Financial Guidelines - California Department Of Transportation - State: Fill & Download for Free

A lot of laws are old and outdated. What’s one law you think needs to be changed or added?There is one law I can think of.I was pulled over for a traffic ticket.When you get pulled over, they always ask for three things.Drivers licenseRegistrationProof of Financial Responsibilities (aka Car insurance card)The CA Highway patrol asked me for all three things but on the Registration, I had a copied one and not the original. He demanded the “original” not the copy. I said you don’t need the original. We went back and forth like this 3 times. Then, His “smart-ass” response was, “I’ll just write you a ticket for that also”. I said, “fine do it.”He pulled me over for crossing the double yellow lines, into the carpool HOV lane. I had another passenger so we met the criteria for 2 or more people plus my car was a brand new 2018 Nissan LEAF EV which was allowed in the carpool lane even with 1 person because it’s an EV.Anyway, Well he walked back to his CHP motorcycle and was there for the longest time searching for the code in his CVC (California Vehicle Code) book to write me up. He couldn’t find it so when he came back I only received the ticket for crossing the two double lines.Well, I have a J.D. law degree and one of my skills is to help people fight traffic tickets.So I wrote up my complaint. My argument was as follows.See LA is in Cal-Trans District 7. San Francisco is in Cal-trans District 11. Orange County (OC) is in Cal-trans District 12.In San Fran and OC Cal-Trans permits you to go in and out of the carpool HOV lane anywhere. In LA you can only enter / exit at the broken lines, not the solid double lines.My argument was I had just left OC and entered LA and there was no marker to show where each county line ended and was delineated. Thus I was free to enter the carpool lane since I believed I was still in OC territory. I also said I had a 2nd passenger, my 15-year-old son, AND my car was an approved EV that could travel in the carpool HOV lane even if I was by myself.The traffic court bought my argument and the ticket was dismissed.==============================================Okay here’s the tricky part on where the law is “outdated” and should be removed.It was the part where he insisted I had to have the original registration in the car, in my car instead of a copy.I researched and showed the court that that law was invented in the days “BEFORE” or “PRIOR” to computers in police units and “BEFORE” or “PRIOR” to they had CB radios in police units and before they had copiers or XEROX copy machines.So, back then the police had to see an ORIGINAL registration.My argument to the court was this COP / CA HIGHWAY PATROL was corrupt and wanted to write me a BOGUS ticket on top of the carpool lane violation for not having ORIGINAL registration in my car.I stated to the court that my car had not one, not two, but THREE car video cameras that caught everything he did and everything he said. I had TWO video cameras facing forward, and ONE facing the rear.So my video cameras caught him walk back, get his VC Vehicle codebook and look through it for a good 10–12 minutes before he gave up and never wrote me for the 2nd ticket infraction.My video camera’s audio also caught him lying and saying the ORIGINAL registration was required and not a copy.Years back I had taken a Traffic school class, and it was being taught by a who else? A California Highway Patrol officer. He taught classes to make extra side money.And he taught us, NEVER, NEVER EVER put the original registration in your car. Just make a copy.The reason is “if your car gets towed”. You need the ORIGINAL Registration to get your car out of the Tow Yard or Storage yard. THEY or THAT TOW Facility will “not” take a copy of the Registration only the Original.So now whenever I renew my tags and my wife’s, I always put the tag on the car license plates, then make a photocopy of the registration and put the copy in our 3 cars.I told the court all this.Then I further told the court that back in the day they didn’t have copiers, CB radios, and car or motorcycle computers.PLUS, PLUS, PLUS, he could CLEARLY SEE, that my car was BRAND SPANKING NEW, NEW, NEW. I just just bought the car on March 10th of 2018. It was a 2018 NISSAN LEAF EV. I got the ticket in April of 2018. The very next month.So he (the CHP) COULD clearly see my tags were brand new, then why would he even need to see my registration? Except to harass me and give me a hard time.Furthermore, he could have any time called it in to dispatch to verify it.Note: Also in California, we have had something called TBWD; that’s Trial-By-Written-Declaration; that means you write up your arguments (aka type it up on a computer) as a Trial Pleading or a Brief; albiet they call it your “Declaration” and submit your “verbal arguments on paper”.That’s what I did; that’s what I do for the people I help with traffic tickets. Here’s another Quora answer I gave on how-to-do-that on Trial type Pleading template or format paper available in Microsoft Word or Word Perfect.Stanley Hutchinson's answer to I got a ticket for going 45 mph in a 35 mph when the speed limit was just about to change to 45 mph. Should I just pay the fine or take it to court?Also here is an actual excerpt from my TBWD on this case that I submitted to the court; with all pertinent identifiers removed. Enjoy! I copied and pasted it so all the Indentations are messed up. But read it for the Content. I put a lot of time into these TBWD.“SUPERIOR COURT of CALIFORNIACOUNTY OF LOS ANGELESEL MONTE COURTHOUSE11234 VALLEY BLVD.EL MONTE, CA 91731RE: Citation # HQxxxxDefendant: John Doe | Case: Citation #HQxxxx1vs. California Highway Patrol (CRANE #20988) (name illegible on citation) || Motion for Subpoena: CR-125/JV-525| Subpoena/Subpoena Duces Tecum (order to attend court or| provide documents (Facts not in evidence)| Motion for Pitchess SB1421| Motion to Compel an answer| Motion to Dismiss| Motion to Impeach for Perjury (CA PC141)DECLARATION OF JOHN DOEI, John Doe, declare as follows:1. I am the Defendant in this above-entitled matter. I makeThis declaration in support of my contention that I was wrongfully cited for VC21655. I have personal knowledge of the facts of the matters stated herein.On said day and date of the said citation, 1:05 pm Wednesday 04-14-18. I was wrongfully ticketed by CA Highway Patrol, where this corrupt California Highway patrol officer CRANE (name illegible on citation) cited the driver of the vehicle under VC21655.MOTION FOR SUBPOENA of FACTS to be Entered into Evidence (ASSUMES FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE)Under the 5th Amendment, I am not under any duty to testify nor provide any neither culpable nor exculpable evidence for the prosecution for this “Strict Liability” citation.I am “Presumed Not Guilty”. Motion to dismiss the ticket is entered.The prosecution has the burden of proof and the prosecution must meet this burden beyond a “reasonable doubt”, not me. I have the right to confront my accuser (Crane) and examined under Direct examination or cross-examined. (Exhibit A. Attachment form CR-125/JV-525.)CALIFORNIA EVIDENCE LAWCA EVIDENCE CODE 115. Except where otherwise provided by law the burden of proof shall be by the preponderance of the evidence. Furthermore, the burden of proof is on the accuser. Here the accuser is the CA State Government witness California Highway Patrol officer Crane (Crane). Motion for Production and subpoena are entered (supra.)(infra.). (EXHIBIT A. Attachment form CR-125/JV-525.)CALIFORNIA CAL TRABS DISTRICTS 12 Orange County and DISTRICTS 4 Alameda Counties HOV rulesCalifornia Highway Patrol’s ARE aware or should be aware that Caltrans Tran Districts 4 and 12 permit ingress and egress from the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) aka Carpool lanes at any point. EXHIBIT B (copy of citation)2003 California Vehicle Code (CVC) Visit the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) website, see Appendix A-7 and A-8: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/vctoc.htm. Most of the HOV related vehicle code sections are located in Division 11 of the CVC.♦ Section 21460 Double Lines♦ Section 21654 Slow-Moving Vehicles♦ Section 21655 Designated Lanes for Certain Vehicles♦ Section 21655.3 Permanent High-Occupancy Vehicle Lanes♦ Section 21655.5 Exclusive- or Preferential- Use Lane for High-OccupancyVehicles♦ Section 21655.5(b) Mass Transit and Para Transit Vehicles may use HOV lanes regardless of occupancy♦ Section 21655.6 Approval of Joint Transportation Planning Agency or CTC♦ Section 21655.7 Use of Highway: Public Mass Transit Guideway♦ Section 21655.8(a) Entering or Exiting Preferential- Use Lanes♦ Section 21655.9 HOV Lanes: Use by Ultra-Low Emission Vehicles♦ Section 21714 Three-Wheeled Vehicles: Operation in HOV Lanes♦ Section 22364 Lane Speed Limits♦ Section 22406 Maximum Speed for Designated VehiclesUNITED STATES CONSTITUTIONAL LAW – 14th AMENDMENTUnder the 14th Amendment Right to Due Process and Right of Confrontation. A defendant has no duty to testify, nor any duty to provide Exculpatory evidence where there is a presumption of a negative. That negative is a presumption of ‘not guilty’.Also, under the 14th amendment, I have a right to confront any accuser herein Government witness(s) and demand proof and evidence to meet the burden of proof of what evidence the Government witness has against the defendant.Where there is a failure to provide such evidence to corroborate the allegations by the Government witness a motion to dismiss must be granted by the court for lack of evidence to prosecute. That Motion to dismiss is hereby entered in the interest of justice where the California Highway Patrol office fails to provide the requested motion for production underCR-125/JV-525 Subpoena/Subpoena Duces Tecum (order to attend court or provide documents (Facts not in evidence) as ordered by the Subpoena.)In the interest of justice Motion to Dismiss is hereby entered.QUESTIONS FOR THE TRIAL COURT COMMISSIONERVC 21655The definition of law enforcement includes VC21655–Section 21655 Designated Lanes for Certain Vehicles Allows the Department of Transportation or local authorities to designate specific lanes for vehicles required to drive at reduced speeds. Requires vehicles driving at reduced speeds to use the farthest right lanes.My vehicle is a 2018 Nissan LEAF Electric Vehicle (EV) not a hybrid, But rather a FULL EV. Thus I am permitted to travel in the HOV lane. Furthermore, on that date, I had a passenger in the front seat of my vehicle making my car “ELIGIBLE” to be in the HOV lane. This evidence is self-evident on the citation itself as it lists the Year, Make, and Model of my Nissan LEAF EV.A complaint was also filed with CA Highway Patrol HQ in Sacramento vs. CRANE. (EXHIBIT D) for this violation.MOTION TO IMPEACH FOR PERJURY (CA PC141)Motion for CRANE to be Impeached and charged with Perjury under PC141.AB 1909, Lopez. Falsifying evidence. Approved by Governor on September 30, 2016. Filed with Secretary of state on September 30, 2016.SECTION 1. Section 141 of the Penal Code is amended to read:141 (b) A peace officer who knowingly, willfully, intentionally, and wrongfully alters, modifies, plants, places, manufactures, conceals, or moves any physical matter, digital image, or video recording, with the specific intent that the action will result in a person being charged with a crime or with the specific intent that the physical matter, digital image, or video recording will be concealed or destroyed, or fraudulently represented as the original evidence upon a trial, proceeding, or inquiry, is guilty of a felony punishable by two, three, or five years in the state prison.Submitting a traffic citation for prosecution without evidence and without corroborating evidence satisfies this statute signed into law by Governor Brown on September 30th, 2016, and filed with the Secretary of State effective immediately on the same said date September 30th, 2016.On the said date of this citation Defendant, Doe was traveling from Orange County via SR57 freeway HOV lane northbound and Transitioned to SR60 freeway HOV lane Westbound. The defendant was traveling in an Eligible EV vehicle and had a passenger THUS was qualified to enter the SR60 HOV westbound.Orange county district 12 permits entry of HOV lanes “anywhere”. And there is no marker to show where the Orange county line and Los Angeles County line separate.Defendant Doe was wrongfully cited.While stopped Defendant produced:1. A current and valid CA DL# Cxxxxxxx2. A current and valid Registration on a brand new 2018 Nissan LEAF EV. (only 1 month old from the date of purchase)3. A current and valid “proof of financial responsibility” aka “proof of insurance” via 21st Century insurances.4. These are ‘not’ disputed facts.However, corrupt CHP patrolman CRANE, refused to accept the Current and valid registration saying it was a copy, and not an original and he was going to issue me a citation for not having the original IN ADDITION to the VC21655.I verbally disputed that CRANE WAS INCORRECT. The law only requires valid registration. It does not specify the original or a copy.FACTS:FACTS: Defendant was informed by another CHP that the Original Registration should never be kept with the car.FACTS: There is no law that requires the Original Registration should be kept with the car.REASON: If and where the vehicle ever gets “towed” the tow yard will require the “original registration” to get the vehicle out of impound.Vehicle License FeesAn annual license fee is "imposed for the privilege of operating [a vehicle] upon the public highways in this state...." (Rev. & Tax. Code, § 10751.)[6] The amount of this fee "shall be a sum equal to 2 percent of the market value of the vehicle as determined by the [DMV]." (§ 10752.)As originally enacted in the year 1941, section 10753 directed the DMV annually to "compile and publish a list showing the market values... of each class 768*768 of the vehicle subject to the license fee...." (Stats. 1941, ch. 40, § 1, pp. 605-606.) Upon registration, the DMV would use the information in this "rate book" to assign to the vehicle a classification code from which its market value would be determined for the year of the sale and all subsequent years, regardless of any change in ownership. The DMV did not differentiate between vehicles originally sold within California and those originally sold outside the state.In year 1948, section 10753 was amended to require the DMV to determine the market value of vehicles "upon the basis of California delivered prices as established by the manufacturers or distributors in their selling agreements with authorized dealers as of the time the particular make and year model is first offered for sale in California...." (Stats. 1948, ch. 26, § 2, p. 129.) Manufacturers informed the DMV of the "delivered price" on each model, and the DMV entered this information in its rate book. Using a method described in section 10753.2 (enacted in 1948), the market value of each vehicle was determined from this "delivered price" according to a depreciation schedule set forth in the statute.[7] As before, the same classification code was assigned to the vehicle and the same tax was imposed, whether the vehicle was purchased in California or elsewhere.The DMV, however, urged the Legislature to alter the method for determining the vehicle license fee, because manufacturers objected to supplying information regarding prices, thereby causing delays at the beginning of each model year in updating the rate book. In the year 1967, the Legislature amended section 10753 to require the DMV to determine the market value of vehicles by reference to "California suggested base price" (§ 10753, subd. (a)), which was defined as "the retail price of the vehicle suggested by the manufacturer ... as reflected on the price listing affixed to the vehicle pursuant to the Federal Automobile Information Disclosure Act of 1958...." (§ 10753, subd. (g), as amended by Stats. 1967, ch. 435, § 1, pp. 1647-1648.) The "price listing" is commonly referred to as the "sticker price" of the vehicle.[8] Section 10753 defined California suggested base price to include "destination charge[s]" and the cost of statutorily required 769*769 "emission control devices," but not the cost of factory-installed "accessor[ies]" or "optional equipment."[9] (§ 10753, subd. (g).) The statute further provided: "In the event the [DMV] is unable to ascertain California suggested base price as herein defined ..., the [DMV] shall determine the market value upon the basis of the cost price to the purchaser of the vehicle as evidenced by a certificate of cost...." (§ 10753, subd. (c).)The years stated in the citation supra. Are respectively:1941, 1948, 1958, 1967.These were years “before” the invention of police vehicle radios and computers.Thus on April 14th, 2018, CRANE could clearly see defendants' tags and license plates were brand new and barely 1 month old and CRANE could have also used his radio and motorcycle mobile computer to ascertain the valid and current registration of the defendants brand new NISSAN LEAF EV Vehicle. My vehicle was brand new, purchased on March 10th, 2018, about 1 month and 4 days prior to April 14th, 2018.Yet, on the pretense of ‘not’ having the “original” registration in my car CRANE THREATENED AND INTIMIDATED defendant with an additional citation for not having that original registration.Defendant and passenger observed CRANE walk back to his vehicle and look through the CA VC book for 15 minutes. But he failed to find that code to cite the defendant. When CRANE returned there was no mention of the “failure to have registration” on the citation.Further corroborating evidence the defendant has. Defendants 2018 NISSAN LEAF has not 1, not 2 but 3 audio/video cameras installed for his safety.Two of these cameras face forward and one camera faces to the rear.All three cameras recorded audio and video interaction between Defendant and CRANE. These audio/videos can be produced at trial-de-novo to Impeach CRANE on the Motions stated herein and below.MOTIONS:Motion to Impeach this CRANE for “obstruction of justice” the defendant also has a right to justice.Motion to Impeach this CRANE for “conspiracy” to falsify charges.Motion to Impeach this CRANE for “perjury” PC 118.1 for misquoting the law and threats to falsely issue a citation under color of authority.Motion for Pitchess rule to disclose any other dishonesty or corruption by CRANE to be presented to the court for adjudication. Under SB1421 permitting discovery of Law Enforcement personnel files.Motion to Impeach under Penal Code Section 141 as amended by AB 1909 on 9-30-2016. Signed into law by then-Governor Jerry Brown and recorded immediately by CA State Secretary. (see Citation below)California Penal Code Section 141CA Penal Code § 141 (2017)(a) Except as provided in subdivisions (b) and (c), a person who knowingly, willfully, intentionally, and wrongfully alters, modifies, plants, places, manufactures, conceals, or moves any physical matter, digital image, or video recording, with the specific intent that the action will result in a person being charged with a crime or with the specific intent that the physical matter will be wrongfully produced as genuine or true upon a trial, proceeding, or inquiry, is guilty of a misdemeanor.(b) A peace officer who knowingly, willfully, intentionally, and wrongfully alters, modifies, plants, places, manufactures, conceals, or moves any physical matter, digital image, or video recording, with the specific intent that the action will result in a person being charged with a crime or with the specific intent that the physical matter, digital image, or video recording will be concealed or destroyed, or fraudulently represented as the original evidence upon a trial, proceeding, or inquiry, is guilty of a felony punishable by two, three, or five years in the state prison.(c) A prosecuting attorney who intentionally and in bad faith alters, modifies, or withholds any physical matter, digital image, video recording, or relevant exculpatory material or information, knowing that it is relevant and material to the outcome of the case, with the specific intent that the physical matter, digital image, video recording, or relevant exculpatory material or information will be concealed or destroyed, or fraudulently represented as the original evidence upon a trial, proceeding, or inquiry, is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 for 16 months, or two or three years.(d) This section does not preclude prosecution under both this section and any other law.(Amended by Stats. 2016, Ch. 879, Sec. 1. (AB 1909) Effective January 1, 2017.)MOTION TO SHOW CAUSE FOR THE TRIAL COURT COMMISSIONERWhere the Commissioner fails to honor these arguments and finds the defendant guilty of this illegal traffic infraction, Objection is hereby entered for purposes of Appeal. Motion to show cause is hereby entered. Defendant Doe request written explanation for cause for purposes of Appeal.MOTION TO SHOW BASIS or PRECEDENT FOR THE TRIAL COURT COMMISSIONERWhere the Commissioner fails to honor these arguments and finds the defendant guilty of this illegal traffic infraction, Motion to show Basis or Precedent that supersedes the citations quoted in arguments herein - is hereby entered. Otherwise, Objection is hereby entered for purposes of Appeal. Defendant Doe requests a written explanation for Basis for purposes of Appeal.CONCLUSIONNotwithstanding and for all the arguments and reasons stated above and incorporated by reference; I, therefore contend there is more than reasonable doubt as to the authenticity and veracity of the citation and the government record as argued and cited here in.. There reasonable doubt for the reasons, and case law and statutes as cited for dismissing the ticket. In the interest of Justice, I respectfully request that the said citation herein against DEFENDANT DOE be dismissed and the Motion to Dismiss be granted.I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing statements are true and correct.Sincerely,JOHN DOEExecuted at:9545 Main StAll American City, CA 90001Dated: January 24th, 2019_________________JOHN DOEAPPENDIX A:http://www.dot.ca.gov/trafficops/tm/docs/HOV_Guidelines-English-Edition-Jan2018.pdf♦ HOV Guidelines, 2016 English Edition Appendix A♦ 7 ADDITIONAL HOV INFORMATIONCalifornia Vehicle Code sections relating to HOV lanes: To view the 2003 California Vehicle Code (CVC), visit the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) website: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/vctoc.htm .Most of the HOV related vehicle code sections summarized below are located in Division 11 of the CVC. Section titles in BOLD indicate official title names as shown in the CVC. The section title in the regular font was included for clarity in describing the HOV related issue.Section 21460 Double Lines The purpose of the solid-white single line on the inside of the double yellow lines on buffered HOV lanes is to permit vehicles to legally drive to the left of the double yellow lines as defined in the provisions of this section. Section 21654 Slow-Moving Vehicles This section requires vehicles, such as those with 3-or-more-axles or vehicles with trailers as defined in Section 22406, to use the farthest right freeway lanes. Therefore, these vehicles cannot use the HOV lanes. Section 21655 Designated Lanes for Certain Vehicles Allows the Department of Transportation or local authorities to designate specific lanes for vehicles required to drive at reduced speeds. Requires vehicles driving at reduced speeds to use the farthest right lanes.Section 21655.3 Permanent High-Occupancy Vehicle Lanes After 1/1/87, but before 12/31/87 all permanently designated HOV lanes operating 24 hours a day shall be separated from general use highway lanes by a minimum 4 feet wide buffer.Section 21655.5 Exclusive- or Preferential- Use lanes for High-Occupancy Vehicles Allows the Department of Transportation and local authorities to designate specific lanes for HOV preferential use upon completion of competent engineering estimates made of the effects of the lanes on safety, congestion, and highway capacity.Section 21655.5(b) Mass transit and Para Transit Vehicles Enactment of SB 236 on January 1, 1998, permits mass Transit vehicles to use the HOV lanes without meeting the occupancy requirement. Enactment of AB 2582 on January 1, 2003, permits clearly marked para Transit vehicles to use the HOV lanes without meeting the occupancy requirement. This section also requires that HOV lane-use comply with posted signs designating the minimum occupancy requirement.Section 21655.6 Approval of Transportation Planning Agency or County Transportation Commission Requires the Department of Transportation to have the approval of the county Transportation commission prior to establishing new HOV lanes.Section 21655.7 Use of Highway: Public Mass Transit Guideway Allows for any portion of a highway to be designated for exclusive public mass Transit use.Section 21655.8(a) Entering or Exiting Preferential-Use Lanes A citation for violation of the provisions of this section, commonly called a buffer violation, carry a minimum fine of $271. APPENDIX A♦ HOV Guidelines, 2016 English Edition Appendix A♦ 8Section 21655.9 HOV Lanes: Use by Ultra – Low Emission Vehicles Website for list of vehicles that meet federal requirements and qualify as ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEV) and super ultra-low-emission vehicles (SULEV) in Assembly Bill 71, enacted July 1, 2000: California Air Resources BoardSection 21714 Three-Wheeled Vehicles: Operation in HOV Lanes Prohibits three-wheeled vehicles from using the HOV lanes.Section 22364 Lane Speed Limits Allows the Department of Transportation to post the appropriate speed for designated lanes.Section 22406 Maximum Speed for Designated Vehicles By definition in this section, trucks with three or more axles, or vehicles with trailers, are not allowed to use the HOV lanes because they cannot drive the maximum legal speed limit posted on HOV lanes in California. Provisions ofSection 21654 (above) then apply.If you like this answer, feel free to look at some of my other interesting answers.

Well, we already have three lazy smart-aleck answers.It took me less than two minutes to find this on Joe Biden’s campaign web siteThere’s a lot more than what I’ve reproduced below., but these three areas are the highlights.Joe Biden's Proposals to Set Up Support for Deserving Small Businesses – Joe Biden for PresidentEstablish a True Small Business Fund: Congressional Democrats secured a set-aside of $60 billion in funds for smaller lenders and community-based financial institutions, which are frequently best positioned to get resources into the hands of deserving small businesses in vulnerable communities. Joe Biden is calling on the Trump administration to go even further as it implements the PPP. The Trump administration should reserve fully half of all the new PPP funds for small businesses with 50 employees or less, so the bigger and more sophisticated aren’t able to win in a first-come, first-served race. We should make sure we serve the mom-and-pop shops — beauty salons, barbershops, diners, local auto body shops. Back on April 3, Joe Biden asked the administration to “produce a weekly dashboard to show which small businesses are accessing loans – to make sure that the program isn’t leaving out communities, minority- and women-owned businesses, or the smallest businesses.” They have not done so. It is unacceptable to have a small-business program that is leaving minority business owners out in the cold, or that firms with fewer than 20 employees received only about 20% of the money – even though they make up about one third of payroll. Small non-profits—including churches, mosques, and synagogues— should also be eligible for this fund. The Trump administration can do this if it makes it a priority. The country will be watching.No Unjust Enrichment: Keep Well-Off Business Owners from Using Any Program to Unjustly Enrich Themselves: Our emergency programs should be designed to keep small business owners and their workers whole during the crisis – not to make well-off business owners better off than they would be with no crisis. Unfortunately, there is a very real risk of high-paid business owners suffering little revenue harm seeking to have loans forgiven that are for more than the losses they have suffered. This is just wrong. Joe Biden would expedite loans with less unnecessary paperwork to hard-hit businesses, and never punish firms or banks for good-faith mistakes. But Biden would also make clear that no business owner should be receiving more than their lost revenue – and that there should be heightened scrutiny of certain types of small businesses – consulting, accounting, legal, tax advice, hedge funds – and where owners and executives are making above $500,000. He is calling on the Trump administration to embrace this approach in implementing the next round of funding.Make Sure That the Program’s Terms Actually Help Small Businesses. Joe Biden would also support further rule changes to the PPP that would ensure deserving small businesses get all the help they need for as long as they need, including:Providing a guarantee that every qualifying small business will get relief, rather than capping the fund in a way that forces small firms to compete against one another.Authorizing more generous loans that allow for small businesses in need to both keep workers on payroll and cover fixed costs for the duration of the crisis. It’s no use paying for payroll if a small business can’t keep the lights on.Extending the eight-week limitation so that payroll forgiveness continues for the duration of the crisis (in early April, Biden called upon the administration to “immediately re-engage Congress to allow for small business loans that can keep people on the payroll for far longer than eight weeks”), and there should be flexibility to allow businesses to decide when the covered period begins.Establishing look-back audit mechanisms to police against abuse based on a review of net business income.THE BIDEN PLAN TO INVEST IN MIDDLE CLASS COMPETITIVENESS – Joe Biden for PresidentJoe Biden is running for president to rebuild the middle class—and this time make sure everyone comes along. Toward that end, Biden is calling for a transformational investment in our country’s infrastructure and future: $1.3 trillion over ten years, to equip the American middle class to compete and win in the global economy, to move the U.S. to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure that cities, towns, and rural areas all across our country share in that growth.MAKE UNPRECEDENTED INVESTMENTS IN OUR INFRASTRUCTURE TO BOLSTER THE COMPETITIVENESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASSOur nation’s infrastructure is literally crumbling. It is unacceptable that one in five miles of our highways are in “poor condition,” that tens of millions of Americans lack access to high-speed broadband, and that our public schools have repeatedly earned a D+ grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. We are the world’s richest nation, but rank just 10th in the overall quality of our infrastructure, according to the World Economic Forum.During his 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump said he’d change that. He has been promising an infrastructure plan since his earliest days in office and keeps holding “Infrastructure Weeks”—but has failed to actually deliver results. Instead, Trump has focused on privatizing construction projects to benefit his wealthy friends, leaving communities across the country suffering and our nation falling behind.Biden will revitalize America’s infrastructure and make us more competitive with the rest of the world, while also creating and sustaining quality, middle-class jobs at home. Every one of Biden’s investments in infrastructure will further the following three goals:Create good, union jobs that expand the middle class. American workers should build American infrastructure and manufacture all the materials that go into it, and all of these workers must have the option to join a union and collectively bargain. Building on his plan to strengthen worker organizing, collective bargaining, and unions, President Biden will propose infrastructure legislation that incorporates labor provisions contained in Senator Merkley’s Good Jobs for 21st Century Energy Act, adopting all basic labor protections, ensuring that all investments meet Davis-Bacon wage guidelines, and banning anti-worker provisions like forced arbitration and the overuse of temporary staffing agencies. He will require federally funded projects to source materials in the U.S., to employ workers trained in registered apprenticeship programs, and to prioritize Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements in federal procurement procedures. Biden’s proposal will make sure that national infrastructure investments create millions of middle-class jobs, benefiting union and non-union workers across industries.Build resilient infrastructure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve already felt the devastating impacts of climate change—from raging wildfires to more frequent and more severe hurricanes to unprecedented floods. Every federal dollar spent on rebuilding our infrastructure during the Biden Administration will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand the impacts of this climate crisis. If we transform our modes of transportation and the sources of energy that power them, we can make real progress toward reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. For that reason, Biden will invest in expanded public transit systems, giving more Americans an affordable, efficient way to get around without their cars. He will help state and local governments plan for the widespread adoption of electric cars, and will coordinate and invest in the construction of a national electric-vehicle charging network to power them. Biden will also push to build a national high-speed rail network; to accelerate the development of low-carbon aviation and shipping technology; and to fortify our infrastructure to withstand the effects of climate change. And, he will give homeowners and businesses new incentives to retrofit their buildings to reduce their carbon footprints. Across these efforts, Biden will also work with state and local governments and the private sector to modernize our nation’s electric grid, making it smarter, more resilient, and ready to meet the changing needs of a net-zero greenhouse-gas-emissions economy. The impacts of climate change will continue to vary by region, and the people living in each area must be part of developing the solutions to best address their unique challenges.Revitalize communities in every corner of the country so that no one is left behind. Whether in our biggest cities or our smallest towns, too many low-income communities are bearing the brunt of our nation’s decaying infrastructure. Biden will boost federal investments in those neighborhoods to ensure that every American has access to clean drinking water, well-paved roads, high-speed broadband, safe schools, and affordable housing.TRANSPORTATIONHighways, Roads, & BridgesJump-start the repair of our highways, roads, and bridges. Almost 20% of our roads are in poor condition, and there is a backlog of hundreds of billions of dollars of investment. Americans in cities lose more than 8.8 billion hours to traffic each year—an average 54 hours a year per commuter. Biden will propose to immediately spend $50 billion over the first year of his Administration to kickstart the process of repairing our existing roads, highways, and bridges. In addition to sending these funds to states, some of the dollars will go directly to cities and towns that own and run most of our roads. Biden will also expedite permitting, so that projects can break ground faster.Make American roads the world’s safest. The federal government must lead the way in making our streets and highways safer. Under President Biden, the U.S. Department of Transportation will work with cities around the country to build “complete streets,” designed to help drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and others safely share the road. Biden will also work with Congress to increase federal funding for key safety initiatives like the Highway Safety Improvement Program; and to encourage state and local governments to explore new technologies that can reduce accidents, including “smart” pavement, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, connected intersections, and other infrastructure-related innovations.Invest in historically marginalized communities and bring everyone to the table for transportation planning. Biden’s pledge to bring Americans together will be reflected in his Administration’s approach to infrastructure. Not only will he make unprecedented investments in rebuilding and connecting historically underserved areas to better transportation options, he will make sure that our highway, road, transit, and air systems never again divide us. As president, Biden will emphasize a robust public engagement process in planning all new transportation projects. He will create a new Community Restoration Fund, specifically for neighborhoods where historic transportation investments cut people off from jobs, schools, and businesses. And, he will work to make sure towns and cities directly receive a portion of existing federal transportation investments.Pair new infrastructure investments with new training programs. To help develop the workforce that will build the new backbone of our country, Biden will work with Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor to fund new Apprenticeship Readiness Programs that specifically target veterans, women, and communities of color to enter the construction trades and that are connected to Registered Apprenticeships. Additionally, Biden will work to further support community colleges that have articulation agreements with Registered Apprenticeship Programs. This, in conjunction with promoting Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements, will ensure that infrastructure investments are paired with public and private investments in Pre-Apprenticeship training and other recruitment strategies that support the Registered Apprenticeship system, promote meaningful construction careers, and will ensure that the benefits of these investments are broadly shared. This effort will also develop a diverse and local workforce that will strengthen communities as we rebuild our physical infrastructure.Stabilize the Highway Trust Fund. The Highway Trust Fund has for far too long been grossly underfunded. Biden will ensure new revenues are secured to stabilize the Highway Trust Fund in order to build roads, bridges, and public transportation projects.Speed the Transition to Low- and No-Carbon VehiclesSpeed the transition to electric vehicles. Even with major investments in transit and planning, many Americans will still depend on their cars and trucks. To reach net-zero emissions, we have to make it much easier for them to own and use electric vehicles. Biden will work to remove today’s biggest barriers to their use, easing concerns about price, range, and access to charging stations. As president, he will restore the full electric-vehicle tax credit, to encourage American families to buy electric cars for their personal use – and to incentivize American businesses to build or shift their existing fleets to electric vehicles. He will also ensure that the U.S. Department of Energy invests $5 billion over five years in battery and energy storage technology, to spur breakthroughs that can boost the range and slash the price of electric cars. And, he will enact policies to promote domestic manufacturing of electric vehicles. Biden will also work with Congress, the private sector, labor unions, mayors, and governors to build a national electric charging system of 500,000 public charging outlets, so that by 2030, Americans will be able to drive anywhere in the United States in an electric car. Under his Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation will also provide an additional $1 billion per year in new grants to ensure that those charging stations are installed by certified technicians, promoting high-paying jobs and benefits. Finally, Biden will convene the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation to coordinate on special demonstration projects, for example testing new highways that can charge electric cars while in transit. The Departments will provide grants to cities, towns, and counties that are open to piloting new kinds of charging infrastructure, building on programs like the Department of Energy’s Transportation Electrification Project and Clean Cities Initiative, which Biden oversaw as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.Launch a new generation of low-carbon trucking, shipping, and aviation technologies. Long-haul trucking, oceanic shipping, and global aviation also contribute heavily to transit emissions. As part of Biden’s plan to invest $400 billion over 10 years in clean energy research and innovation, his administration will develop a federal research program focused on further reducing the cost of biofuels; increasing their energy density; and developing more efficient engines that can power long-haul trucks, planes, and ships, to keep global commerce moving while reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. In addition, the Biden Administration will work with the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization to share those technologies with other nations.RailSpark the second great railroad revolution. Two centuries ago, the first great railroad expansion drove our industrial revolution. Today, the U.S. is lagging behind Europe and China in rail safety and speed. A 21st-century passenger rail system that connects people across our nation is essential to our competitiveness, to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to giving more Americans the freedom and flexibility to travel. Biden will make sure that America has the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the world—for both passengers and freight. As president, he will invest in high-speed rail. He’ll start by putting the Northeast Corridor on higher speeds and shrinking the travel time from D.C. to New York by half – and build in conjunction with it a new, safer Hudson River Tunnel. He will make progress toward the completion of the California High Speed Rail project. He will expand the Northeast Corridor to the fast-growing South. Across the Midwest and the Great West, he will begin the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts, unlocking new, affordable access for every American. A Biden Administration will also support freight projects, including a truck and rail-transit bridge linking Oregon to Washington State, and Chicago’s CREATE project, which has the potential to halve transit times for goods moving across the country. Overall, Biden’s rail revolution will reduce pollution, connect workers to good jobs, slash commute times, and spur investment in communities that will now be better linked to major metropolitan areas. To speed that work, Biden will tap existing federal grant and loan programs at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and improve and streamline the loan process.Electrify the rail system. As president, Biden will work with Amtrak and private freight rail companies to further electrify the rail system, reducing diesel fuel emissions.Transit and Regional PlanningOffer tens of millions of Americans new transportation options. Outside major cities, most Americans do not have access to high-quality, reliable public transportation; and within urban areas, it’s often in need of repair. As a result, workers and families rely on cars, which can be a big financial burden, clog roadways, and – along with light-duty trucks – significantly increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As president, Biden will aim to provide all Americans in municipalities of more than 100,000 people with quality public transportation by 2030. To that end, he’ll increase flexible federal investments, helping cities and towns to install light rail networks and to improve existing transit and bus lines. He’ll also help them to invest in infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, and riders of e-scooters and other micro-mobility vehicles. And, Biden will work to make sure that new, fast-growing areas are designed and built with public transit in mind. Specifically, he will create a new program that gives rapidly expanding communities the resources to build in public transit options from the start.Reduce congestion by working with metropolitan regions to plan smarter growth. Biden will empower city, county, regional, and state leaders to explore new, smarter, climate-friendly strategies to help reduce average commute times and build more vibrant main streets. Specifically, Biden will create a competitive grant program to help leaders rethink and redesign regional transportation systems, to get commuters where they are going safer, faster, and more efficiently. At the same time, Biden will boost highway funding by 10%, and allocate the new funding to states that embrace smart climate design and pollution reduction, incentivizing them to invest in greenhouse gas reduction. States will also be free to use existing highway funding for alternative transportation options.Connect workers to jobs. For too many low-income workers, the cost of transportation and time it takes them to commute to work every day are significant barriers. As president, Biden will dedicate an additional $10 billion over 10 years specifically for transit projects that serve high-poverty areas with limited transportation options, so that workers seeking a better life won’t have to spend as much getting to their jobs.Smart CitiesEncourage innovation and launch smarter cities. Transportation patterns are changing across the country. New modes of car ownership, the explosive growth of ride-hailing and ride-sharing services, and the rapid adoption of electric scooters and bike-share programs are giving Americans new ways to move. But the biggest disruption lies ahead: self-driving cars. Citizens will benefit if cities can adapt to those new technologies – for example, by reshaping streets to protect cyclists and scooters, connecting transit systems to last-mile solutions like ride-shares and e-scooters, or using real-time data to manage traffic flows. As president, Biden will build on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge by launching a yearly $1 billion competitive grant program to help five cities pilot new planning strategies and smart-city technologies that can serve as models for the country. Biden will also direct the Department to work with labor unions to develop a plan to help workers impacted by this automation find high-paying, quality jobs.AviationMake our airports the best in the world. Aviation and airports are major drivers for the U.S. economy, but our airports are in desperate need of improvement. As president, Biden will double funding for airports through the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Airport Improvement Program, and launch a new competitive grant program for major airport renovation projects. At the same time, he’ll also make sure that the U.S. maintains the world’s safest aviation system, working with the FAA to fully implement its NextGen technology system, to improve safety, modernize our airspace, and reduce delays and cancellations. Biden will also ensure that U.S. airlines’ operating, repair, and maintenance facilities overseas adhere to our nation’s highest safety standards.FreightInvest in freight infrastructure, including inland waterways, freight corridors, freight rail, transfer facilities, and ports. From early-19th century canals, to late-19th century railroads, to 20th-century highways, innovations in transportation infrastructure have powered our economy, carrying the freight that drives our nation forward. Today, though, our freight system is especially outdated. Freight railroads run through 100-year-old tunnels too small for the shipping containers they should be carrying. Highways and bridges buckle under trucks’ weight, and many ports are too shallow for modern shipping vessels. As president, Biden will change that. He will roughly double funding for key competitive grant programs – like the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grants program (formerly known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER) and Infrastructure For Rebuilding America (INFRA) – from $1.8 billion to $3.5 billion a year. These programs leverage local, state, and private investment, and create innovative transportation models that can be replicated nationwide. Biden will also work closely with American manufacturers to prioritize investments that will improve supply chains and distribution, reduce shipping costs, and boost U.S. exports. And he will also increase funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by $2.5 billion per year, supporting infrastructure projects to keep goods moving quickly through our ports and waterways. This will include increased federal funding for lock modernization projects on inland waterways.Support American port infrastructure. Biden will ensure that all fees collected for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund are used to improve and rebuild American ports of entry. And he’ll work with U.S. ports and labor unions to ensure that cargo bound for the U.S. is offloaded in the U.S., and not in Canadian ports to avoid harbor taxes.RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTUREInvest in the resiliency of our infrastructure. Communities around the country are already experiencing the impact of climate change. While the Trump Administration has abdicated global climate leadership, America’s mayors and other local leaders have stepped up to build smarter cities that can withstand storms, floods, heat, wildfires, sea level rise, and more. A Biden Administration will give those communities a true partner in the White House again, advancing their efforts and helping to create new, well-paying jobs to improve climate resiliency and invest in our economic future. As president, Biden will convene top innovators to help design common-sense zoning and building codes, and to help communities build and rebuild before and after natural disasters and other shocks and stresses. Biden will also invest in and help train people for well-paying jobs in climate resiliency industries. These include coastal restoration, resilient infrastructure design, construction and evaluation (for example, building bridges to withstand high winds and roads that don’t wash out during floods), natural solutions (for example, planting trees on a large scale to combat urban heat and its negative health impacts), and technological solutions. These industries have been shown to improve communities’ resilience – and they’re all opportunities for job creation and economic growth.ENERGYInvest in energy infrastructure for a 100% clean energy economy. The transition to a clean energy economy won’t just require new technologies and vehicles, it will entail a major expansion of renewable energy production and a dramatic evolution of our electric grid – not only reducing emissions, but creating millions of new jobs. As president, Biden will partner with utilities and regulators around the country to build a 21st-century power grid, able to distribute clean energy reliably and safely to households and businesses across the United States. Specifically, he will appoint commissioners to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who will drive market reforms, like expanding regional electric markets, integrating renewables, building in demand-response, and promoting long-term infrastructure planning to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050. The Biden Administration will also work with cities, states, and utilities to install advanced metering equipment; to deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure; and to upgrade transmission lines to support larger regional electric markets that can distribute renewably-generated electricity from the point of generation to end users. Finally, Biden will work with the U.S. Department of Energy to advance large-scale storage demonstration projects, including pilots that use electric vehicles as mobile energy storage units.Make our buildings more energy efficient. As president, Biden will work with Congress to electrify the building sector and increase energy efficiency in a range of ways. For homeowners, he’ll reinstate tax credits for residential energy efficiency. For businesses, he’ll expand tax deductions for energy retrofits, smart metering systems, and other emissions-reducing investments in commercial buildings. His administration will also boost investment in low-income weatherization programs and in key technologies like electric heat pumps; and it will work with local and state governments and the private sector to expand the utilization of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). Biden will also reinstate the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), slated to expire in two years; and will construct net-zero-carbon federal buildings, to serve as a model for state and local governments and the private sector.WATERReplace aging pipes and invest in water infrastructure so every American has clean drinking water. Americans deserve clean, reliable drinking water in their homes. But across the country, pipes and treatment plants are aging into obsolescence, and in places like Flint, Michigan, Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Martin County, Kentucky, drinking water is endangering public health. Biden will double federal investments in clean drinking water and water infrastructure, and focus new funding on low-income rural, suburban, and urban areas that are struggling to replace pipes and treatment facilities – and especially on communities at high risk of lead or other kinds of contamination. In addition, Biden will reduce the matching funds required of local governments that don’t have the taxbase to be able to afford borrowing to repair their water systems.Monitor for lead and other contaminants and hold polluters accountable. As president, Biden will require state and local governments to monitor their water systems for lead and other contaminants, and he will provide them with the resources to do so. Biden will also work with the EPA and the Justice Department to hold companies that pollute our waterways accountable, aggressively enforcing existing regulations and prosecuting any violations. Corporations and their executives cannot break the law and expect to get away with it.Invest in water technology. New technologies present real opportunities to use existing water resources more efficiently, and to reduce the cost and energy required to generate new water supplies, for example through desalination. As president, Biden will increase federal funding for water technology research and use the convening power of the White House to spur private-sector innovation.BROADBANDBring broadband to every American household. In a 21st century economy, Americans need broadband. Without it, students face substantial barriers to doing their homework and the sick and elderly can’t access remote health care. Broadband is a prerequisite for starting a business, working remotely, accessing government resources, and engaging in public debate. But today, more than 21 million Americans still don’t have broadband; and many more can’t afford it. This “digital divide” is particularly wide for low-income, older, and rural Americans, as well as for Americans living on tribal lands. As president, Biden will close the digital divide. First, he will invest $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure; and triple funding to expand broadband access in rural areas, and to ensure that the work of installing broadband provides high-paying jobs with benefits. Biden will also direct the federal government – especially the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture – to support cities and towns that want to build municipally-owned broadband networks. He will encourage competition among providers, to increase speeds and decrease prices in urban, suburban, and rural areas. And to encourage those providers to invest in further extending service to rural communities and tribal areas, Biden will make available key federally-controlled telecom resources, like towers, poles, and rights-of-way. Biden will also work with the FCC to reform its Lifeline program, increasing the number of participating broadband providers, reducing fraud and abuse, and ultimately offering more low-income Americans the subsidies needed to access high-speed internet. Finally, Biden will work with Congress to pass the Digital Equity Act, to help communities tackle the digital divide.SCHOOLSInvest $100 billion to modernize our nation’s schools. American public school facilities received a grade of D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers. In fact, each year the U.S. underfunds school infrastructure by $46 billion, resulting in schools that are outdated, unsafe, unfit, and – in some cases – making kids and educators sick. In line with the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, backed by the House Education Committee, President Biden will invest $100 billion in improving public school buildings. First and foremost, those funds will be used to address health risks, so that going to school or working at one never makes anyone sick. Additional funds will be used to build cutting-edge, energy-efficient, innovative schools, with technology and labs to prepare our students for the jobs of the future.Build Transformational ProjectsHistorically, major infrastructure projects, from the Erie Canal to the Hoover Dam, reshaped not just a single town or city, but a whole region of our country. These projects – and their benefits – often extend across state lines, making them hard for any one state government to plan, fund, or execute. That’s why Biden is proposing a new $40 billion, 10-year Transformational Projects Fund, to provide significant discretionary grants for projects too large and complex to be funded through existing infrastructure programs. The grants will be available for transportation, water, and energy projects, with allocations to the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Departments of Transportation, the Interior, and Energy. Projects might include a major new regional transportation system, a major port upgrade, or a new tunnel.In the weeks ahead, Biden will put forward additional policies related to housing.ENSURE GROWTH IS SHARED BY COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRYVice President Biden’s plan will spark a renaissance in cities, towns, and communities that have been forgotten for too long. It will attract private capital to all corners of the country, and provide funds for anchor institutions, including new research centers and hospitals. Biden will make critical investments so that every American has a chance to succeed, no matter their zip code.A NATIONAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND JOBS INITIATIVEExpand the New Markets Tax Credit, make the program permanent, and double Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) funding. The New Markets Tax Credit has helped draw tens of billions of dollars in new capital to low-income communities, providing tax credits to investors in community development organizations that support everything from supermarkets to real estate projects to manufacturing plants. Biden will expand the program to provide $5 billion in support every year, and he will make the program permanent so communities can take the credit into account in their long-term planning. As part of his plan to reinvest in communities across the country, including in rural areas, Biden will also double funding for the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which supports local, mission-driven financial institutions in low-income areas around the U.S. This builds on Biden’s proposal to support entrepreneurs in small towns and rural areas by expanding both the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program and the number of Rural Business Investment Companies, to help rural businesses attract capital.Double funding for the Economic Development Administration, to help underserved communities tap existing federal resources. Billions in federal aid is available for economic development goals like expanding access to broadband, setting up business incubators, and encouraging industry clusters in manufacturing or information technology. But, underserved communities often lack resources to navigate the complex grant application system in the first place. Throughout the Obama-Biden Administration’s work to support the resurgence of places like Detroit, it was clear that helping local leaders apply for federal aid is one of the most important ways to start turning around an economically depressed city. For that reason, Biden will double funding for the Economic Development Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce devoted to economic development, and task it with creating a new division devoted to helping underserved communities apply for federal aid. This initiative complements Biden’s proposal for a new White House “StrikeForce” to assist rural communities in persistent poverty, and will help to ensure that every community can seek and receive the federal resources it needs to build a more prosperous economy.Create a new Cities Revitalization Fund. Our nation must recommit to revitalizing American cities. As president, Biden will launch a new, $10 billion fund, coordinated through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and focused on creative revitalization projects in distressed cities – like redeveloping post-industrial waterfronts, energizing main street business districts, rehabbing public markets, and building new green public spaces. These communities have missed out on both private capital and necessary government funding for far too long. Under a Biden Administration, they will get the investment they need and deserve.Fund anchor institutions in distressed areas. For many communities across the United States, anchor institutions serve as long-standing contributors to economic vitality. These institutions – which include hospitals, colleges and universities, and government administrative offices – can help to provide a reliable source of income and good-paying jobs, even in times of economic downturns; and can support small businesses and middle-class workers. Unfortunately, many communities have no viable anchor institution and miss out on the related economic and social benefits. Biden will create a new fund to support the establishment and revitalization of anchor institutions, with a competitive process to ensure that the most deserving communities win investment.Fully Implement Congressman Clyburn’s 10-20-30 PlanTo tackle persistent poverty in all communities, in both urban and rural America, Vice President Biden supports applying Congressman James Clyburn’s 10-20-30 formula to all federal programs. The formula would allocate 10% of funding to counties “where 20% or more of the population has been living below the poverty line for the last 30 years.”REVITALIZE MANUFACTURING ACROSS THE COUNTRYQuadruple funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. America’s small manufacturers need help. On the heels of the Trump Administration’s reckless trade wars, our country’s manufacturing sector has been thrown into a full-blown recession. Righting American manufacturing will require smarter, less erratic trade policies – but it also begins with giving small manufacturers the tools they need to succeed. One lifeline for thousands of them is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program designed to provide small manufacturers with the technical expertise needed to compete in a global economy. While President Trump proposed fully cutting this program, Biden will quadruple its funding, to ensure that more small manufacturers can access the technical and business support it provides.Enact a national strategy to develop a low-carbon manufacturing sector in every state, boosting access to new technologies and skills, and helping small and large manufacturers upgrade their capabilities to have both competitive and low-carbon futures. This strategy will connect research universities, community colleges, incubators, manufacturing institutes, employers, unions, and state and local governments – alone or as part of a regional pact – and provide them with significant funding for a place-based plan to build a competitive, localized, low-carbon future in manufacturing. Industries ranging from textiles and machine tools, to metal fabrication or the most advanced manufacturing technologies, will be eligible for funding; and will be motivated to modernize, compete, create jobs, and move to a clean energy future. Allocated tax credits and subsidies will help businesses to upgrade equipment and processes, to invest in expanded or new factories, and to deploy low-carbon technologies – as long as all community stakeholders are included in the process. In cases where states feel that competitive pressures or climate change-related requirements may harm a local economy, Biden’s strategy will preemptively fund a more competitive or low-carbon manufacturing approach. Those preemptive efforts may include new economic strategies, or new federal funding for technology or manufacturing innovation centers. That support can particularly help green economy manufacturers, whether producing batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage, solar panels, or other advanced equipment; and it can also incentivize small manufacturers to use American-made materials, such as iron, steel, and intermediate manufactured products, in their production processes.Establish a Manufacturing Communities Tax Credit. The Obama-Biden Administration proposed a $6 billion, three-year initiative to invest in communities that experienced mass layoffs or the closure of a major government institution. As president, Biden will adopt and expand this initiative, providing five years of funding for projects that boost local economic growth.SPARK ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH IN EVERY COMMUNITYDouble down on the State Small Business Credit Initiative. In 2010, the Obama-Biden Administration created the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) to support small businesses. The program transfers funds to state small business lending initiatives, driving $10 billion in new lending for each $1 billion in SSBCI funds. Biden will extend the program through 2025 and double its federal funding to $3 billion, driving close to $30 billion of private sector investments to small businesses all told, especially those owned by women and people of color.Establish a competitive grant program for new business startups outside of our biggest cities. To help redirect investments to more communities across the country – not just our biggest cities – Biden will enact legislation to provide $5 billion in funding to states with policies to encourage small business startups, for example by supporting the transfer of technology from public universities to the private sector, or by implementing training programs for new entrepreneurs.JOE BIDEN: STEADY STEWARD OF THE BIGGEST INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT IN GENERATIONSAs Vice President, Biden oversaw the execution of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which poured more than $800 billion into infrastructure and stimulus spending, bringing the country back from the brink of depression.Biden made sure that taxpayer dollars were well spent, with less than 0.2% of awards generating investigations of fraud.Investing in Middle Class Competitiveness, Not Rewarding WealthEvery cent of Joe Biden’s $1.3 trillion investment in our nation’s infrastructure will be paid for by making sure the super-wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. Specifically, this investment will be offset by revenue raised through reversing the excesses of the Trump tax cuts for corporations; reducing incentives for tax havens, evasion, and outsourcing; ensuring corporations pay their fair share; closing other loopholes in our tax code that reward wealth, not work; and ending subsidies for fossil fuels.THE BIDEN PLAN FOR STRENGTHENING WORKER ORGANIZING, COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, AND UNIONS – Joe Biden for PresidentStrong unions built the great American middle class. Everything that defines what it means to live a good life and know you can take care of your family – the 40 hour work week, paid leave, health care protections, a voice in your workplace – is because of workers who organized unions and fought for worker protections. Because of organizing and collective bargaining, there used to be a basic bargain between workers and their employers in this country that when you work hard, you share in the prosperity your work created.Today, however, there’s a war on organizing, collective bargaining, unions, and workers. It’s been raging for decades, and it’s getting worse with Donald Trump in the White House. Republican governors and state legislatures across the country have advanced anti-worker legislation to undercut the labor movement and collective bargaining. States have decimated the rights of public sector workers who, unlike private sector workers, do not have federal protections ensuring their freedom to organize and collectively bargain. In the private sector, corporations are using profits to buy back their own shares and increase CEOs’ compensation instead of investing in their workers and creating more good-quality jobs. The results have been predictable: rising income inequality, stagnant real wages, the loss of pensions, exploitation of workers, and a weakening of workers’ voices in our society.Biden is proposing a plan to grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class – the backbone of the American economy – by strengthening public and private sector unions and helping all workers bargain successfully for what they deserve.As president, Biden will:Check the abuse of corporate power over labor and hold corporate executives personally accountable for violations of labor laws;Encourage and incentivize unionization and collective bargaining; andEnsure that workers are treated with dignity and receive the pay, benefits, and workplace protections they deserve.This plan is a critical addition to Biden’s proposals to ensure all workers have access to quality, affordable health care; to guarantee all workers are able to send their children to quality public schools and have access to universal pre-kindergarten; to provide education and training beyond high school, including federally Registered Apprenticeships; to support a clean energy revolution that creates millions of unionized middle-class jobs; and to meet our commitment to invest first in American workers and ensure that labor is at the table to negotiate every trade deal. In the months ahead, Biden will continue to outline in further detail his related proposals, including on issues related to pensions, starting with passing the Butch Lewis Act; infrastructure investments and project labor agreements; and workplace equality.CHECK THE ABUSE OF CORPORATE POWER OVER LABORPresident Trump and Republican leadership think this country was built by CEOs and hedge fund managers, but they’re wrong. Joe Biden knows that our country was built by hard-working Americans. While we could survive without Wall Street and investment banks, our entire economy would collapse without electricians to keep our lights on, auto workers on the line building our cars, drivers who deliver all things we need for our daily lives to our markets, firefighters, ambulance drivers, service workers, educators, and millions more.Yet employers steal about $15 billion a year from working people just by paying workers less than the minimum wage. On top of that, workers experience huge losses in salary caused by other forms of wage theft, like employers not paying overtime, forcing off-the-clock work, and misclassifying workers. At the same time, these companies are raking in billions of dollars in profits and paying CEOs tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.In addition, employers repeatedly interfere with workers’ efforts to organize and collectively bargain. In nearly all union campaigns, corporations run a campaign against the union. Three in four employers hire anti-union consultants, spending approximately $1 billion each year on these efforts. Corporations fire pro-union workers in one of every three union campaigns and about half of corporations threaten to retaliate against workers during union campaigns. Even workers who successfully are able to form a union are later impeded by corporations who bargain in bad faith. About half of newly organized groups of workers do not have a contract a year later and one in three remain without a contract two years after a successful union election.Biden will ensure employers respect workers’ rights. Specifically, he will:Hold corporations and executives personally accountable for interfering with organizing efforts and violating other labor laws. Biden strongly supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act’s (PRO Act) provisions instituting financial penalties on companies that interfere with workers’ organizing efforts, including firing or otherwise retaliating against workers. Biden will go beyond the PRO Act by enacting legislation to impose even stiffer penalties on corporations and to hold company executives personally liable when they interfere with organizing efforts, including criminally liable when their interference is intentional.Aggressively pursue employers who violate labor laws, participate in wage theft, or cheat on their taxes by intentionally misclassifying employees as independent contractors. As president, Biden will put a stop to employers intentionally misclassifying their employees as independent contractors. He will enact legislation that makes worker misclassification a substantive violation of law under all federal labor, employment, and tax laws with additional penalties beyond those imposed for other violations. And, he will build on efforts by the Obama-Biden Administration to drive an aggressive, all-hands-on-deck enforcement effort that will dramatically reduce worker misclassification. He will direct the U.S. Department of Labor to engage in meaningful, collaborative enforcement partnerships, including with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department, and state tax, unemployment insurance, and labor agencies. And, while Trump has weakened enforcement by sabotaging the enforcement agencies and slashing their investigator corps, Biden will fund a dramatic increase in the number of investigators in labor and employment enforcement agencies to facilitate a large anti-misclassification effort.Ensure federal dollars do not flow to employers who engage in union-busting activities, participate in wage theft, or violate labor law. Biden will institute a multi-year federal debarment for all employers who illegally oppose unions, building on debarment efforts pursued in the Obama-Biden Administration. Biden will also restore and build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which Trump revoked, requiring employers’ compliance with labor and employment laws be taken into account in determining whether they are sufficiently responsible to be entrusted with federal contracts. He will ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns. He also will only award contracts to employers who support their workers, including those who pay a $15 per hour minimum wage and family sustaining benefits. The tax dollars of hard-working families should not be used to damage the standard of living of those same families.Penalize companies that bargain in bad faith. Too many employers pretend to bargain with unions (“surface bargaining”) with no intent of reaching an agreement. Biden will give the NLRB the necessary power to force any employer found to be bargaining in bad faith back to the negotiating table, as called for in the PRO Act. And, he will require those companies to pay a penalty, in addition to making workers whole for the time the company stalled negotiations.ENCOURAGE AND INCENTIVIZE UNION ORGANIZING AND COLLECTIVE BARGAININGUnions and collective bargaining are essential tools for growing and sustaining a stronger, more inclusive middle class. 16 million workers in the United States are union members or are in a job that provides them union representation. More than six in ten of those individuals are women and/or people of color. Union workers earn roughly 13% more than non-union workers on a similar job site. They also experience drastically lower rates of labor standards violations, like employers engaging in wage theft or failing to meet safety and health requirements.But today, union members make up just 10.5% of the American workforce. That’s down from 35% in the 1950s. It is no coincidence that this decline has occurred at the same time as rising income inequality. When workers are blocked from organizing and engaging in collective bargaining, stagnant wages and a declining middle class are the predictable result.Joe Biden believes the federal government should not only defend workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively, but also encourage collective bargaining. That’s the mission put forward by the National Labor Relations Act, signed into law in 1935, which states that “encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining” is part of the “policy of the United States.”Toward that end, President Biden will:Make it easier for workers who choose to unionize to do so. Today, workers face an uphill battle of anti-union intimidation and intense employer opposition when trying to organize a union. And, too many employers are able to “run out the clock” on negotiating an initial collective bargaining agreement. Biden strongly supports the provisions of the PRO Act that address union organizing, as well as additional aggressive remedies that will:ban employers’ mandatory meetings with their employees, including captive audience meetings in which employees are forced to listen to anti-union rhetoric;reinstate and codify into law the Obama-Biden Administration’s “persuader rule” requiring employers to report not only information communicated to employees, but also the activities of third-party consultants who work behind the scenes to manage employers’ anti-union campaigns;codify into law the Obama-Biden era’s NLRB rules allowing for shortened timelines of union election campaigns; andstop employers from stalling initial negotiations with newly formed unions.A co-sponsor of the original Employee Free Choice Act, Biden supports workers choosing to form a union if a majority signs authorization cards empowering a union to represent them. He will go beyond the PRO Act by allowing workers to use this process, called “card check,” as an initial option for forming a union, not merely an option granted when the employer has illegally interfered in the election process.Provide a federal guarantee for public sector employees to bargain for better pay and benefits and the working conditions they deserve. Public sector unions provide the voice that workers – including educators, social workers, firefighters, and police officers – need to ensure they can serve their communities. And, public sector unions have been and continue to be an essential pathway to the middle class for workers of color and women, who disproportionately work in the public sector. Yet, in many states across the country, public sector workers do not have the right to bargain collectively. In states such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and Indiana, these rights are increasingly under attack. As president, Biden will establish a federal right to union organizing and collective bargaining for all public sector employees, and make it easier for those employees who serve our communities to both join a union and bargain. He will do so by fighting for and signing into law the Public Safety Employer Employee Cooperation Act and Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. He will work to ensure public sector workers, including public school educators, have a greater voice in the decisions that impact their students and their working conditions. He will also strongly encourage states to pursue expanded bargaining rights for state licensed and contracted workers, including child care workers and home health care workers. And, he will look for federal solutions that will protect these workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. Finally, he will reinstate the Obama-Biden rule, which the Trump Administration has since reversed, making it easier for independent-provider home care workers to join a union.Ban state laws prohibiting unions from collecting dues or comparable payments from all workers who benefit from union representation that unions are legally obligated to provide. Currently more than half of all states have in place these so-called “right to work” laws, which in fact deprive workers of their rights. These laws exist only to deprive unions of the financial support they need to fight for higher wages and better benefits. As president, Biden will repeal the Taft-Hartley provisions that allow states to impose “right to work” laws.Create a cabinet-level working group that will solely focus on promoting union organizing and collective bargaining in the public and private sectors. As president, Biden will create a cabinet-level working group that includes representatives from labor. In the first 100 days of the Administration, the working group will deliver a plan to dramatically increase union density and address economic inequality. The group will consider whether there are very specific areas where the federal government could waive preemption of the National Labor Relations Act to allow cities and states to pursue innovative ways to increase union organizing and collective bargaining without undermining current workers protections, like allowing for neutrality agreements and card check. The group will also be tasked with working with unions and trade associations to further explore the expansion of sectoral bargaining, where all competitors in an industry are engaged in collective bargaining with a single or multiple unions.Ensure workers can bargain with the employer that actually holds the power, including franchisors, and ensure those employers are accountable for guaranteeing workplace protections. During the Obama-Biden Administration, the NLRB issued the landmark Browning-Ferris Industries decision. If allowed to stand, this decision would allow unions to collectively bargain with the employer that actually controls their wages, benefits and working conditions — which is often not the staffing agency or the franchisee, but a large corporation or franchisor like McDonald’s. The Trump Administration and Trump’s handpicked NLRB majority proposed reversing this decision. As president, Biden will enact legislation codifying the Browning-Ferris Industries joint employer definition into law, as called for in the PRO Act, and restoring the broad definition of joint employment to wage and hour law.Ensure that workers can exercise their right to strike without fear of reprisal. The right of workers to withhold their labor, or to strike, is fundamental to balancing power in the workplace. But too many workers risk reprisal, punishment, or termination when they seek to bring pressure on employers by participating in strikes, picket lines, and boycotts. Low wage workers face especially high barriers to exercising their right to strike. They often have too few resources to sustain long strikes, and instead require short, periodic strikes, or “intermittent strikes,” to be able to bring pressure to their employer. Under current law, these types of strikes are not sufficiently protected. And, because low-wage workers often do not have specialized skills, they are more often “permanently replaced” – or functionally fired – while striking. Workers are also often limited in the pressure they can exert on employers because of restrictions on boycotting “secondary” businesses that have influence over their employer. These secondary boycotts are essential for promoting workers’ voice. For example, after tomato growers unsuccessfully led strikes of their employer at the turn of the century, they successfully boycotted Taco Bell and other fast-food giants who bought the tomatoes to gain better wages and working conditions. Biden has supported secondary boycotts since he entered public service, and has long supported banning “permanent replacement” of workers. As president, Biden will fight for passage of the PRO Act to protect intermittent strikes, ban permanent strike replacements, and remove the ill-conceived ban on secondary boycotts once and for all.Empower the National Labor Relations Board to fulfill its intended purpose of protecting workers. Congress created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to encourage union organizing, support collective bargaining, and protect workers’ rights. The Obama-Biden Administration appointed officials to the NLRB who supported workers’ right to organize and collective bargain, and made critically important decisions such as ensuring that workers could organize in micro-units. Trump has undermined this progress and the intent of the NLRB by appointing board members with long histories of anti-union activities. As president, Biden will appoint members to the NLRB who will protect, rather than sabotage, worker organizing, collective bargaining, and workers’ rights to engage in concerted activity whether or not they belong to a union.Reinstate and expand protections for federal employees. The federal government should serve as a role model for employers to treat their workers fairly. Yet, Trump has gutted the ability of federal employees to collectively bargain, stripped them of their union representation, and made it easier to fire federal employees without “just cause.” On Biden’s first day in office, he will restore federal employees’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, and will direct his agencies to bargain with federal employee unions over non-mandatory subjects of bargaining.Expand long overdue rights to farmworkers and domestic workers. When Congress extended labor rights and protections to workers, farmworkers and domestic workers – who are disproportionately immigrants and people of color – were left out. Still today, millions of these workers are not fully protected under federal labor law. As president, Biden will support legislation, including the Fairness for Farmworkers Act and Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, that expands federal protections to agricultural and domestic workers, ensuring that they too have the right to basic workplace protections and to organize and collectively bargain. And, through the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, Biden will ensure domestic workers have a voice in the workplace through a wage and standards board.Extend the right to organize and bargain collectively to independent contractors. Some workers are correctly classified as independent contractors, but are not very different from employees. They bring only their labor, and perhaps a small amount of capital investment, to the organization with which they do business. These workers lack individual bargaining power and, as a result, are at grave risk of exploitation by big business. Biden supports modifying antitrust law and guaranteeing that these independent contractors can organize and bargain collectively for their mutual protection and benefit.ENSURE THAT ALL WORKERS ARE TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND RECEIVE THE PAY, BENEFITS, AND WORKPLACE PROTECTIONS THEY DESERVEDuring the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered in labor protections and established the safety net for a reason. The excesses of business threatened the very fabric of our community in the Roaring Twenties, as children slaved away in factories and workers labored for poverty wages. Basic protections like the minimum wage and overtime pay allowed workers to earn their fair share.But it has been far too long since we have increased those standards. Today’s corporate culture treats workers as a means to an end and institutes policies to suppress wages.As president, Biden will ensure that workers receive the pay and dignity they deserve. He will:Increase the federal minimum wage to $15. As Vice President, Biden helped get state and local laws increasing the minimum wage across the finish line – including in New York State – and has supported eliminating the tipped minimum wage. He firmly believes all Americans are owed a raise, and it’s well past time we increase the federal minimum wage to $15 across the country. This increase would include workers who aren’t currently earning the minimum wage, like the farmworkers who grow our food and domestic workers who care for our aging and sick and for those with disabilities. As president, Biden will also support indexing the minimum wage to the median hourly wage so that low-wage workers’ wages keep up with those of middle income workers.Invest in communities by widely applying and strictly enforcing prevailing wages. The prevailing wage, or the wage earned by the median worker in the same occupation in the same region, is an essential mechanism for securing middle class jobs. Taxpayer dollars should always be used to build the middle class, not to foster wage-cutting competition among employers in the construction or service industries. When President Obama put Vice President Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Biden made sure that Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act standards were strictly enforced, requiring that the prevailing wage be paid to construction workers and service workers on all projects funded by ARRA. As president, Biden will build on this success by ensuring that every federal investment in infrastructure and transportation projects or service jobs is covered by prevailing wage protections.Stop employers from denying workers overtime pay they’ve earned. The Obama-Biden Administration fought to extend overtime pay to over 4 million workers and protect nearly 9 million from losing it. The Trump Administration reversed this progress, implementing a new rule that leaves millions of workers behind. Since Trump walked away from protecting these middle-class workers, they have lost over $2.2 billion in foregone overtime wages. As president, Biden will ensure workers are paid fairly for the long hours they work and get the overtime they have earned.Ensure workers in the “gig economy” and beyond receive the legal benefits and protections they deserve. Employer misclassification of “gig economy” workers as independent contractors deprives these workers of legally mandated benefits and protections. Employers in construction, service industries, and other industries also misclassify millions of their employees as independent contractors to reduce their labor costs at the expense of these workers. This epidemic of misclassification is made possible by ambiguous legal tests that give too much discretion to employers, too little protection to workers, and too little direction to government agencies and courts. States like California have already paved the way by adopting a clearer, simpler, and stronger three-prong “ABC test” to distinguish employees from independent contractors. The ABC test will mean many more workers will get the legal protections and benefits they rightfully should receive. As president, Biden will work with Congress to establish a federal standard modeled on the ABC test for all labor, employment, and tax laws.Eliminate non-compete clauses and no-poaching agreements that hinder the ability of employees to seek higher wages, better benefits, and working conditions by changing employers. In the American economy, companies compete. Workers should be able to compete, too. But at some point in their careers, 40% of American workers have been subject to non-compete clauses. If workers had the freedom to move to another job, they could expect to earn 5% to 10% more – that’s an additional $2,000 to $4,000 for a worker earning $40,000 each year. These employer-driven barriers to competition are even imposed within the same company’s franchisee networks. For example, large franchisors like Jiffy Lube have no-poaching policies preventing any of their franchisees from hiring workers from another franchisee. As president, Biden will work with Congress to eliminate all non-compete agreements, except the very few that are absolutely necessary to protect a narrowly defined category of trade secrets, and outright ban all no-poaching agreements.Put an end to unnecessary occupational licensing requirements. While licensing is important in some occupations to protect consumers, in many occupations licensing does nothing but thwart economic opportunity. If licensed workers choose to move to new states for higher-paying jobs, they often have to get certified all over again. As president, Biden will build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s efforts to incentivize states to reduce unnecessary licensing requirements and to ensure licenses are transferable from one state to the next.Increase workplace safety and health. No one should get sick, injured, or die simply because they went to work. Every worker has the right to return home from work safely. But Trump has attempted to weaken several occupational and safety regulations established during the Obama-Biden Administration. For example, he rolled back regulations requiring companies to report their workplace injuries so they are disclosed to the public. He removed the restrictions on line speeds in pork plants, making meatpacking jobs even more dangerous. He reduced the number of Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) investigators and safety enforcement efforts, despite the fact that OSHA inspections reduce injuries. As president, Biden will reinstate these critical safety protections and ensure all appointments to committees and advisory boards under OSHA intimately understand the consequences of not having functional safety standards in place. He will direct OSHA to substantially expand its enforcement efforts. He will increase the number of investigators in OSHA and the Mine Safety Health and Administration (MSHA). He will also direct OSHA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, MSHA, and other relevant agencies to develop comprehensive strategies for addressing the most dangerous hazards workers encounter in the modern workplace.Ensure workers can have their day in court by ending mandatory arbitration clauses imposed by employers on workers. Sixty million workers have been forced to sign contracts waiving their rights to sue their employer and nearly 25 million have been forced to waive their right to bring class action lawsuits or joint arbitration. These contracts require employees to use individual, private arbitrations when their employer violates federal and state laws. Biden will enact legislation to ban employers from requiring their employees to agree to mandatory individual arbitration and forcing employees to relinquish their right to class action lawsuits or collective litigation, as called for in the PRO Act.Expand protections for undocumented immigrants who report labor violations. When undocumented immigrants are victims of serious crimes and help in the investigation of those crimes, they become eligible for U Visas. The Obama-Biden Administration expanded the U Visa program to certain workplace crimes. As president, Biden will further extend these protections to victims of any workplace violations of federal, state, or local labor law by securing passage of the POWER Act. And, a Biden Administration will ensure that workers on temporary visas, including guest teachers, are protected so that they are able to exercise the labor rights to which they are entitled.BIDEN HAS STOOD WITH UNIONS AND WORKERS FOR HIS ENTIRE CAREERVice President Biden has stood with and fought for workers again and again. He helped get state and local laws increasing the minimum wage across the finish line – including in New York State. As Vice President, Biden was the loudest elected voice calling out “the most direct assault [on unions] in generations” when governors in states like Wisconsin and Ohio eviscerated the collective bargaining rights of public sector employees. When President Obama put Vice President Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he ensured construction workers were paid prevailing wages, essential for maintaining middle class jobs. The Recovery Act also played a vital role in saving public sector jobs, including tens of thousands of education jobs. And, Biden secured an expansion of the SAFER Act to keep more firefighters on the job during the Great Recession.The Obama-Biden Administration also took action to make it easier for workers to organize. The Administration increased transparency of employers’ anti-union campaigns and ensured that employers who wanted federal contracts had to comply with labor laws. They supported public sector workers’ ability to organize, including by clarifying that states can deduct union dues from home care workers. And, the Administration appointed a pro-union National Labor Relations Board.Biden’s commitment to fighting for workers and unions is longstanding. As a senator, he was one of the original co-sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made it easier for workers to unionize through card-check. Dating back to 1975, he was one of the first champions of secondary boycotts, a critical method workers need to fight for fair working conditions. Both provisions have now gained broad support and are included in congressional Democrats’ Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. As president, Biden will sign the PRO Act into law.

On the night of Friday June 7, 2013, a pre-wedding party was in progress at the Cavalli Club – named after the renowned Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli – within the 5-star luxury Fairmont Hotel in Dubai. There was champagne in abundance and some of the performers on ground for the all-night gig included DJ Jimmy Jatt, leading comedian, Basketmouth, singer Wizkid and rapper Naeto C. It was the summer party to be at.The next day, the wedding proper held at the JW Marriot Marquis Hotel on the same street. Most of the floors at the hotel and the nearby Mirage Palace were occupied by the over 300 guests who had flown in for the wedding from Nigeria to attend. Over 40 private jets were buzzing in and out of the United Arab Emirates with sitting governors, senators, traditional rulers, government officials, politicians and businessmen.The entire weekend was, as tabloids will call it, awash with pomp and pageantry. The groom was Oluwatosin Omokore, first son of Olajide Omokore, a maverick oil trader; and his bride was Faiza Fari, first daughter of Abdulkadir Fari, then Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources. Encomium Magazine reported that souvenirs at the wedding rumoured to have cost an estimated $8 million (N1.2 billion using the exchange rate at the time), included the Blackberry Q10 released in January of that year, other smartphones, Bang & Olufsen luxury speakers.In the aftermath, the then Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, acting on the recommendation of his petroleum minister and Mr. Fari’s boss, Diezani Alison-Madueke,suspended and later redeployed the father of the bride to another parastatal. His accounts were also reportedly frozen by the Economic & Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. An insider at the ministry told The Nation newspaper that the wedding was deemed too lavish for a civil servant to fund and that in allowing his daughter marry the son of a major player in his sector, Mr. Musa had triggered a conflict of interest.In reality, the wedding had been primarily funded by Mr. Omokore who understandably spared no cost to give his first son the gift of a good wedding. Mr. Fari who reportedly had been a little too strict in demanding due process on some deals relating to marginal oilfields, was simply the sacrificial lamb who had to go for delaying Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s desires. He was one of many in a revolving door policy that saw five group managing directors and several permanent secretaries exit the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in the five years of Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s tenure.Back in May 2010, the death of Umaru Musa Yar’adua precipitated the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan as Nigeria’s president. There was pressure on him from his kinsmen and others within the enclave of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, to run for the 2011 elections. It was only expedient to turn to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, a major source of election funding for incumbents since the return of democracy in 1999.To ensure a smooth process, Rilwanu Lukman, the incumbent minister who favoured a restructuring of NNPC into a full commercial entity, was replaced with Diezani Alison-Madueke in a cabinet reshuffle. Mrs. Alison-Madueke eventually became like an unofficial prime minister. From then till May 2015 when the Muhammadu Buhari presidency took over; anyone that stood in her way was removed either by her personally or the presidency acting on her recommendations.In an era where Nigeria earned over N51 trillion from oil and the commodity price peaked at $112 per barrel, it was the best of times to have the listening ears of the president and the discretionary powers of an oil minister as enshrined in the Petroleum Act of 1969. In that five-year period, Mrs. Alison-Madueke, whose name means ‘look before you leap’ in her native Ijaw, leapt to unbelievable levels of immense influence and the accompanying affluence.DIEZANI’S CHILDHOODBorn Diezani Kogbeni Agama in the city of Port Harcourt two months after Nigeria’s independence, the young girl had a decent childhood as the third of six children. Her father Frederick Agama – had a distinguished career at Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) as a management executive before retiring to become a traditional ruler of the Epie-Atissa Clan in Yenaka, Bayelsa State. Her mother, Beatrice Agama, is a retired schoolteacher. Though her parents were not as wealthy as rumoured, they lived a decent life by all standards. She grew up at the Shell residential camp in Rumuomasi, Port Harcourt and schooled in Warri, Port Harcourt and Mubi.An intervention from her maternal grandfather N. K. Porbeni, a renowned Ijaw chief from Delta State led her to study architecture rather than the creative arts. “He travelled all the way from Warri [to the UK] to tell me in no uncertain terms that my father hadn’t spent all that money on my education for me to study Fine Art”, she said in a 2007 interview.Mrs. Alison-Maueke began her architecture training in the UK. It is unclear why she abandoned her studies in the UK, but she later moved to the United States to do a 5-year architecture course at Howard University. She graduated in 1992. Right after her graduation from Howard, she was employed by SPDC and would continue to go through the ranks, heading strategy and planning team handling its joint ventures with the NNPC. By this time, she was married to a former military governor of Imo and Enugu State, Alison Madueke.In 2006, she was appointed Executive Director, Facilities, becoming the company’s first female Nigerian director in its entire history. Ann Pickard, the controversial American who headed Shell’s operations in Nigeria from 2005-2010 fast-tracked her from mid-level executive, singling out her and other promising young women for top roles. Perhaps Ms. Pickard, believed to have placed moles in the Nigerian government –according to US diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks – and described as “having a willingness to manipulate every available political angle to further the company’s interests”, saw a reflection of herself in the younger woman.While at Shell, she was rumoured to be involved in contract racketeering and it was not uncommon to see staff in the corridor whispering about her dirty deals during lunch breaks. “The Business Integrity Department takes time to act”, an insider in Shell Nigeria revealed on the condition of anonymity, because the company strictly forbids unauthorised persons from talking to the media. “It can be tracking an executive for years, so it would have caught up on her activities sooner or later. She got away with it because she was ED for just over a year.”In July 2007, she was named Minister of Transport. Her tenure was brief and uneventful save for when she wept openly in August that year while inspecting a bad road. Between December 2008 and March 2010, she was heading the Ministry of Mines & Steel Development.During her time in the Ministry of Mines & Steel Development, it funded ‘Hollywood Glamour Collection’, a new limited-edition collection of Nigerian gold and gemstone jewelry by the popular jeweler Chris Aire. The collection was unveiled at an exclusive event in Beverly Hills, California on April 7, 2010, barely hours after Mrs. Alison-Madueke had been moved to the petroleum ministry. In the months after, Mr. Aire registered new companies for the sole purpose of being awarded questionable contracts to handle crude lifting, earning over an estimated $30,000 daily.Her royal heritage, love for jewellery, style and the finer things of life inevitably drew swift comparisons with the late Princess Diana of Great Britain. In time, friends, well-wishers and hangers-on began to call her Princess Di.THE MENOne of these hangers-on was Donald Chidi Amamgbo, the lawyer who reportedly became her lover for a while when they met at Howard. Usually described by the Nigerian press as her cousin, he hails from Imo State, not Bayelsa and runs a thriving U.S.-based legal practice, Amamgbo & Associates. In 2012, he was put on probation by the state bar of California for misconduct.When government appointees and politicians in general assume office, friends, well-wishers, government contractors and stakeholders in their specific industry find ways to contact them through their network, sending unsolicited gifts to them and their relatives and taking out pages in the newspapers for congratulatory advertorials.“When someone sends you a $10,000 watch here or expensive jewellery there with no favours asked, you have to call one day to say thanks and have the person visit”, said a former staff of the ministry, who asked not to be named because he still works for the government and has not been permitted to talk to the press. “Or your daughter calls from Dubai that an unknown person paid her tuition for two years and sublet an apartment for her. Can you say no? Even the Bible says it that ‘A man’s gift maketh a way for him’.”No one knows for sure which gifts came to Mrs. Alison-Madueke from some of the men at the centre of the storm in her world today. But they worked regardless because they became her close associates soon enough. There was Kola Aluko, an oil trader seeking a big break; Mr. Omokore, a shipping magnate looking to diversify and swell his fortune. There were also the fronts and middlemen, Benedict Peters and Walter Wagbatsoma.One of the many billionaire conquests of supermodel Naomi Campbell, Mr. Aluko was born and bred in Lagos as one of the nine children of Akanni Aluko, a geologist and popular traditional chief in Ilesha, Osun State. His first reported stint in the oil business was in 1995, after years of wandering through the pharmaceutics and automobile industries, when he cofounded Besse Oil, an oil trading firm. By the mid-2000s, one of his serial companies, Exoro Energy International merged with a partner firm, Weatherford, to become Seven Energy. It was run by Aluko who had one per cent equity, alongside Mr. Omokore and a third man, Phillip Ihenacho.Kogi-born Mr. Omokore, who was given the title of Elegbe of Egbe in his hometown in October 2014 for his commitment to his town, was an affiliate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from state to national level. As a government financier, he was rewarded with waivers and mega contracts from agriculture to oil & gas.From time to time, there were contingency bailouts requested by members of the inner caucus of government. After the 2012 flooding disaster, he donated N50 million to the victims.In February 2014, Lamido Sanusi, then governor of the central bank was suspended by Mr. Jonathan after a controversial statement about missing $20 billion in crude oil earnings. According to an insider in the oil & gas sector who did not want to be identified due to his current position, Mr. Omokore allegedly doled out $200,000 to a number of local journalists to begin a campaign against the outspoken central bank governor; Mr. Jonathan had apparently fallen for the bait and wanted the pressure off his beloved minister.In 2010, Shell was plagued with a lot of issues in its onshore operations. Oil spills across the Niger Delta had gotten it into a lot of legal tussles; its goodwill with the host communities had been on a decline since the days of slain environmental activist, Ken Saro Wiwa in the 1990s; militants had wreaked considerable havoc on its asset causing countless force majeures; the government was seeking to get more local marginal field operators out onshore. It has gone on a large-scale divesting spree since then. That same year, Shell fixed one of the major pipelines in the country – the 97 kilometre-long Nembe Creek Trunkline passing through 14 oil pumping stations – for $1.1 billion. By November 2013, it was on the market.The company went ahead then to divest its stake (45 per cent) in asset held in joint venture partnership with NNPC which held the remainder (55 per cent) on behalf of the Nigerian government, and focus on the less ‘dramatic’ offshore fields. The divested fields were the OMLs 4, 26, 30, 34, 38, 40, 41 and 42 and Shell sold them to indigenous operators, raking in a total $2.3 billion.Meanwhile NNPC transferred its shares to one of its many loss-making subsidiaries, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, for $1.8 billion as valued by the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR. Till date, over $1.7 billion is outstanding as only $100m has been remitted to NNPC which wholly owns it.On September 16, 2011, a Strategic Alliance Agreement (SAA) was signed between the NPDC and Septa Energy, a subsidiary of Seven Energy for OMLs 4, 38 and 41. Another SAA was signed with Atlantic Energy Drilling Concepts (AEDC) Ltd for OMLs 30 and 34. These companies were registered in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands and in the United Kingdom, limiting the revenue payable to the Nigerian government in form of taxes.The contracts were awarded by single-source procurement, in clear violation of Nigeria’s Public Procurement Act which stipulates that bids be subject to public tender and competitive. Mrs Alison-Madueke also contravened a guideline under the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act 2010 that mandated companies wanting to lift Nigerian crude to show records of involvement in the industry in the preceding ten years.SAAs are usually signed between two or more companies for a number of reasons including collaborating to augment technical expertise, meet capital requirement or reduce high costs of operation. NNPC adopted this approach to meet the huge capital requirement for cash call and lack of required skill and manpower at the corporation.According to the terms of the SAAs, the partner company provides the capital outlay required to lift crude in the assets supplied by the NPDC as well as non-refundable entry fees of $0.30 per barrel and $0.010/mcf, 70 days after the start of exploration activity. It was to recoup its investment by lifting crude. Quite interestingly, another requirement was that the collaborating firm pay a fixed sum of $350,000 per asset annually for five years to facilitate the training of NPDC staff. This came to $1.4 million per year and Atlantic Energy never paid up.Till date, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is pursuing Atlantic Energy to get its tax returns. And while the NNPC has moved to terminate the SAAs so it can get new partners who will pay as at when due, a court order obtained in October 2016 by Seven Energy, may be restraining it from doing so.“NPDC has till date paid only $100m for those eight OMLs but is still enjoying the benefits of an owner”, says Waziri Adio, executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) which tracks revenues accruing to government.An alternate commercial valuation byPricewaterhouseCoopers in 2015 took Shell’s divested assets into consideration and roughly estimated these eight assets to be worth $3.4 billion in total.“NPDC brought them on as partners because they are supposed to have financial capacity and technical capacity even though the assumption is that NPDC itself has financial and technical capacity to manage the assets”, Adio explains. “These firms had neither and the same assets were used in raising the money. What stops NPDC from raising the money and hiring contractors to do this job as well?”Essentially, an unnecessary medium was created to pay the SAA partners for sourcing capital which they used the national assets to raise. All of this was possible because of Mrs Alison-Madueke’s discretionary powers.In 2014, Mr Sanusi told the Senate that Atlantic had lifted over $7 billion worth of oil between January 2012 and July 2013, but while the NPDC had paid $400 million as petroleum profit tax (PPT), its partner had paid nothing, flouting the PPT Act 2007.“The profit sharing arrangement was too good to be true”, The Cable screamed in its analysis. “Under Article 10 (d) (i)-(v), the two parties were to share “profit oil” and “profit gas” in ratios of 90% for NPDC to 10% for Atlantic (“profit oil” and “profit gas” with regards to undepreciated costs associated to capital costs prior to execution of agreement); 40% to 60% (upon full recovery of development costs by Atlantic); and, thereafter, it would be 70% to 30%.”“Up to the full recovery of development costs related to the continental resources, “profit oil” was to be shared 40% to 60% and, thereafter, 70% to 30%. For the “profit gas” upon full recovery of development costs regarding non-associated gas by Atlantic, NPDC would take 30% and Atlantic 70%, and reverse to 30% to 70% thereafter. Profit gas” from the continental resources was to be shared 30% to NPDC and 70% to Atlantic, and thereafter, 70% to NPDC and 30% to Atlantic.”“When you look at the depositions from the US courts, you see that it (the SAA) was a cover for Mrs Alison-Madueke and others to cream off things that should have come to the Federal Republic of Nigeria”, Mr Adio concludes. According to a July 2017 affidavit at a federal high court, Messrs. Aluko and Omokore owe the Nigerian government the princely sum of $1,762,338,184.40.Curiously, the 55% held by NPDC was not given to the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), the NNPC subsidiary concerned with supervising Nigeria’s joint ventures (JVs), production sharing contracts (PSCs) and services contracts (SCs). Why then did the NNPC transfer them to the NPDC, which had no capacity for exploration?Back in March 1999, as former military head of state, Abdusalami Abubakar was wrapping up his eleven-month stint in office and preparing for the transition from military to democratic rule, the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act was sent to his desk. The bill was meant to stem declining investment in the upstream sector at that point in time due to the absence of a defined fiscal structure. Nigeria had also entered PSC agreements in 1993* and did not have legal backing for the agreements it was entering.Particularly significant was Section 16.For the purpose of the efficient management of Production Sharing Contracts and joint ventures under this Decree, the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (in this Decree referred to as “NAPIMS’) shall be incorporated into a limited liability company under the Companies and Allied Matters Decree 1990, as amended.Accordingly, NAPIMS shall be vested with the exploration and production properties and assets owned by the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the purposes of this Decree.It was following in a tradition of governments signing controversial or hard-hitting legislations at the end of their tenure. Nineteen days to Democracy Day (May 29, 1999), the bill was signed into law; however, a single clause present in the initial version had been deleted. It was Section 16.The amendment effectively opened the floodgates. “With that clause, JVs would have been incorporated”, says a source within the Ministry of Petroleum who requested to be named because he does not have the permission to on the matter. “If they were, as opposed to the unincorporated JVs agreement we run currently, quite a few things would not be permissible. NPDC would pay its bills, crude lifted will be accounted for, recently incorporated companies will not be given such juicy OMLs to operate, cash calls will not be paid ‘mistakenly’ etc.”“Will NPDC use shareholders’ funds to be doing rubbish?”, the source asked rhetorically. “Will an incorporated company setup to make profit be acting so silly? So many ifs.”If the deleted clause was a loophole, the discretionary powers given to the oil minister in the Petroleum Act was a spade that helped Mrs Alison-Madueke dig into depths previously unknown. The entire petroleum industry is controlled by the president and the minister; the former appoints the latter who is then empowered by law. Only the National Assembly could have checked her excesses, but it didn’t.“The political pressure on petroleum ministers to finance elections has turned NNPC into petty cash machine for government”, says Bassey (last name withheld for anonymity), an industry insider. “That the minister has discretionary powers that makes things worse and that’s what we’re trying to unbundle with the PIB. Discretion can make or mar our industry but it is clear what happens in Nigeria.”Who and what institutions dropped the ball and allowed her fully exercise those powers? “The CBN was definitely not one of them, because Mr Sanusi kept harping on the rot in the oil sector”, says Mr Bassey. “The greatest enablers of corruption are civil servants who keep quiet or look the other way to save their jobs because of the god complex of chief executives in Nigeria. Red flags were raised only because of inter-agency collusion with banks, audit firms etc.”“The government is one single unit”, emphasizes Kola Banwo of Abuja-based Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Center. “Institutions have roles but usually, with the nature of patronage and corrupt party system we operate, corruption is endemic. The NNPC has internal mechanisms and systems to prevent fraud. The relevant National Assembly Committees have oversight roles and could have prevented this. The Office of the Auditor-General could also have made some difference. The EFCC, ICPC, etc. However, these all formed part of the problem and so did nothing then. Some action from one or all of these, could have reduced if not prevented what happened during that period.”Those in the know say it was the impunitywith which Mrs Alison-Madueke broke the rules that set her apart from those before her. There were times when she stopped receiving visitors at the office and made them come to her in the comfort of her official residence. She would keep governors waiting for hours, dodge calls from CEOs and chairpersons of multinationals, employ domestic staff on the bill of the corporation and more.Mrs Alison-Madueke requested kickbacks from her collaborators to approve dubious contracts and the infamous oil swaps which Buhari ended in November 2015. Mr Aluko for instance, admitted paying rent for Mrs Beatrice Agama’s luxury home in Parkwood Point, St. Edmund’s Terrace, St. John’s Wood, London, describing it as “simply gifts to a friend, given long after Atlantic had signed its deal.”Under her, the NNPC ran accounts that CBN and Ministry of Finance were unaware of. The president would regularly send people to her with odd financial requests and she became the nation’s unofficial treasury with the state corporation as her petty cash ATM. As a result, she was not remitting funds and records to the Ministry of Finance which as in turn unable to remit to the CBN.In the run-up to the 2015 elections, pressure mounted again on Mrs Alison-Madueke to deliver funding and then something happened. In October 2014, Bernard Otti a director at the NNPC was appointed deputy group managing director (Finance and Accounts), a position created entirely out of thin air. The press release justified his appointment as needed to transform NNPC into a commercially-driven entity but the truth was that he had to close some deals to secure election funding.After the Mr Buhari’s inauguration, he ran to the UK after reportedly entering a plea bargain with the EFCC; With his help, the EFCC traced monies allocated for the Ekiti gubernatorial elections and other issues. His retirement was later announced by Kachikwu in August 2015.Audits by both PwC and KPMG showed that the NNPC had at its discretion, spent an average of $6 billion annually from 2011 to 2013 and there were no watertight records. A similar amount had also not been remitted on a yearly basis by NNPC to the CBN.After studying the patterns and making calculations, Mr Sanusi cried out in a September 2013 20-page memo to Jonathan that $20 billion was missing. The NNPC claimed the money had been spent on subsidy payments for kerosene and pipeline maintenance even though Mr Yar’adua had ended the payments in July 2009. Another audit by PwC was submitted before the 2015 elections but never released by the government.“Civil society has always suspected that there was corruption in the oil sector”, reveals Banwo. “When information of extravagant spending for maintain jet emerged, civil society raised alarm, called for investigations and her immediate resignation or removal, which the then president ignored. The NASS set up a committee to probe but nothing came out of it.”“When in 2015, the then CBN Governor alleged that she was responsible for the missing $20 Billion from the NNPC coffers, civil society also initiated a campaign for her investigation and removal. The impunity in the then government allowed her get away with the deeds.”If Mrs Alison-Madueke was Princess Di, then Mr Aluko, who was last seen in Porza-Lugano, Switzerland, in 2016, was The Fresh Prince. He owned quite a few private jets and an $80 million yacht, Galactica Star; in September 2013, it was rented to Jay-Z and Beyoncé at the cost of $900,000 a week for two weeks for the latter’s 32nd birthday party. A big fan of Ayrton Senna, he is also a car racing enthusiast and placed third with a Ferrari 458 GT2 at Rome’s Vallelunga circuit in December 2012. Mr Aluko was also the owner of the eighth most expensive condo in New York, costing a mere $50 million.Omokore likewise had expensive lovers including Porsha Williams of; Sanomi and co would reportedly send jets to different cities to pick random girls for weekend parties in cities in another continent. It was the good life.The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a lawsuit under its Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative against the trio asking for the forfeiture of assets worth $144 million,proceeds from the oil contracts. Mr Aluko remains elusive while Omokore has been arraigned in court since July 2016. Mrs Alison-Madueke herself has been arrested even though she is yet to be tried in court. The proverbial mills of God that grind slowly, seem to at last be grinding well“She kept saying ‘when we come back’, says Mr Bassey. “She did not think that Jonathan would lose the elections. Maybe the opaque deals would have continued till now.”Beyond Mrs Alison-Madueke and her oil men, perhaps the biggest fear of stakeholders in the industry is that there could be deja vu in this administration or another. As the salacious details of her time in government circulate, the loopholes that made this possible remain open. The NNPC currently remains more of a political financing tool than a truly national oil company like her peers globally. Newcomers to the party will be happy to take notes – literally.This report was made possible by the BudgIT Media Fellowship 2017 with support from Natural Resource Governance Institute.http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/242769-special-report-diezani-men-deals-bled-nigeria.html