Biden’s New Health Challenge: Find Another Francis Collins
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins was that rare Washington figure whose clout transcended presidential administrations and frequent power shifts in Congress—more so during a public health crisis. Now, the Biden administration needs to find a Collins clone. The search for a new leader for the world’s largest medical research agency, with a budget of more than $41 billion, creates another huge challenge while the White House plots the next phase of the pandemic response and struggles to find a nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration. Any nominee, if confirmed by the Senate, will need to deftly navigate such priorities as overseeing dozens of trials for coronavirus treatments and vaccines while defending and explaining the administration’s pandemic response to the public and lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Collins’ successor will also have to shepherd a multibillion-dollar priority of President Joe Biden’s: the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, a new institute within the NIH that still needs congressional backing. ( Politico - Oct. 5, 2021)
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Biden Nominates Shelly Lowe as NEH Chair
President Biden announced his intent Tuesday to nominate Shelly Lowe, a current member of the National Council on the Humanities, as the next chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Lowe is a citizen of the Navajo Nation, growing up on the Navajo reservation in Ganado, Ariz. Throughout her career, she has held roles at Harvard University, Yale University and the University of Arizona. “Ms. Lowe has served on the agency’s National Council for six years, demonstrating a steady wisdom and heartfelt devotion to the humanities in service of all Americans,” acting NEH chair Adam Wolfson said in a statement. “As the first Native American and second woman to lead the agency, her nomination is of historic significance.” ( Inside Higher Ed - Oct. 6, 2021)
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ODNI to Share Unclassified Science and Technology Priorities
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is preparing unclassified documents to share its science and technology priorities with industry and academia, John Beieler, ODNI science and technology director, said Oct. 5 at the GEOINT 2021 Symposium here. ODNI began creating the documents by asking U.S. government national intelligence managers about needs within their regions or functional areas that were going unmet. ODNI then compared the 100s of “capability gaps” identified with the budget to “see where resources don’t match the priorities,” Beieler said. Currently, ODNI priorities are listed in documents “created at a pretty high level of classification,” Beieler said. ODNI is now working to create unclassified versions of the documents to share with “industry partners and academia, and others with technology expertise who can help us in our mission.” ( SpaceNews - Oct. 5, 2021)
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Biden Administration Temporarily Expands Student Loan Forgiveness Program for Public Servants
Service members, teachers and other public servants who have been shut out of a controversial student loan forgiveness program will get another chance at debt cancellation, the Education Department said Wednesday. The federal agency will temporarily allow all payments borrowers made on federal student loans to count toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, regardless of the loan program or payment plan. It estimates the move will bring more than 550,000 people closer to debt cancellation, including 22,000 who will be immediately eligible. Created by Congress in 2007, the loan forgiveness program has been derided by participants, lawmakers and consumer groups for being exceedingly complex and poorly managed. ( The Washington Post - Oct. 6, 2021)
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VA Resumes Collection of Debts from Benefits Overpayments, Medical Co-pays
Veterans Affairs officials resumed debt collections this weekend for individuals who were overpaid disability and education benefits or owe co-payments for medical visits, ending a suspension of the debt program put in place at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The move means that veterans who owe the department money will start receiving debt notifications in coming days, with information on how to repay and what financial assistance programs may be available to them. However, VA officials said that they won’t start deducting those debts from monthly benefits payouts until January 2022, to give individuals time to prepare for the financial impact of the moves. About 600,000 veterans are expected to be impacted by the move. Of that group, about half have made payments to VA since the debt collection suspension was announced in April 2020. The rest have made partial payments, or entered into a repayment plan. VA officials said money owed to them totals about $1.13 billion. ( MilitaryTimes - Oct. 5, 2021)
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Lengthy Processing Times Keep Indian Green Card Seekers Waiting
The federal government got a rare chance to chip away at [a yearslong backlog for a green card created by strict per-country visa limits], after coronavirus-related processing delays in 2020 led to an additional 122,000 employment-based green cards this year. But U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Homeland Security agency that oversees requests for visas and other immigration benefits, couldn’t process all of the applications in time. A State Department official estimated 80,000 unused employment-based green card slots were lost when fiscal 2021 ended last Thursday, though USCIS said the final number could be lower. The additional green cards, had they been processed in time, could have shortened the wait for Indian citizens like Donepudi, who has waited more than a decade for a green card through his wife’s job—keeping his whole family in limbo. ( Roll Call - Oct. 5, 2021)
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