Indiana lawmakers won’t return for one-day session on COVID-19 legislation
Legislative leaders said they now will plan to address COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the public health emergency during the regular session in January.
Legislative leaders said they now will plan to address COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the public health emergency during the regular session in January.
The legal tussle over the vaccine mandate for larger private employers is one of several challenges over Biden administration vaccine rules. Courts so far have not halted two other mandates—one for health care workers and one for contractors for the federal government.
Republican leaders are trying to speed legislation through the Indiana General Assembly that would effectively force private employers that mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for employees to allow for any medical or religious exemptions—no questions asked.
The move is aimed at global energy markets, but also at U.S. voters who are coping with higher inflation and rising prices ahead of Thanksgiving and winter holiday travel.
By picking Jerome Powell to stay on as chair of the powerful Federal Reserve, President Joe Biden is trying to navigate hazardous crosscurrents between economic and political forces.
The bill is set on an extraordinary fast track for approval, with a single public hearing scheduled for Tuesday at the Statehouse followed by the House and Senate voting on final approval six days later.
The main drug industry lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, says inflation rebates would undermine innovation that continues after medicines are approved.
The Republican-dominated Legislature has not taken any action on bills submitted over the past decade for allowing medical marijuana or removing criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of the drug.
Their opposition comes as President Joe Biden is expected to announce within days whom he will choose for the nation’s most powerful economic position.
The 2,135-page bill includes universal preschool, funding to limit child care costs, expanded health care programs and a one-year continuation of a child tax credit, among many other provisions.
The measure adopted Friday amounts to a dramatic re-envisioning of the role of government in Americans’ daily lives. It still must survive an even tougher political slog in the days ahead.
House approval is expected Friday on a near party-line vote. That would send the measure to a Senate where cost-cutting demands by moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and that chamber’s strict rules seemed certain to force significant changes.
Pfizer asked the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to authorize emergency use of the experimental pill, which has been shown to significantly cut the rate of hospitalizations and deaths among people with coronavirus infections.
The foundation’s 26th annual highway rankings place the Hoosier state at 32 for the second straight year, dinging it for poor rural and urban interstate pavement, insufficient maintenance expenditures, low capital and bridge spending, and more.
The legal fight over the increased power Indiana legislators gave themselves to intervene during public health emergencies will be going before the state Supreme Court, although not for nearly five months.
The far-east area is Lift Indy’s seventh designee, after Mid-North, Monon16, the Old Southside, East 10th Street, the Near-North and Martindale-Brightwood.
The Biden administration is making billions of dollars available to drugmakers to expand domestic production of COVID-19 vaccines in the hopes of building capacity to produce an additional 1 billion shots per year to share with the world.
Saule Omarovaa’s previous criticism of the banking industry makes the banks fearful she will be a tough regulator for Wall Street. They also are wary because of academic writings in which she has proposed substantial overhauls to how banks operate in the U.S.
The president is hoping to do even more to promote electric vehicles, including a provision for a $7,500 tax credit for consumers who buy electric vehicles through 2026 that’s been floated as part of his proposed $1.85 trillion social services and climate bill.
Indiana’s governor is facing pressure from fellow Republicans to end the statewide COVID-19 public health emergency order that’s been in place since March 2020 even as the state has seen a recent jump of infections and hospitalizations.