President Joe Biden signed a $460 billion funding measure that includes important criminal justice reform programs, including the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, and Second Chance Act, designed to improve outcomes for people returning from incarceration.
Fulfilling a campaign promise, earlier this month, President Joe Biden reversed regulations implemented by the previous administration that had made it more difficult from victims to bring complaints for sexual assault. The new protections broaden the narrowed definition of what constitutes sexual harassment, and finally broaden Title IX to cover gay, transgender, and pregnant people.
The new regulations, issued by the EPA under the direction of President Joe Biden, will primarily affect people living near industrial sites. Those people are disproportionately poor and people of color. The new rule would, among other things, cut toxic pollutants by 6,200 tons annually and reduce emissions of ethylene oxide and chloroprene by 80 percent. Biden again demonstrates that he is making government work for all Americans, in that these regulations will largely benefit communities in Louisiana, Texas, other locations on the Gulf Coast, West Virginia, and the Ohio River Valley, predominantly red states Biden is aware will not be voting for him in November. A more detailed list of the regulations is in this EPA Press Release.
On April 10, 2024, the EPA, at the direction of President Joe Biden, has set stringent new standards regarding the presence of certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, in the US drinking water supply. This is the first time the US has ever regulated these toxic, cancer-causing chemicals. The Biden Administration is deploying funds allocated in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help fund states’ efforts to test and treat their local water supplies to attempt to eliminate PFAs.
From NBC News, “The new fourth-quarter numbers showed a 13% decline in murder in 2023 from 2022, a 6% decline in reported violent crime, and a 4% decline in reported property crime. That’s based on data from around 13,000 law enforcement agencies, policing about 82% of the U.S. population, that provided the FBI with data through December.”
