WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao announced today that the U.S. Department of Transportation will award $9.4 million in airport safety and infrastructure grants to 11 airports in Utah. This investment in Utah’s airports is part of a $520.5 million national investment in America’s airports that was announced today by Secretary Chao.
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“This $520.5 million in federal support to airports across the country will help to keep our nation’s airports in good shape and make air travel a better experience for passengers,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao.
With this announcement, the Trump Administration has invested a historic $11.42 billion in more than two thousand American airports across the United States for safety and infrastructure improvements since January 2017.
The airports receiving Airport Improvement Program grants in Utah include:
The Administration not only supports infrastructure through funding – it is making it possible to deliver these much-needed improvements more quickly. The Department is working hard to streamline the approval process, cut unnecessary red tape and reduce unnecessary, duplicative regulations that do not contribute to safety.
These investments and reforms are especially timely because the U.S. economy is surging. Employers have added more than 7 million jobs since January 2017. To kick off the new decade, a robust 225,000 American jobs were added in January 2020 and the unemployment rate is still a remarkable 3.6 percent—the lowest in 50 years.
Aviation is an important part of that growth. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. civil aviation supports more than 5% of U.S. gross domestic product; $1.6 trillion in economic activity; and nearly 11 million jobs.
“America’s airports provide a gateway to the world for our citizens while at the same time delivering first impressions of the United States to visitors from abroad,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dickson. “It’s in our national interest to make them the crown jewel in our transportation system. The Airport Improvement Program allows us to do just that.”
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WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao announced today that the U.S. Department of Transportation will award $9.4 million in airport safety and infrastructure grants to 11 airports in Utah. This investment in Utah’s airports is part of a $520.5 million national investment in America’s airports that was announced today by Secretary Chao.
“This $520.5 million in federal support to airports across the country will help to keep our nation’s airports in good shape and make air travel a better experience for passengers,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao.
With this announcement, the Trump Administration has invested a historic $11.42 billion in more than two thousand American airports across the United States for safety and infrastructure improvements since January 2017.
The airports receiving Airport Improvement Program grants in Utah include:
The Administration not only supports infrastructure through funding – it is making it possible to deliver these much-needed improvements more quickly. The Department is working hard to streamline the approval process, cut unnecessary red tape and reduce unnecessary, duplicative regulations that do not contribute to safety.
These investments and reforms are especially timely because the U.S. economy is surging. Employers have added more than 7 million jobs since January 2017. To kick off the new decade, a robust 225,000 American jobs were added in January 2020 and the unemployment rate is still a remarkable 3.6 percent—the lowest in 50 years.
Aviation is an important part of that growth. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. civil aviation supports more than 5% of U.S. gross domestic product; $1.6 trillion in economic activity; and nearly 11 million jobs.
“America’s airports provide a gateway to the world for our citizens while at the same time delivering first impressions of the United States to visitors from abroad,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dickson. “It’s in our national interest to make them the crown jewel in our transportation system. The Airport Improvement Program allows us to do just that.”
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Dear Editor:
Please consider this thought-provoking piece by veteran journalist Robert Koehler on the dangers of staying stuck in massive military funding while climate change is gathering power to cause more frequent and more severe disasters. For PeaceVoice, thank you,
Tom Hastings
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The paradox of climate security
by Robert C. Koehler
907 words
If there’s anything that’s going to shatter national borders and force humanity to reorganize itself, it’s climate change.
But as long as we look at this looming planetary unraveling from within the cage of nationalism — especially “white nationalism,” which quietly remains the full meaning of the term — we simply see the natural world as another potential enemy: a threat to “national security.”
This, of course, is the limit of any discussion about climate change in the limited world of government, where thinking does not transcend the role of the Defense Department in our sense of who we are. Thus, as Sarah Lazare points out, one of the unnoticed provisions of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act of 2020, which boosted the Defense budget this year to $738 billion, is the creation of something called the “Climate Security Advisory Council,” which defines “climate security” as a matter of protecting “the national security of the United States” and “the military, political, or economic interests of allies and partners of the United States.”
Protecting them from what? Well, we need to watch out for “ongoing or potential political violence, including unrest, rioting, guerrilla warfare, insurgency, terrorism, rebellion, revolution, civil war, and interstate war.” This, of course, is what could happen not in the developed, post-colonial world in which we live, but in the undeveloped, impoverished world that bears the brunt of climate change, which of course has primarily been caused by the planetary exploitation and military operations of the wealthy nations.
“These efforts to address climate change through a national security lens are deeply worrisome,” writes Lazare. “If an ethic of fear and national self-interest — and not justice and solidarity — shapes the U.S. response to climate change, it could unleash a number of frightening actions, in which the U.S. fortresses its borders, protects its military bases and slams the door on those its emissions have harmed.”
This is what I call the mentality of “power over.” It simplifies security to a clueless defense against the currently defined enemy, which has transitioned in my lifetime from communist to terrorist, and may be nudging beyond political bad guys to the problematic hordes of refugees created by climate change.
“. . . what really terrifies me,” said Naomi Klein in an interview, “is what we are seeing at our borders in Europe and North America and Australia. . . . We are seeing the beginnings of the era of climate barbarism. We saw it in Christchurch, we saw it in El Paso, where you have this marrying of white supremacist violence with vicious anti-immigrant racism.”
These two mass murders last year are examples of the end result of militarist thinking. In Christchurch, New Zealand, an armed crazy who killed 50 people and wounded 50 more at two mosques last March, declared in a manifesto: “We are experiencing an invasion on a level never seen before in history. Millions of people are pouring across our borders, legally, invited by the state and corporate entities to replace the white people who have failed to reproduce, failed to create cheap labor, new consumers and tax base that the corporations and states needs to thrive.”
And the El Paso, Texas killer, who murdered 22 people at a Walmart’s last August, said in his screed: “Many people think that the fight for America is already lost. They couldn’t be more wrong. This is just the beginning of the fight for America and Europe. I am honored to head the fight to reclaim my country from destruction.”
This is militarism, as it comes home to roost. While it’s no longer as politically correct as it once was to assume that national security and racism are the same thing (unless your name is Donald Trump), it was born that way and isn’t going away.
“White supremacy emerged not just because people felt like thinking up ideas that were going to get a lot of people killed but because it was useful to protect barbaric but highly profitable actions,” Klein said in her interview. “The age of scientific racism begins alongside the transatlantic slave trade; it is a rationale for that brutality. If we are going to respond to climate change by fortressing our borders, then of course the theories that would justify that, that create these hierarchies of humanity, will come surging back.”
All of this is a way of declaring — screaming — that we reap what we sow. Climate upheaval must be addressed with a sense of spiritual wholeness: We are one planet, profoundly interconnected. Playing war with it — finally, finally — must stop. Climate security is a matter of defining ourselves, humbly, as part of Mother Earth, and searching our souls for the eco-reverence we once had. Even if it’s too late, this is what we must do!
I don’t know how this will happen. It may not be possible until nationalism and its silent god, racism, begin giving way to the reality of climate change. Right now, too much of the non-indigenous world defines itself with a mixture of power and fear, best exemplified by the term “national defense.” Thus, in the U.S., insanely massive military budgets are approved without question or controversy every year — as though this is who we are — while spending to help people or the planet survive is bitterly, and for the most part successfully, contested.
The threat of climate change may be what finally interrupts this. Could this threat also be humanity’s rescuer?
–end–
Robert Koehler, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is an award-winning Chicago journalist and editor.
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Secretary Perdue Announces New Innovation Initiative for USDA
The Agriculture Innovation Agenda is a Solution for Farmers, Consumers, and the Environment
(Washington, D.C, February 20, 2020) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today announced the Agriculture Innovation Agenda, a department-wide initiative to align resources, programs, and research to position American agriculture to better meet future global demands. Specifically, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will stimulate innovation so that American agriculture can achieve the goal of increasing production by 40 percent while cutting the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture in half by 2050.
“We know we have a challenge facing us: to meet future food, fiber, fuel, and feed demands with finite resources. USDA’s Agriculture Innovation Agenda is our opportunity define American agriculture’s role to feed everyone and do right as a key player in the solution to this challenge,” said Secretary Perdue. “This agenda is a strategic, department-wide effort to better align USDA’s resources, programs, and research to provide farmers with the tools they need to be successful. We are also continually mindful of the need for America’s agriculture industry to be environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable to maintain our position as a leader in the global effort to meet demand. We are committed as ever to the environmental sustainability and continued success, of America’s farmers, ranchers, foresters, and producers.”
BACKGROUND:
The first component of the Ag Innovation Agenda is to develop a U.S. ag-innovation strategy that aligns and synchronizes public and private sector research. The second component is to align the work of our customer-facing agencies and integrate innovative technologies and practices into USDA programs. The third component is to conduct a review of USDA productivity and conservation data. USDA already closely tracks data on yield, but on the environmental side, there’s some catching up to do. Finally, USDA has set benchmarks to hold us accountable. These targets will help measure progress toward meeting the food, fiber, fuel, feed, and climate demands of the future. Some of the benchmarks include:
Read more about the Agriculture Innovation Agenda (PDF, 196 KB) here.
Secretary Perdue announced via a Prezi Presentation the Agriculture Innovation Agenda at USDA’s 2020 Agriculture Outlook Forum this morning. The theme of this year’s Outlook Forum is “The Innovation Imperative: Shaping the Future of Agriculture.” Several plenary panels and breakout sessions will focus on the central role science and innovation play in driving future growth and addressing challenges facing farmers.
Follow the conversation at #USDAinnovation on USDA’s Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
At 8 am, with one shoe lost and the school bus honking outside, you are not alone. In the principal’s office with tears threatening to fall, you are not alone. At the homework table, with patience and attention waning fast, you are not alone. Doubling over in laughter or beaming with pride, you are not alone.
Together, we share many challenges — and the infinite joys that our creative, courageous, caring children bring us each and every day.
In "My Kid Is That Kid," read the thoughts and experiences of moms and dads who share your resolve, your strength, your love, and your hopes for your child's future. In this collection, you’ll find heartwarming essays on topics like:
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Dr. Christensen is recognized worldwide as an expert in learning technology. He has pioneered adaptive learning, data-driven content development, simulation and debriefing technologies. He is responsible for the strategy of Area9 Group’s businesses, that span from purpose-built platforms for optimization of business processes for large corporations over digital product design to corporate training based on intelligent, adaptive learning. He will join our session that explores how AI might help achieve optimal results and personalization. This discussion should include a focus of how we move from the past to the present, and why AI is critical to that goal.
You can hear from Dr. Christensen on the most recent episode of Reality Check with Jeanne Allen to talk about learning science and personalization, in a run up to his keynote at the U.S. – Italia Education Innovation Festival.
From new discoveries and the best technologists guiding AI and personalization in learning at every level, to the progress of upskilling the workforce from Italy to the US, to shared concerns about the disconnect between college and career, and the hottest new start-ups in Italy, you just won’t want to miss the opportunity to be part of building a new community of global entrepreneurs who will solve the most pernicious problems facing the knowledge universe.
Watch for new program announcements tomorrow!
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