<![CDATA[High Impact Policy Review]]>https://www.highimpactpolicy.reviewhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IIec!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff5097727-e6ab-42be-8267-e1b67a416a5c_500x500.pngHigh Impact Policy Reviewhttps://www.highimpactpolicy.reviewSubstackThu, 23 Apr 2026 10:46:21 GMT<![CDATA[5/7/2021: India, HFCs, menthols, and psychedelics]]>https://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/5-india-hfcs-menthols-and-psychedelicshttps://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/5-india-hfcs-menthols-and-psychedelicsTue, 11 May 2021 00:23:44 GMT[This issue was originally posted to https://highimpactpolicy.ghost.io on May 7, 2021, future issues will all be posted to highimpactpolicy.substack.com]

Welcome to the fifth edition of High Impact Policy Review, or HIPR! Sorry this edition is a week late - I was totally knocked out by my second vaccine shot last week, and decided to push this issue by a week. Lots of stuff happened in the past three weeks, so let’s get to it!

Updates

COVID

  • The NIH’s COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN) is still recruiting for COVID vaccine human challenge trials (sign-up here). Volunteers over age 70 in particular are needed for US vaccine trials.

  • COVID vaccination rates in the US have fallen to 2.13M per day, down from 3.3M per day three weeks ago. Potential reasons for the drop include the J&J vaccine pause, and less eagerness amongst the remaining population to get vaccinated. Reaching herd immunity is going to require, among other things, making vaccines as easy as possible for people to access (walk-in sites, home-vaccination drives, etc), which the Johnson & Johnson one-dose vaccine makes much easier.

  • Speaking of, the J&J pause was lifted, after 10 days. Much ink has been spilled describing the situation, but I think there were basically no good options here. Polls do seem to show that it hasn’t increased vaccine hesitancy.

  • West Virginia will give $100 savings bonds to people 16 to 35 who get vaccinated. With only 29% of the state fully vaccinated, and higher infection rates amongst younger people, the $100 is an exciting way to potentially incentivize more vaccinations, and seeing how it works out will give other governments ideas on how to increase their vaccination rates (I particularly enjoy the Mexico City strategy of having dancers, musicians and wrestlers perform at vaccine centers).

  • In response to the tragic outbreak of COVID-19 in India, Biden’s team ignored calls for help for several days. Finally, national security adviser Jake Sullivan ended the export ban on raw materials for vaccines. Then, after weeks of pressure, the Biden administration decided to share the dormant AstraZeneca vaccines that had been sitting in a warehouse in Baltimore, with India and the rest of the world. However, it will still take weeks for them to ship due to the issues with the vaccine manufacturing facility we mentioned last week. The allocations of the vaccines to different countries still have not been announced.

  • This frankly infuriating situation is a reminder that even though we're seeing lots of shiny new policies and announcements nowadays, basic government competence is still not as high as it could and should be, and it's unclear to me how to fix this.The chain of events that happened here is depressing: the Trump admin first chose to start a vaccine contract with Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturer with which the government had known quality issues in the past. Then they manufactured 60M doses of a vaccine that they hadn't approved, and let it sit idle while other countries faced vaccine shortages and begged for the doses. THEN the quality issues occurred with the J&J, and they knew that they'd need to do a quality check on the AstraZeneca vaccines, which were produced at the same factory, before they could be used. But they didn't do the check then, instead waiting until a few weeks later when pressure rose enough that they finally had to send out the AstraZeneca vaccines to other countries; but now those countries will have to wait while the FDA takes weeks to complete the quality checks. And India and others will suffer needless excess deaths, which could have been prevented by different decision at any point in this sequence of events.

  • The Biden administration, in a turnaround from previous statements, announced at the WTO that they’re backing a IP patent waiver on COVID-19 vaccines. Their statements suggest it will take a long time, if it happens at all. It will require WTO approval and unanimous member consensus, and some European countries, most notably Germany, are stating they will oppose it. Some experts also say this won’t do much on its own to increase vaccine supply.

  • The FDA is planning to authorize the Pfizer vaccine for use in 12-15 year olds next week. While the news is positive, the government faces a difficult decision now as many argue that excess doses of Pfizer and other vaccines should be sent overseas to countries struggling with COVID right now, rather than inoculating teenagers here, given how mild the effects of COVID seem to be for that age group.

  • Pfizer has also asked the FDA for full approval of their vaccine (all COVID-19 vaccines are currently being administered under emergency use authorization). If they get approval in the coming months, it means that Pfizer can directly market the vaccine, it may make vaccine mandates more feasible, and it might calm some vaccine hesitancy.

Climate

  • The two big infrastructure bills are running into roadblocks in negotiations, as Republicans and Democrats argue over the size and other details of the bill. It’s unclear how much bipartisan agreement is needed to actually pass the bills; it’ll largely depend on what strategy Congressional Democrats decide to take (particularly those like Manchin).

  • The EPA is setting the first national limits on HFCs, a super-potent greenhouse gas used in refrigerants (ex. ACs and refrigerators). It has thousands of times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. I’ve been waiting to see policy action on refrigerants since seeing it listed years ago as the #1 climate solution in Drawdown’s analysis (it’s now #4), so this is very welcome news. There are still a huge number of refrigerants already in use that need to be disposed of properly at the end of their life, or they will cause emissions (I could see a national refrigerant collection service potentially being a great investment in future climate legislation) but for now, limiting the use of new HFCs is an important place to start.

  • The Senate voted to reinstate regulations designed to limit methane emissions from new oil and gas fields. It’s expected to pass the House and be approved by Pres. Biden soon.

  • Washington state passed some ambitious climate policy that includes carbon pricing, which is authorized to stay in place until emissions goals are reached. The revenue will go towards climate mitigation and adaptation, including transportation, air quality, and funding for tribal relocation.

  • Secretary Haaland visited the Bears Ears National Monument last month, suggesting the Biden admin may be open to reversing the Trump-era decision to reduce its size by 85% and open significant parts of it up to fossil fuel development and other uses.

  • The “Climate-Related Financial Risk” executive order planned for April 23rd that we discussed last time was never issued.

Foreign Aid

  • The US promised a $300 million boost in aid to Afghanistan. It was promised last year contingent on progress in peace talks with the Taliban (which have since stalled), but is now being released immediately. Senators say the aid will be cut off if the Taliban take power.

  • The White House has announced $310 million in emergency aid to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, to help refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and other vulnerable populations, presumably with the intent of abating the “border crisis”. While the aid will help people, it might not have exactly the effect they’re hoping for.

  • In response to the legislation introduced last month, which would condition US aid to Israel on not being used to occupy Palestine, 330 members (including almost all Republicans and half the Democrats) of the House signed a letter late last month insisting that the $3.8 billion in annual military aid the United States provides Israel remain unconditional. Polls show that barely one-third of U.S. voters oppose such conditions.

  • A new report from the USAID inspector general suggests that US aid to Venezuela in 2019 might have been pursued with the goal of removing President Maduro from power, rather than on the basis of what would help struggling Venezuelans most.

Democracy/Voting

  • The 2020 Census results were released and seats in Congress reapportioned. Seven House seats were shifted between states. Most of the seats lost were in Democrat states and seats gained were in Republican states (though the shift was smaller than initially expected). The future impact is still not obvious because the areas within those states growing in population usually lean Democrat, so the shape of the districts will matter. There Republicans have an advantage too as they will control 2.5 times as many congressional redistrictings as Democrats. Many are concerned that COVID-19, as well as Pres. Trump’s meddling, may have led to unusual results this year.

  • The House passed a bill to make DC the nation's 51st state. The path to success looks incredibly slim in the Senate. Even if filibuster reform were to happen and only a simple majority was needed, Sen. Manchin is opposed to the bill, so passage would be almost impossible. Statehood would give more than 700,000 DC residents representation in Congress, which they currently lack, and would make the Republican-skewed Congress (and in particular, the Senate) slightly more balanced.

  • The Judicial Act of 2021, which seeks to expand the Supreme Court from 9 justices to 13, was introduced a few weeks ago. It only requires a simple majority to pass in both houses, but it still seems very unlikely to pass, as Speaker Pelosi has stated she will not bring it to a vote in the House. If passed, it would shift the current 6-3 conservative tilt of the court to a 6-7 slight liberal advantage, with large implications for future rulings of the court.

  • Oregon lawmakers struck a deal to give Republican and Democrat lawmakers equal control over redistricting in the state; previously it was under exclusive control of the majority party (Democrats). This could lead to 2-3 seat swing towards Republicans for House races in 2022. With only a 6 seat margin in the House at the moment, this could seriously change the 2022 House race.

Immigration

  • After extended back and forth over the past few months, the Biden administration finally landed on a refugee admission limit of 62,500, which was the original promise. However, with the pace of admissions already so slow after all this confusion (including 700 flights cancelled for refugees who were expecting to come last month), the White House has stated that they are not on track to actually have that many refugees arrive this fiscal year.

Health

  • The new infrastructure bill proposals include $5B funding for the EPA’s Superfund program, which cleans up toxic waste sites across the country. There are currently 1,327 sites in the backlog, some of which have been waiting for action since the 1980s. The task is becoming more urgent as “60 percent of all Superfund sites are vulnerable to flooding, storm surge, wildfires, and sea level rise”.

  • The FDA is moving to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. They said that "menthol masks unpleasant flavors and harshness of tobacco products, making them easier to start using. Tobacco products with menthol can also be more addictive and harder to quit by enhancing the effects of nicotine." This seems like a good move for public health to me. Some have argued that it will lead to higher criminalization in Black communities, which disproportionately smoke menthols, but given that the ban would only apply to manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, importers and retailers - not civilians/consumers (the same as current bans on other flavored cigarettes), this seems unlikely to me.

Foreign Policy

  • The U.S. may still be helping Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war.  While Pres. Biden announced in February that he would end “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales,” he took months to offer details of the types of involvement there were before, and what exactly ended. US contractors are maintaining the Saudi aircraft used to launch offenses on Yemen, without which they would most likely be losing the war.

  • More military troops and equipment are being sent to Afghanistan to protect the forces that are beginning to withdraw from Afghanistan.

  • Progress is inching forward on the Iran nuclear deal, with a consensus expected by May 22.

  • The US and China will be re-evaluating their trade deal soon, and potentially making changes to the U.S. tariffs on some $370 billion worth of annual Chinese imports. They will likely also be going head to head at the UN Security Council meeting today on many issues, including human rights accusations and their behavior against Taiwan.

Justice Reform

  • California’s bill to decriminalize psychedelics has passed their Senate Public Safety and Health Committees. The bill includes not just natural psychedelics but synthesized ones such as LSD and MDMA. If the bill is signed into law, not only would this be great news for reducing unnecessary criminal punishment, but it would also be fantastic news for mental health, as psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA have been shown to have incredible potential against PTSD and other mental health issues.

  • A memo released during the Trump administration says that inmates who were sent home due to COVID must return to prison. The Justice Department has stated they’re in no rush to rescind the memo, as the COVID-19 emergency declaration is valid through the end of the year, but this delay leaves more than 2,400 people in limbo and unsure of what will happen to them at the end of the year.

  • The Supreme Court is hearing a case which, depending on their decision, might allow people charged with low-level crack cocaine sentences across the country to apply for shorter sentences relief.

Farmed Animal Welfare

  • Although meatpacking companies have argued that they were ordered to keep slaughterhouses open during the pandemic (even as countless workers suffered from COVID-19), the Department of Justice recently disputed this claim, “stating that the federal government ‘in no way mandated that Tyson maintain its production’ last year.”

Tech

Other

  • The PRO Act, which would be the most important labor legislation in decades if passed, has support from 47 Senate Democrats. Organized labor groups continue to put pressure on the remaining 3 holdouts to sign on to the bill.

  • Of the $46.5 billion in rental assistance that Congress allocated in December and March, very little has actually reached any tenants or landlords. With 1 in 7 renters behind on payments, the delays mean more tenants facing potential evictions, and landlords losing their properties (which can lead to further consolidation by large landlords).

  • The expanded and advanced child tax credit that passed in the American Rescue Plan, only lasts for one year. Democrats pressured Biden to make that permanent, but instead he only proposed extending it to 2025. Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has introduced a family care bill that makes the tax credit permanent.

Opportunities

Interested in learning more on how to increase your engagement with high-impact U.S. policy? Check out a list of resources on the HIPR website!

Fill out this form or email hello@highimpactpolicy.review with any feedback! And feel free to forward any news that you think should be included in the next edition. If this was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here!

Until next time,

Arushi 📋🖋

]]><![CDATA[4/16/21: Nuclear deals, pigs, and legal weed]]>https://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/416-nuclear-deals-pigs-and-legalhttps://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/416-nuclear-deals-pigs-and-legalWed, 28 Apr 2021 16:20:08 GMT

Welcome to the fourth edition of High Impact Policy Review, or HIPR! This biweekly (every 2 weeks) newsletter provides updates on U.S. policies relevant to potentially high-impact cause areas, such as foreign aid, farmed animal welfare, and criminal justice reform and informs you of potentially high-impact U.S. policy opportunities that I see around! These past two weeks were eventful, so let's dive right in!

Updates

COVID

  • The NIH’s COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN) is recruiting for COVID vaccine human challenge trials! You can sign-up here. Volunteers over age 70 in particular are needed for US vaccine trials.

  • The good news: COVID vaccination rate is 3.3M per day, which is impressive and would have been a huge cause for celebration just a few weeks ago. The bad news: everything else I’m about to list here.

  • Michigan is still suffering through a huge COVID outbreak and calls for a vaccine surge to the state senselessly continue to be ignored.

  • The pause instituted Tuesday on the J&J vaccine after 6-7 cases of blood clots has been discussed to death; it will obviously have some effects on the US vaccination effort in the coming weeks. The pause is expected to last at least another week, as the CDC advisory panel meets again to discuss next week. It will likely have a serious impact on vaccine outreach to rural areas and in-home vaccinations, as it’s the only approved vaccine in the US that’s one shot and doesn’t require extreme cold storage.

  • The pause may not make a huge difference because Johnson and Johnson vaccine supply would have fallen by 86% this week anyways due to a mixup at a vaccine manufacturing facility, which led to 15M doses needing to be discarded. It’s especially disappointing as senior government officials knew about problems with this plant long before contracting them for COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing.

  • The US continues to hoard vaccines; not only are we failing to send vaccines to other countries after having secured enough for ourselves, but we are also restricting exporting raw materials that other countries need to make vaccines themselves. The rules were instituted in early March, which HIPR missed at the time, but the effects are showing now, as Indian vaccine manufacturer SII complains about the ban’s impact on their vaccine production, and is slowing its own vaccine exports to other countries.

  • The US is also continuing to ignore recommendations to delay the second vaccine shot to 12 weeks, as Britain has done, and focus on getting more people their first shots.

Climate

  • We talked about the infrastructure bill last week and the exciting climate spending, but a huge part that I missed is that the bill includes an end to fossil fuel subsidies! HEATED’s discussion of the true cost of fossil fuel subsidies is an interesting look at the impact of this.

  • An executive order is planned for April 23rd to that “will require companies to be more transparent about the threats they face from climate change”, and that will require the government to come up with a strategy on climate-related risks for public and private financial assets. We’ll discuss more in the next issue when it comes out but polls show voters support these initiatives, at 62% and 63% respectively.

  • Maryland’s ambitious Climate Solutions Now Act of 2021 failed to pass as the Maryland House and Senate were not able to reach a compromise and the legislative session for the year ended last night.

Foreign Aid

  • U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced more than $596 million in U.S. humanitarian assistance to Syria — $100 million less than last year.

  • The Biden Administration is renewing $235M of aid to Palestine, which had been cut by the previous administration.

  • Rep McCollum is introducing legislation to restrict US aid to Israel from subsidizing an array of Israel’s occupation tactics in Palestine. However, it seems unlikely to even get a hearing in House committees.

Foreign Policy

  • President Biden announced US troops will be leaving Afghanistan by Sept 11, 2021. Unlike previous commitments from previous presidents, it seems more likely to actually happen because it’s time based, not conditions based. This seems probably good but the details will matter, and some argue that it’ll lead to Taliban control of Afghanistan.

  • Iran and the US re-entered talks on a nuclear deal last week in Vienna. Israel’s attack on Iran’s primary nuclear fuel production plant over the weekend has shifted the circumstances, but appears unlikely to derail talks. Iran has stated they will begin enriching uranium to a level of 60% purity - closer to what’s needed to make a nuclear weapon - but after the attack on Sunday, experts believe they are unlikely to have the ability to produce one in the near future.

Farmed Animal Welfare

  • The Good Food Institute, along with 60 other nonprofits, trade associations, and companies, requested that Congress fund alternative protein research and development in the FY22 budget.

  • A federal judge in Minnesota invalidated a 2019 Trump-era rule allowing processing plants to slaughter pigs as fast as they want.

  • A federal district court has cleared the way for a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s allegedly dangerous response to outbreaks of bird flu.

Democracy/Voting

  • A new law will enable all formerly incarcerated Washingtonians to vote. Signed into law by the governor in April, it will enfranchise people on probation and parole. Washington is the 20th state to adopt such a law.

  • The House Oversight Committee approved a bill to make DC the nation's 51st state. It's expected to pass in the House, but will fail in the Senate without filibuster reform.

  • The Judicial Act of 2021, which seeks to expand the Supreme Court from 9 justices to 13, was introduced yesterday. It only requires a simple majority to pass in both houses, but it still seems very unlikely to pass, as Speaker Pelosi has stated she will not bring it to a vote in the House. If passed, it would shift the current 6-3 conservative tilt of the court to a 6-7 slight liberal advantage, with large implications for future rulings of the court.

  • Oregon lawmakers struck a deal to give Republican and Democrat lawmakers equal control over redistricting in the state; previously it was under exclusive control of the majority party (Democrats). This could lead to 2-3 seat swing towards Republicans for House races in 2022. With only a 6 seat margin in the House at the moment, this could seriously change the 2022 House race.

Justice Reform

  • The Biden Administration is supporting temporarily extending mandatory minimum drug sentencing enacted during the Trump administration. The extension will require congressional approval to pass.

  • New York adopted a strict law against solitary confinement, as mentioned in our last issue, and my partner wrote a fantastic piece on the law and the fight of activists over the past few years to make it happen.

  • Virginia and New Mexico both enacted marijuanalegalization laws last week. After New York did the same a few weeks ago, they are the 16th and 17th US states (plus DC) to legalize weed. The law will go into effect on July 1 in Virginia, and June 29 in NM (both allowing usage and personal growing). Businesses can begin retail sales in 2024 in Virginia and 2022 in New Mexico. More than 40% of Americans now live in a state where marijuana has been fully legalized.

  • New Mexico ended qualified immunity for state actors (like police officers) - a huge step to actually being able to hold them accountable for misconduct. It’s the third state to do so, after Colorado and Connecticut last year (New York City also passed a similar law last month for police officers).

  • Maryland ended life sentences without parole for people being convicted of crimes when they were minors. Maryland is the 25th state in the country to end these sentences, after Virginia last year and Ohio in January. The law also allows anyone who has served at least 20 years for a crime that occured when they were a minor to petition the court for a sentence reduction - more than 400 people are eligible for resentencing under the new law. Gov Hogan of Maryland has expressed opposition to, and a likely veto of, a bill removes the governor’s role in the parole process for people serving life sentences in prison, saying that it would put too much power in the hands of the Maryland Parole Commission. However it passed with enough of a margin in the legislature that lawmakers can overturn the veto and pass the bill if desired.

Immigration

  • President Biden was limiting the number of refugees admitted this year to 15000, the historically low level previously set by the Trump Administration, breaking his earlier promise to raise the cap to allow 60,000 refugees. About an hour before sending this newsletter, the White House reversed course and said they would announce an increased cap by May 15.

  • Gov Hogan of Maryland has vowed to veto a bill that bans jails from being paid to house immigration detainees, and that limits when local and state government can provide information to immigration authorities. However it passed with enough of a margin in the legislature that lawmakers can overturn the veto and pass the bill if desired.

Tech

  • Virginia introduced the nation's second data privacy law. However, critics say the big tech-backed law doesn't go far enough. With an 70 percent of world’s internet traffic flowing through servers in Virginia, it’s an important state for tech policy. The new law however only impacts Virginia consumers.

Opportunities

Interested in learning more on how to increase your engagement with high-impact U.S. policy? Check out a list of resources on the HIPR website!

Fill out this form or email hello@highimpactpolicy.review with any feedback! And feel free to forward any news that you think should be included in the next edition. If this was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here!

Until next time,

Arushi 📋🖋

]]><![CDATA[4/1/21: Infrastructure, vaccine surges, and poultry]]>https://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/41-infrastructure-vaccine-surgeshttps://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/41-infrastructure-vaccine-surgesWed, 28 Apr 2021 16:18:27 GMTWelcome to the third edition of High Impact Policy Review, or HIPR! If you already know the spiel, you can skip down to updates. But if it’s your first time here, my name is Arushi Gupta, and I started this newsletter because I realized that being constantly inundated with political news made it hard to understand what really mattered, and that many issues receive far less coverage than they deserve, given the impact they will have. For example, although the U.S. is one of the largest foreign aid donors and approximately 10 percent of the world population lives in extreme poverty (on less than $1.90 a day!), we rarely talk about the foreign aid decisions that can and do change their lives completely.

This biweekly (every 2 weeks) newsletter will (i) provide updates on U.S. policies relevant to potentially high-impact cause areas, such as foreign aid, farmed animal welfare, and criminal justice reform and (ii) inform you of potentially high-impact U.S. policy opportunities that I see around! I’ll do my best to cover the most neglected and important policy news I become aware of — the decisions that impact a large number of individuals (human or non-human), but which don’t always reach the front-page headlines. For that reason, I won’t always include the biggest news, unless it’s very important, because it’s likely stuff you’re already hearing about!

Updates

Climate

  • The Biden administration has introduced a $2 trillion infrastructure bill, called the American Jobs Plan, which they hope to pass by July 4th. A second measure focused on the care economy (in addition to the $400b in this bill), called the American Family Plan, will be introduced in a few weeks. A lot of the infrastructure spending is climate-focused, including $85b for public transit, $80b for intercity rail (like Amtrak), $35b for climate-related R&D, and $174b for electric vehicles. 

    • Outside of climate spending there’s also $100 billion for universal broadband, $30b for preventing future pandemics, $50b for semiconductor manufacturing and research (to prevent supply chain failures like this years), and $45b to totally remove lead pipes from drinking water across the country. It will also spend “300 billion to promote advanced manufacturing, including a four-year plan to restock the country’s Strategic National Stockpile of pharmaceuticals, including vaccines, in preparation for future pandemics.” 

    • The bill may have a tough time making it through the Senate at the moment without filibuster reform.

  • Biden’s administration announced a goal of getting 30GW of power from offshore wind farms by 2030.

  • A bill has been introduced in the Senate, expanding a tax credit for carbon sequestration projects, including direct carbon capture.

  • The Wyoming House has passed a bill to establish a $1.2M lawsuit fund to defend their coal industry by suing states that move away from using coal to generate electricity, which is… something.

COVID

Foreign Aid

  • U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced more than $596 million in U.S. humanitarian assistance to Syria — $100 million less than last year. 

Foreign Policy

Farmed Animal Welfare

Democracy/Voting

  • Fox News is facing a defamation suit from Dominion Voting for peddling conspiracy theories about their voting machines being used to rig the 2020 elections. It’s exciting that they might finally be held to account for some of their lies, but the prospect of more defamation lawsuits is troubling for other media companies.

  • SPLC, NAACP, and the ACLU are suing Georgia over their new elections laws.

  • Ohio has filed a suit against the Covid stimulus bill, which if it succeeds, could totally change the way that federal grants to states are used; the federal government could become totally unable to put conditions on their grants, causing programs like Medicaid to fall apart.

  • HR 1 remains stalled as Senator Manchin remains uncertain about the bill, and filibuster reform is still not happening. 

Justice Reform

  • There has been a LOT of news in New York the past two weeks. New York’s governor signed legislation legalizing marijuana for adults over 21 this week.

  • New York passed a law that will restrict prisons and jails from holding people in solitary confinement for longer than 15 days. Currently, a majority of those in solitary (nearly all-day isolation) for serious rule violations spent between one and three months inside - and some were in isolation for more than a year. The law, celebrated by advocates for incarcerated people, will not go into effect until next year.

  • New York City ended qualified immunity for policy officers becoming the first state in the nation to do so.

  • Virginia repealed the death penalty - the first southern state to do so. 

  • The DC law decriminalizing natural psychedelics including magic mushrooms, ayahuasca, and mescaline has gone into effect. 

Immigration

  • A visa ban on H, L, and J visa holders, enacted on June 22, 2020, has expired, allowing those who were outside the country to finally re-enter.

Tech

  • Arizona has introduced a bill that would allow app developers to sell apps outside of Apple and Google app stores.

Other

  • The House passed the Equal Rights Amendment, which would become the 34th Constitutional amendment, and make gender equality a part of the Constitution. However, it's unclear whether it'll pass in the Senate and it could still face a legal challenge afterwards.

Opportunities

Interested in learning more on how to increase your engagement with high-impact U.S. policy? Check out a list of resources on the HIPR website! 

Fill out this form or email hello@highimpactpolicy.review with any feedback! And feel free to forward any news that you think should be included in the next edition. If this was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here!

Until next time,

Arushi 📋🖋

]]><![CDATA[3/17/21: Filibuster reform, child poverty, and global vaccines]]>https://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/31721-filibuster-reform-child-povertyhttps://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/31721-filibuster-reform-child-povertyThu, 01 Apr 2021 19:10:52 GMTWelcome to the second edition of High Impact Policy Review, or HIPR! If you already know the spiel, you can skip down to updates. But if it’s your first time here, my name is Arushi Gupta, and I started this newsletter because I realized that being constantly inundated with political news made it hard to understand what really mattered, and that many issues receive far less coverage than they deserve, given the impact they will have. For example, although the U.S. is one of the largest foreign aid donors and approximately 10 percent of the world population lives in extreme poverty (on less than $1.90 a day!), we rarely talk about the foreign aid decisions that can and do change their lives completely.

This biweekly (every 2 weeks) newsletter will (i) provide updates on U.S. policies relevant to potentially high-impact cause areas, such as foreign aid, farmed animal welfare, and criminal justice reform and (ii) inform you of potentially high-impact U.S. policy opportunities that I see around! I’ll do my best to cover the most neglected and important policy news I become aware of — the decisions that impact a large number of individuals (human or non-human), but which don’t always reach the front-page headlines. For that reason, I won’t always include the biggest news, unless it’s very important, because it’s likely stuff you’re already hearing about!

Updates

COVID

  • The American Rescue Plan stimulus bill passed containing a huge number of exciting priorities, including: extended unemployment benefits, stimulus checks, a child tax credit, aid for state/local governments, COVID testing funding, funding to help schools reopen, subsidies for healthcare and much more. The child benefit in particular is very exciting, and though the program is only for one year, there are hopes it will prove popular enough to be made permanent.

  • The Biden administration has ordered another 100 million doses of the J&J vaccine. If you’re concerned about it being less effective, I found this piece reassuring.

  • The Biden administration announced multiple changes to expand vaccine access, including expanding who is qualified to give vaccine shots, expanding vaccine sites, and providing technical assistance to states for their vaccine appointment sites, which will be helpful because many states have had issues with their sites.

  • Biden directed states to make all adult Americans eligible to receive a Covid vaccine by May 1, and stated hopes that we should be “back to normal” by the Fourth of July.

  • Requirements for ID are shutting some people out of COVID vaccines, who are otherwise qualified.

Foreign Aid

  • President Biden, under intense pressure to donate excess coronavirus vaccines to needy nations, moved on Friday to address the global shortage in another way, partnering with Japan, India and Australia to expand global vaccine manufacturing capacity. The administration is still letting tens of millions of AstraZeneca doses languish (which some may describe as hoarding).

  • The stimulus bill also included$11 billion of international aid targeted at responding to COVID-19, including $3.5 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (which has taken on the fight against coronavirus as well).

Foreign Policy

  • The US and Iran are still in a stalemate over the nuclear deal, with both sides waiting for the other to make the first move.

  • Sec of State Blinken released a statement opposing the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into the Israel-Palestine conflict. 19 House Democrats also sent him a letter on Monday urging him to pressure Israel to distribute vaccines to Palestinians.

Farmed Animal Welfare

  • Sen. Booker and Reps. DeLauro and Thompson reintroduced the Safe Line Speeds During COVID-19 Act, which would suspend “USDA waivers and regulations that allow companies to increase production line speeds at meatpacking plants during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Lower line speeds are better for meatpacking workers and farmed animals.

  • The USDA is requestingpublic comment on climate-smart agriculture and forestry strategy until April 29. Implementation of this input could have drastic effects on animals!

  • The USDA inspector general is reviewing the agency’s handling of meatpacking plant inspections during COVID-19.

  • Check out the recent appointments for USDA General Counsel, Senate Ag subcommittee chairs, and more.

  • A Maryland judge ruled that the state must regulate ammonia pollution from the chicken industry. “This interpretation would be a big change for the local poultry industry — across Delmarva, 300 million meat chickens (known as broilers) are raised annually.”

Climate

  • The stimulus bill included some climate-friendly funding, including $30.5 billion to rescue public transit agencies.

  • While climate has played a role in the Biden administration’s foreign policy, some are disappointed that it is not as central as he promised, particularly with the recent approval of the former Australian finance minister Mathias Cormann (who tried to abolish Australia’s renewable energy targets) to be named director of the OECD.

  • Deb Haaland was confirmed as the first Native American Interior Secretary, a move celebrated by tribal groups and environmental organizations. As a Representative, she was one of the first lawmakers to support the Green New Deal.

Democracy/Voting

  • More Senate Democrats have joined the call to end the Senate filibuster, which will be necessary to pass most of the Democrats’ policy agendas. Sen. Joe Manchin and President Biden, who have both previously been resistant to removing the filibuster, have stated they are in favor of reforming it and into a talking filibuster.

  • The House passed the For the People Act mentioned in the last edition, and the Senate is about to introduce it. The Act includes a large number of voting reforms, including automatically registering people to vote, restoring the voting rights of felons, mandating two weeks of early voting, encouraging voting-by-mail and expanding absentee ballot drop boxes. It would also require states to set up independent redistricting commissions to prevent partisan gerrymandering. Its passage will almost definitely depend on a filibuster reform, which is part of why more senators are open to a reform.

  • The Supreme Court also seems ready to undermine the protections of the Voting Rights Act, and make it extremely difficult to challenge state laws that disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color.

  • Virginia Governor Northam released an executive order restoring voting rights to anyone who was formerly incarcerated.

Justice Reform

  • After a group of incarcerated people filed an emergency motion in federal court last month, Oregon’s prisons have offered a vaccine to every person in custody (approx. 13,000 people). Attorneys representing Oregon’s incarcerated people say it’s among the quickest and broadest vaccine rollouts for incarcerated people in the country.

Immigration

  • The House is set to vote on two big immigration bills this week, which would create a path to citizenship for 2.5M of the 11M undocumented immigrants in the country, and provide a temporary legal status to undocumented farm workers. Their passage through the Senate will likely depend on a filibuster reform.

Tech

  • California banned ‘dark patterns’ that trick users into giving away their personal data.

  • The stimulus bill included $1 billion in funding for the Tech Modernization Fund (which had only received $175M in its lifetime until now), to provide funding for federal IT upgrades

  • The appointments of Lina Khan to the FTC and Tim Wu to the White House National Economic Commission have been applauded by anti-monopolists. It’s likely we might see some big antitrust action coming from the administration over the coming months and years, including potentially breaking up big tech companies - though it’s still unclear what it might look like.

  • A Politico report released yesterday found that FTC investigators had recommended suing Google in 2012 for breaking the law by “banishing potential competitors” from mobile phones - but the agency commissioners dismissed the recommendation. The current DOJ case is based on largely the same details as the 2012 recommendation, but 9 years later, it will be much harder to undo Google’s monopoly.

Opportunities

Interested in learning more on how to increase your engagement with high-impact U.S. policy? Check out a list of resources on the HIPR website!

Fill out this form or email hello@highimpactpolicy.review with any feedback! And feel free to forward any news that you think should be included in the next edition. If this was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here!

Until next time,

Arushi 📋🖋

]]><![CDATA[3/3/21: HIPR - a newsletter on high-impact U.S. policy! 📋🖋]]>https://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/hipr-a-newsletter-on-high-impacthttps://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/hipr-a-newsletter-on-high-impactThu, 01 Apr 2021 19:08:04 GMTWelcome to the first edition of High Impact Policy Review, or HIPR! My name is Arushi Gupta, and I started this newsletter because I realized being constantly inundated with political news makes it hard to understand what really matters, and that many issues receive far less coverage than they deserve, given the impact they have. For example, although the U.S. is one of the largest foreign aid donors and approximately 10 percent of the world population lives in extreme poverty (on less than $1.90 a day!), we rarely talk about the foreign aid decisions that can and do change their lives completely.

This biweekly (every 2 weeks) newsletter will (i) provide updates on U.S. policies relevant to potentially high-impact cause areas, such as foreign aid, farmed animal welfare, and criminal justice reform and (ii) inform you of potentially high-impact U.S. policy opportunities that I see around! I’ll do my best to cover the most neglected and important policy news I become aware of — the decisions that impact a large number of individuals (human or non-human), but which don’t always reach the front-page headlines. For that reason, I won’t always include the biggest news, unless it’s very important, because it’s likely stuff you’re already hearing about!

For the first edition of the newsletter, I’ve included news dating from mid-January 2021. Following editions will cover the two weeks of news between editions (and will be a bit shorter).

Updates

Foreign Aid

  • The Biden administration has officially committed $4 billion to Covax, the global effort to fund and deliver COVID-19 vaccines around the world, particularly to lower-income countries. Vaccinating the rest of the world quickly is critical for a number of reasons, and this commitment is a step to getting there, but arguably the more important (and cheaper) thing that Biden can do might be opening up some of the intellectual property rights on the vaccines to manufacturers in other countries. And while we’re funding Covax, Biden is not planning to share vaccine supply with Mexico if requested.

  • Pres. Biden rescinded a regulation that barred U.S. foreign aid from being used to perform or promote abortions. The regulation, known as the “Mexico City policy,” was first put into place in 1984, and typically changes with the party of the president. The new move also came with a reinstatement of funding to the United National Population Fund. The constant churn with this regulation between administrations has led many organizations to view the U.S. as an unreliable funder. The Biden administration is hoping to fix this by cementing the change with help from Congress, but this is unlikely with the Senate filibuster in place and 60 votes needed.

  • The State Department reversed the Yemen Houthi movement’s terrorist designation. The Trump Administration named the rebel group a terrorist organization on the last day that Pres. Trump was in office. It was a move which experts said would make it more difficult for international relief groups to work in Yemen, as “it stopped food and other critical aid from being delivered inside Yemen and would have prevented effective political negotiation.”

  • The U.S. designated the military takeover in Myanmar a coup, which, under U.S. law, requires the U.S. to restrict their foreign aid to the nation.

Foreign Policy

  • The U.S. formally extended the critical START nuclear treaty with Russia for five years, two days before it was set to expire. It also offered to restart conversations with Iran on a nuclear deal, though it is still unclear if they are willing to talk. These are both important steps, but there is still a lot more that the administration could do to decrease nuclear risk.

  • Pres. Biden bombed Syria. Besides being a humanitarian nightmare, some experts believe this will make it harder to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal. And as with many presidential military actions before, there is concern that this may have not been legal.

  • Sen. Markey and Rep. Lieu reintroduced the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, noting concerns following the insurrection on January 6.

  • Pres. Biden has temporarily paused the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab of Emirates in response to the situation in Yemen.

Farmed Animal Welfare

  • Tom Vilsack was recently confirmed as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture by the Senate. Here’s an explainer on the fight over Biden’s tapping of Vilsack for the position, and here are some thoughts on how Vilsack could impact animals. Sen. Booker, Warnock, and Luján have been newly assigned to the Senate Ag Committee. The appointment of Booker, a longtime farmed animal advocate, is of particular interest. The House Ag’s subcommittee chairs were also announced as were otherkeyfigures for the USDA.

  • Pres. Biden withdrew a rule proposed by the Trump Administration to increase the line speed of chickens at meatpacking plants. This is a big win for chickens and meatpacking workers.

  • Bill Gates’s climate-focused umbrella organization, Breakthrough Energy, released a host of policy solutions related to alternative protein.

  • Tyson Foods has been under serious scrutiny. It is paying $221.5 million to settle complaints over price-fixing allegations, resolving a four-year legal battle over alleged collusion in the chicken industry. Members of Congress sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to provide updates on its investigation into complaints filed against Tyson for false and misleading advertising claims. Pilgrim’s Pride is paying $107.9 million for price-fixing as well.

  • The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis launched an investigation into the widespread coronavirus infections and deaths in meatpacking plants, and sent letters requesting documents from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), JBS USA, Tyson Foods, and Smithfield Foods. Here’s some coverage of the investigation.

At the state and local level: * California introduced a bill that would provide financial and technical assistance to small to midsize farms transitioning from raising animals or growing animal feed to plant-based agriculture. * New York City released Food Forward NYC: A 10-Year Food Policy Plan, which declares that the City will reduce meat on citywide menus. * Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams released The New Agrarian Economy, which urges a shift toward a plant-rich food system and strengthening of alternative protein production.

Climate

  • Pres. Biden issued many climate-related executive orders in the first weeks of his presidency. I won’t go into all the details here because, well, there are a lot, but the actions are largely being welcomed by climate change experts. Here’s another high-level summary, and an up-to-date tracker.

Democracy/Voting

  • Denver, Colorado is considering implementing approval voting in local elections, thanks in part to the work of the Center for Election Science. If you’re not familiar with approval voting, find out more here! St. Louis voted to implement approval voting in November, and got to put it to use for the first time on March 2!

  • Just this year, 43 states have introduced, prefiled, or carried over 253 bills to restrict voting access - over four times the amount at the same time last year. On the other hand, 704 bills with provisions that expand voting access have been introduced, prefiled, or carried over. After the historic voter turnout in the 2020 general election and the expansion of voting access with widespread voting-by-mail during COVID, it looks like this year may be another eventful one in the endless fight over expanding/restricting voter rights.

  • The House is expected to pass the For the People Act today, which includes a number of voting reforms, including automatically registering people to vote, restoring the voting rights of felons, mandating two weeks of early voting, encouraging voting-by-mail and expanding absentee ballot drop boxes. It would also require states to set up independent redistricting commissions to prevent partisan gerrymandering. It’s passage will likely depend on a filibuster reform.

Justice Reform

  • The Supreme Court’s decision to return the case _McCoy v. Alamu _back to the lower court for reconsideration indicates a shift in their thinking on qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that shields civil servants from accountability for misconduct. While the doctrine hasn’t changed, their decision tells lower courts to raise the bar for conduct that receives qualified immunity.

  • A proposed amendment to the For the People Act to allow those who are incarcerated to vote (not just felons who’ve been released) failed in the House.

Immigration

  • The House introduced the U.S. Citizenship Act, a comprehensive bill to address a variety of immigration issues, including a path to citizenship for the estimated 10.4 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S (but again, will need a filibuster reform to pass).

  • The Biden administration proposed raising the refugee ceiling from 15,000 under the previous administration to 62,500. However the President has yet to sign the declaration making it official, forcing more than 250 refugees to cancel their flights as they wait for his signature.

  • The administration broke its promise to halt deportations within their first 100 days in office, in new ICE guidelines. Immigrant advocates, including the ACLU, were disappointed by the development.

COVID

  • Obviously, the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill has finally passed the House. I won’t discuss it too much because I’m sure you’re reading about it _everywhere, _but it’s yet to be seen what will make it to Biden’s desk (particularly, the $15 minimum wage increase). The WaPo has a good summary.

  • The FDA has said that COVID vaccines updated for variants won’t need the same lengthy testing as the originals; they’ll go through a quick approval process similar to the yearly flu vaccine. This is big news to make the battle against the new variants work!

  • Speaking of variants, we were doing very little testing for those until recently, making it impossible to know if dangerous variants from other countries were spreading in the US, or whether we had new ones of our own. The CDC is now starting a national surveillance system for coronavirus variants, and sequencing is ramping up.

  • Vaccines delivery has been steadily increasing and is now averaging nearly 2 million/day; and 300M doses (enough for every American adult) are expected by the end of May - a huge jump from the expectations just three weeks ago!

  • This is happening in part because the Johnson & Johnson vaccine approval is leading to a boost in vaccine supply, with the US govt to deliver 3.9M doses of it this week.

Other

  • The hacking of water systems in a small Florida town illustrates the need for more cybersecurity investment in utilities like water and energy.

  • Sen. Romney introduced the Family Security Act, “one of the most generous child-benefit packages ever, regardless of political party.” The act has the potential to seriously reduce child poverty in the U.S.

Opportunities

Interested in learning more on how to increase your engagement with high-impact U.S. policy? Check out a list of resources on the HIPR website!

This newsletter and website are still in early stages of development so I’d love your feedback!

  • How can this newsletter be improved?

  • How often would you like to receive a newsletter like this?

  • What policy areas do you want to see covered here?

  • Whether you are interested in policy professionally or casually, what resources would you like to see included on the website?

  • Should this newsletter include state and/or local policy updates in addition to federal ones?

Fill out this form or email hello@highimpactpolicy.review with any feedback! And feel free to forward any news that you think should be included in the next edition. If this was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here!

Until next time,

Arushi 📋🖋

]]><![CDATA[High-impact policy news that doesn't reach the front page.]]>https://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/coming-soonhttps://www.highimpactpolicy.review/p/coming-soonThu, 01 Apr 2021 15:55:56 GMTWelcome to High Impact Policy Review by me, Arushi Gupta. Sign up now so you don’t miss the first issue!

High-Impact Policy Review (HIPR) is a biweekly newsletter by Arushi Gupta about high-impact U.S. policies and policy areas. I started this newsletter because I realized that being constantly inundated with political news made it hard to understand what really mattered, and that many issues receive far less coverage than they deserve, given the impact they will have. For example, although the U.S. is one of the largest foreign aid donors and approximately 10 percent of the world population lives in extreme poverty (on less than $1.90 a day!), we rarely talk about the foreign aid decisions that can and do change their lives completely.

This biweekly (every 2 weeks) newsletter will (i) provide updates on U.S. policies relevant to potentially high-impact cause areas, such as foreign aid, farmed animal welfare, and criminal justice reform and (ii) inform you of potentially high-impact U.S. policy opportunities that I see around. I’ll do my best to cover the most neglected and important policy news I become aware of — the decisions that impact a large number of individuals (human or non-human), but which don’t always reach the front-page headlines. For that reason, I won’t always include the biggest news, unless it’s very important, because it’s likely stuff you’re already hearing about!

This site also contains some of my favorite resources for how to get involved, professionally or casually, in high-impact policymaking. For full disclosure, I’m not an expert on all the policy areas explored on this site so some smart friends who are experts in their respective policy areas deserve at least partial credit for some of the news I highlight!

Contact

  • Do you have an idea or feedback for HIPR’s site or newsletter?

  • Do you have news or opportunities you want me to include in the next newsletter?

  • Are you interested in being involved in high-impact policy, but aren’t sure where to start? (I might not either but I can try and help!)

Email me at hello@highimpactpolicy.review.

Resources

News sources I like: Future Perfect, Popular Information, The Flip Side, Platformer, Insight, HEATED

Podcasts I like: Future Perfect, Left, Right & Center, The Ezra Klein Show, The Most Interesting People I Know, Reimagining the Internet

Coming soon: stakeholder maps that visualize which government bodies are relevant to different cause areas

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Subscribe now

In the meantime, tell your friends!

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