—including the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—the largest investment by any country in history in in clean energy, energy security, clean air and water, environmental justice, combatting climate change, and to enhance our climate resilience.

As a result of the President’s economic and climate leadership, clean energy jobs are on the rise across the country, American manufacturing is booming, companies have announced hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy investments, and the country is on a path toward cutting climate pollution in half from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving economy-wide, net zero emissions by no later than 2050. The President also launched the Justice40 Initiative to embed environmental justice into clean energy and climate programs; this goal ensures that communities that are on the frontlines of climate change benefit from this historic investment in climate solutions.

The Budget protects and builds on this monumental progress, making pro-growth investments in clean energy across the Nation, cutting energy bills for families, creating good-paying jobs, advancing environmental justice, ensuring critical technologies are made in America, supporting locally led conservation of our lands and waters, and building climate resilience for American communities and infrastructure. The President’s Budget:

Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Advances Clean Energy While Creating Jobs and Cutting Energy Costs

Creates Jobs by Building Clean Energy Infrastructure. The Budget invests $1.6 billion through the Department of Energy (DOE), more than double from when President Biden took office, to support clean energy workforce and infrastructure projects across the Nation, including $385 million to weatherize and retrofit homes of low-income Americans, $113 million to create good jobs and ensure reliable supply chains by manufacturing clean energy components here at home, $95 million to electrify Tribal homes and transition Tribal colleges and universities to renewable energy, and $102 million to support utilities and State and local governments in building a grid that is more secure, reliable, resilient, and able to integrate electricity from clean energy sources. These investments, which complement and bolster the historic funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, will create good-paying jobs and help revitalize American manufacturing—all while driving progress toward the Administration’s climate goals, including 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035. 

Lowers Energy Costs and Catalyzes Clean Energy and Economic Growth in Rural Communities. The Budget builds on the $13 billion provided in the President’s historic Inflation Reduction Act for rural development programs at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reduce energy bills for families, expand clean energy, transform rural power production, and create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for people across rural America. The Budget provides $1 billion for loan guarantees for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements for farmers and rural small businesses, and $6.5 billion in authority for rural electric loans to support additional clean energy, energy storage, and transmission projects that would create good-paying jobs. In addition, the Budget includes $60 million in zero-interest loans for the Rural Energy Savings Program, which would help rural Americans implement durable cost-effective energy efficiency measures in their homes, lowering energy costs and contributing to the President’s clean energy goals. Additionally, the Budget includes over $5 billion, an increase of nearly $900 million from the FY 2023 enacted level without earmarks, for efforts across the Federal Government that support economic revitalization, job creation, and other priority needs in hard-hit coal, oil and gas, and legacy power plant communities.

Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Tackles the Climate Crisis. The Budget builds on the historic climate investments made in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and includes over $2.9 billion in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) climate-related programs to address the climate crisis by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, expanding upon the GHG Reporting Program and Sinks Inventory, implementing provisions in the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act to continue phasing out the production and import of hydrofluorocarbons, advancing equitable implementation of EPA authorities and directives in Indian Country, and engaging with the global community to respond to the shared challenge of building resilience in the face of climate impacts. The Budget includes $10.6 billion in the DOE climate and clean energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment programs, which advances efforts crucial for achieving the goal of a 50- to 52-percent reduction from 2005 levels of economy wide net greenhouse gas pollution in 2030 and economy wide net-zero emissions no later than 2050, while also cutting energy bills for American families and building U.S. leadership in the global clean energy economy.

Reduces Home Energy and Water Costs. Reducing household energy and water costs continues to be a priority for the Administration. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)—building on the $7 billion in additional funding the Administration has secured for LIHEAP since 2021—to help families access home energy and weatherization assistance, which are vital tools for protecting vulnerable families’ health in response to extreme weather and climate change. In addition, since the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) expired at the end of 2023, the Budget proposes to allow States the option to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households.

Continues to Advance Clean Energy Development on Public Lands. The Budget includes $142 million to continue the Administration’s progress in deploying clean energy on public lands and waters, spurring economic development and creating thousands of good-paying jobs. This funding supports the leasing, planning, and permitting of solar, wind, and geothermal energy projects, and associated transmission infrastructure that would help mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Strengthens and Accelerates Permitting Activities. The Budget invests in environmental permitting capacity to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of modernized infrastructure across the Nation while promoting positive environmental and community outcomes. The Budget includes over $1 billion to support environmental review and permitting processes that are effective, efficient, and transparent, guided by science and shaped by early and meaningful public engagement and input.

Invests in Climate Science and Innovation

Builds the Clean Energy Innovation Pipeline. The Budget includes $10.7 billion, an increase of $2.7 billion over FY 2021 Enacted levels, across DOE, NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Defense (DOD), and other agencies to support researchers and entrepreneurs transforming innovations into commercial clean energy products, including in areas such as offshore wind, industrial heat, sustainable aviation fuel, and grid infrastructure. Since the start of the Administration, the President has requested and Congress has enacted year-over-year increases in the total government-wide funding for clean energy innovation. Across DOE, the Budget provides over $325 million to support the research, development, and demonstration of technologies and processes to increase the domestic supply of sustainable critical minerals and materials essential for several clean energy technologies. The Budget provides more than $500 million for green aviation at NASA, over $500 million for clean energy research at the NSF, and $845 million for DOE efforts to accelerate the viability of commercial fusion energy. The Budget also funds eight crosscutting DOE Earthshots initiatives which could substantially reduce the cost of energy for the American consumer through innovations in clean energy generation, energy efficiency, and storage.

Advances Climate Science. The Budget includes $4.5 billion for climate research across NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NSF, and other agencies. This includes $150 million at NASA to develop the next-generation land-imaging mission (Landsat Next) and more than $600 million for NASA in research grants to enhance understanding of Earth systems, including climate and natural hazards. It includes $900 million for NSF, which supports a broad portfolio of research that includes atmospheric composition, water and carbon cycles, climate resilience technologies including for communities heavily affected by climate change, social, behavioral, and economic research on human responses to climate change, among other topics. The Budget also invests $275 million at the Department of the Interior (DOI) to continue to leverage science to better understand the impacts of climate change, and to inform and improve land management practices from the Federal to the local level. The Budget invests $407 million at DOE to support fundamental research, including modeling and scientific user facilities to enable enhanced predictability of dynamically changing climate, environmental, and Earth systems, which includes predictability of climate trends and extremes that influence the design and deployment of next generation energy systems.

Maintains World Leading Research through the CHIPS and Science Act Investments. The Budget invests $20 billion across major research agencies to boost American innovation and re-establish American leadership in research and scientific discovery. At the National Science Foundation, these investments include support for regional innovation programs, investments in emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence and quantum information science), and STEM workforce programs. Funding for the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Institute for Standards and Technology will support activities responsive to the President’s Executive Order on the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence and fund construction and maintenance of research and development facilities. In the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the Budget supports artificial intelligence, high performance computing to improve climate modeling, clean energy technologies including fusion, and positions the United States to meet the demand for isotopes.

Strengthens Resilience

Strengthens Climate Resilience in Communities and Ecosystems. Across America, communities are enduring historic and catastrophic flooding, wildfires, extreme heat, drought, and more, while longer-term changes in temperature affect ecosystems and the economies that depend on them. The intensifying impacts of climate change are costing lives, disrupting livelihoods, and causing billions of dollars in damages. The Biden-Harris Administration has made historic investments in climate adaptation and resilience, including more than $50 billion from the President’s Investing in America agenda. Building on the National Climate Resilience Framework, the Budget invests $23 billion in climate adaptation and resilience across the Department of Commerce (DOC), DOI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), USDA, Army Corps of Engineers, EPA, and DOD to address the increasing severity of extreme weather events fueled by climate change. This includes resources for flood hazard mapping, including the development of new data to support future flood conditions so that communities and Americans have the most up-to-date information regarding their flood risk; investments to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat in low-income and disadvantaged communities; and $105 million for DOE to plan, design and demonstrate community-scale energy solutions to support grid resilience. The Budget also provides funding to ensure farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners meet production goals in the face of a changing climate while conserving, maintaining, and restoring natural resources on their lands.

Invests in America’s Brave Wildland Firefighters. The Budget builds on the Administration’s historic investments in the wildland firefighting workforce at USDA and DOI by supporting the implementation of permanent and comprehensive pay reform, the enhancement of health services, the hiring of additional permanent and temporary wildland firefighters to increase capacity, and the improvement of Government housing. These investments would help address long-standing recruitment and retention challenges, increase the departments’ capacity to complete critical risk mitigation work, and further the Administration’s commitment to build a more robust and resilient wildland firefighting workforce as the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfires continue to increase due to climate change.

Increases Drought Resilience. The Budget helps ensure communities across the West have access to a resilient and reliable water supply by investing in rural water projects, water conservation, development of desalination technologies, and water recycling and reuse projects. The Budget complements the nearly $1.7 billion provided in 2025 for western water infrastructure through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, as well as the nearly $4.6 billion that was provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for drought mitigation and domestic water supply projects through the Bureau of Reclamation. 

Strengthens Climate Resilience and Reduces Housing Insecurity in Rural Communities. A lack of adequate affordable housing has been a long-standing problem in rural communities—one that is exacerbated by low energy efficiency of the aging housing stock, meaning higher costs for families. To help address this, the Budget proposes additional funding for USDA multifamily and single-family housing, and again proposes to eliminate the gap that penalizes low-income rural borrowers by inequitably requiring repayment for certain USDA Direct loans.  The Budget provides strong support for USDA’s multifamily housing and housing preservation programs. Through these investments, the Administration advances equity by reducing rent burdens for low-income borrowers and preserving low-income tenant-based housing in rural America. The Budget again proposes to reduce operating costs and increase the resilience of rural housing to the impacts of climate change through a proposal to require energy and water efficiency improvements and green features in USDA’s rural housing programs that include construction, such as housing repair loans and grants.

Advances Environmental Justice

Delivers for Communities Often Left Behind. The Administration continues to take bold steps and prioritize efforts to deliver environmental justice in communities across the United States, including implementing the President’s Justice40 Initiative and keeping up the momentum of the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act environmental justice investments. The Budget bolsters these efforts by supporting several key initiatives to accelerate energy equity and justice for all Americans, including communities overburdened by pollution, investing nearly $1.5 billion across EPA in support of environmental justice efforts, including investments that will support cleaner air and cleaner water in frontline communities. This includes a new $25 million grant to develop Direct Implementation Tribal Cooperative Agreements to carry out crucial EPA programs in Indian Country with an emphasis on addressing the impacts of climate change.

Reduces Health and Environmental Hazards for At-Risk Communities. The Budget provides $8.2 billion to address DOE legacy waste and contamination in communities used during the Manhattan Project and the Cold War for nuclear weapons production. The Budget includes other key investments in programs that reduce environmental hazards like EPA’s Superfund program, Brownfields program, and Toxic Substances Control Act implementation. The Administration will ensure the investments for the management of toxic chemicals, including per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, cleanup of legacy pollution, and long-term stewardship of these sites align with the Justice40 Initiative to benefit disadvantaged communities.

Invests in Clean Air. The Administration continues to support investment in EPA’s work of limiting emissions of harmful air pollutants and tackling the climate crisis. The Budget provides a total of $1.5 billion for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, an increase of $690 million since the beginning of the Administration, to continue the development of national programs, policies, and regulations that control air pollution and radiation exposure. This funding includes a historic $187 million for the Atmospheric Protection Program to support implementation and compliance with greenhouse gas emission standards and to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad. Also included is $100 million for the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) grant program, which funds grants and rebates to reduce harmful emissions from diesel engines, and $70 million for the Targeted Airshed Grants (TAG), which helps reduce air pollution in the most polluted nonattainment areas.

Advances Climate Justice and Ensures Compliance with the Nation’s Environmental Laws. At DOJ, the Budget renews its investment in the Office of Environmental Justice to protect overburdened and disadvantaged communities from the harms caused by environmental crimes, pollution, and climate change. The Administration continues investments at EPA to ensure compliance with environmental laws, including $172 million for compliance monitoring efforts including funds to conduct inspections in underserved, disadvantaged, and overburdened communities, and funds to rebuild the inspector corps.

Trains the Next Generation of Leaders in Emerging Fields

Supports and Expands the American Climate Corps. Last year, the Administration announced the launch of the American Climate Corps (ACC) to mobilize a new, diverse generation of more than 20,000 clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience workers and leaders, and this year, the first cohort of ACC members will begin their service. The ACC will provide job training and service opportunities on a wide range of projects that tackle climate change in communities around the country. The Budget provides $15 million to support and expand AmeriCorps’ ACC hub and $23 million to support over 1,700 additional ACC members, as well as $8 billion in mandatory funding to support an additional 50,000 ACC members annually by 2031. This builds on additional investments to support climate-related workforce development and service initiatives across all seven ACC agencies.

Promotes Equity in STEM Education and Workforce Training. In support of the CHIPS and Science Act’s priority of building a diverse, STEM-capable workforce, the Budget provides $1.4 billion for STEM education and workforce development programs at NSF that have an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The Budget also includes funding for programs focused on increasing the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science and engineering fields by supporting curriculum program design, research on successful recruitment and retention methods, development of outreach or mentorship programs, fellowships, and $256 million in funding to build capacity for advancing energy research and developing a new energy workforce, as well as an additional $100 million for enhancing general research capacity at HCBUs, TCCUs, and MSIs through the Department of Education. The Budget also provides $46 million to NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project, to increase competitive awards to minority-serving institutions to recruit and retain underrepresented and underserved students in STEM fields.

Broadens Access to Registered Apprenticeships in Clean Energy and the Industries of the Future. The Budget increases support for Registered Apprenticeships, an evidence-based earn-as-you-learn model that is a critical tool for training future workforces for good jobs that don’t require a college degree in the clean energy, construction, semiconductor, transportation and logistics, education, health, and other growing and in-demand industries. The Budget invests $335 million, a $50 million increase above the 2023 enacted level, and supports expanding existing Registered Apprenticeship programs in clean energy-related occupations.  This investment would also be used to reduce barriers and expand access, training, and opportunities that can increase the number of workers from historically underrepresented groups, including people of color, women, and people with disabilities, who participate in Registered Apprenticeships.

Doubles Down on America’s Global Climate Leadership

Achieves the Administration’s Historic Climate Finance Pledge. The Budget provides a path to achieving the President’s $11 billion commitment for international climate finance, including $3 billion for the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE). A signature initiative, PREPARE supports more than half a billion people in developing countries to adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change, including through private sector mobilization. In 2023, PREPARE brought 21 new companies and partners on board, with commitments to accelerate adaptation action in vulnerable developing countries that have mobilized more than $2 billion. The Budget also supports a $500 million FY 2025 contribution through mandatory funding to finance the Green Climate Fund (GCF), as part of the $3 billion multi-year pledge to expand climate adaptation and mitigation projects in developing countries, and $100 million for the Amazon Fund to combat deforestation and preserve the world’s largest tropical rainforest. The Budget builds on historic international climate finance progress made over the course of this Administration, in which estimated 2023 levels of $9.5 billion represent a near-sixfold increase from 2021.

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To build on the historic progress made under President Biden’s leadership, the American people need a modern and effective government. A high-performing Federal government—staffed by expert civil servants—plays a critical role in ensuring Americans can easily access reliable services and resources, from helping the American people file taxes and apply for benefits, to confronting the risks and opportunities presented by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Budget funds the expertise and tools necessary to ensure excellent service delivery and customer experience across the Federal government. The President’s Budget:

Modernizes Service Delivery

Provides More Passport Services Online. The Budget increases investments for the Department of State to improve on and expand online passport renewal, delivering on the commitment outlined in the Customer Experience Executive Order to enable Americans to renew their passport without having to go in-person and mail original documents.

Improves Social Security Administration (SSA) Services. The Budget builds the capacity of SSA’s Customer Experience team to fulfill commitments outlined in the Customer Experience Executive Order. The Budget also supports SSA’s efforts to take a customer-focused approach to service delivery, such as by improving how people access SSA services online, on mobile devices, by phone, and in-person. SSA will also work with states to enable online replacement of social security cards and name changes due to marriage nationwide.

Modernizes Taxpayer Services. By protecting annual funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and restoring and extending Inflation Reduction Act investments, the Budget continues initiatives that are already expanding digital, phone, and in-person taxpayer assistance options. Improved data analytics are helping the IRS work smarter by staffing customer service functions to meet projected demand. With ongoing investment, taxpayers can expect easier, secure access to their data, as well as the tools to help them use it, to meet their tax obligations and receive the incentives for which they are eligible.

Improves Traveler Experience. The Budget includes $3 million for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to continue piloting the Customer Experience Manager model at four airports focused on streamlining passenger screening, easy-to-understand signage, and better collection and analysis of customer feedback to take improvement actions.

Modernizes Federal Retirement Services. The Budget invests in the Office of Personnel Management to reduce processing times for Federal retirement and improve customer satisfaction, including hiring additional employees to process cases and $3 million to continue to develop a digital file system and online retirement application.

Brings America’s Great Outdoors Online. The Budget makes investments to better connect Americans with public lands through updates, added features, and performance improvements to the National Park Service app, NPS.gov, Recreation.gov, and Volunteer.gov. Funds will also support the expanded use of digital activity passes to access the more than 560 national wildlife refuges managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service and digital special use permits issued by the Forest Service.

Improves Service Access for Rural Communities. The Budget includes $3 million for the Farm Service Agency to modernize its information technology systems and pilot a technical assistance program to better support farmers and ranchers applying for farm loans. The Budget also includes $1 million for the development of digital tools and customer feedback activities at Rural Development within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Supports Services for Senior Homeowners and Low-Income Renters. The Budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) supports an expansion of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) digital self-service portal that would streamline customer support for seniors with FHA-held reverse mortgages. HUD will also pilot a customer-centered approach for individuals and families seeking affordable housing that aims to increase their understanding of available housing options and reduce the time spent on waiting lists for HUD-assisted rental housing.

Builds Shared Products and Platforms to Enable Simple, Seamless, and Secure Services Across the Federal Government. The Budget provides funding for continued maintenance of the Federal Website Standards, U.S. Web Design System, Digital Analytics Program, Site Scanning Program, Digital.gov, Search.gov, Touchpoints, and Feedback Analytics. The Budget also supports design exploration for creating government-wide web content standards and search engine optimization practices, including the potential of using Search.gov to better structure and connect information across agency websites.

Builds On Lessons from Life Experience Pilot Projects

Supports Parents Following the Birth of a Child. The Budget increases funding for the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Healthy Start program to improve health outcomes for parents and infants, including by building on lessons learned through the Benefits Bundle pilot to connect families welcoming a baby to a bundle of supportive services. The Budget additionally directs the Veterans Health Administration to develop a maternal supply kit pilot for veteran mothers.

Improves Efficiency, Program Integrity, and Accessibility of Safety Net Benefits. The Budget provides $11 million for HHS to work with cross-agency partners to improve benefits-related income verification services and determinations for benefits programs. In doing so, multiple agencies will simplify access to supports for families facing a financial shock and improve administrative efficiency.

Supports Underserved Seniors Making Retirement Decisions. The Budget continues efforts by the Administration for Community Living to develop a new model of community outreach to connect older adults with resources to inform their retirement and healthcare decisions, building on lessons learned from a community stakeholder-centered design process pilot.

Invests In Customer Experience Capacity Across Government

Increases Customer Experience Teams, Digital Service Capabilities. The Budget invests in the retention and hiring of more than 170 full-time employees with customer experience and digital service delivery experience across Federal agencies. These customer experience strategists and digital service experts will conduct customer research, analyze quantitative and qualitative feedback, and lead iterative design sprints to power the Federal government’s service improvements.The Budget also makes investments to support more than fifteen customer experience teams across government.

Helps Improves Service Accessibility for Tribal Communities. In keeping with Executive Order 14112 on Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations, the Budget makes investments in dedicated and coordinated work, in partnership with the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, that will make it easier for Tribal Nations and members to navigate federal services provided by the Bureaus of Indian Affairs and Trust Funds Administration. Additionally, the designation of the Indian Health Service (IHS) as a High Impact Service Provider supports IHS collecting feedback and implementing targeted reforms that will improve the quality and accessibility of health services for Native communities.

Builds Digital Service Capacity, Helps Agencies Listen to Their Customers. The Budget addresses long-standing challenges in accessing digital service expertise across the Federal government by investing $55 million across 11 eleven agencies to more effectively deliver critical government services through priority projects with the U.S. Digital Service (USDS). The Budget also includes $30 million for USDS to further integrated, efficient, secure, and effective uses of information technology in the Federal government, as well as an additional $30 million in agency contribution to USDS for digital service expertise and assistance to attract and hire top technical talent.

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President Biden believes that investing in America, growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up, lowering costs for families, and reforming our tax code to reward work and not wealth are economic and fiscal imperatives. Strong and shared growth that benefits all Americans isn’t just good for working families and the economy; it will also lead to better fiscal outcomes. At the same time, President Biden believes that long-term investments in our Nation and its people should be paid for. And his Budgets have consistently paid for all of his investments and improved the Nation’s fiscal outlook.

The President took office after his predecessor signed into law a reckless and unpaid for tax cut that was skewed to the wealthy and large corporations, adding nearly $2 trillion to the deficit. Compared to when the President took office, the deficit is over $1 trillion lower, thanks in large part to a strong economic recovery and a historic vaccination program that allowed the responsible wind-down of emergency measures. In addition, the President has enacted another roughly $1 trillion in savings over the next decade through the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and through the Inflation Reduction Act provisions that empower Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, cap insulin at $35 per month for seniors and people with disabilities, and make the wealthy and large corporations pay more of their fair share.

President Biden will fight to stop Republican plans to add trillions to the deficit with tax cuts skewed to big corporations and the wealthy—doubling down on their failed trickle-down tax cuts that already increased the nation’s debt by trillions of dollars. Republicans have proposed making all of President Trump’s tax cuts permanent, while refusing to pay for them by increasing taxes on big corporations or the wealthy. Instead, they would rather add trillions to the national debt than take back even one dollar of the $150 billion annual rate cut corporations received under President Trump. Their plan would add more than $3 trillion to deficits over 10 years, while providing tax cuts worth $175,000 per year to the top 0.1 percent of Americans that have incomes over $4.5 million.

In contrast to Republicans’ plans to increase the deficit, the President’s Budget improves the fiscal outlook by reducing the deficit by roughly $3 trillion over the next 10 years by making the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share, closing tax loopholes, cutting wasteful spending on Big Pharma, Big Oil, and other special interests, and following the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The President’s Budget:

Improves the Nation’s Fiscal Outlook

The President’s Budget improves the Nation’s fiscal outlook and reduces long-term fiscal risks by reducing the deficit, stabilizing deficits and debt as a share of the economy over the long-run, and keeping the economic burden of debt within historical norms. Specifically, the Budget reduces the deficit by around $3 trillion over the next decade, compared to deficits without the President’s policies. The deficit reduction in the Budget increases over time, with over $500 billion of deficit reduction in 2034.

The Budget also reduces the deficit, as a share of the economy, from current levels. Under the Budget policies, the deficit would decline over the next several years, stabilizing below five percent of the economy throughout the remainder of the 10-year window. And the Budget stabilizes debt as a share of the economy over the long-run as well.

Finally, under the President’s Budget, the economic burden of debt would remain in line with historical norms over the next decade. Real net interest as a share of the economy directly measures the cost of servicing the debt: resources that must go towards paying off old debt rather than investing in the future or providing services to Americans now. The Budget forecast takes into account recent increases in interest rates and projects future interest rates in line with private-sector forecasters. Nonetheless, the Budget keeps real net interest payments as a share of the economy at or below the average for the last several decades, around 1 percent of GDP, and well below the 2 percent level of the 1990s.

Reduces the Deficit by Making the Tax System Fairer and Ending Special Interest Giveaways

The President believes that the best way to reduce the deficit is to reform our tax code to reward work and not wealth, ensure that the largest corporations pay their fair share, and end giveaways to special interests. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act he signed into law cracked down on wealthy tax cheats and took critical steps forward in ensuring that large corporations pay their fair share, including a 15% minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations and a surcharge on large, publicly-traded corporations that buy back their own stock.

The Budget builds on this progress and reflects the President’s ironclad belief that the wealthy and big corporations should pay their fair share—and that they shouldn’t pay lower tax rates than teachers or firefighters.

To date, Republicans in Congress have put forward a much different approach, calling for more than $3 trillion in tax giveaways skewed to the rich and large corporations and handouts to special interests. The budget proposed by the Republican Study Committee (RSC), representing nearly 80 percent of House Republicans, shows how they would pay for those tax cuts: by slashing Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and other programs that drive economic growth and that seniors, people with disabilities, and families count on. The RSC budget would raise the Social Security retirement age, restrict eligibility for Social Security Disability Insurance, slash disability benefits for low-income adults and children with disabilities, and increase healthcare costs for millions of seniors. It also makes drastic cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which could result in tens of millions of children and families losing their health insurance.

Instead of making reckless cuts to programs that millions of Americans count on, the President’s Budget takes the following steps to reduce the deficit. The President’s Budget:

Makes the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share

Requires Billionaires to Pay at Least 25 Percent of Income in Taxes. Billionaires make their money in ways that are often taxed at lower rates than ordinary wage income, or sometimes not taxed at all, thanks to giant loopholes and tax preferences that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest taxpayers. As a result, many of these wealthy Americans are able pay an average income tax rate of just 8 percent on their full incomes — a lower rate than many firefighters or teachers. To finally address this glaring inequity, the President’s Budget includes a 25 percent minimum tax on the wealthiest 0.01 percent, those with wealth of more than $100 million.

Requires Wealthy People to Pay their Fair Share Toward Medicare to Extend Medicare Solvency Indefinitely. The President’s Budget extends the solvency of the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund indefinitely by modestly increasing the Medicare tax rate on incomes above $400,000, closing loopholes in existing Medicare taxes, and directing revenue from the Net Investment Income Tax into the HI trust fund as was originally intended, along with savings from Medicare prescription drug reforms. Current law lets certain wealthy business owners avoid Medicare taxes on some of the profits they get from passthrough businesses. The President’s Budget closes this loophole and raises Medicare tax rates on earned and unearned income from 3.8 percent to 5 percent for those with incomes over $400,000.

Repeals Trump Tax Cuts for the Wealthy and Reforms Capital Gains Tax to Ensure the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share. The 2017 tax law lowered tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, delivering an average total tax cut of more than $50,000 for the top 1% and more than $190,000 for the top 0.1% in 2018. The Budget repeals tax cuts for the highest-income Americans, restoring the top tax rate of 39.6 percent for those making more than $400,000 a year. It also proposes taxing capital gains at the same rate as wage income for those with more than $1 million in income, closing the capital gains loophole that allows the wealthy to avoid ever paying tax on their appreciated investments, and finally closing the carried interest loophole that allows some wealthy investment fund managers to pay tax at lower rates than their secretaries.

Ensures That the IRS Can Continue to Collect Taxes Owed by Wealthy Tax Cheats. The Inflation Reduction Act addressed long-standing IRS funding deficiencies by providing stable, multi-year funding to improve tax compliance by finally cracking down on high-income individuals and corporations who too often avoided paying their lawfully owed taxes, and to improve service for the millions of Americans that do pay their taxes. Already, the IRS is using these resources to crack down on tax evasion by the wealthy and big businesses. It has collected more than $500 million in unpaid taxes from fewer than 2,000 delinquent millionaires, is recouping taxes from thousands of millionaires who did not fulfill their basic civic duty by filing a tax return, and is cracking down on high-end tax evasion like deducting personal use of corporate jets as a business expense. At the same time, it is improving customer service and modernizing IT infrastructure. The President’s Budget would restore the full Inflation Reduction Act investment and provide new funding over the long-term to continue cutting the deficit by making sure that wealthy Americans and big corporations pay the taxes they owe through tax compliance initiatives and to continue improving service for taxpayers who are just trying to pay what they owe.

Makes Large Corporations Pay Their Fair Share

Raises Tax Rates for Large Corporations. Corporations received an enormous tax break in 2017. While their profits soared, their investment in their workers and the economy did not. Their shareholders and top executives reaped the benefits, without the promised trickle down to workers, consumers, or communities. The President’s Budget would set the corporate tax rate at 28 percent, still well below the 35 percent rate that prevailed prior to the 2017 tax law. In addition, the Budget would raise the Inflation Reduction Act’s corporate minimum tax rate on billion-dollar corporations that the President signed into law from 15 percent to 21 percent, ensuring the biggest corporations pay more of their fair share. These policies are complemented by other proposals to incentivize job creation and investment in the United States to help ensure broadly shared prosperity.

Cracks Down on Tax Avoidance by Large Multinationals, including Big Pharma. For decades, countries have competed for multinational business by slashing tax rates, at the expense of having adequate revenues to finance core services. Thanks in part to the Administration’s leadership, more than 130 nations signed on to a global tax framework to finally address this race to the bottom in 2021. Many of our international partners, including many of the world’s largest economies, have implemented or will soon implement this transformational agreement. The President’s Budget proposes to do the same by reforming the international tax system to reduce the incentives to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions, stopping corporate inversions to tax havens, and raising the tax rate on U.S. multinationals’ foreign earnings from 10.5 percent to 21 percent. These reforms would ensure that profitable multinational corporations, including Big Pharma, pay their fair share.

Denies Corporate Tax Breaks for Million Dollar Executive Compensation. Executive pay has skyrocketed in recent decades, with CEO pay averaging more than 300 times that of a typical worker in 2022. The 2017 tax law’s corporate tax cuts only made this problem worse, producing massive boosts to executive compensation while doing nothing for low- and middle-income workers. While corporations can choose to give huge pay packages to their executives, President Biden believes that they don’t deserve a tax break when they do. His Budget proposes new policy to deny deductions for all compensation over $1 million paid to any employee of a C corporation, which would discourage companies from giving their executives massive pay packages and help level the playing field across C corporations.

Ends Wasteful Spending to Special Interests

Negotiates Lower Drug Prices and Expands Access to Prescription Drugs. Thanks to action taken by this Administration, millions of seniors and people with disabilities are saving money on their drug costs – including $35 insulin, free vaccines, and out-of-pocket costs capped at about $3,500 starting in 2024. Medicare is also negotiating lower drug prices for the first time ever, starting with ten of the costliest, most widely used drugs used to treat blood clots, cancers, arthritis, diabetes, and more. The Budget builds on this success by significantly increasing the pace of negotiation, bringing more drugs into negotiation sooner after they launch, expanding the Inflation Reduction Act’s inflation rebates and $2,000 out-of-pocket prescription drug cost cap beyond Medicare and into the commercial market, and by taking other steps to build on the Inflation Reduction Act drug provisions. In addition, the Budget extends the $35 cost-sharing cap for a month’s supply of a covered insulin product to the commercial market. For Medicaid, the Budget includes proposals to ensure Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are prudent purchasers of prescription drugs, such as authorizing HHS to negotiate supplemental drug rebates on behalf of interested States in order to pool purchasing power. The Budget also limits Medicare Part D cost-sharing for high-value generic drugs, such as those used to treat hypertension and high-blood pressure, to no more than $2 for Medicare beneficiaries. These reforms will not only cut costs for the Federal government by $200 billion; they will also save billions of dollars for seniors and people with disabilities.

Eliminates Tax Subsidies for Oil and Gas. The President is committed to ending tens of billions of dollars of federal tax subsidies for oil and gas companies. Even as they benefit from billions of dollars in special tax breaks, oil companies have failed to invest in production. For the last two years, they have realized record profits, but instead of lowering prices for consumers or investing these funds, they have undertaken record stock buybacks, mergers, and acquisitions that benefited executives and wealthy shareholders. The Budget eliminates special tax treatment for oil and gas company investments, as well as other fossil fuel tax preferences.

Lowers Medicaid Spending by Addressing Excessive Payments to Medicaid Managed Care Organizations. The Budget will lower Medicaid costs by over $10 billion by requiring that insurance companies pay Medicaid back when they charge it far more than they actually spend on patient care. Currently, only about half of states require private insurance companies that provide Medicaid coverage to pay money back when they realize outsize profits. Without this requirement, insurance companies are keeping  millions of dollars each year in excessive payments. The Budget would apply this requirement nationwide, consistent with similar requirements in Medicare Advantage and Affordable Care Act plans. With it, insurance companies will no longer be able to charge for unnecessary administrative expenses or sacrifice quality patient care to increase their profit margins, and if they charge too much, they will have to pay it back to the Medicaid program rather than keeping the profits and, in some cases, making larger payments to shareholders.

Eliminates Tax Subsidies for Real Estate. The Budget closes the “like-kind exchange” loophole, a special tax subsidy for real estate. This loophole lets real estate investors – but not investors in any other asset – put off paying tax on profits from deals indefinitely as long as they keep investing in real estate. This amounts to an indefinite interest free loan from the government. Real estate is the only asset that gets this sweetheart deal.

Eliminates Tax Subsidies for Cryptocurrency Transactions. The Budget eliminates a special tax subsidy for crypto currency and certain other transactions. Right now, crypto investors aren’t subject to the same rules of the road that investors in stocks or other securities have to follow, allowing them to report excessive losses. For example, a crypto investor – unlike an investor in stocks or bonds – can sell a cryptocurrency at a loss, take a substantial tax loss to reduce their tax burden, and then buy back that same cryptocurrency the very next day. The Budget eliminates this tax subsidy for crypto currencies by modernizing the tax code’s anti-abuse rules to apply to crypto assets just like they apply to stocks and other securities.

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From his first day in office, President Biden has called on Congress to act to address our broken immigration system. Over the past three years, while waiting for Congress to act, the Administration has taken important steps to secure our border. The President has secured more resources for border security than any President before him, and in October he requested even more funding to secure the border, build capacity to enforce immigration law, and counter illicit fentanyl. The Administration has deployed the most agents and officers ever to address the situation at the southwest border, seized record levels of illicit fentanyl at our ports of entry, and brought together world leaders on a framework to deal with changing migration patterns that are impacting the entire Western Hemisphere.

Just recently, the President led the way on achieving a bipartisan agreement for the toughest, fairest border reform legislation in decades. The President and his team reached a historic bipartisan agreement with Senate Democrats and Republicans on border policy reforms and funding in February that would provide a fairer and more efficient process for asylum claims. The agreement also provides for emergency authority for the President to shut down the border when the system is overwhelmed, additional immigrant visas for families and workers, expedited work permits for those already here, and significant funding for more immigration judges, asylum officers, and Border Patrol agents and officers to secure the border and combat illicit fentanyl. Congressional Republicans should stop stonewalling this historic deal and work to send the legislation to the President’s desk.

The President’s Budget builds on these measures by ensuring adequate base resources for border enforcement, while continuing to reiterate the need for Congress to pass legislation and provide meaningful reforms and supplemental funding to secure the border. The Budget includes a $1.9 billion (7 percent) base budget increase for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as funds to expand and improve the immigration courts, address the root causes of migration, and combat illicit fentanyl trafficking. The President’s FY25 Budget:

Reiterates the Administration’s Request for Immediate Funding to Secure the Border, Build Capacity to Enforce Immigration Law, and Counter Illicit Fentanyl. In October 2023, the Administration transmitted an emergency supplemental request to Congress for the southwest border and migration issues totaling $13.6 billion. The Budget includes, and therefore reiterates the need for, the unmet needs from the October supplemental request. In addition to urgent requirements, the request includes investments to build longer-term capacity in the areas of border security, immigration enforcement, and countering illicit fentanyl, totaling $4.3 billion for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). This amount includes $405 million to hire 1,300 additional Border Patrol Agents to secure the border, $239 million to hire 1,000 additional CBP Officers to stop illicit fentanyl and other contraband from entering the U.S., $755 million to hire an additional 1,600 Asylum Officers and support staff to facilitate timely immigration dispositions, $100 million for Homeland Security Investigations to investigate and disrupt transnational criminal organizations and drug traffickers, $1.3 billion for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) to fund the hiring of 375 new immigration judge teams to help reduce the immigration case backlog, and $849 million for cutting-edge detection technology at ports of entry. Taken together, these long-term capacity building investments equip the Nation’s border security and immigration system to more effectively respond to challenges present along the border. In addition, the Administration appreciates the Senate’s bipartisan border legislation that would make additional investments in DHS and provide authorities to bolster the Department’s efforts to secure and manage the border.

Continues to Invest in Critical Capabilities Needed for Border and Immigration Enforcement.  Strengthening border security and providing safe, lawful pathways for migration remain top priorities for the Administration. The Budget builds on the Administration’s October supplemental request to include an additional $25.9 billion for CBP and ICE, an increase of $1.9 billion over the 2023 enacted level when controlling for border management amounts. The Budget includes funds for CBP to hire an additional 350 Border Patrol Agents and 310 processing coordinators, $127 million for border security technology between ports of entry, and $86 million in air and maritime operational support that is central to efforts to secure the border. The Budget also includes funds to support 34,000 ICE immigration detention beds; $225 million to address increased transportation and removal costs; and $34 million to combat child exploitation, forced labor, and human trafficking.

Enables Access to Resources to Scale Border Enforcement Capacity for Conditions on the Southwest Border. Given the uncertainty surrounding border conditions in any given year, the Budget proposes a $4.7 billion contingency fund to aid the Department and its components when responding to migration surges along the Southwest border. Modeled on a contingency fund provided for unaccompanied children, each fiscal year, the fund would receive appropriations incrementally and above the base appropriation as Southwest border encounters reach pre-identified levels. DHS could use these funds for surge-related functions only, and would transfer funds to CBP, ICE, and FEMA accounts when appropriate conditions are met.

Supports America’s Promise to Resettle Refugees and Care for Unaccompanied Children. The Budget builds on the Administration’s October supplemental request and provides an additional $9.3 billion for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to help rebuild the Nation’s refugee resettlement infrastructure and support the resettling of up to 125,000 refugees in 2025. The Budget also helps ensure that unaccompanied immigrant children receive appropriate support and services while they are in ORR’s care and are unified with relatives and sponsors as safely and quickly as possible. This funding would allow ORR to continue the programmatic improvements the Administration has made, including expanding access to counsel to help children navigate complex immigration court proceedings and enhancing case management and post-release services. In addition, the Budget includes an emergency contingency fund that would provide additional resources, beyond the $9.3 billion, when there are unanticipated increases in the number of unaccompanied children.

Improves Immigration Courts. The Budget builds on the Administration’s October supplemental request and invests $981 million, an increase of $121 million above the 2023 enacted level, in the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) to enhance America’s immigration courts and help address the backlog of over 2.4 million currently pending cases. This funding supports 25 new immigration judge teams, which includes the support personnel necessary to ensure efficient case processing. The Budget also invests $30 million for EOIR to partner to with the U.S. Digital Service to develop and implement digital court operations strategies that will maximize each judge’s adjudicatory capacity and help reduce the case backlog.

Addresses the Root Causes of Migration. The Budget provides approximately $1 billion for Central American programming to meet the President’s commitment to invest $4 billion in Central America over four years to address the root causes of migration. The Budget also supports hemispheric programs to advance economic prosperity and regional security through key initiatives such as the America’s Partnership for Economic Prosperity, including $75 million for a capital increase to the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB Invest) to advance clean energy projects, modernize agriculture, strengthen transportation systems, and expand access to financing. The Budget further reserves $35 million in additional targeted funding for regional migration management, including $25 million for the IDB’s Migration Grant Facility to support integration efforts for migrants and host communities and address the root causes of irregular migration.

Combats Narcotics Trafficking Networks and Secures the Border and Our Communities. The Budget allocates $6.6 billion for DHS to invest in its counternarcotics efforts, including $4.5 billion for drug-related resources associated with border security, immigration enforcement, and countering illicit fentanyl. Additionally, the Administration remains committed to providing law enforcement with the resources and necessary personnel to defend our borders from illicit drug trade by reiterating the October 2023 emergency supplemental request for an additional $849 million for cutting edge drug detection technology at the border, $239 million for 1,000 additional CBP officers, $100 million to expand Homeland Security Investigations’ capacity for counter-fentanyl investigations and enforcement, and $14 million for additional research and development of narcotics detection and forensics, for a total supplemental request for DHS of $1.2 billion. These resources are critical to the fight against illicit opioids.

The Budget also provides $2.3 billion to the Department of Justice to combat opioid trafficking and reduce the supply and demand of deadly illicit fentanyl in American communities, including $1.2 billion for the Drug Enforcement Administration, $367 million for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, and $61 million for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This also includes an additional $18 million in Counter-Fentanyl Threat Targeting Teams at the DEA to enhance America’s fight against the transnational criminal networks pushing deadly illicit fentanyl. These interdisciplinary teams of special agents, intelligence analysts, and data experts will map criminal organizations and build cases that lead to the dismantlement of entire drug trafficking networks and the deprivation of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels. This also includes $494 million in grants supporting efforts to address opioid use and trafficking, including $190 million for the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program, $95 million to support Drug Courts, and $51 million for anti-drug task forces.The Budget further invests $290 million in the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program to provide state and local law enforcement with resources to combat the most dangerous illicit drug threats in their communities. The Budget further includes $1.1 billion for the Department of Defense to support security cooperation efforts with partner nations; counterdrug operations, detection and monitoring efforts in support of drug interdiction operations; and treatment, recovery, and education efforts.

Disrupts the International Synthetic Drug Trade. The Budget includes $169 million across State and USAID to counter illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drug production and trafficking, 58 percent above 2023 estimated levels. These resources would counter the worldwide flow of fentanyl and other synthetics that endanger public safety and health, and contribute to tens of thousands of drug-overdose deaths in the United States annually.

Combats Corruption and Increases Corporate Transparency. Treasury plays a leading role in monitoring and disrupting corruption, money laundering, terrorist financing, the use of the financial system by malicious actors domestically and abroad, and combatting the trafficking of illicit substances such as fentanyl in American communities. The Budget provides $216 million for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, $26 million above the 2023 level, to support Beneficial Ownership Information reporting which will be required for existing covered companies beginning in 2025. This reporting will provide investigative tools making it harder for bad actors—including major narcotics traffickers—to hide or benefit from their ill-gotten gains through shell companies or other opaque ownership structures.

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Since taking office, the President has fought to create opportunity and advance equity—not as a one-year project, but as part of a sustained commitment to make the promise of America real for every American, including communities of color, rural communities, women and girls, Tribal communities, LGBTQI+ individuals, people with disabilities, and communities impacted by persistent poverty.

Over the last three years, the Administration made significant progress advancing equity across the Federal government, including by reinvigorating Federal civil rights enforcements, increasing procurement opportunities for small disadvantaged businesses, prioritizing the advancement of gender equity and equality, expanding access to economic opportunities in underserved communities, expanding community engagement, increasing food security, advancing efforts to end homelessness, improving children’s education, robustly supporting Tribal sovereignty, and honoring the Nation’s sacred obligation to America’s veterans and servicemembers.

The President’s Budget builds on this progress by making historic investments to support the advancement of all Americans—especially in underserved communities—and combat racial and gender disparities across the Nation. The President’s Budget:

Addresses Inequity in Health Care

Expands Access to Quality, Affordable Health Care. The Budget allows states to extend continuous eligibility for children in the Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from 12 to 36 months and provide continuous eligibility for children from birth until they turn age 6. The Budget also prohibits enrollment fees and waiting periods in CHIP. The Budget also provides Medicaid-like coverage to individuals in States that have not adopted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act to expand coverage and advance health equity.

Advances Maternal Health and Health Equity. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, and rates are disproportionately high for Black and American Indian and Alaska Native women. The Budget includes $376 million to support maternal mortality initiatives across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Budget provides $172 million to the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) for the Healthy Start Initiative, a program designed to improve health outcomes before, during, and after pregnancy and reduce disparities in rates of infant death and adverse perinatal outcomes. The Budget expands Medicaid maternal health support services during the pregnancy and postpartum period by incentivizing States to reimburse a broad range of providers including doulas, community health workers, peer support initiatives, and nurse home visiting programs. In addition, the Budget builds on the success of the more than 40 States, Washington D.C., and the U.S. British Virgin Islands, that extended Medicaid postpartum coverage by requiring all States to provide continuous Medicaid coverage for 12 months postpartum, eliminating gaps in health insurance at a critical time for all women. In addition, the Budget includes resources for HHS to launch a new initiative focused on maternal health and hypertension and directs the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to develop a pilot to provide maternal health care kits for veteran mothers.

Promotes Mental and Behavioral Health Equity. The Budget proposes investments to expand access to mental health and substance use care, including for underserved communities. The Budget provides resources for behavioral health, including a nearly $200 million increase for the Substance use And Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to reduce suicide, improve women’s and children’s mental health, and support the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics that serve anyone who needs care, regardless of ability to pay. Further, the Budget provides $17.1 billion to the VA for mental health, which includes resources for treatment and healthcare costs, in addition to initiatives that improve suicide prevention and address post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the Nation’s veterans.

Invests in the Treatment and Prevention of Infectious Diseases. A critical component of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to addressing health equity is addressing the disproportionate impact of infectious diseases, including HIV, on racial and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ communities. The Budget invests in the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, including Hepatitis C, HIV, and vaccine-preventable diseases. The Budget proposes a national program to significantly expand screening, testing, treatment, prevention, and monitoring of Hepatitis C infections in the United States, with a specific focus on populations with high infection levels. The Budget also includes proposals to expand access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) to end the HIV epidemic and to vaccines for adults and children.

Closes Research Gaps in Women’s Health. The President and the First Lady launched the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, recognizing that women have been understudied and underrepresented in health research for far too long. The Initiative is working across government to better integrate women’s health within the Federal research portfolio and catalyze significant private and philanthropic commitments to increase funding for women’s health research. The Administration proposes to transform the way the government funds women’s health research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including by creating a new nationwide network of centers of excellence and innovation in women’s health—and the Budget would double current funding for the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH.

Expands Housing Access, Builds Thriving Communities

Increases Access to Safe and Affordable Housing. The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) currently provides 2.3 million low-income families with rental assistance to obtain housing in the private market. The Budget includes $32.8 billion, and assumes Public Housing Agencies will draw from HCV program reserves to maintain services for all currently assisted families. The Budget also expands assistance to an additional 20,000 households, particularly those who are experiencing homelessness or fleeing domestic violence. Additionally, the Budget provides up to $100 million through HUD for Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing), a competitive program that rewards State, local, and regional jurisdictions that make progress in removing barriers to affordable housing developments, such as restrictive zoning. Finally, the Budget provides $18 million for the Tribal Housing program at the Department of the Interior (DOI) to support critical housing needs in Tribal communities.

Bolsters Efforts to End Homelessness. The Budget provides more than $4 billion, an increase of $427 million over 2023 levels, for HUD Homeless Assistance Grants. This funding level enables HUD to continue supporting approximately 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness each year and includes $134 million to expand assistance to 25,000 additional households, specifically homeless youth and survivors of domestic violence. The Budget also provides $8 billion for competitive grants to rapidly expand temporary and permanent housing strategies for people experiences or at risk of homelessness. It also provides $505 million for Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) Program, serving a population with a disproportionately high rate of homelessness and providing a critical link to services.  In addition, the Administration plans to use approximately $100 million in program recaptures to fund coordinated interventions to support nearly 11,000 additional homeless individuals and families. These new resources support the Administration’s commitment to the goals laid out in the All In: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness and build on efforts that have expanded assistance to roughly 140,000 additional households experiencing homelessness since the President took office.

Prevents and Redresses Housing Discrimination. The Budget provides $86 million to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to support State and local fair housing enforcement organizations and to further education, outreach, and training on rights and responsibilities under Federal fair housing laws. This investment continues the Administration’s efforts to fight discrimination in housing and real estate related transactions. The Budget also preserves robust funding for HUD staffing and technical assistance to affirmatively further fair housing and improve access to affordable housing.

Prevents Evictions. The Administration stood up a historic national eviction prevention infrastructure during the pandemic, helping keep eviction filings 20% below historical averages in 2021. The Budget provides $3 billion in mandatory funding for competitive grants to promote and solidify State and local efforts to reform eviction policies by providing access to legal counsel, emergency rental assistance, and other forms of rent relief. The Budget also includes $10 million for HUD’s Eviction Protection Grant program, which provides legal assistance at no cost to low-income renters at risk of or subject to eviction.

Increases National and Global Food Security. The Budget includes $7.7 billion to support nearly seven million individuals expected to participate in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The Budget also includes funding to increase food security among children in low-income households during the summer through the new Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) program and the rural non-congregate Summer Food Service Program. In addition, the Budget provides $1.1 billion, an increase of $83 million above the 2023 enacted level, for senior nutrition programs that work to reduce food insecurity, hunger, and malnutrition among older Americans. Lastly, the Budget provides more than $1 billion to support the President’s pledge to alleviate global food insecurity, including $100 million for the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) initiative to foster more resilient food systems and nutritious food crops in underserved regions.

Helps Underserved Communities Navigate Infrastructure Funding. The Budget includes $25 million for the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Thriving Communities Program, which provides planning, technical assistance, and capacity building support to underserved and under-resourced communities, enabling them to successfully compete for Federal funding and deliver transformative infrastructure projects that support community-driven economic development, health, environment, mobility, and access goals.

Advances Education, Access to Opportunity

Invests in High-Poverty Schools. To help ensure that every student receives a high-quality education, the Budget includes $8 billion in mandatory funding to provide Academic Acceleration and Achievement Grants to close opportunity and achievement gaps and speed the pace of learning recovery. These grants to school districts would support evidence-based strategies to increase school attendance, provide high-quality tutoring, and expand learning time, including both in the summer and in extended day or afterschool programs. The Budget also provides $18.6 billion for Title I, which would continue historic progress for a program that has increased by over $2 billion since the start of the Administration. Title I delivers critical funding to 90 percent of school districts across the Nation, helping them to provide students in low-income communities the academic opportunities and support they need to succeed. This funding works to narrow the chronic funding gaps between high-poverty schools—which disproportionately serve students of color—and their wealthier counterparts. In addition, the Budget includes $200 million, to support Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) that provide comprehensive academic, social, and health services for students, students’ family members, and community members that will result in improved educational outcomes for children.

Bolsters Support for Children with Disabilities. Every child with a disability should have access to the high-quality early intervention, special education services, and personnel needed to thrive in school and graduate ready for college or a career. The Budget invests over $14 billion, $1.5 billion higher than when the President took office, in Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) grants through the Department of Education (ED) to support special education and related services for more than seven million students with disabilities in grades Pre-K through 12. The Budget also invests $545 million in IDEA Grants for Infants and Families to support early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities.

Builds a Strong Foundation for Families with Universal Pre-K and Head Start. The Budget funds voluntary, universal, free preschool for all four million of the Nation’s four-year-olds and charts a path to expand preschool to three-year-olds. High-quality preschool would be offered in the setting of the parent’s choice—from public schools to child care providers to Head Start. In addition, the Budget increases Head Start funding by $544 million to support the Administration’s goal to reach pay parity between Head Start staff and public elementary school teachers with similar qualifications over time. Together these proposals would support healthy child development, help children enter kindergarten ready to learn, and support families by reducing their costs prior to school entry and allowing parents to work.

Improves Postsecondary Access and Success and Increases Equitable Funding for Low-Resourced Institutions. The Budget proposes to increase the discretionary maximum Pell Grant by $100—helping more than seven million students pay for college, building on successful bipartisan efforts to increase the maximum Pell Grant award, and maintaining a path to double the maximum award by 2029. In addition, the Budget expands free community college across the Nation through a new Federal-State partnership and provides two years of subsidized tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled in a four-year Historically Black College and University (HBCU), Tribally Controlled College and University (TCCU), or Minority-Serving Institution (MSI). The Budget also increases institutional capacity at HCBUs, TCCUs, MSIs—including HSIs—and under-resourced institutions, including community colleges and provides $100 million to expand research infrastructure at four-year HBCUs, TCCUs, and MSIs. The Budget also invests $100 million to increase completion and retention rates among underserved students.

Expands Pathways for Economic Mobility

Increases Workforce Training and Career-Connected Learning that Provide Pathways to Good Jobs. The Budget proposes investments to help ensure all students and workers—including women, workers of color, and workers in rural areas—have the skills they need for the good jobs being created by the President’s historic legislative accomplishments. The Budget doubles funding for Career and Technical Education National Programs to better connect high schools to employers and community colleges through dual enrollment, work-based learning, and career advising. Further, the Budget proposes a new $8 billion Career Training Fund that would provide approximately 750,000 workers with training and wrap-around supports to ensure that workers from all backgrounds have access to high-quality training that leads to good jobs. The Budget also provides $50 million for the Sectoral Employment through Career Training for Occupational Readiness program, which supports the development and expansion of public-private partnerships to equitably deliver high-quality training in growing industries, and invests $70 million to help community colleges partner with industry to develop and expand high-quality training programs in communities across the Nation.

Supports Minority-Owned Business to Narrow Racial Wealth Gaps. The Budget increases the capacity of the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) by providing $80 million to bolster services provided to minority-owned, including women of color-owned, enterprises by expanding the Business Center program, funding Rural Business Centers, and supporting innovative initiatives to foster economic resiliency.

Helps Historically Marginalized Communities Catalyze Economic Development. The Budget builds on a more than 40 percent increase for the Economic Development Administration (EDA) since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration and proposes $41 million for the Good Jobs Challenge to make equity-driven investments in high-quality, locally led workforce systems that provide good job opportunities for American workers and promote economic mobility and security. Further, the Budget proposes $41 million for the Distressed Area Recompete Pilot Program, which provides flexible investments that reduce prime-age (25-54 years) employment gaps in communities experiencing significant disinvestment and neglect. The Budget also provides $5 million for the Assistance to Indigenous Communities program, with a focus on increasing outreach and support for Indigenous communities, particularly through technical assistance.

Promotes Access to Credit. The Budget provides $325 million for the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, a 20 percent increase since the President took office. This provides underserved and often low-income communities access to credit, capital, and financial support to grow businesses, increase affordable housing, and reinforce healthy neighborhood development. Research continually demonstrates that low-income communities, communities of color, and women have a harder time accessing capital from traditional financial institutions overall. Nearly 70% of CDFI customers are low-income persons, 59% are racial minorities, and 52% are women. To better address the shortage of long-term affordable credit for development projects in disadvantaged communities, the Budget also includes a $10 million subsidy for the CDFI Fund’s Bond Guarantee Program. 

Supports Economic Opportunity in Rural and Tribal Communities. The Budget provides resources for the Rural Partners Network (RPN), an all-of-government program led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that partners with rural and Tribal communities to access resources and funding to create and preserve good jobs, build infrastructure, and support long-term economic stability on their own terms.

Delivers Environmental Justice

Advances Equity and Environmental Justice. The Administration continues to prioritize efforts to deliver environmental justice in communities across the United States, such as by meeting the President’s Justice40 commitment to ensure at least 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments – including in climate and clean energy – flow to disadvantaged communities, including rural, urban, and Tribal communities. A total of 518 programs across 19 Federal agencies are being reimagined and transformed through the Justice40 Initiative to maximize benefits to disadvantaged communities such as cleaner air, good-paying jobs, and affordable clean energy. The Budget bolsters these efforts by investing nearly $1.5 billion through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to support creating high-quality jobs, cleaning up pollution, and securing environmental justice for communities that bear the brunt of toxic pollution and impacts of climate change, including increased health risks.

Accelerates the Replacement of All Lead Pipes and Upgrades the Nation’s Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure. The Budget includes $101 million to remediate lead contamination in water, nearly doubling previous levels of funding. The Budget also provides EPA with $2.6 billion for the water infrastructure State Revolving Funds that upgrade drinking water and wastewater infrastructure nationwide, with a focus on decreasing health disparities in disadvantaged and rural communities that have historically been overlooked.

Reduces Health and Environmental Hazards for At-Risk Communities. The Budget provides $661 million for EPA’s Superfund program to continue cleaning up some of the Nation’s most contaminated land and respond to environmental emergencies and natural disasters. This is in addition to an estimated $2.2 billion in Superfund tax revenue estimated to be available in FY 2025 by the Department of the Treasury. Further, the Budget includes investments for the Department of Energy (DOE) to address legacy waste and contamination in communities used during the Manhattan Project and the Cold War for nuclear weapons production, and resources for grants to reduce emissions in the most polluted areas of the country. The Budget continues to build on core capacity under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and modernize Information Technology and data software for the Chemical Risk Review and Reduction program with an investment of $132 million.

Supports Tribal Conservation Through Co-Stewardship of Public Lands and Waters. The Administration is committed to improving Federal stewardship of public lands, waters, and wildlife by strengthening the role of Tribal governments in Federal land management. The Budget provides resources to facilitate and support agreements with Tribes to collaborate in the co-stewardship of Federal lands and water across the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and U.S. Forest Service. The Budget also proposes a new $25 million grant to facilitate direct implementation of EPA programs in Indian Country.

Bolsters Climate Resilience. Building on the National Climate Resilience Framework, the Budget makes significant investments in climate adaptation and resilience across the Federal government to address the increasing severity of flood, wildfire, drought, and other extreme weather events fueled by climate change. This includes expanding conservation and ecosystem management, strengthening America’s natural disaster response capabilities, increasing the resilience of rural housing to the impacts of climate change, and ensuring the resilience of our nation’s defense to climate change. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to help vulnerable families access home energy and weatherization assistance, and proposes to allow States the option to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households. The Budget also includes specific investments to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat in low-income and disadvantaged communities, including $105 million for DOE to plan, design and demonstrate community-scale energy solutions.

Strengthens Working Families and the Economy by Investing in Care Infrastructure

Advances Equitable Access to Home and Community-Based Care. The President recognizes thatmore than three-quarters of home and community-based care service providers are not accepting new clients, leaving hundreds of thousands of older Americans and Americans with disabilities on waiting lists for home and community-based services or struggling to afford the care they need.The Administration invested $25 billion in American Rescue Plan funds to help states strengthen their Medicaid home and community-based care programs, including over $9 billion in spending to boost wages for home care workers as well as improve overall job quality.The President’s Budget invests $150 billion over 10 years to improve and expand Medicaid home and community-based services, which would allow older Americans and individuals with disabilities to remain in their homes and stay active in their communities as well as improve the quality of jobs for home care workers.

Provides National, Comprehensive Paid Family and Medical Leave. The vast majority of America’s workers do not have access to employer-provided paid family leave, including 73 percent of private sector workers. Among the lowest-paid workers, who are disproportionately women and workers of color, 94 percent lack access to paid family leave through their employers. The Budget proposes to establish a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to ensure that all workers can take the time they need to bond with a new child; care for a seriously ill loved one; heal from their own serious illness; address circumstances arising from a loved one’s military deployment; find safety from domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking; or grieve the death of a loved one. The Budget also provides funding to the Department of Labor (DOL) for grants and technical assistance to support the development, improvement, and implementation of paid family and medical leave programs in States and localities.

Advances Equity in the Child Welfare System. Improving the child welfare system will benefit all Americans, including the Black and Native American families who are overrepresented in, and too often failed by, the current system. The Budget includes $4.9 billion over ten years for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to expand access to evidence-based and culturally appropriate foster care prevention services while also improving child and family well-being in the child welfare system. The Budget also doubles flexible funding through the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program. Together, these reforms are aimed at achieving better outcomes for children, enabling children to remain safely with their families, and ensuring permanency for children in foster care. In addition, the Budget provides States with resources to reduce the number of children entering foster care, decrease the over-representation of children of color in the system, ensure that more children in foster care are placed with family members or other kin caregivers and not in group homes, and increase supports to youth aging out of foster care. At DOI, the Budget provides $26 million, a nearly 50 percent increase over 2023 enacted levels, for implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Lowers Child Care Costs for Hard-Working Families. The President is committed to providing relief to hard-working families. His Budget creates a historic new program under which working families with incomes up to $200,000 per year would be guaranteed affordable, high-quality child care from birth until kindergarten, with most families paying no more than $10 a day, and the lowest-income families paying nothing—providing a lifeline to the parents of more than 16 million children. The Budget also includes $8.5 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) which will help states expand child care assistance to serve over 2 million low-income children.

Invests in Caregiving for Military Families and Veterans. Caregivers play an important role in supporting the health and wellness of servicemembers, veterans, and their families. The Budget invests nearly $3 billion in stipend payments and support services to help empower family caregivers of eligible veterans. The Budget also includes resources for the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Exceptional Family Member Program, which provides a comprehensive, coordinated, multi-agency approach for community support, housing, medical, educational, and personnel services to military families with disabilities.

Makes Communities Safer, Invests in Civil Rights

Invests in Federal Law Enforcement, Public Safety, Community Violence Interventions, and Prevention to Combat Gun Violence and Other Violent Crime. The Budget makes robust investments to bolster Federal law enforcement capacity and reduce gun violence. The Budget includes $17.7 billion for Department of Justice (DOJ) law enforcement, including a total of nearly $2 billion for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to increase regulation of the firearms industry, an increase of over 30 percent since the start of the Administration, and $100 million for DOJ community violence intervention and prevention initiatives. And the Budget provides $51 million to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to support the continued implementation of enhanced background checks required by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The Budget also includes $100 million for CDC to fund evidence-informed, community-based programs that reduce gun violence. Lastly, the Budget proposes $60 million for CDC and the NIH to fund research into the causes of and solutions for gun violence. In addition to these amounts, the Budget requests $1.5 billion over 10 years in mandatory funding at both DOJ and CDC to supplement funding for community violence intervention programs.

Reinvigorates Federal Civil Rights Enforcement. In order to address longstanding inequities and strengthen civil rights protections, the Budget invests $201 million in the DOJ Civil Rights Division. These resources would continue supporting vigorous prosecution of hate crimes, enforcement of voting rights laws, and ending gender-based violence and discrimination. Additionally, the Budget proposes a new $10 million DOJ grant program supporting the modernization of HIV criminal statutes.

Promotes Equity Across Government Services

Improves Language Access. The Budget includes funding for multiple agencies, including DOL, USDA, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and DOE to strengthen language access services to promote meaningful access to government programs, services, and benefits for individuals with limited English proficiency.

Enables Policymakers to Understand the Needs of the American People and Economy. The Budget provides resources at the Census Bureau to support a Puerto Rico economic statistics program and to bolster the Survey of Income and Program Participation, which is a leading source of information on the economic wellbeing of Americans, including low income and historically disadvantaged populations.

Supports Public Participation and Community Engagement in Government Decision Making. The Administration is committed to ensuring that the voices of all Americans, including underserved communities, inform and shape the design and delivery of Federal programs, policies, and services. The Budget includes resources for multiple agencies, including DOE, DHS, SSA, HHS, and the VA, to strengthen their public participation and community engagement activities across the country, with a focus on hard-to-reach populations.

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