Statements and Releases

Over the past four years, President Biden and Vice President Harris have taken action to ensure rural Americans do not have to leave their hometowns to find opportunity. One year ago, President Biden visited a family farm in Northfield, Minnesota to kick off the “Investing in Rural America” event series, spurring over 30 visits by Cabinet members and White House Senior Officials to rural communities across the country. The Biden-Harris Administration is investing in rural America to create opportunity for farmers, small business owners, families, and communities.

Investing in Rural American Infrastructure

The President’s Investing in America agenda is investing billions of dollars to revitalize and rebuild rural communities across the country – a generational investment in rural America. This funding also represents the single largest investment in Tribal infrastructure ever.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $65 billion to ensure every American has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet through a historic investment in infrastructure deployment. That includes a $2 billion program at the Department of Commerce to invest in high-speed internet on Tribal lands. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has invested more than $4 billion in projects that will expand access to high-speed broadband and bring new economic opportunities and a better quality of life for more than 650,000 people across 46 states through its ReConnect Program.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also provides a historic $8.25 billion investment to reduce wildfire risks for communities, better detect wildfires, and institute workforce reforms and landmark pay increases for federal wildland firefighters. Through the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program, USDA has awarded $467 million to 259 project proposals across 36 states and 18 tribes, which will assist with planning for and mitigating wildfire risks, and has recently made another $200 million available. USDA is also investing $150 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to help underserved and small acreage forest landowners connect to emerging voluntary climate markets, which can provide economic opportunities for landowners and incentivize improved forest health and management. And through the Inflation Reduction Act and other appropriations, the Forest Service invested nearly $544 million in 63 projects in 2024 to conserve more than half a million acres of private forestlands across the U.S., ensuring that these places will remain working forests while protecting water sources and reducing wildfire risk.

Additionally, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests billions of dollars to make sure rural families can get where they need to go, including through a $4.1 billion investment in Rural Area Formula Grants at the Department of Transportation (DOT). This program will support 1,300 rural transit systems by enabling them to purchase transit vehicles and infrastructure, plan transit more effectively, and fund operations. DOT is also providing $2 billion over 5 years in dedicated funding to projects in rural areas that improve and expand the surface transportation infrastructure.

Delivering Clean, Reliable Water to Rural America

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s transformative investment of over $50 billion in our water and wastewater infrastructure is fundamentally changing the quality of life for millions of people in rural America by replacing lead pipes, providing critical access to sanitation, ensuring access to affordable clean drinking water, and tackling drought. That includes a $3.5 billion investment through the Indian Health Service which has launched over 700 projects to build out a safe supply of drinking water, reliable sewage systems, and waste disposal facilities across Indian Country. And the Inflation Reduction Act’s Tribal Clean Drinking Water program made $320 million available to bring safe, clean drinking water to Tribal communities in the West, with an initial $82 million announced to fund 23 projects.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USDA, in collaboration with states and Tribal Nations, are working together on the Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap initiative. This partnership leverages technical assistance resources to help historically underserved communities identify and pursue federal funding opportunities to address their rural wastewater needs. To date, EPA has announced that 38 more communities across 22 states have joined the initiative.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is also cleaning up pollution in rural areas by investing $4.7 billion to plug, remediate, and restore dangerous orphaned oil and gas wells across the country; nearly $11.3 billion to create good-paying jobs, including union jobs, and catalyze economic opportunity by reclaiming abandoned mine lands; and $3.5 billion to 95 previously unfunded Superfund site projects, including the longstanding backlog of projects, to clean up contaminated sites and advance environmental justice.

In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration is leading a whole-of-government effort to make Western communities more resilient to climate change and the ongoing megadrought by harnessing the full resources of the President’s Investing in America agenda. The Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law together include $15.4 billion to enhance the West’s resilience to drought through water-saving projects and other conservation efforts. In March 2024, the Administration took historic action to protect the stability of the Colorado River Basin including through investments from the Inflation Reduction Act’s $4 billion Colorado River drought mitigation funds, conserving at least 3 million-acre-feet of water by 2026.

Lowering Energy Costs and Strengthening the Grid

Supported by Inflation Reduction Act, the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program is the largest investment in rural America’s electric system since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936. It invests $9.7 billion to help member-owned rural electric cooperatives provide their communities with clean, reliable, and affordable energy. USDA has announced over $8.3 billion in New ERA funding across 24 states so far, with the rural electric cooperatives building or purchasing nearly 12 gigawatts of clean energy. The Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program will fund new clean energy and energy storage projects to make it more affordable for rural Americans to use clean, reliable energy. In 2024, USDA awarded the 34 projects totaling $917 million. Since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA has invested more than $2.7 billion through the Rural Energy for America (REAP) program in 9,901 renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements helping farms and small businesses lower their energy costs, generate new income, and strengthen the resilience of their operations. Almost 7,000 of these projects were funded by over $1 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests billions of dollars to improve resilience, reliability, safety, and availability of energy in rural America. So far, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced over $457 million for 93 projects to accelerate clean energy deployment in rural and remote areas across the country through the Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas (ERA) Program. DOE announced up to $475 million in March 2024 for 5 projects to accelerate clean energy deployment on current and former mine land. The selected projects cover a range of clean energy technologies, from solar, microgrids, and pumped storage hydropower to geothermal and battery energy storage systems.

DOE announced nearly $7.6 billion through the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program to strengthen grid reliability and resilience across all 50 states, including several major rural grid resilience projects. This funding is spurring private investment, bringing public-private investment to over $22 billion to deliver affordable, clean electricity to all Americans and ensure that communities across the nation have a reliable grid that is prepared for extreme weather worsened by the climate crisis. In addition, EPA awarded $27 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) to create a national financing network for clean energy and climate solutions across the country, including rural communities. Together, the GGRF’s $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund, $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, and $7 billion Solar for All program dedicate approximately two-thirds of the funding to low-income and disadvantaged communities, advancing the President’s Justice40 Initiative.

This year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Tribal Electrification Program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act provided $143 million in financial and technical assistance to 34 Tribes to connect homes to transmission and distribution that is powered by clean energy, provide electricity to unelectrified Tribal homes through zero-emissions energy systems, transition electrified Tribal homes to zero-emissions energy systems, and support associated home repairs and retrofitting. The program will also support clean energy workforce development opportunities in Indian Country.

And, by expanding the availability of homegrown biofuels, the Biden-Harris Administration is strengthening our energy independence while bringing good-paying jobs and other economic benefits to rural communities. For example, up to $500 million from the Inflation Reduction Act is being made available through the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program to increase the availability of domestic biofuels and give Americans additional, cleaner fuel options at the pump. Through this program, USDA has provided $251 million in grants so far.

Many of the programs aimed at delivering clean, reliable water to rural America, lowering energy costs, and strengthening the grid are covered under the President’s Justice40 Initiative, which sets the goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution as part of the most ambitious climate, conservation, and environmental justice agenda in history.

Improving Access to Health Care and Lowering Health Care Costs for Rural Communities

The Biden-Harris Administration is lowering health care costs for rural Americans and supporting access to high quality care in rural America.  Rural seniors are seeing lower drug costs thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. About 281,000 rural Part D Medicare enrollees would have benefitted from the $35 insulin cap if it had been in effect in 2020, and about 481,000 rural enrollees would have benefitted from $0 recommended adult vaccines if it had been in effect in 2021. About 289,000 rural enrollees are projected to save $1,000 or more when the $2,000 out-of-pocket cap goes into effect in 2025. Nearly 3 million rural Americans signed up for 2024 coverage at the Affordable Care Act’s HealthCare.gov Marketplace. Eighty percent of consumers could find health plans for $10 or less a month, with many qualifying for plans with $0 premiums. And thanks to the President’s ARP and IRA, rural HealthCare.gov enrollees are saving an $890 per year on their health insurance premiums, about 28% more than their urban counterparts. In addition, four states have expanded Medicaid since President Biden took office, providing coverage to over one million Americans while reducing the risk of rural hospital closure by half. 

The Biden-Harris Administration has launched the new Rural Emergency Hospital designation to provide a new option to some struggling hospitals, and it is investing in training the next generation of health care providers to serve rural communities. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has also extended several grant opportunities to support rural communities, including $28 million to provide direct health services and expand infrastructure and $16 million to provide technical assistance to rural hospitals facing financial distress. Recognizing the critical role nurses play in providing primary care, mental health and maternal health care services, particularly in rural areas, HHS announced more than $100 million in awards to address the increasing demand for registered nurses, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and nurse faculty. Through the Rural Residency Planning and Development Program, HHS has invested over $28 million in awards across 25 states to create new rural residency programs to train more physicians in rural communities, which increases the likelihood of practicing in a rural community. And through a $47 million investment, HHS funded 32 Rural Public Health Workforce Training Networks across 22 states, bolstering health care capacity in rural areas and training more than 2,000 health professionals, including community health workers, EMTs, health IT specialists, certified nurse assistants, and dental assistants, among others.

In addition, CMS has updated policies to support access to important services for Medicare beneficiaries at rural health clinics, including for integration behavioral health care, providing opioid use disorder treatment and chronic pain management services, allowing greater flexibility with telehealth services for mental health, supporting rural providers participating in value-based care models, and enabling enhanced care management services. Further, CMS is announcing this December a new request for applications for the ongoing Rural Community Hospital Demonstration. The goal of the program is to test the feasibility and advisability of cost-based reimbursement for small rural hospitals that are too large to be Critical Access Hospitals. This program was first created by Congress in 2004 but has not opened applications up since 2017.

HHS’ Rural Communities Opioid Response Program is a multi-year initiative that has invested $298 million in 386 awards to reduce the morbidity and mortality of substance use disorder (SUD), including opioid use disorder, in rural communities at the highest risk for SUD. Through the Rural Emergency Medical Services Training Program, HHS has invested $20.5 million since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration to support the recruitment and training of EMS personnel in rural areas with a focus on addressing SUD and co-occurring substance use and mental disorders. 
Supporting Veterans in Rural Communities

One quarter of all veterans in the U.S. (4.4 million) reside in rural communities. Around 48 percent of all rural veterans (2.7 million) are enrolled in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system, which is higher than the 41 percent enrollment rate of urban veterans. The Biden-Harris Administration has implemented several initiatives to support veterans living in rural communities, ensuring they have access to affordable, low-cost, high-quality healthcare. The landmark Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act enacted the most significant expansion of benefits and services for toxic exposed veterans in more than 30 years. Since the enactment of the PACT Act in August 2022, VA has completed over 1.8 million PACT Act-related claims with an approval rate of 74.5% and enrolled nearly 740,000 veterans in VA healthcare. VA has been able to expand the types of conditions that are considered service connected making it easier for toxic exposed veterans to get the disability benefits they deserve —a critical step to ensuring all veterans get access to the care they need. PACT Act also expanded who is eligible to enroll in VA health care and required new toxic exposure screenings for all veterans enrolled; to date, VA has completed more than 5.9 million free toxic exposure screenings. VA is delivering these benefits to veterans at the fastest rate in the nation’s history. The Act includes the largest VA outreach campaign in history, ensuring that the rural veterans and their survivors are aware of and can access the benefits can healthcare they are entitled to.

Provider shortage continues to challenge accessibility and affordability of health care, especially in rural communities across the United States. VA Office of Rural Health has continued to support and further developed different initiatives and programs to help reserve this trend. For example, VA continues to fund the Rural Interprofessional Faculty Development Initiative (RIFDI) which adds physician residents in rural VA facilities through the 18-month faculty development program and has demonstrated benefits to both the clinician partaking in the program and the receiving rural VA hospital. VA also expanded its Connected Care program, enabling more telehealth delivery for rural veterans than ever before. In 2023, VA launched the Pilot Program on Graduate Medical Education and Residency (PPGMER) to support more graduate medical education positions to serve in rural and other underserved areas.

Creating New and Better Agricultural Markets to Increase Competition

As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Action Plan for a Fairer, More Competitive, and More Resilient Meat and Poultry Supply Chain, USDA has invested over $1.4 billion to support new or expanded small-sized and medium sized processing facilities and to create a more resilient, diverse and secure U.S. food supply chain. These investments are giving farmers more market options and fairer prices by spurring competition. These investments are also providing consumers with more choices and affordable prices at the grocery store.

Through the Fertilizer Production Expansion Program, USDA has invested $320 million in 67 fertilizer production facilities to expand access to domestic fertilizer options for American farmers in 32 states and Puerto Rico. These investments will increase U.S. fertilizer production by 9.1 million tons annually and create more than 800 jobs in rural communities.  

The USDA spearheaded several new rules to improve fairness and competition. This included final rules to promote transparency in poultry farming contracts, to prohibit discrimination and ban retaliation against farmers and ranchers in meat markets, and strengthen the product of USA standards. It also proposed a new rule to protect poultry growers from unfair deductions and variations in pay.

The Administration committed to better enforce the laws on the books. USDA stood up an enforcement partnership with 32 state attorneys general. USDA and Department of Justice (DOJ) strengthened their collaboration, and created an anonymous reporting tool for unfair and anticompetitive practices at farmerfairness.gov in early 2022. Since then, DOJ brought suit against Agristats for using algorithms to fix prices and outputs in meat markets; secured a consent decree with major poultry processors Cargill, Sanderson, and Wayne Farms to limit unfair variations in pay for poultry farmers; and blocked a merger of Dole and Fresh Express which would have consolidated vegetable markets. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) successfully challenged the largest grocery merger in US history and brought a case to prevent price discrimination by big brands against independent retailers. The DOJ and FTC also worked to preserve and promote the right of farmers to repair their own tractors, including parts and batteries.

Investing in Climate-Smart Agriculture

Through the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative, USDA is investing $3.03 billion in 135 projects that seek to build and expand market opportunities for American commodities produced using climate-smart practices. The Inflation Reduction Act provided a record $19.5 billion for USDA conservation programs to support hundreds of thousands of farmers and ranchers apply practices such as cover cropping, conservation tillage, wetland restoration, prescribed grazing, nutrient management, tree planting, and more to millions of acres of land. This has direct climate mitigation benefits and advances a host of other environmental co-benefits, in addition to offering farmers, ranchers and foresters new revenue streams. The climate-smart agriculture investments that USDA has made and continues to make are estimated to support over 180,000 farms and over 225 million acres in the next 5 years.

Strengthening Local and Regional Food Systems

The Biden-Harris Administration is investing in local and regional food systems, which adds value for both agricultural producers and consumers, and spurs economic activity locally — helping communities that have been left behind by the current agricultural models and supporting good-paying jobs throughout the supply chain. USDA created twelve Regional Food Business Centers across the country that are providing coordination, technical assistance and capacity building to help farmers, ranchers and food businesses reach local customers and navigate federal state and local resources. USDA is also investing $300 million through the Organic Transition Initiative to support farmers in transitioning to organic and build and strengthen organic markets so more farmers can participate.

To support Tribal Nations’ food and agriculture supply chain resiliency, USDA invested $48.1 million in meat and poultry processing infrastructure for indigenous animals such as bison, reindeer or salmon. In October 2023, USDA also launched a new, interagency pilot to purchase bison meat from Tribal and local bison operations for Tribal communities through the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR).

In June, USDA made more than 140 awards to agricultural employers, totaling $50 million, through its new Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Program. The program, which is supported by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, aims to stabilize the nation’s food supply and improve working conditions for farmworkers.

Improving Nutrition and Food Access for Rural Communities

President Biden set a bold goal of ending hunger and reducing diet-related diseases in the U.S. by 2030—all while reducing disparities. Through the Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative, USDA has awarded nearly $30 million in grants to small and rural communities to improve the nutritional quality of school meals and help modernize their operations. Each small and/or rural school district will receive up to $150,000 to support them in improving the nutritional quality of their meals and modernizing their operations through innovative staff training programs, kitchen updates and renovations, redesigning food preparation and service spaces, or other school-district led efforts to support school meals and school nutrition professionals.

This year, USDA’s summer nutrition programs reached more kids than ever before. In addition to in-person summer meal sites, summer meal operators in rural communities had the option to provide children with meals via grab-and-go or delivery through the Non-Congregate Summer Meal Service. And, through SUN Bucks (also referred to as Summer EBT), children in low-income families in participating states, territories, and Tribes received $120 per eligible child for the summer in the form of pre-loaded cards that families can use to purchase groceries.

USDA has also expanded online purchasing with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to be available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This expansion provides greater convenience and access to healthy food options for tens of millions of Americans, including in remote and rural areas.

Cutting Housing Costs, Boosting Supply, and Expanding Access to Affordable Housing in Rural America

The Biden-Harris Administration has taken aggressive action to boost housing supply and lower housing costs. Housing units under construction hit a 50-year high during this Administration, and housing starts are up 16% compared to the previous Administration. When aligned with other policies to reduce housing costs and expand affordability, such as rental assistance and down payment assistance, closing the supply gap will mean more affordable rents and more attainable homeownership for Americans in every community, including rural communities.

The Biden-Harris Administration oversaw large housing investments in rural America. State and local governments allocated nearly $20 billion in American Rescue Plan State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, making it the largest one-time housing block grant in U.S. history. These dollars were often combined with programs like USDA’s Single-Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program and Off-Farm Labor Housing program to make these dollars go further and help more households. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA helped 33,436 families by building or renovating 1,065 multifamily housing apartment complexes in rural areas through nearly $1.4 billion in direct loans, guaranteed loans, and grants. Additionally, USDA provided $5.996 billion in rental assistance to help 388,588 very-low- and low-income rural families pay their rent. Since 2021, USDA has invested $7.6 billion to offer rental housing opportunities to rural families, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and farm workers and their families. In single-family housing programs, USDA invested over $48 billion to help more than 278,000 families with modest incomes buy, refinance, or repair their homes through our direct and guaranteed single-family housing loan programs, including 98,000 low- and very low-income borrowers.

In addition, HUD issued a first-of-its-kind Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) competition called Pathways to Removing Obstacles (PRO) Housing to enable communities to identify and remove barriers to housing production and preservation. In its first round, PRO awarded $85 million, including to rural areas that used funding to address matters such as zoning, predevelopment costs, and permitting.

The Biden-Harris Administration also took actions to encourage the construction and preservation of manufactured housing, a critical source of affordable housing, especially for low-income, rural, and Native American households and offers a potentially lower-cost pathway to homeownership. Earlier this year, HUD made available Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement (PRICE) grants, competitive funding that can be used for the replacement of dilapidated homes, assistance for homeowners such as repairs and accessibility modifications, mitigation and resilience upgrades, improvement of infrastructure such as stormwater systems or utilities, housing services including eviction prevention, and planning activities. It marked the first time the federal government has made grant funding available specifically for investments in manufactured housing communities, including resident-owned communities. In addition, USDA made more than $18 million in grants and loans under the Off-Farm Labor Housing program to support home improvements for farmworkers and their families.

While boosting supply is critical to bring prices down over the long-term, the lack of affordable housing is one of the main drivers of homelessness in most jurisdictions. In 2023, HUD announced the award of $486 million in grants and $43 million for stability vouchers to address unsheltered and rural homelessness. These awards allow grantees to fund rural homelessness assistance programs in local communities such as rent or utility assistance, emergency lodging, housing repairs, food and clothing assistance, and costs associated with converting federal properties to house homeless individuals and families. 

Strengthening Access to Higher Education, Career Pathways, and Rural Workforce Development

The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to expanding rural students’ access to career pathways and higher education opportunities that lead to good-paying jobs right in their own communities. In December 2023, the Department of Education announced $44.5 million in grants to 22 institutions of higher education to improve rates of postsecondary education enrollment, persistence, and completion among students in rural communities through the Rural Postsecondary & Economic Development Grant Program.

The Department of Education also awarded $31 million through the Career Connected High Schools grant program to help secondary education, postsecondary education, and workforce development systems expand access to career-connected high school programs for more students while unlocking career success. Of the 19 awards, 11 went to rural-focused programs.

In September 2024, the Institute for Education Sciences announced the National Education Research and Development Center for Improving Rural Postsecondary Education. This Center, hosted by MDRC, will receive $10 million over five years to focus on improving access to postsecondary education and completion of postsecondary degrees and credentials for students from rural K12 districts and locales.

In September 2024, the Department of Labor (DOL) awarded $49 million to support 35 projects through the Workforce Opportunities for Rural Communities (WORC) Initiative. WORC, which is a partnership between DOL, the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Delta Regional Authority, and the Northern Border Regional Commission, provides grant funds to enable rural communities to develop local and regional workforce development solutions aligned with existing economic development strategies and community partnerships to promote new, sustainable job opportunities and long-term economic vitality. New for this round, the funding opportunity specifically encouraged applicants who are part of the Rural Partners Network.
 

Supporting Schools in Rural Communities

The Biden-Harris Administration has continued to demonstrate its commitment to rural K12 districts by increasing investments in the Rural Education Achievement Program, the Department of Education’s only formula grant program specifically designated for rural K12 districts. Since Fiscal Year (FY) 2020, the program has seen an increase of nearly $35 million, culminating in $220 million allocated to rural small and/or low-income schools in FY 24.

During the Biden-Harris Administration, the Department of Education has expanded Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) five-fold, from $25 million in 2020 to $150 million in 2023. In FY 2022 and 2023, 20 awards totaling $67,668,574 per award year went to projects specifically serving rural areas. Community schools collaborate with local non-profits, health providers, private partners, and other agencies to coordinate and deliver services like health care, mental health and nutrition services, afterschool and summer programming, and high-quality early learning programs.

In November of 2023, the Department of Education awarded $182 million in new grant awards under the Education, Innovation, and Research Program (EIR), with $46 million supporting grants in rural areas. These grants support local efforts to develop, implement, and take to scale entrepreneurial and evidence-based projects that have the potential to improve academic achievement for underserved students. EIR has seen an increase of $94 million in new awards between FY 2021 and FY 2023, demonstrating the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to promoting equity in student access to high-quality educational opportunities for rural learners.

Lowering Child Care Costs and Supporting Child Care Providers in Rural America
 
President Biden secured the largest one-time investment this country has ever made in child care through his American Rescue Plan. Those funds helped 225,000 child care providers stay open so that the parents of more than 10 million children could go to work with peace of mind. A third of providers reported they would have closed permanently without these relief funds. More than 8-in-10 licensed child care centers nationwide received ARP assistance and it benefited 30,000 rural child care programs – in most states, 97% of rural counties or more received aid.
 
President Biden has also worked to build the supply of child care in underserved areas, including rural areas. HHS issued a landmark final rule to improve the Child Care & Development Block Grant program, which helps the families of more than 1.3 million children afford child care. As a result of this rule, HHS has required for the first time that all states provide resources to build the supply of care in underserved geographic areas. This fall, the Biden-Harris Administration hosted a first-of-its-kind rural childcare convening, bringing together childcare providers and advocates to discuss opportunities to expand access to early care in rural and Tribal communities.

Partnering with Rural Communities to Create Jobs and Support Rural-led Economic Development

Launched in April 2022, the Rural Partners Network (RPN) is an all-of-government program that partners with rural people to access resources and funding to create local jobs, build infrastructure, and support long-term economic stability on their own terms. RPN staff on the ground are now supporting 36 community networks in 10 states and Puerto Rico. Since its inception, the federal government has invested nearly $8.5 billion in RPN communities to support critical infrastructure, economic development, housing, and other priorities.

In February 2021, President Biden established the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization (Energy Communities IWG) to identify and deliver resources to the coal, oil and gas, and power plant communities that have powered our country for generations. Since then, member agencies have helped drive over $20 billion in federal investment to these communities. The Energy Communities IWG has launched Rapid Response Teams across the country to establish a network of assistance that is focused and sustainable in a community or region.

In addition, the Department of Transportation’s Thriving Communities Program is providing planning, technical assistance, and capacity building support to underserved and under-resourced communities, including rural communities.

With funding from the American Rescue Plan, the Department of Commerce launched several place-based programs to connect people to good paying jobs and help underserved communities leverage regional assets, including rural communities. The Build Back Better Regional Challenge awarded 21 regional coalitions a total of $1 billion to transform their regional economies through growing a local industry sector. These awardees span 236 rural counties. The Good Jobs Challenge awarded $500 million to 32 regional workforce training systems across the country. At least 19 of these 32 awardees serve rural areas. The Department of Commerce also awarded $100 million from the Indigenous Communities Program, all of which primarily serve rural communities, and $500 million from the Economic Adjustment Assistance Program, two-thirds of which primarily serve rural communities, to support economic development needs such as enabling infrastructure and workforce development.  

Additionally, authorized by President Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, the Department of Commerce’s Regional Innovation and Technology Hubs program has designated 31 communities across the country as “Tech Hubs” that will bring together private industry, state and local government, higher education, labor unions, nonprofit institutions, and other critical stakeholders to develop and grow innovative industries that stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and strengthen national security. Nearly three-quarters of Tech Hubs designees encompass small and rural areas.

Also authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act, the Department of Commerce’s $200 million Distressed Area Recompete Pilot Program (“Recompete”) aims to address persistent economic distress in communities across the country through a series of highly targeted, transformational investments. Seven of the 22 program finalists focus exclusively on rural communities, and their proposed investments include workforce skill training, addressing childcare deserts in rural America, supporting small businesses, and building local capacity.

###

The post FACT SHEET: President Biden and Vice President Harris Are Delivering for Rural Communities appeared first on The White House.

Upon taking office in 2021, President Biden and his Administration immediately got to work addressing the shocks that were roiling global supply chains and moved swiftly to secure key industries for America’s economy and national security. Everything in our lives—the food we eat, the medicines in our hospitals, the energy that powers our homes, the computer chips in our devices—relies on supply chains, and the disruptions sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine showed what happens when they are neglected for decades.

Four years later, America’s supply chains are stronger and more resilient. Working hand in hand with industry and all stakeholders, this Administration has cleared bottlenecks, increased investments in critical sectors, and shored up the transportation sector that move the goods that Americans rely on. Ocean shipping prices have fallen more than 70 percent from their peak, and today fewer than 20 containerships are waiting to dock at U.S. ports, compared to over 150 backed up during the peak of congestion. That progress has made supply chains more reliable for businesses and lowered inflation for the goods that families buy every day.

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is releasing the first-ever Quadrennial Supply Chain Review, a formal assessment of four years of strengthening America’s critical supply chains, and announcing additional actions to support American businesses and consumers.

Progress to Date

The Quadrennial Supply Chain Review assesses the progress made over the past four years to bolster the resilience of our most critical supply chains. This strategic approach has included:

• Responding to disruption. The Administration quickly set to work to develop new government tools and capacity to respond to disruptions, both active ones when it took office, and new ones that have occurred since. The President’s Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force (SCDTF) has effectively coordinated federal authorities and resources and also established a process to work with state and local authorities and the private sector in real time. This work has helped improved the flow of goods into and around the United States during disruptions—getting products critical to American families moving again through ports and to shelves.

• Investing in infrastructure and manufacturing and lowering costs. Over the past four years, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken a made historic investments to strengthen our industrial bases and lower costs. U.S. Government investment has helped catalyze over $1 trillion in private-sector announced investments since January 2021. These investments are supporting the construction of new factories and creating manufacturing jobs across the country.
• Responding to non-market policies and practices. On a level playing field, American businesses and workers can compete and win. However, our strategic competitors are continuing to engage in non-market policies and practices (NMPP) that undercut our collective resilience—directing their systems to target key industries for dominance by using excessive state subsidies and other forms of state support to dominate critical industries. As part of the Quadrennial Supply Chain Review process, the Biden-Harris Administration has developed a strategy to address NMPP, recognizing the need for early, comprehensive action to prevent harm to U.S. workers and industry, as well as modernized trade authorities that account for NMPP’s continued effects on global supply chains. This work has included raising tariffs on a select number of key sectors to safeguard U.S. supply chains in the face of unfair competition. These tariff modifications will protect historic domestic investments under BIL, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, while also shielding American businesses and workers from unfair trade practices.

The Review builds on comprehensive efforts undertaken by the Administration over the last four years, including President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains (E.O. 14017), which directed rapid supply chain assessments for four critical products in the first 100 days of the Administration, a one-year review of six key supply chains in 2022, and the establishment of the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience to support the enduring resilience of America’s critical supply chains in 2023.

Additional Actions to Strengthen Supply Chains

Continuing to strengthen supply chains over the next four years—and beyond—will require the United States to deliver on historic domestic investments, maintain and strengthen international partnerships, harness innovation to tackle 21st-century challenges, and mobilize and facilitate ongoing private investment and public-private partnerships. The work of the last four years has laid a strong foundation for the United States to continue safeguarding the enduring resilience of our supply chains for years to come, including for emerging industries of the future.

Below are additional steps the Biden-Harris Administration is taking to strengthen supply chains, including for energy, critical minerals, agricultural commodities and food products, medical products, information and communications technology, transportation, and defense.

Energy

• Announcing up to $6 billion in incentives to strengthen U.S. energy supply chains. Over the coming weeks, the IRS, supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC), is set to announce up to $6 billion in additional tax credits to strengthen U.S. energy supply chains through the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit (48C) Program. This builds on the first round of $4 billion in announced tax credits for over 100 projects in 35 states to accelerate domestic clean energy manufacturing and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at industrial facilities. This also builds on over $12 billion of investment from the DOE MESC Office in domestic manufacturing capacity to strengthen the U.S. energy supply chains.
• Improving risk mitigation across the energy supply chain. To improve visibility across multiple technologies in the energy industrial base, DOE and a consortium of the National Laboratories have developed a new analytic framework—the Supply Chain Readiness Level—to quantify risks, gaps, and vulnerabilities, and to identify investment opportunities across the energy sector.

Critical Minerals

• Mapping America’s critical minerals deposits. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is announcing new airborne geophysical mapping in the Ozarks Plateau (Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas) and Alaska over areas known to host minerals such as antimony, tin, tungsten, and lead and zinc ores, as well as byproduct critical minerals such as gallium and germanium. USGS’s mapping work, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), is revolutionizing the U.S. Government’s understanding of the nation’s mineral and geologic resources. USGS and NASA are partnering to complete the largest high-quality hyperspectral survey in the world, surveying more than 180,000 square miles of the Southwest with sensors that make it possible to “see” nuanced differences between materials.
• Updating the U.S.’s critical minerals market data. Next month, USGS will publish its 2025 Mineral Commodity Summaries.These annual reports help forecast supply chain disruptions resulting from a variety of risks including pandemics, natural disasters, and trade wars, and are the U.S.’s authoritative source of data on the supply, demand, and consumption of 100 mineral commodities. Additionally, last month, researchers at the USGS National Minerals Information Center developed a new model to assess how disruptions of critical mineral supplies may affect the U.S. economy. This model reflects the latest whole-of-government risk and resilience methodology.

Food and Agriculture

• Making $116 million in new investments to expand domestic fertilizer production. Today, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is announcing eight new awards through its Fertilizer Production Expansion Program, part of a broader effort to increase American-made fertilizer production to spur competition and combat price hikes on U.S. farmers. Since President Biden announced the program in 2022, USDA has invested $517 million in 76 fertilizer production facilities to expand access to domestic fertilizer options for American farmers in 34 states and Puerto Rico. These investments will increase U.S. fertilizer production by 11.8 million tons annually and create more than 1,300 jobs in rural communities.This funding builds on the more than $1.4 billion USDA has invested to build or expand small and medium sized processing facilities and to create a more resilient U.S. food supply chain which gives farmers more market options while providing consumers with more choices and affordable grocery prices.

Medical Products

• Investing an additional $26 million in domestic sterilization capacity. Building on recent investments in industrial base capability and capacity expansion through DPA Title III authorities and Public-Private Partnerships, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expects additional investments of $26 millionin alternative sterilization capacity before the end of 2024.

• Releasing an action plan for the next four years. HHS will publish its Draft 2025-2028 Action Plan for Addressing Shortages of Medical Products and Strengthening the Resilience of Medical Product Supply Chains, outlining supply chain resilience goals and a strategic plan to achieve them. The HHS Action Plan will also include an HHS Research Plan to collate HHS and academic research priorities that would promote Action Plan goals.
• Issuing stronger supply chain standards for hospitals to combat drug shortages. In notice and comment rulemaking, CMS intends to propose new Conditions of Participation requiring hospitals to have certain processes to address and prevent medication shortages.

Semiconductors and Other Technologies

• Investing in domestic production. CHIPS for America has awarded over $26 billion in incentives to advance domestic production in semiconductors and the supply chain. Now, America is home to all five of the world’s leading-edge logic and memory providers, while no other economy has more than two. Since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, semiconductor and electronics companies have announced nearly $450 billion in private investments, catalyzed in large part by public investment.
• Reducing national security risks in federal supply chains. The Department of Defense, General Services Administration (GSA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are finalizing a rule implementing Section 5949 of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, which prohibits agencies from procuring or obtaining certain products and services that include semiconductors from entities of concern.
• Promoting the U.S. government’s use of domestically manufactured semiconductors. The Made in America Office and Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) has released a Request for Information (RFI) to gauge the best ways for government contractors to scale up their use of domestically manufactured chips, particularly for critical infrastructure. Responses solicit commercial ideas from industry that may inform future policymaking in support of the government-wide effort to leverage existing manufacturing capacity.
• Incentivizing supply chain diversity, competition, and transparency. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is issuing guidance to help the Federal Government—the world’s largest buyer—organize its demand for domestic semiconductors so that agencies can mitigate the risk posed by undue dependence on foreign manufacturing, limited competition, and possible higher manufacturing costs. The effort encourages agencies to develop strategies to dual or multiple source semiconductors, increase transparency for critical infrastructure supply chains, and provide the government’s forecasted demand for the products and services that use these chips.
• Protecting American businesses from unfair trade practices. In May, the President announced increased Section 301 tariffs on semiconductor imports from China, which were finalized by the USTR in September, as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to further protect American semiconductor manufacturing and the sustainability of domestic investments.

Transportation

• Helping states improve their supply chain operations. The Department of Transportation (DOT) continues to advance this work by working closely with other levels of government and industry stakeholders. DOT’s Freight Office is establishing the National Multimodal Freight Network to assist States in strategically directing resources toward improved system performance for the efficient movement of freight on the Network, to inform freight transportation planning, and to assist in the prioritization of Federal investment.
• Expanding visibility into ocean freight supply chains. Today, DOT is announcing that it has added more members to the Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW) program, a public-private partnership to build an integrated view of U.S. supply chain conditions, and which supported the response to the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. Today, FLOW now includes eight of the largest ten container ports representing over 80% of all U.S. imports; nine of the largest ten ocean carriers representing over 70% of all U.S. imports; and six of the largest ten importers.
• Building the transportation of tomorrow. USTDA, DFC, and EXIM are all making investments to improve transportation across air, land, and sea. EXIM’s investments will expand U.S. exports of all electric-powered aircraft, while USTDA is improving the efficiency and safety of freight rail and digital customs processes. In areas around the world with high vessel traffic, DFC is also developing new ports to move goods in critical supply chains from place to place. Since its creation, DFC investments in critical infrastructure have transported over 64 million passengers alone.

Defense

• Releasing a National Defense Industrial Strategy and Implementation Plan. This fall, the Department of Defense (DoD) released the Implementation Plan to accompany its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS). The NDIS is guiding investments to strengthen supply chain resilience, including by purchasing key elements that we need for sustainable defense production. For example, the United States has invested $215 million to boost production of solid rocket motors, which are one of the most critical components used in our advanced missile systems.
• Establishing domestic manufacturing capability for strategic and critical materials. From mid-2023 through September 2024, DoD invested $250 million in defense-critical materials such as graphite, lithium, niobium oxide, and manganese. These investments will ensure secure access to sources and to domestic separation and processing in support of a range of defense applications, from large-capacity batteries to advanced aircraft to microelectronics.
• Investing in the defense industrial base workforce. The defense supply chain depends in large part on a strong and vibrant workforce. The Administration has pursued numerous initiatives to ensure Americans can access jobs in the defense industrial sector that pay competitive wages and get the training they need to turn these jobs into meaningful careers. Earlier this year, the Navy partnered with the Departments of Education and Labor and with the State of Michigan to launch the Michigan Maritime Manufacturing Initiative, which expands regional training pipelines for the submarine industry into the Great Lakes region.

Strengthening U.S. Government Data, Analytics, and Response Capacity

• Preparing for a second Supply Chain Summit. In September 2024, the Department of Commerce held its first Supply Chain Summit. Commerce convened officials from government, industry, academia, and civil society to discuss how to effectively prepare for and respond to supply chain disruptions, as well as proactively improve supply chain resilience. Commerce will host another Supply Chain Summit in 2025. The Summit will bring together government, industry, and other stakeholders to examine continual progress made in increasing American supply chain resiliency. The date of the Summit will be announced in the months ahead.
• Upgrading the new SCALE diagnostic tool. The Department of Commerce’s Industry and Analysis unit developed a first-of-its-kind supply chain diagnostic tool to assess supply chain risk across the whole of the U.S. economy. The tool proactively helps identify risks and strengthen the resilience of supply chains key to U.S. national and economic security. The Department of Commerce plans to launch a competition aimed at developing new data or analysis that can be used to expand the indicators of risk incorporated into the SCALE tool.
• Conducting supply chain tabletop exercises with industry. In 2025, Commerce will conduct two tabletop exercises with industry to better understand opportunities to address structural supply chain risks faced by the United States. One exercise will focus on supply chain risks in the chemicals industry; the second will focus on an emerging technology where it is critical the United States maintain a strategic advantage.
• Addressing supply chain risks for “critical chemicals.” Working with the interagency, Commerce is developing a list of chemicals that are essential to critical supply chains, and where supply is insecure. Alongside this effort, Commerce is finalizing short-, medium- and long-term policy proposals to strengthen the supply chain. Elements of this work will form the basis of the Chemical Tabletop Exercise in 2025.

Emerging Technologies

• Convening industry on AI data centers. Commerce continues to drive efforts to get ahead of supply chain risks in critical and emerging technologies by developing playbooks and conducting deep dive assessments into emerging technologies such as quantum computing and clean hydrogen. In the second half of 2024, Commerce carried out a sprint to assess under-the-radar risks in AI data center supply chains, engaging more than 35 companies and leveraging in-house industry expertise and the SCALE tool to assess the highest-risk components and identify steps that government and industry can take to address them. In December, Commerce convened companies to share the results of its analysis and identify next steps.

Building Resilience with Allies and Partners

• Presidential Summit on Global Supply Chain Resilience. In October 2021, President Biden convened over a dozen world leaders to improve international collaboration on supply chain resilience. Following the President’s convening, the Secretaries of State and Commerce hosted a Supply Chain Ministerial to further advance this work. The original Joint Statement from the ministerial now has 31 signatories who have agreed to make global supply chains more transparent, diverse, secure, and sustainable.
• Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) Supply Chain Agreement. The IPEF Supply Chain Agreement entered into force in February 2024 and will improve the preparedness, resilience, and competitiveness of regional supply chains. The United States and 13 Indo-Pacific partners have established a Supply Chain Council. In 2025, the Council will develop and implement action plans to strengthen supply chains across several critical industries. A Crisis Response Network will serve as a warning system for potential supply chain disruptions, and a Labor Rights Advisory Board will convene IPEF government officials, employers, and labor officials to improve labor rights and workforce development across regional supply chains.
• Eradicating forced labor from supply chains. As part of the Partnership for Workers’ Rights launched in 2023, the U.S. and Brazil worked with businesses and unions to address worker vulnerability to forced labor in supply chains for cattle, coffee, gold, charcoal, and other goods.
• Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI). PGI is a bipartisan initiative in partnership with the G7 to provide strategic, values-driven, and high-standard infrastructure and investment in low- and middle-income countries. Through initiatives like the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor, highlighted on the President’s recent visit to Angola, the United States is working with partners to strengthen and diversify supply chains.
• G7 Surge Financing Initiative. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), G7 development finance institutions (DFIs), European Investment Bank (EIB), International Finance Corporation (IFC), and MedAccess announced the Surge Financing Initiative for Medical Countermeasures (MCMs). Together, partners are working closely with global and regional health organizations to establish frameworks and innovative financing mechanisms to support more rapid and equitable pandemic response.
• Boosting critical mineral capacity with partners. DFC invested over $220m in rare earth, graphite, and nickel projects in the last four years, reducing dependence on strategic adversaries and improving resilience in the critical mineral supply chain. The Department of Labor, USAID, United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), and the State Department through the Minerals Security Partnership have also provided technical support to bring new capacity online to process critical minerals in line with international best practices.
• Strengthening resilient telecommunications. In Costa Rica, EXIM approved a preliminary commitment to support Costa Rica’s use of trusted vendors to deploy its 5G network. With Japan and Australia, DFC is supporting the delivery of high-quality telecommunication services for over 2.5 million subscribers across Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, and Nauru.

###

The post FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Marks Progress Strengthening America’s Supply Chains appeared first on The White House.

The U.S. Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is an economy-wide, all greenhouse gas target of reducing net emissions by 61-66 percent below 2005 levels in 2035

The emissions reduction strategy includes leveraging landmark investments from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, complemented by federal standards; coordinating with local, state, Tribal, and territorial governments; and mobilizing private capital

In 2015, the world came together to finalize the Paris Agreement, an historic agreement joined by nearly every country in the world to address the climate crisis and protect the planet for future generations. On Day One of his Administration, President Biden fulfilled his promise to rejoin the Paris Agreement and set a course for the United States to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad. In 2021, pursuant to the terms of the Paris Agreement, President Biden submitted a nationally determined contribution (NDC) with a target of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 50-52 percent from the 2005 baseline in 2030.

Today, as the United States continues to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy, President Biden is announcing a new climate target for the United States: a 61-66 percent reduction in 2035 from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions. It keeps the United States on a straight line or steeper path to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050. In connection with this announcement, the United States is making a formal submission of this new target to the United Nations Climate Change secretariat as its next NDC under the Paris Agreement.

To develop the U.S. 2035 NDC, the Biden-Harris Administration analyzed how every economic sector – power generation, buildings, transportation, industry, agriculture and forestry– can spur innovation, unleash new opportunities, drive competitiveness, and cut pollution. Additionally, the United States anticipates, as part of achieving its 2035 NDC emissions target, methane reductions of at least 35 percent from 2005 levels in 2035. Cutting methane emissions is among the fastest ways to reduce near-term warming and is an essential complement to CO2 mitigation.

This 2035 NDC aligns with President Biden’s target of a net zero greenhouse gas economy no later than 2050 and marks an ambitious capstone to President Biden’s climate legacy, focused on investment, innovation, creating millions of good-paying and union jobs, building the clean energy economy of the future, reducing costs for all Americans, advancing environmental justice, and improving the health and security of communities across America. There are multiple paths to reach these targets, and U.S. Federal, state, local, territorial, and Tribal governments have numerous tools available to work with civil society and the private sector to mobilize investment in the years ahead while supporting a stronger, fairer economy.

Momentum from President Biden’s Climate and Economic Agenda

Since President Biden announced the 2030 NDC in April 2021 to reduce emissions 50-52% by 2030, the United States has designed and implemented a historic climate strategy that leverages emissions reduction and economic growth in every region of the country. Advanced through thousands of policies and actions undertaken by federal, state, territorial, Tribal, and local governments, the strategy includes passage of the landmarks Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), paired with strategic implementation of a regulatory agenda to ensure emissions reductions across every sector of the economy. This approach has equipped federal, state, territorial, Tribal, and local governments with additional resources and regulatory certainty to partner with the private sector to grow a new clean energy economy that benefits American workers and consumers. Implementation of this broad and comprehensive strategy has already led to more than $450 billion of private sector investment in domestic clean energy and manufacturing projects. This progress will accelerate as the Biden-Harris climate agenda continues to drive a wide range of investments in clean energy deployment and manufacturing in the years ahead. Examples include:

• Arizona has added over 370,000 new jobs, and unleashed more than $120 billion in private sector investment. Investments include $5.5 billion to build a battery facility outside Phoenix that will produce batteries for 350,000 electric vehicles per year.
• California has added over two million new jobs and more than $45 billion in private sector manufacturing and clean energy investment, including a $4 billion Gigafactory to produce lithium-ion batteries in Imperial Valley.
• Georgia has added nearly half a million new jobs and mobilized more than $40 billion in private sector investment. Qcells is investing $2.5 billion to expand its solar panel and component manufacturing capacity in Dalton and Cartersville.
• Maryland has added over 160,000 new jobs, and attracted more than $2.7 billion in private sector investment, including a $350 million investment from Constellation Energy to increase the output and lifespan of its renewable energy portfolio.
• Pennsylvania has added more than 560,000 new jobs and unleashed nearly $4.3 billion in private sector investment, including a $500 million investment by Eos Energy Enterprises to expand battery manufacturing operations in Turtle Creek, supported by a loan guarantee from DOE’s Loan Programs Office.
• Wisconsin has added more than 188,000 new jobs and $5.4 billion in private sector manufacturing and clean energy investments, including $426 million for the state’s first large-scale solar and battery storage project outside Milwaukee.

These investments and many more tell a clear story: the clean energy revolution is being built in America, and that will not be reversed.

Fundamental Economic and Technological Trends

Over the past four years the prices of clean energy generation and infrastructure have fallen dramatically. President Biden’s economic agenda, supported by complementary subnational government actions and private sector innovation, has reshaped the energy landscape now and for future generations so that American consumers and workers will benefit, especially in energy communities that have historically powered our nation. Along with the boom in domestic investments, technological advances across the energy sector are also making the U.S. clean energy revolution irreversible, including:

• Clean Energy Generation. The levelized cost of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind are dropping rapidly. In 2024, estimates for utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind are as low as $29 per megawatt hour and $27 per megawatt hour, respectively. On a levelized-cost basis, utility-scale solar is now broadly on par with fossil fuel sources, even before accounting for the environmental and public health benefits. A recent analysis indicates that 99 percent of all U.S. coal plants are more expensive to continue running than to replace with solar, wind, and energy storage resources. Geothermal power generation capacity is also accelerating, with 203 megawatts commissioned globally in 2023, up 12 percent from 2022. Recent technological advances, particularly in drilling, indicate the industry is on track to an average cost of $60-70/MWh by 2030 and $45/MWh by 2035. New enhanced geothermal capacity is already slated to meet the clean electricity demands of new industries. And the recent completion of the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, the nation’s first new nuclear reactors in over 30 years, as well as planned revitalizations of existing reactors, progress on advanced reactor technologies, and new private sector demand, are all signs of further progress expanding nuclear power capacity ahead.
  
  
• New and Better Transmission. Expanding and enhancing the U.S. transmission system is critical to the nation’s resilience and national security. Significant expansions of new and upgraded transmission lines by public and private sector entities, including SunZia Transmission in New Mexico, will facilitate the transmission of clean energy across the United States. Meanwhile, a new generation of modern grid technologies provides a significant opportunity to achieve power system capacity expansion, including through high-performance conductors that can carry two times (or more) the amount of power of conventional transmission wires, as well as grid enhancing technologies that maximize electricity transmission across the existing system through a family of technologies that includes sensors, power flow control devices, and analytical tools.
  
  
• Battery Storage. Utility-scale battery storage has the potential to provide much-needed flexibility that supports renewable energy sources, and helps address grid infrastructure challenges. Between 2010 and 2023, the cost of utility-scale battery storage projects declined by 89%, to $273 per kilowatt hour, driven by improvements in manufacturing, materials efficiency, and manufacturing processes. Storage capacity additions also increased significantly, with additions of 22 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2023. As the private sector continues to invest in new battery technologies and manufacturing processes, battery storage costs will continue to decline, supporting the clean energy economy of the future.
  
  

• Energy Efficiency. Improvements in energy efficiency can cut pollution and save Americans on their energy and water bills. The Biden-Harris Administration has strengthened energy efficiency standards to save households and businesses money, with standards updated by DOE for dozens of appliances expected to provide nearly $1 trillion in consumer savings over 30 years, saving the average household more than $100 a year while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2 billion metric tons. Efficient equipment such as heat pumps powered by clean electricity are already making heating, cooling, and hot water more affordable for a growing number of American homes. 2022 marked the first year that heat pump sales outpaced fossil fuel furnaces in the US; in 2023, heat pumps outsold gas furnaces by 27 percent, demonstrating the technology’s growing popularity with consumers. When paired with energy efficiency improvements, like insulation, heat pumps lower the cost of heating and cooling, while improving indoor and outdoor air quality.

• Clean Steel and Clean Concrete. Producing steel and concrete, fundamental building blocks of the modern economy, accounts for more than 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Clean steel and concrete are already being produced in the United States. Major steelmakers are now using Inflation Reduction Act investments to build and retrofit American steel facilities to produce cleaner steel. Innovative low carbon methods for concrete production can reduce emissions by eliminating the need for high temperatures or through the use of alternative low carbon feedstocks. These innovative concretes are more durable and stronger than conventional concrete, improving the performance of infrastructure investments and resulting in long term savings. As clean hydrogen and clean electricity prices continue to fall, producers will be able to further slash emissions using these cleaner inputs.
  
  
• Clean Hydrogen. Hydrogen has the potential to reduce emissions across a host of sectors, including transportation and heavy industry. Key cost drivers of green hydrogen production, including the capital expenditure for electrolyzers and the price of renewable energy, are expected to decline in years ahead due to economies of scale, delivering green hydrogen at a lower price point. Combined, these two cost declines could translate to a significant reduction in green hydrogen production costs, from $3-6 per kilogram today to $1.50 – 2 by 2035.

• Clean Cars and Trucks. Electric vehicles (EVs) are already selling at a record pace in the United States, supported by falling component prices as well as fuel and maintenance cost savings for consumers. From 2018 to 2022, the sales-weighted average price of electric cars decreased, and the price gap between internal combustion vehicles and EVs has begun to close. Through 2035, falling EV component prices will drive down the purchase price for EVs and bring new customers to the EV market. For instance, battery prices are set to fall by as much as 50 percent through 2026 thanks to improved technology and expanded production of key inputs. Federal standards support these market developments: the strongest-ever national pollution standards for passenger cars and heavy-duty vehicles are providing certainty for the automobile industry, catalyzing private investment, creating good-paying union jobs, improving public health, and expanding consumer choice in clean vehicles.

• Federal Sustainability. With broad support from America’s manufacturers, clean energy developers, labor organizations, business leaders, states, and communities, the Federal Government’s 300,000 buildings, 600,000 vehicles, and $750 billion in annual procurement power will continue to be more sustainable and resilient while supporting good jobs, cutting costs, and saving taxpayers money.

Action and Leadership from state, local, Tribal, and territorial governments

State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments in the United States have a long history of climate leadership that has laid the groundwork for subsequent federal action, including the Inflation Reduction Act. Many critical climate levers, especially in the transportation, electricity, and building sectors, lie largely within the domain of these governments. In the years ahead, leveraging and expanding the new clean energy economy enabled by the Biden-Harris Administration’s policies and bolstered by strong economic tailwinds supporting clean energy, these governments will ensure that the United States remains all-in on climate action. States, territories, cities, counties, and Tribal governments together have the capacity to step in and deliver on climate ambition. In the years ahead, we expect that subnational and Tribal governments will adopt new and strengthen existing climate-forward policies such as:

• Climate Action Plan Implementation: Through support from the Inflation Reduction Act, more than 45 states and more than 200 Tribes, territories, and metro areas have now developed their own Climate Action Plans, representing a historic set of opportunities for subnational climate progress across sectors. More than $4 billion of Climate Pollution Reduction Grants awarded by the Biden-Harris Administration will also advance 59 implementation projects across 30 states, 33 Tribal Nations, and 1 territory to reduce climate pollution from every sector of the economy. Many of these projects can be expanded and provide examples that other states, local governments, Tribes, and even businesses can replicate in their work to tackle the climate crisis.
  
  
• Innovative Solutions to Cut Pollution from the Existing Transportation Systems. California, Washington, and Oregon have developed and implemented, or started to implement, programs that reduce emissions from the transportation sector through a predictable, market-based approach, generating climate and local-air quality benefits for residents and communities. New York City and State adopted and implemented the country’s first-ever congestion pricing program, which will reduce climate pollution and provide a stable funding source for mass transit. Other states have the opportunity to build on these successful policy initiatives in their own jurisdictions.
  
  
• Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) and Clean Energy Standards (CESs). Today, twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have set RPSs and eight others have adopted CESs, which will increase the generation of low- and zero-carbon electricity. Adoption of these standards by additional states, as well as the strengthening of existing standards, provides significant upside for reducing climate pollution.
  
  
• Building Energy Codes. Many subnational governments have already adopted or are in the process of adopting the most up-to-date energy codes to ensure new building construction is energy efficient and lowering emissions for years to come. Subnational governments are also reducing energy costs and emissions in existing buildings, with almost 25 percent of commercial buildings subject to a building performance standard or located in a community with plans to adopt building performance standards.
  
  
• State Procurement of Low-Carbon Materials. The Biden-Harris Administration’s landmark Federal Buy Clean Initiative leverages the sway of the U.S. government, as the largest purchaser on Earth, to spur demand for clean American manufacturing of materials that form the bedrock of our economy. Thirteen states have joined the Federal-State Buy Clean Partnership and committed to prioritizing efforts that support procurement of lower-carbon infrastructure materials in state-funded projects. These states can continue to work together to send a clear, harmonized demand signal to the marketplace for the long-term decarbonization of essential industries.
  
  
• Financing Climate Solutions. With support from the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), the national network for financing clean energy and climate solutions across sectors is larger than ever before. The National Clean Investment Fund awardees are establishing national clean financing institutions that deliver accessible and affordable financing for clean technology projects nationwide, and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator awardees are establishing hubs that provide funding and technical assistance to community lenders working in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

• State and Regional Efforts to Cap Emissions. 15 states and Puerto Rico have binding economy-wide emissions targets in law, covering more than 115 million Americans across the country. Voters in Washington State recently upheld a groundbreaking law requiring companies to cut carbon emissions while investing in programs that benefit the public, such as habitat restoration and climate adaptation. This recent success builds on initiatives such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a regional program that requires certain power plants to acquire allowances for every ton of CO2 emitted.

In the years to come, leadership will come from all across American society – cities and states, Tribes and territories, small and big businesses, working communities, individual Americans and the private sector working together to seize the economic opportunity, create jobs, and build the clean energy economy. This new clean energy economy, enabled by the forward-looking policies of this Administration, will continue to grow – and the United States will continue to create good jobs and cut carbon pollution right here at home.

###

The post FACT SHEET: President Biden Sets 2035 Climate Target Aimed at Creating Good-Paying Union Jobs, Reducing Costs for All Americans, and Securing U.S. Leadership in the Clean Energy Economy of the Future appeared first on The White House.

On December 17, the Biden-Harris Administration hosted the first-ever White House Sustainable Freight Workshop, bringing together nearly 100 public and private stakeholders from across the freight sector to discuss a path forward to reducing emissions from the freight system while protecting the economic vitality created by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. Recognizing the critical importance of the freight sector and the associated challenge of reducing emissions to improve global and local environmental and public health impacts, the workshop convened Federal agency and White House staff alongside leaders representing the freight industry, civil society, and environmental justice organizations to realize the Administration’s commitment to developing a national zero-emissions freight strategy.

The freight sector, including maritime, rail, and trucking, is a critical part of the Nation’s transportation system, transporting more than 20 billion tons of freight worth more than $18 trillion dollars annually. The economic impact of freight helps make it the largest source of climate pollution in the U.S. In the United States, the transportation sector (including the freight sector) is a leading contributor to local pollution, responsible for more than 50% of total NOx emissions, over 30% of volatile organic compound emissions, and over 20% of particulate matter emissions, pollution that particularly impacts communities of color and low-income families. Worldwide, the freight sector contributes approximately eight percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, challenges to decarbonize the freight sector have been in part due to slow fleet turnover and associated acquisition costs.

The transformative economic agenda of the Biden-Harris Administration has helped accelerate the freight sector toward a cleaner future. Recent historic investments include $3 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Clean Ports Program and $735 million from EPA’s Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicle Program to help applicants purchase 2,400 zero-emission commercial vehicles; $2.4 billion from the Department of Transportation’s Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grants program administered by the Federal Rail Administration for low- and zero-emission locomotives; and $150 million in grants from the Federal Highways Administration to reduce truck emissions at port facilities. The Biden-Harris Administration has also upheld its commitment to protecting communities that have historically suffered disproportionate public impacts of the freight sector.

Taking a holistic approach to freight sustainability, the Workshop presented opportunities to align as an integrated freight ecosystem across the maritime, rail, and trucking industries and builds on the Administration’s 2023 National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, the March 2024 release of a National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy, and the April 2024 announcement of the first-ever national goal to transition to a zero-emissions freight sector. The workshop also served as an opportunity to launch the Action Plans for freight sector all stemming from the National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization.

The following actions were announced at Tuesday’s workshop:

• The Electrification Coalition, an industry consortium and nonpartisan organization, announced the launch and call to action of the Sustainable Freight Partners Group to align interests and coordination on the deployment low to zero-emission freight solutions across the maritime, rail and trucking industries. The Group will serve as a critical platform to regularly convene on freight sustainability priorities, communicate the value of emission reduction solutions, and facilitate strategic vision on competitive and economic approaches across the freight ecosystem.
  • The Department of Energy, along with its Blueprint agency partners, brought to life the recently announced modal action plans through results-driven discussions on measures for implementation on the top modal actions including;  
    • Maritime: Scaling the production of low and zero-emission fuels for marine vessels through the “Sustainable Grand Maritime Challenge.”
    • Rail: Designing the future rail network for low to zero-emission short and line haul freight locomotives through a public-private partnership framework.
    • Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles: Developing the Play Book for Phase I and 2 of the National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy to deploy charging and refueling infrastructure in freight hubs and along corridors for battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks.
  • A Zero Emissions Freight Map developed by the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation and Atlas Public Policy presented over 700+ projects worth $12.8 billion across the freight ecosystem for maritime, rail and trucks showcasing strong alignment with the prioritization of public and private investments through the ‘all of government’ National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy.
    • Sixty-five percent of the investments in zero-emission freight were funded through industry, utilities, cities and states where only 35% of the share is funded through the Federal government, demonstrating a strong commitment across the private and public sectors for freight sustainability. These projects will take fold over the next three to five years proving strong momentum and advancement in zero- emission technologies and infrastructure.
  • Environmental groups and industry consortia participated in an externally led social media campaign #RouteZeroWeek to celebrate clean transportation from “Sustainable Freight to Clean Cars” presenting supporting messages for the billions of dollars in public and private investment, advanced technologies and partnerships for clean transportation solutions throughout the U.S.

Participating organizations include:

• Alstom
• American Association of Port Authorities
• American Bureau of Shipping
• American Short Line and Railroad Association
• American Truck Association
• A Public Power Association
• Association of American Railroads
• Atlas Public Policy
• BlueSky Maritime
• California Department of Transportation
• CALSTART
• Carnival
• Chamber of Shipping of America
• CharIN
• CN
• Commercial ZEV
• CPKC
• Cruise Line Industry Association
• CSX
• Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority
• East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice
• Edison Electric Institute (EEI)
• Electrification Coalition
• EPRI
• Exelon
• FHWA
• Forum Mobility
• Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association (Cummins)
• IKEA Supply Chain Operations
• Innovative Rail Technologies
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
• International Bunker Industry Association
• International Council on Clean Transportation
• Joint Office of Energy & Transportation
• Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
• Methanol Institute
• Microsoft
• Moving Forward Network
• MSC
• NADA
• National Association of Truck Stop Operators
• National Grid
• Navistar/ International
• NESCAUM
• New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance
• Nikola
• New Jersey Environmental Protection Agency
• NREL
• Ocean Conservancy
• Pacific Environment
• Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
• Port of Seattle
• Partnership Project
• Penske
• People’s Collective for Environmental Justice
• PG&E
• Sierra Club
• Smart Freight Centre
• South Ward Environmental Justice Alliance
• Southern Company
• Sustainable Maritime Coalition
• Tesla
• TruCurrent
• U.S. Department of Energy
• U.S. Department of Transportation
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
• Voltera
• Volvo Trucks
• Powering America’s Commercial Transportation
• Wabtec
• Watco
• Zeem Solutions

###

The post Readout of White House Sustainable Freight Workshop appeared first on The White House.

Republicans need to stop playing politics with this bipartisan agreement or they will hurt hardworking Americans and create instability across the country. President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Vance ordered Republicans to shut down the government and they are threatening to do just that—while undermining communities recovering from disasters, farmers and ranchers, and community health centers. Triggering a damaging government shutdown would hurt families who are gathering to meet with their loved ones and endanger the basic services Americans from veterans to Social Security recipients rely on. A deal is a deal. Republicans should keep their word.

###

The post Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Republicans Threatening a Government Shutdown appeared first on The White House.

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration will honor 14 Rural Innovators from across America who making a positive impact in their rural communities.

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris Administration invited the public to nominate individuals who are taking action and ensuring their communities thrive for generations to come. White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden, White House Office of Public Engagement Director Stephen Benjamin, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack headlined an event at the White House today to celebrate the extraordinary accomplishments of Rural Innovators and highlight the Biden-Harris Administration’s investments in rural communities. To learn more about the Rural Innovators, please visit Rural.gov.

The individuals being recognized as Rural Innovators include:

• Sylandi Brown, Board Member, Pulaski County Board of Education (Georgia)
• Kristina Cannon, President & CEO, Main Street Skowhegan (Maine)
• Jeremiah Clever, President, CWA Broadband Apprenticeship Lead-Idaho (FITECH) (Idaho)
• Jill Dunham, Broadband Project Manager, Allegan County Government (Michigan)
• Rick Erickson, Retired Teacher, Bayfield High School (Wisconsin)
• Luis Omar Garcia, Community Leader, Unidos por Arenas (Puerto Rico)
• Jennifer Gauthier, Director, College of Menominee Nation Sustainable Development Institute (Menominee Nation)
• Nick Hernandez, CEO & Founder, Makoce Agriculture Development (Pine Ridge Indian Reservation)
• Michael Jefferson, President & Founder, Cut One School One Youth Crime Intervention, Inc. (Mississippi)
• Erin Martin, Farmer & Owner, Footprints in the Garden (North Carolina)
• Ted Matthews, Administrator & CEO, Anson General Hospital (Texas)
• Sarah Meitner, Executive Director, Heartland Community Foundation (Kansas)
• Alexis Racelis, Houston Endowed Chair for Science and Technology and Professor in the School for Earth, Environmental and Marine Sciences, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (Texas)
• Nancy X. Valentine, Artist and Executive Director of Kaddatz Galleries (Minnesota)

###

The post FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Honors Rural Innovators appeared first on The White House.

TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
 
 
    With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, I transmit herewith the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (the “Agreement”).  I also transmit, for the information of the Senate, the report of the Department of State with respect to the Agreement.

    The purpose of the Agreement is to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), often referred to as the high seas, which are under threat from a multitude of stressors.  The high seas includes ocean areas beyond countries’ 200-mile exclusive economic zones and covers about two-thirds of the global ocean.

     The Agreement will create a mechanism to establish marine protected areas in ABNJ, a vital step in the global effort to conserve or protect at least 30 percent of the global ocean by 2030.  It will create a system for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of marine genetic resources from ABNJ.  The Agreement also includes provisions ensuring that Parties conduct rigorous environmental impact assessments for their activities in ABNJ and provisions on capacity-building and the transfer of marine technology related to the Agreement.  The Agreement is key to supporting the sustainable use of marine resources, maintaining the integrity of ocean ecosystems, and conserving marine biological diversity.  Implementation of the Agreement will respect the competences of and not undermine other international bodies and will require consultations with those organizations to enhance cooperation and coordination on the conservation and sustainable use of the marine resources of the high seas.

     I believe joining the Agreement to be fully in the interest of the United States.  I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the Agreement and give its advice and consent to ratification.
 

                              JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
 
 

THE WHITE HOUSE,
    December 18, 2024.

The post Press Release Message to the Senate Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction appeared first on The White House.

On December 17, U.S. Principal Deputy National Security Advisor (PDNSA) Jon Finer, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, and Indian Ambassador to the United States Vinay Kwatra traveled to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to mark the significant progress the United States and India have made to strengthen space cooperation, including under the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET).  Following President Biden and Prime Minister Modi’s June 2023 commitment to work together to “reach new frontiers across all sectors of space cooperation” and India’s signing of the Artemis Accords, our two nations reached an inflection point on collaboration across civil, security, and commercial space sectors.  This includes human spaceflight, joint space exploration, and a commitment to facilitating commercial partnerships between U.S. and Indian space companies to advance our shared interests in the growing space economy.

As part of their visit to Houston, PDNSA Finer and Deputy Secretary Campbell met with representatives from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and space industry leaders to identify new opportunities to further strengthen our burgeoning space partnership.  They also reflected on the accomplishments of the past few months and charted next steps to take our partnership to the next level, including:  

• Selecting two ISRO astronauts to train at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for the first-ever joint effort between American and Indian astronauts at the International Space Station, with Axiom Space serving as the provider of the mission; the launch of the Axiom-4 mission as soon as spring 2025 will mark a significant milestone in the U.S.-India space partnership and space exploration;

• Celebrating the completion of a Strategic Framework for Human Spaceflight Cooperation to deepen interoperability in space and working toward the conclusion of a new arrangement on advanced astronaut training;

• Noting continued progress toward the launch of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) in early 2025 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India’s southeastern coast; the NISAR satellite integrates two radars – one from NASA and one from ISRO – which will together map the motion of the Earth’s surface twice every 12 days, as the United States and India work together to predict and respond to hazards, measure and quantify changes to infrastructure and resources, and address other global challenges;

• Exploring the creation of a new space innovation bridge to promote partnerships between U.S. and Indian startups focused on advancing space situational awareness, satellite technology, and space launch and exploration;

• Promoting defense space cooperation through the U.S.-India Advanced Domains Defense Dialogue, India’s participation in U.S. Space Command’s annual Global Sentinel exercise, and a recently launched space situational awareness joint challenge under the India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X);

• Advancing reviews of Missile Technology exports to generate new opportunities for bilateral industry partnerships on space launch technology, including for commercial satellite launches.

###

The post FACT SHEET: The United States and India Advance Growing Space Partnership appeared first on The White House.

I’ve always put families and hardworking Americans first. That’s why I called on my Administration to do everything we can to lower costs. Today, the Federal Trade Commission is doing just that by banning hidden junk fees when you book a hotel or purchase event tickets. We all know the experience of encountering a hidden fee at the very last stage of check out—these junk fees sneak onto your bill and companies end up making you pay more because they can. Those fees add up, taking real money out of the pockets of Americans.

Today’s announcement builds on work across my Administration to ban junk fees and lower costs—saving many families hundreds of dollars each year. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lowered overdraft and credit card late fees, the Department of Transportation proposed a ban on family seating fees and required upfront disclosure of baggage and change fees, and the Federal Communications Commission ensured consumers see upfront the full price and terms for their internet service. Wherever big corporations try to sneak fees onto bills, my Administration has been fighting on behalf of American families to ban them.

###

The post Statement from President Joe Biden on the FTC Banning Hidden Junk Fees appeared first on The White House.

Over the weekend, our nation paused to remember the innocent children and brave educators who were taken from us 12 years ago when someone armed with a weapon of war walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Today, senseless gun violence has once again visited our classrooms as students and teachers in Madison, WI had their last week of school before Christmas break tragically interrupted by a deadly shooting.
 
Doug and I are mourning the student and teacher who were killed and we are praying for all those who were injured, including those who remain hospitalized. We are also thinking of the young people and families who have had their lives forever changed by this act of gun violence. And we are sending our gratitude to the educators, members of law enforcement, first responders, and medical professionals who quickly and selflessly jumped into action to ensure that even more lives were not lost in this community. 
 
As we hold our loved ones closer this holiday season, we must resolve to do everything in our power to end this epidemic that has become the leading cause of death for kids throughout America. While we have made necessary progress together over the last four years, including through the most significant gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years and our first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, there is more work to be done to ensure that every person has the freedom to live safe from the horror of gun violence. Congress and state legislatures must make background checks universal, pass red flag and safe storage laws, and ban assault weapons. These commonsense solutions will save lives and make our children and communities safer.

# # #

The post Statement by Vice President Kamala Harris on the School Shooting in Madison, WI appeared first on The White House.

Today, families in Madison, Wisconsin, are grieving the loss of those who were killed and wounded at Abundant Life Christian School. It’s shocking and unconscionable.

We need Congress to act. Now.

From Newtown to Uvalde, Parkland to Madison, to so many other shootings that don’t receive attention – it is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence. We cannot continue to accept it as normal. Every child deserves to feel safe in their class room. Students across our country should be learning how to read and write – not having to learn how to duck and cover.

Jill and I are praying for all the victims today, including the teacher and teenage student who were killed and those who sustained injuries. We are grateful for the first responders who quickly arrived on the scene, and the FBI is supporting local law enforcement efforts. At my direction, my team has reached out to local officials to offer further support as needed.

My administration has taken aggressive action to combat the gun violence epidemic. We passed the most significant gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years, I have taken more executive action to reduce gun violence than any other President in history, and I created the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. But more is needed. Congress must pass commonsense gun safety laws: Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

We can never accept senseless violence that traumatizes children, their families, and tears entire communities apart.

###

The post Statement from President Joe Biden on Shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Wisconsin appeared first on The White House.

WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to renominate the following individual to continue serving as a key leader in his administration:

• Anton Hajjar, Nominee to be a Governor of the United States Postal Service Board of Governors

Anton Hajjar, Nominee to be a Governor of the United States Postal Service Board of Governors

Anton Hajjar was previously confirmed by the U.S. Senate via voice vote, and sworn into office as a Governor of the United States Postal Service on May 28, 2021.

Anton Hajjar is the former General Counsel of the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, and has significant experience representing unions and union workers. Since his retirement from active practice at the end of 2016, he has concentrated on pro bono legal work in the District of Columbia and Maryland.

He worked for seven years for the National Labor Relations Board in the New Orleans regional office and the Appellate Court Branch in Washington, D.C. In private practice, he was a Principal with O’Donnell, Schwartz & Anderson, PC and Of Counsel with Murphy Anderson PLLC. Hajjar has written articles and given presentations to federal judges, lawyers, union officials and lay audiences on labor and employment subjects. He has been an advisor and pro bono attorney in numerous employment discrimination cases. In 2002, he was elected to membership in the American Law Institute, and has served as a member of its governing board since 2010. The American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee presented Hajjar with its Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award in 2012 and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. 

Hajjar has a J.D. from Tulane Law School and clerked for the Honorable John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before law school, he was employed for three years as a U.S. Customs Inspector. Hajjar has also worked as merchant seaman, factory worker, truck driver, laborer, and hospital attendant.

He now lives in Chevy Chase, MD, with his wife Sandra Hughes, who was a labor attorney and consults on aging issues. They have two adopted children, Claire and Gregory, who were born in Lebanon. They have one grandchild.

# # #  

The post President Biden Announces Key Nominees appeared first on The White House.

Today, as we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, we celebrate the tremendous progress our country has made in bringing clean drinking water to all Americans – and we recommit ourselves to the work still to come.  

I am proud to have been one of the Senators who supported this landmark legislation. Before the Safe Drinking Water Act, America’s drinking water was unreliable and too often polluted with industrial waste or disease-causing contaminants. The Act was passed to meet these challenges head-on, and five decades later, our nation enjoys some of the safest drinking water in the world.

Along with the long-standing leadership of Vice President Harris, I have fought to ensure that the full vision of the Safe Drinking Water Act is realized by tackling the key challenges facing our drinking water system today, including toxic lead pipes, PFAS “forever chemicals,” aging water infrastructure, and pollution impacting our rivers, streams, and wetlands. Our Administration combined historic investments – including more than $50 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – and regulatory policies – including the first-ever requirement to identify and replace lead pipes within ten years – to make historic progress investing in key water infrastructure, including in Indigenous and rural communities, while also creating good-paying jobs and helping advance environmental justice.

Vice President Harris and I have always believed that every person in this country deserves to turn on a faucet and have clean drinking water. And because of my Administration’s investments and actions in water safety, a new legacy of clean, high-quality drinking water for our families and communities will continue to be felt for generations to come.

###

The post Statement from President Joe Biden on the 50th Anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act appeared first on The White House.

Action Uplifts Women’s History by Honoring the First Woman Cabinet Secretary, Longest-Serving Secretary of Labor, and a Key Architect of the New Deal

Today President Biden will sign a proclamation establishing the Frances Perkins National Monument in Newcastle, Maine, to honor the historic contributions of America’s first woman Cabinet Secretary and the longest-serving Secretary of Labor.

Frances Perkins was the leading architect behind the New Deal and led many labor and economic reforms that continue to benefit Americans today. During her 12 years as Secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she envisioned and helped create Social Security; helped millions of Americans get back to work during the Great Depression; fought for the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively; and established the minimum wage, overtime pay, prohibitions on child labor, and unemployment insurance.

During a visit to the Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building, President Biden will showcase Frances Perkins’s foundational legacy, which civil rights and women’s rights leaders have built upon to further expand opportunities for all Americans. The President will also highlight how his Administration has continued to stand with labor and strengthen America’s workforce. President Biden is proud to be the most pro-union and pro-worker president in history, including creating the Made in America office; requiring Project Labor Agreements on nearly all major federal construction projects of over $35 million; signing the Butch Lewis Act to save more than one million pensions; and becoming the first president in history to walk a picket line.

The designation of this new national monument advances President Biden’s March 2024 Executive Order to strengthen the recognition of women’s history. In addition to establishing the Frances Perkins National Monument, today Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland will announce five new National Historic Landmarks that will increase the representation of women’s history in historic sites across America and additional new actions to advance President Biden’s Executive Order.

Frances Perkins National Monument

At a time when few women were in leadership positions and just 13 years after the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, President Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins to become his Secretary of Labor. Perkins told President Roosevelt that if she accepted the position, she intended to execute an ambitious plan to protect American workers. Over her 12 years as Secretary of Labor, Perkins accomplished nearly everything on her list and laid the groundwork for the labor policy and social safety net that we continue to build on today.

The new national monument boundary encompasses the 57 acres of the Frances Perkins Homestead National Historic Landmark site in Newcastle, Maine. The Perkins Homestead played a pivotal role in Frances Perkins’ life and was the place Perkins felt most at home. She spent her childhood summers there, and returned frequently for respite throughout her ground-breaking professional career.  

Owned by her family for over 270 years, the Homestead remains much as it looked during Perkins’ lifetime. The 2.3-acre core area of the Homestead has been donated to the National Park Service and is reserved as part of the new monument, including the Perkins’ family home known as the brick house, a barn and outbuilding, gardens, and part of the stone wall surrounding the property. The remaining Homestead landscape extends from the core area to the Damariscotta River to the east, and contains other buildings, structures, gardens, and the paths used by Perkins and her family throughout her life. These lands are currently owned by the Frances Perkins Center which has been managing and preserving them, and they will be reserved and protected as part of the national monument if they are ever donated to the Federal Government in the future.

Advancing Women’s History and Telling a More Complete American Story

The establishment of the Frances Perkins National Monument furthers the Administration’s commitment to recognizing women’s contributions to our country. TheBiden-Harris Administration has invested more than $40 million to restore and support sites that recognize and elevate the stories of women who have shaped American history. Today, the Department of the Interior (DOI) is announcing additional new actions that advance the President’s Executive Order on Honoring and Recognizing Women’s History, including:

• Secretary Haaland is announcing five new National Historic Landmarks, DOI’s highest recognition of a property’s historical, architectural, or archeological significance. These include:
  • The Charleston Cigar Factory in Charleston, South Carolina. This new landmark, historically known as the American Cigar Company Building, will recognize the site where cigar factory workers – led by Black women – went on strike for better pay and working conditions, and against gender and racial discrimination on the job.
  • The Furies Collective House in Washington, D.C. This new landmark recognizes the former home of a group of young activists who created a social and political community credited with recognizing the existence and needs of lesbians in the women’s movement in the early 1970s, and who published a newspaper focused on questions of women’s identity, relationships, and roles in society.
  • The Lucy Diggs Slowe and Mary Burrill House in Washington, D.C. This new landmark includes the residence of Lucy Diggs Slowe, the first dean of women at Howard University, and her partner Mary Burrill. An advocate for educational parity between men and women students, Slowe helped modernize student affairs at Howard and other historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
  • Azurest South in Petersburg, Virginia. This new landmark is designed in the International Style, an architectural style developed in the United States and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s that dominated mid-20th century architecture, by Amaza Lee Meredith, a pioneering Black woman architect.
  • The Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth House and Studios in San Patricio, New Mexico. This new landmark recognizes the home and workspace of 20th century Realist painter Henriette Wyeth.    

• The National Park Service is announcing a $500,000 grant from the Historic Preservation Fund to support the renovation of the Seneca Falls Knitting Mill, a part of the Seneca Falls Village Historic District. The Fund’s support will enable the National Women’s Hall of Fame to expand its programming on women’s history and restore the mill, which was one of the few places in Seneca Falls, New York to employ women during its 150 years of operation.
  
• As directed by President Biden, DOI is releasing a new report on representation of women across sites of national importance, including National Historic Landmarks, national monuments, and national park sites. The report assesses which existing federal sites are significant to women’s history and offers opportunities to improve the recognition of women’s contributions to our country across the National Park Service, including through the National Historic Landmark program.

Background on Antiquities Act Designations

President Theodore Roosevelt first used the Antiquities Act in 1906 to designate Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. Since then, 18 presidents of both parties have used this authority to protect natural and historic features in America, including the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty, the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, the Pullman National Monument, and the César E. Chávez National Monument.

The Frances Perkins National Monument will be President Biden’s 13th use of the Antiquities Act and his fourth new national monument commemorating a site that helps tell a more complete American story. Other designations under President Biden include the creation of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument, and the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument.

###

The post FACT SHEET: President Biden Designates Frances Perkins National Monument appeared first on The White House.

Today, the White House is releasing new data illustrating the transformative impact the Biden-Harris Investing in America agenda has already had in creating good jobs, especially union jobs, that expand the power of the American worker.

As the Investing in America agenda spurs record levels of job creation—particularly in construction, clean energy, and manufacturing—the Biden-Harris Administration has focused on ensuring federal funds continue to promote good-paying, high-quality jobs. In September, President Biden signed an Executive Order calling on agencies to embed high-road labor standards and best practices across Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science, and Inflation Reduction Act clean energy programs.

The Good Jobs Task Force, a group of federal leaders created by the President’s Executive Order, analyzed more than 80 programs as part of its work drawing a government-wide blueprint for expanding job quality through federal investments.

The review found agencies and their partners in the private and public sector have made significant, measurable progress towards creating and improving access to good jobs—including union jobs—which are leading to concrete improvements in workers’ lives

Better Wages through More Union Jobs

The Biden-Harris Administration invested billions of dollars in long needed infrastructure projects like fixing roads and bridges, upgrading ports and expanding airports, and building manufacturing facilities. $84B of these construction projects are covered by a union contract providing good paying jobs with benefits available to all Americans, not just those with a four-year college degree.President Biden and Vice President Harris are proud to represent the most pro-union Administration in American history.

Under the Biden-Harris Investing in America agenda, more than 600 construction projects have collective bargaining agreements in place or in negotiation. These pre-hire agreements, known as project labor agreements, are used to set family-sustaining wages and benefits on construction projects. They can also help open career pathways through registered apprenticeship, the gold standard for training workers on the job.

This is also true in manufacturing: Because of job quality priorities, more than 100 federal investments are in manufacturing and clean energy projects covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Nearly 100% of the announced total funding awarded through Domestic Manufacturing Conversion Grants, over 75% of total funding awarded through the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership (GRIP) Program, and 70% of total funding awarded through the Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing and Recycling grants are going to work places covered by Community Benefits Agreements.

By promoting these agreements, the Biden-Harris Administration has had a transformative impact on workers’ lives.

Promoting Paths to the Middle Class and Expanding Participation in the Workforce

More than 300 projects, representing an investment of $47 billion from across the U.S. government, provide workers with services like transportation and child care—the types of supportive services that allow workers to get and retain good jobs. This is especially true of lower-income and underserved populations in areas where there are limited, or no, child care or transportation options.

Additionally, this Administration has invested over $46 billion in projects that support registered apprenticeship programs. These programs make good jobs available to all Americans, not just those with a four-year college degree. Since January 2021, over a million individuals have started earn-while-you-learn training through registered apprenticeship programs, including over 100,000 women, and historically high numbers of Black Americans, Hispanics, and Individuals with Disabilities.

###

The post FACT SHEET: Progress by Biden-Harris Good Jobs Task Force appeared first on The White House.

On December 13, 2024, President Biden met virtually with G7 Leaders.  During the meeting, the President observed that the G7 has been transformed during the past four years into a steering committee for decisive action – by helping to address the COVID crisis during its most acute phase, mounting an unprecedented economic, military, and diplomatic response to  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, speaking and acting together to address China’s non-market practices, accelerating the clean energy transition, and delivering tangible results for people across the developing world with a new infrastructure partnership.  As a result of acting together, the President and other leaders reaffirmed that the G7 is now more unified than ever. 
 
In the discussion, leaders reiterated their shared commitment to continue supporting Ukraine and standing up to Putin’s aggression.  President Biden highlighted that the United States has disbursed $20 billion to a new World Bank fund to provide economic support for Ukraine as part of the historic $50 billion G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration loans commitment, which will be paid back by income earned from immobilized Russian sovereign assets.  President Biden encouraged other Leaders to unlock the full value of the immobilized Russian sovereign assets, including by finding a legal pathway to seize the principal value of the assets, which would provide Ukraine the resources it needs to rebuild its economy and defend itself into the future.
 
Leaders discussed the situation in the Middle East, including the need for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition process and for a global effort to help the Lebanon ceasefire succeed.  President Biden raised the importance of working toward securing a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages.
 
Leaders also discussed addressing a range of global challenges, including non-market practices, climate change, artificial intelligence, and support for developing countries.
 
President Biden thanked Prime Minister Meloni for her leadership of the G7 over the past year, welcomed Canada’s G7 Presidency next year under Prime Minister Trudeau, and encouraged the G7 to continue its vital work. 

###

The post Readout of President Joe Biden’s Virtual Meeting with G7 Leaders appeared first on The White House.

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with Acting President and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo of the Republic of Korea (ROK). President Biden expressed his appreciation for the resiliency of democracy and the rule of law in the ROK and reaffirmed the ironclad commitment of the United States to the people of the ROK. The two leaders discussed the tremendous progress we have made toward further strengthening the U.S.-ROK Alliance in recent years, and President Biden expressed his confidence that the Alliance will remain the linchpin for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region during Acting President Han’s tenure. 

###

The post Readout of President Joe Biden’s Call with Acting President and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo of the Republic of Korea appeared first on The White House.

In the two years since the December 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the Biden-Harris Administration significantly expanded engagement and partnership with African nations, driven by the conviction that the future of Africa and the United States depends on what we can achieve together.  At the Summit, the United States pledged to invest $55 billion in Africa over three years.  We have surpassed that goal – the Administration has committed and spent over $65 billion in Africa since the Summit.  These investments have enabled the Administration, together with African partners, to accelerate development progress, advance trans-continental infrastructure, expand trade and economic opportunities, and support African-led efforts on conservation, climate adaptation, and a just energy transition.
 
But the achievements go beyond numbers, underpinned by our belief that solving global challenges requires African leadership and African partnership.  The United States championed—and ultimately helped secure—the African Union’s permanent membership in the G20 and announced our support for creating two permanent United Nations (UN) Security Council seats for African states.  Since the Summit, we have laid out a vision alongside Kenya to help developing countries facing mounting debt burdens.  Our partnerships enhanced food security and helped build more sustainable and resilient food systems, improved governance and security, and advanced shared public health goals.  We catalyzed landmark diaspora-driven engagement, fostered an inclusive and resilient African digital ecosystem, and made strides to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. 
 
High-Level Engagements
 
Throughout the Biden-Harris administration, President Biden has prioritized high-level engagement with African countries and partners.
 
Following the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022, President Biden directed an unprecedented pace of senior-level U.S. Government visits to the continent. Twenty Cabinet Members and leaders of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies have visited the region since the Summit, with visits centered on deepening partnerships with African countries, institutions, and people. In March and April 2023, Vice President Harris visited Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia, where she announced more than $8 billion in public and private sector investment commitments towards climate and food security, women’s empowerment, and digital inclusion across Africa. 
 
In May 2024, President Biden then hosted President Ruto of Kenya for a State Visit and Dinner, the first State Visit of an African head of state since 2008. During that visit, which highlighted 60 years of official U.S.-Kenyan partnership, President Biden announced a slew of deliverables to improve economic opportunities for both our peoples, strengthen democratic resilience and safeguard human rights, and bolster our work together on a range of pressing issues, including climate and health.
 
In December 2024, President Biden traveled to the continent, becoming the first-ever U.S. president to visit Angola and the first sitting President to visit sub-Saharan Africa since 2015.  During the visit, President Biden spoke about the past horrors of slavery and its legacy, while welcoming a bright future of deepening collaboration between the United States and the continent.  He announced more than $1 billion in additional humanitarian funding and co-hosted a Summit on the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor, underscoring the importance of private sector investments, inclusive economic growth, and sustainable development. One year earlier, President Biden had hosted President Lourenço of Angola for an Oval Office meeting. President Biden’s historic trip to Angola topped off significant engagement with the continent throughout the entire Biden-Harris administration. 
 
Trade and Investment
 
The Administration harnessed the dynamism of people from across the African continent and throughout the United States to expand prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. In the past two years, the United States has supported and helped close 1,385 new deals for a total estimated value of $62.6 billion in new two-way trade and investment between the United States and African countries.  This represents a more than five-fold increase in the value of closed deals over the two years preceding the Summit.  Illustrative highlights of these trade and investment initiatives include:
 

1. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has investments of over $13 billion in more than 300 projects across 36 countries in Africa.  Since the Summit, DFC has committed over $5.3 billion to new projects in Africa in key sectors such as energy, healthcare, infrastructure, mineral resources, and support for small businesses.
   
2. Since the Summit, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has funded 24 project preparation activities to advance the implementation of over $7 billion in digital connectivity, clean energy, and healthcare infrastructure projects on the continent.  In 2024, USTDA arranged 10 reverse trade missions and workshops focused on regulatory convergence for healthcare products, transportation, green hydrogen development, cybersecurity, methane abatement, and sustainable energy, connecting African public and private sector representatives with the latest U.S. technologies, services, and financing solutions.
   
3. Since 2022, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) has strengthened partnerships across Africa, approving approximately $4 billion in authorizations for sub-Saharan Africa.  This includes transactions across a wide variety of sectors including two of the largest renewable energy projects in EXIM’s history, aircrafts, civil works infrastructure, and radio equipment.
   
4. In fiscal year (FY) 2023, the EXIM Board of Directors approved a $281 million transaction to support the export of several Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft to Ethiopian Airlines Group.  This transaction supported 1,600 U.S. jobs across Indiana, North Carolina, and Washington.  In FY 2024, the EXIM Board of Directors approved an additional transaction of more than $456 million for Ethiopian Airlines for the purchase of five Boeing aircraft, supporting an estimated 2,200 new U.S. jobs in North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington.
   
5. Since 2022, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has invested almost $2.4 billion through agreements with African partner countries who have demonstrated their commitment to good governance, democratic values, and investing in their people.  Funding is expanding energy markets, furthering private sector energy generation, enhancing farmers’ supply chain integration, and improving education access to increase long-term employment opportunities.
   
6. Prosper Africa funded and supported several initiatives to boost two-way trade and investment for key markets in Kenya, South Africa, and Morocco, to include the “Why Kenya, Why Africa” Roadshow in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, the launch of Atlanta Phambili with South African business and government leaders in Atlanta, and the U.S.-Morocco Venture Capital Forum.  Prosper Africa also provided technical assistance to Togo-based Caisse Régionale de Refinancement Hypothécaire, supporting a $275 million housing deal with Bank of America. 
   
7. At the Summit, Prosper Africa announced the Catalytic Investment Facility, which provides first-loss and operational funding support to 10 African asset managers to mobilize $600 million from private investors, to deploy into African tech startups.  To date, $93 million has been raised by the 10 African asset managers, and $44 million has been deployed into 61 startups throughout the continent.
   
8. In September 2024, Prosper Africa announced a catalytic pooled fund to drive social investment.  In partnership with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and in support of the Africa Venture Philanthropy Alliance, the fund aims to pool $200 million of catalytic capital over the next five years from African and global philanthropies and government donors.  This capital is expected to leverage up to $2 billion in private capital.
   
9. Prosper Africa provided a $1.275 million grant to the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility (LSF) to cover operational costs of LSF’s work enhancing trading liquidity for African countries and lowering the cost of financing.  LSF builds free and transparent capital markets in Africa and provides investors with an investible benchmark for evaluating the performance of African sovereign debt instruments such as the IBoxx LSF USD African Sovereign index, in conjunction with Standard & Poor’s. 
   
10. The Small Business Administration (SBA) provided 34 small businesses with export financing that supported approximately $185.7 million in export sales involving the African continent from December 2023 to October 2024.  Building on the SBA Administrator’s visit to Cote d’Ivoire and Togo in 2023, SBA also undertook new activities in 2024 to connect members of the African diaspora in the United States with businesses in both continents. 
    
11. In November 2023 and July 2024, President Biden reiterated his strong support for the reauthorization and modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to deepen trade relations between the U.S. and Africa, strengthen regional integration, and realize Africa’s immense economic potential.  In 2023, AGOA imports totaled $9.7 billion and supported tens of thousands of jobs in the United States and Africa. 

Infrastructure

President Biden’s flagship G7+ initiative, the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI), advances strategic, values-driven, and high-standard infrastructure, investment, and sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries—with Africa as a key continent of focus.  At the G7 Summit in June, leaders celebrated progress toward PGI’s ambitious goal of mobilizing $600 billion by 2027 in global infrastructure investments that will make a difference in people’s lives around the world, strengthen and diversify our supply chains, and advance shared national security interests.  During his historic trip to Angola December 2-4, President Biden co-hosted a Summit on the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor, bringing together leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia, as well as the Africa Finance Corporation.  Leaders affirmed their commitment to investing in infrastructure that will one day connect the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to expand economic growth and sustainable development across the region.  More information on PGI/Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor can be found here.

Conservation, Climate Adaptation, and a Just Energy Transition

Many of the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change are in Africa.  The Biden-Harris Administration has marshalled unprecedented resources to bolster climate resilience and protect development progress.  During her 2023 trip to the African continent, Vice President Harris worked with African partners to galvanize more than $7 billion in public and private sector climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation commitments.  Some of the U.S.  initiatives to support African-led efforts on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and a just energy transition include:

1. Since the Summit, DFC has committed over $1.8 billion to new climate focused projects in Africa and also committed over $520 million across 12 new projects in Africa focused on expanding access to power.  Notably, DFC provided $500 million in political risk insurance to support marine conversation in Gabon through the Gabon Blue Bonds project, the first DFC-supported debt conversion for impact project in Africa.  In Sierra Leone, DFC provided $412 million in financing and political risk insurance to support the Nant Energy project, a 105-megawatt thermal power plant that is Sierra Leone’s first gas-to-power plant and will double the country’s energy capacity and address a critical need for the Sierra Leonean people’s access to reliable energy infrastructure.  In Mozambique, DFC committed $179 million in debt and political risk insurance to support the development of Central Eléctrica da Namaacha’s 120 megawatt wind power project, the country’s first utility-scale wind power project.
   
2. In November 2023, Prosper Africa, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the State Department provided $10 million to seed a $100 million balance sheet under the Green Guarantee Company (GGC), the first-ever privately run guarantee company devoted to catalyzing green bonds and loans focusing on Africa.  GGC is expected to unlock an estimated $1 billion in new private capital for climate finance.
   
3. In September 2024, Prosper Africa announced a $5 million catalytic capital award to ImpactA Global, aimed at mobilizing $300 million in private investment for sustainable infrastructure in emerging markets.  The award serves as first-loss capital designed to reduce investment risk and attract new institutional investors who might otherwise be hesitant to engage in Africa-focused investments.
   
4. Bolstering Power Africa, USTDA has invested $5 million to support a just energy transition across several African countries.  These investments are supporting solar energy generation in Zambia, wind energy generation in Malawi, strengthening the power grid in Cote d’Ivoire, promoting clean energy in South Africa, and supporting climate innovation through reverse trade missions.
   
5. At the Summit, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced its intent to develop a case study in partnership with the Ghanaian Ministry of Energy on integrating nuclear and renewable energy systems.  Under the Clean Energy Ministerial, DOE is leading a $300,000 initiative to evaluate the potential roles for nuclear and renewable energy to support Ghanaian energy needs for both electric and non-electric applications.  DOE and Ghana also launched Africa’s first regional Clean Energy Training Center in Accra, Ghana, providing courses on large and small modular reactors, financing, contract structures, risk management, and legal issues.
   
6. DOE is working with Mozambique on methane mitigation from the gas sector and clean hydrogen development, with Kenya on a $250,000 project to examine opportunities for direct air capture combined with geothermal energy, with Nigeria on a $250,000 study supporting their regulatory framework for carbon management, and with Morocco on solar energy.  DOE and the Moroccan Research Institute in Solar Energy and New Energies hosted a Solar Decathlon Design Challenge for collegiate teams from across Africa and around the world to design buildings powered by renewable energy.   
   
7. Under its Climate Change and Health Initiative, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established Exploratory Research Centers that bring together scientists to work with affected communities to build resilience and adapt to climate driven stressors.  Three of the centers have focus areas in Kenya, Madagascar, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.  These centers are conducting research on early warning models for vector borne diseases, the effects of extreme weather events on mental health and interpersonal violence, and pilot solutions for climate risks to human health.
   
8. At the Summit, the Department of State announced the Accelerating Women’s Empowerment in Energy (AWEE) project to help secure women’s economic futures through green jobs.  Since then, the State Department launched AWEE with an initial investment of $1 million.  The project has funded 11 small grants to local organizations in South Africa and Kenya to address barriers to the entry, promotion, and retention of women in each country’s clean energy sector.

Promoting Food Security and Resilient Food Systems

At the Summit, President Biden launched the U.S.-African Union (AU) Strategic Partnership to accelerate progress in tackling food insecurity, build stronger and more diversified food systems and supply chains, scale Africa’s agricultural production capacity, and expand African countries’ access to agricultural markets.  Since the launch of the partnership, we have aligned our food security assistance and programming and leveraged our convening power and partnerships, including through PGI, to build sustainable food systems, expand investments in agricultural infrastructure, and tackle trade policy reforms. 

1. Since FY 2022, the United States provided nearly $20 billion in life-saving humanitarian assistance and early recovery, risk reduction, and resilience programming in Africa.  Humanitarian assistance addresses acute food insecurity caused by conflicts, including Russia’s war in Ukraine and natural disasters, including climate shocks impacting millions of people across the African continent. 
   
2. Since 2023, MCC has committed over $1.6 billion toward food security initiatives through newly signed or launched programs.  These projects are boosting farm productivity and increasing rural incomes by investing in better irrigation methods, increasing production of high-value crops, and improving road conditions.
   
3. During his historic trip to Angola, President Biden announced additional humanitarian funding, including more than $200 million to purchase, ship, and distribute surplus agricultural commodities from American farmers to provide life-saving food assistance for refugees and other food-insecure populations in Africa.
   
4. Since December 2022, DFC has provided over $180 million to 15 food security focused projects in Africa.  These include a $20 million DFC loan to Victory Farms in Kenya to support expansion of sustainable tilapia production on Lake Victoria; a $75 million loan to Indorama Eleme Fertilizer & Chemicals Limited to finance the development, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of a urea-ammonia fertilizer facility in Port Harcourt, Nigeria; and project development technical assistance and loans to Ifria, a developer of cold chain warehouses in Morocco and Senegal.
   
5. As part of the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future initiative, the global Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) program helps build resilient food systems in partner countries using diverse, nutritious, and climate resilient crops grown in healthy, fertile soils.  Since 2023, the United States has donated $150 million and mobilized another $60 million from international partners for VACS programming.  Implementing partner organizations include the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. 
   
6. USAID and the AU launched the “Feed the Future Accelerator” in September 2024 with a new commitment, working with Congress, of more than $80 million to deepen food security partnerships in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.  U.S. investments will harness the region’s combination of fertile land, diverse farming systems, and highly-motivated governments to support a regional breadbasket.  These funds complement a diverse Feed the Future portfolio including over $497 million of ongoing U.S. investments in these three countries, plus more than $150 million in private sector investments.
   
7. As part of the larger U.S. Government response to the global food crisis through Feed the Future, USAID and the African Development Bank (AfDB) completed an agreement in January 2024 to fund a $9.5 million project—Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation—to help Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia increase food production and introduce climate-smart technologies.
   
8. Building on the U.S.-AU Strategic Partnership on Food Security, the United States supported the AU process to refresh the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) 10-year strategic plan focused on food security and increased agricultural trade.  USAID provided analytical work that fed into CAADP Technical Working Groups and submitted an independent memorandum to the AU Commission with recommendations on how to achieve agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security and nutrition, and economic growth.

Promoting Peace, Security, and Democratic Governance

The United States supported peace as the largest single humanitarian donor for refugee and migration-related needs in Sub-Saharan Africa, working with international organization and NGO partners to support over eight million refugees and asylum seekers and over 30 million internally displaced persons.  President Biden also launched the 21st Century Partnership for African Security (21PAS), to expand support to African partners with a focus on promoting effective, responsible, and accountable defense institutions able to meet the emerging threats of our time.  At the Summit, the United States reaffirmed its commitment to support complex political transitions in Africa through launching the African Democratic and Political Transitions (ADAPT) initiative. 

1. In FY 2024, the United States, through the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, provided more than $1.37 billion in Africa to support urgent and lifesaving needs for refugees, asylum seekers, conflict victims, stateless persons, and vulnerable migrants, including those affected by climate change.  Since December 2022, the United States has resettled over 56,000 refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa, welcoming them as they build new lives in communities across the United States.  The majority of refugees resettled were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, the Republic of South Sudan, Somalia, and Sudan.
   
2. The United States, Gabon, Ghana, and Mozambique worked together to successfully authorize UN Security Council Resolution 2719, which outlines a process for the AU to receive UN funding for Peace Support Operations (PSOs).  UN Security Council Resolution 2719 is a testament to the U.S. and AU commitment to addressing conflict in the region through African-led solutions.  The United States is supportive of the UN and the AU utilizing the Resolution to support PSOs on the continent while working together to ensure that human rights, transparency, and accountability mechanisms are successful. 
   
3. Through 21PAS, the Department of Defense is focusing on improving the capacity of African partners to plan, resource, and sustain their defense and security forces.  21PAS values partnerships rooted in transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights, recognizing that these values are foundational to lasting security.  Using these criteria, the Department of Defense identified a broad array of security cooperation programming totaling $73 million for Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and countries along the Gulf of Guinea and Western Indian Ocean.
   
4. The United States continues to bolster democratic governance through the ADAPT initiative.  For example, in Gabon, U.S. technical assistance to government entities, civic groups, media outlets, and women- and youth-focused organizations supports inclusive constitutional and electoral legal reforms and free, fair, and peaceful transitional elections.
   
5. Since 2022, USAID, through the Elections and Political Processes Fund, has provided $48.9 million for critical election support in 28 countries in Africa for unanticipated needs such as snap elections or other unforeseen political developments.  USAID provided an additional $17.4 million through the Defending Democratic Elections Fund to 10 countries to tackle deeply rooted electoral integrity issues, especially during inter-election periods.  Through the Women’s Political Participation and Leadership fund, USAID provided $8.36 million in FY 2022 and 2023 to four countries to build and sustain the pipeline of women leaders and facilitate their safe and meaningful participation in political, peacebuilding, and transition processes.
   
6. Since 2022, the U.S. Government has dedicated over $181 million through the Prevention and Stabilization Fund to enhance partnerships with Mozambique, Libya, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo.  Efforts focus on 10-year objectives to include promoting reconciliation and unification; accelerating inclusive and sustainable economic development; improving responsive governance and security institutions; promoting respect for human rights; strengthening justice systems; building capacity and resilience in historically marginalized, at-risk, and conflict-affected areas; and advancing meaningful participation of women and youth.

Deepening Health Cooperation

The United States works in partnership with African nations and regional and global partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and its Africa Regional Office (AFRO), the AU, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), and the private sector, to save lives and build more resilient health systems that are better able to prevent and respond to current and future health threats. 

1. The Administration has built on the United States’ longstanding leadership in the fight to end HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria as public health threats, including by investing more than $15.55 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Global Fund), and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.  These investments have reduced the burden of HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and vaccine-preventable diseases and have strengthened health systems in more than 30 countries on the African continent.
   
2. Over the past two years, the United States provided more than $3 billion in global health funding to support health workers, including funding through PEPFAR to support more than 346,000 health professionals to deliver HIV and tuberculosis services in the past year.  PEPFAR is also providing $8 million to support nurses, who are the backbone of patient care, in Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Eswatini, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia.  In FY 2024, USAID provided $10 million to support the Global Health Worker Initiative to build on the Primary Impact Initiative in countries including Ghana.
   
3. PEPFAR has been central to reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic’s trajectory—in Sub-Saharan Africa, there were 56 percent fewer new HIV infections in 2023 than in 2010.  Nine African countries are nearing or achieving the UNAIDS 2025 global goal that 95 percent of people living with HIV will know their status and benefit from treatment that keeps them healthy and helps prevent further spread, with several more countries on track to reach these goals by the end of 2025. 
   
4. Since FY 2021, PMI has invested more than $100 million to support 100,000 community health workers across its partner countries to rapidly detect and treat malaria in their communities.  These investments in integrated platforms also enable treatment of other common childhood illnesses such as diarrhea and pneumonia, improve the quality and reach of primary health care, and strengthen countries’ ability to prevent, detect, and respond to disease outbreaks. 
   
5. PMI has supported African manufacturing to promote more resilient and sustainable commodity supply chains.  In FY 2023, PMI sourced approximately 10% of its commodity procurements from Africa, more than double what was procured from the continent in FY 2021.  From FY 2019 to FY 2023, PMI transitioned from primary reliance on air freight to using sea and land freight to transport malaria commodities, reducing transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions by 85% and generating $66 million in cost savings, which PMI used to expand other malaria-related programs.
   
6. In April 2024, the Administration launched the U.S. Global Health Security Strategy to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response and welcomed six new Global Health Security Partners in Africa.  The United States continues working in partnership with African nations to support outbreak responses, including on Marburg, mpox, Ebola, and cholera. 
   
7. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of NIH, has been partnering with research agencies and institutions in Africa for decades.  Longstanding research programs have enabled collaboration on research responses to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. 
   
8. From 2022 to 2023, the U.S. Government provided more than $22 million to support the Government of Uganda’s Ebola response and an additional $7 million to help neighboring countries prepare for potential outbreaks.  In 2023, the United States worked with the Governments of Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea and other international partners to address simultaneous but unrelated Marburg virus disease outbreaks, providing over $5.8 million to support key response and prevention efforts.  In response to the Marburg virus disease outbreak in Rwanda starting in September 2024, the United States has provided technical support, vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and personal protective equipment and plans to allocate over $11 million regionally to address urgent health needs.
   
9. The United States partners with biological laboratories in the public, private, and academic sectors in 20 African countries to provide trainings and assist partner institutions with performing laboratory risk assessments.  These partnerships improve biosafety, biosecurity, and cybersecurity.  The United States also provides training to technical staff and biomedical engineers responsible for upkeep of laboratory equipment for high containment laboratories.
   
10. DFC continues to catalyze investments to strengthen regional manufacturing capacity in Africa, including by providing input into the design of Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator to ensure long-term sustainability of African vaccine manufacturers.  Following DFC’s loan of €100 million to Aspen Pharmacare in 2021, in 2024 DFC committed a direct loan of up to €110 million to expand Aspen’s capacity to manufacture pediatric vaccines, insulin, and other essential medicines in South Africa. DFC collaborated with the International Finance Corporation, the German Development Finance Institution, and Proparco to co-finance expansion of Aspen.
    
11. DFC also invests in health services, and technology to improve access to affordable, high-quality health care and products.  For example, in 2023 DFC committed a $10 million loan to Hewatele, a medical oxygen manufacturer in Kenya to expand production and distribution of medical oxygen.  DFC also provided a $10 million loan guaranty to KCB Bank in Kenya to increase financing available to small and medium enterprises in the health sector. 
    
12. In December 2022, USTDA launched the Coalition for Healthcare Infrastructure in Africa, a collaboration between USTDA and U.S. industry to help meet the healthcare needs of African partners and to increase access to quality healthcare products and services for millions of individuals across the continent.  From November 2023 to July 2024, USTDA hosted three healthcare workshops that convened U.S. and African public and private sector representatives with the aim of strengthening regulatory systems and facilitating broader market access for healthcare products across the continent.
    
13. Since 2022, the United States has donated over $50 million to projects in support of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Rays of Hope initiative, which provides assistance in nuclear and radiation medicine to advance cancer diagnosis and treatment in low- and middle-income countries.  In 2024, the United States provided an additional $6 million to Rays of Hope projects in Benin, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Malawi, Niger, and Senegal. 
    
14. At the Summit, First Lady Jill Biden highlighted the U.S. Government’s unwavering commitment to improving cancer outcomes in countries in Africa.  In July 2024, the Biden Cancer Moonshot hosted the White House Africa Cancer Care Forum, which convened health leaders from Benin, DRC, Lesotho, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Zambia committed to expanding national capacity for cancer diagnosis and treatment.  During the forum, the United States announced over $100 million in commitments to reduce the burden of cancer, bringing the collective total to over $400 million. 
    
15. The U.S.-South Africa Cancer Care and Research Alliance (U.S.-SACCRA) was established in December 2023 to deliver improved health outcomes in Africa, including by reducing the burden of cancer.  U.S.-SACCRA partners with several South African academic and research institutions; government departments, and leading U.S. cancer institutes to design, share, and fast-track scientific exchanges and capacity development for cancer care and research in both countries.

Elevating African Diaspora Engagement

Since the Summit, the Administration has aimed to harness the dynamism of the African Diaspora to enrich lives on both sides of the Atlantic.  The Administration has strengthened educational, cultural, social, political, and economic ties among African communities, the global African Diaspora, and the United States.  As Vice President Harris said during her 2023 trip to the African continent, “The fates of America and the continent of Africa are interconnected and interdependent.” 

1. In December 2022, President Biden established the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States (PAC-ADE) to provide advice on strengthening connections between the U.S. Government and the African Diaspora in the United States.  The Council members held their inaugural meeting in October 2023 with Vice President Harris and Secretary Blinken presiding. 
   
2. Since the Summit, PAC-ADE conducted its first plenary session meeting at Spelman College, and developed the EdTech initiative announced during Kenyan President Ruto’s visit to Spelman College. The Council also conducted its inaugural visit to the continent in July 2024 to Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, where they met with government, civil society, and private-sector partners to discuss diaspora-led investments in education, entrepreneurship, health, technology, youth and women empowerment, and the creative industries.  The Council held its final meeting of the year in October 2024, with remarks by Assistant to the President, Senior Advisor to the President, and Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement Mayor Steve Benjamin. Several members of the Council joined President Biden on his trip to Angola in December 2024.
   
3. In concert with PAC-ADE’s keen focus on increasing business ties with the continent, Prosper Africa has prioritized the support of Diaspora firms and investors, resulting in a portfolio of notable transactions with Diaspora-owned and led firms.  These include Cybastion’s partnership with Cisco Systems on over $800 million of cybersecurity and digital upgrade contracts in six countries.  Prosper Africa also established active partnerships with leading Diaspora organizations, including joining with USAID to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Alliance for Black Business, an organization founded in 2022 by the National Black Chamber of Commerce, the National Business League, and the World Conference of Mayors.
   
4. In addition to PAC-ADE, the U.S. Government is investing in Diaspora engagement through education.  The Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) embodies our investment in our shared future by providing training opportunities for diverse African youth.  At the Summit, Vice President Harris announced plans to expand YALI.  As part of this expansion, in September 2023, USAID launched the YALI Legacy Localization award to expand the work of the four Regional Leadership Centers on the continent that provide transformative leadership training.  In November 2024, the USAID-led YALI Alumni Expo and Trade Show took place in Cape Town, South Africa, where over 500 YALI alumni showcased their innovations and fostered connection with experts and officials from the private sector, civil society, government, and the diaspora community.

Digital Transformation with Africa

Launched at the Summit, the Digital Transformation with Africa (DTA) initiative aims to expand digital access in Africa, increase commercial engagement between U.S. and African companies in the digital sector, support increased digital literacy, and strengthen digital enabling environments across Africa.  DTA works in alignment with the priorities outlined in the AU’s Digital Transformation Strategy to enable innovative, inclusive and sustainable growth and development.  DTA’s work is organized across the following three pillars:

Digital Economy and Infrastructure

1. In May 2024, Vice President Harris launched two public-private partnerships—the Mobilizing Access to the Digital Economy (MADE) Alliance:  Africa and the Partnership for Digital Access in Africa (PDAA). Both focus on increasing digital inclusion across Africa.  The MADE Alliance aims to provide digital access to critical services for 100 million individuals and businesses in Africa over the next 10 years.  PDAA will support African institutions to double the number of people connected to the internet in Africa from 40% to 80%, connect one billion people to the internet by 2030, and increase internet connectivity for women and girls from 30% to 80%.  
   
2. Since December 2022, USTDA has funded 20 activities to build the business case for innovative U.S. technologies that help to advance inclusive, secure, and sustainable digital infrastructure across Africa, including priority connectivity, cybersecurity, and smart cities projects.  USTDA is leveraging its grant-based funding for project preparation, which mitigates risk and unlocks bankable infrastructure projects.
   
3. Prosper Africa leads the Africa Tech for Trade Alliance (AT4T) with the support of USAID.  AT4T unites leading American and African tech companies to accelerate e-commerce and digital trade in Africa.  Alliance members include Visa, Mastercard, Intel, Cisco, Google, AWS and others. By leveraging U.S. companies’ technology assets, services, and expertise, the alliance fosters U.S.-Africa trade in fintech, ag-tech, eHealth and more.
   
4. In April 2024, the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA), the Department of Commerce, and USTDA led a mission to the American Chamber of Commerce Business Summit in Kenya.  In Nairobi, they announced U.S. private sector commitments and collaborations, including initiatives in data protection, artificial intelligence, digital upskilling, and new investments in digital connectivity, women’s tech leadership, and a cybersecurity experience center.

Human Capital Development

1. In May 2024, USAID announced the DTA-YALI Partnership to leverage YALI Regional Leadership Centers to expand digital skills and literacy, support digital entrepreneurs and start-ups, and increase private sector engagement in 49 African countries.  USAID is also expanding the “Responsible Computer Challenges” to universities and educators in Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa.  This activity aims to empower students to account for the social and ethical context and impact of digital technologies, including frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence.
   
2. The Department of State prioritizes biosafety and biosecurity capacity building in Africa.  Over the past two years, the State Department has conducted trainings on cyberbiosecurity and secure data sharing to promote safe and timely coordination during outbreak responses.  The Department of State has ongoing efforts in practical cyberbiosecurity literacy for high containment laboratories to institutionalize cyberhygiene practices and to build both in-country and regional networks of leaders in cyberbiosecurity.
   
3. USAID and MCC are supporting the DigiFemmes program as part of MCC’s $536 million Compact with the Government of Côte d’Ivoire.  DigiFemmes provides the leadership, innovation, and technical training women need to grow their businesses through data and digital tools.  Nearly 9,000 women-owned small and medium enterprises have benefited from the $5.3 million program.  DigiFemmes graduates also accessed a total of $525,000 in follow-on funding distributed as small grants by the U.S. African Development Foundation to help refine their products and expand their markets through digital tools and innovations.
   
4. In March 2024, MCC and the Government of Togo launched Nanatech, a program designed to equip Togolese women and entrepreneurs with the digital skills they need to benefit from the growing digital economy.  To date, nearly 2,000 women and 200 supporting organizations have benefited. 

Digital Enabling Environment

1. In September 2024, the United States hosted the landmark Global Inclusivity and Artificial Intelligence: Africa (GIAA) Conference in Lagos, Nigeria, bringing together over 400 stakeholders, including government officials, industry leaders, civil society members, startup founders, and academics, to discuss the safe, secure, inclusive, and trustworthy deployment of artificial intelligence on the continent.  The GIAA conference underscored the growing importance of Africa’s inclusion in artificial intelligence development and the continent’s key role in the global emerging technology landscape.
   
2. In November 2024, representatives from the Department of Commerce, Department of State, USAID, and USTDA participated in a variety of engagements during the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, South Africa.  DTA hosted a U.S. Government side event for over 100 stakeholders from the U.S. and African public and private sectors to discuss key challenges to expanding digital access, increasing digital literacy, and strengthening digital enabling environments across Africa.   Participants discussed innovative U.S. and African solutions and collaborative strategies to advance Africa’s digital transformation.
   
3. USAID is working with Afrobarometer, through the United States Institute of Peace, to conduct public surveys to assess public awareness, perception, and understanding of digital threats, online safety, and cybersecurity in Benin, Kenya, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Senegal, and Angola.
   
4. USAID continues to facilitate discussions, build capacity, and deliver expert advisory services to the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat to develop and implement the Digital Trade Protocol to help advance international and intra-African digital economy and regulatory standards.

Partnerships in Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

The Administration has elevated gender equity and equality across our foreign policy in Africa and around the world.  Societies—including the United States—do better when women participate and have equal opportunities.  Advancing the status of women and girls reduces poverty and promotes sustainable economic growth, increases access to education, improves health outcomes, advances political stability, and fosters democracy.  During the Summit, Vice President Harris announced new commitments to advance women’s economic participation in Africa, including the revitalization of the African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program (AWEP). 

1. Vice President Harris launched the Women in Digital Economy Fund (WiDEF)  in 2023 to accelerate efforts to close the gender digital divide.  WiDEF and the corresponding Women in the Digital Economy Initiative have together catalyzed over $1 billion in commitments from governments, the private sector, foundations, and civil society to accelerate digital gender equality – including $102 million in U.S. direct and aligned commitments.  In addition, President Biden secured a historic commitment from G20 leaders to halve the digital gender gap by 2030.  Vice President Harris also launched the Women in the Sustainable Economy Initiative (WISE) in 2023 to promote women’s participation in sectors that address climate change.  Together, WiDEF and WISE represent a commitment of over $3 billion, including millions to empower African women and girls. 
   
2. In July 2024, SBA, Howard University’s Small Business Development Center, AWEP, the State Department, and the Department of Commerce cooperated on an event uniting local and African women-owned businesses on the margins of the 2024 AGOA Forum.  The program and marketplace facilitated business networking and an exchange of best practices on inclusive trade and to support for small business partnerships.  The event built on SBA’s February 2024 virtual event “Connecting U.S. and West African Small Businesses.”
   
3. Over the past two years, DFC has deepened its commitment to advancing economic empowerment across Africa through a range of impactful investments.  Key investments include a $100 million loan to First City Monument Bank, Ltd., expanding access to longer-term loans for women-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises in Nigeria; the 2X Ignite Africa Warehousing Facility, providing critical portfolio-building capital to female-led and gender-balanced fund managers; and a $10 million equity investment in Janngo Capital Startup Fund to fuel the growth of African startups, with at least 50% of funding to women-led enterprises.  Each of these investments reflects DFC’s dedication to empowering women, driving innovation, and building sustainable pathways for economic independence.
   
4. The Department of State, through the Support Her Empowerment-Women’s Inclusion in New Security (SHE WINS) initiative, has invested more than $9 million globally and supported seven women-led and women-serving civil society organizations in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  In August 2024, under the SHE WINS Rapid Response Fund, the United States, in partnership with Norway and Canada, convened a group of Sudanese women civil society leaders to inform discussions on a ceasefire, humanitarian access, and monitoring mechanisms.
   
5. Announced during Vice President Harris’ visit to Ghana in 2023, the Imarisha Women’s Initiative is helping women advance in their careers, improve their skill sets, and increase their income, while creating more flexible and supportive workplaces.  The first cohort of four companies in East Africa are providing leadership, mentorship, and skill trainings; menstrual health and hygiene and lactation support; and programs on the prevention of and response to gender-based violence and harassment in the workplace.

###

The post FACT SHEET: Celebrating U.S.-Africa Partnership Two Years After the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit appeared first on The White House.

Twelve years ago today, the community of Newtown, Connecticut, and the entire nation were forever changed when twenty innocent children and six brave educators were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School by a single individual armed with a weapon of war. Jill and I still grieve this unimaginable loss and continue to pray for the victims’ families and others traumatized by this senseless violence. 
 
Many individuals impacted by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School have turned their pain into purpose. Some families established foundations to carry on their loved ones’ memories—others chose to use their voices to fight for commonsense gun safety reform, hold the gun industry accountable with groundbreaking litigation, and fight back against those who spread misinformation and further victimize those impacted by gun violence. The elementary school children who survived the shooting are now young adults and many of them have also joined the effort to reduce gun violence and save lives.
 
The legacy of this tragedy is one of great loss—but also hope. Twelve years ago, moms sitting at their kitchen counters went online, expressed their outrage, and organized for commonsense gun safety legislation. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords decided enough was enough and started her own effort to combat gun violence. Gun violence prevention organizations that had been invested in the cause for decades reemerged with renewed strength. Today’s gun violence prevention movement is stronger than ever before because of survivors and other Americans who saw the Sandy Hook shooting and said “enough.”
 
With the strength of this emboldened movement by our side, we have made historic progress to reduce gun violence over the past four years. I signed into law the most significant piece of gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years. I announced dozens of executive actions to keep guns out of dangerous hands and get especially dangerous weapons off our streets. I established the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, overseen by Vice President Harris, to accelerate this work. After four years under my administration, homicides are down, crime is falling, and we are seeing fewer mass shootings. This progress is no accident. 
 
Still, more must be done. Congress has an obligation to ‘do something’ in order to protect our children and communities from this scourge of gun violence. We are the only nation experiencing this epidemic and there are common sense policies that the majority of Americans agree with and that Congress can easily take action on. We need universal background checks, red flag laws, safe storage requirements, and a ban on assault weapons like the one used at Sandy Hook. I remain hopeful that we will continue to make progress on these priorities. This hope is rooted in the history of what we have accomplished already and the strength of all the survivors of gun violence that I have had the privilege of working with during my career.
 

###

The post Statement from President Joe Biden Marking Twelve Years Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting appeared first on The White House.