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    As Humanitarian Disaster Looms, U.S. Opens Door for More Afghanistan Aid

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    The Treasury Department and the United Nations offered new protection for aid from sanctions meant to pressure the Taliban.Facing pressure to prevent a humanitarian and economic catastrophe in Afghanistan, the Biden administration on Wednesday took steps to allow more aid to flow into the Taliban-led country.The measures exempt aid groups from stringent economic sanctions that were imposed against the Taliban before they seized control of the government and have been strangling Afghanistan’s economy under its leadership. But diplomats and activists said that easing the restrictions might not be enough to rescue the country from what one U.N. official on Wednesday called “shocking” need and suffering.At the same time, some Republicans said the Biden administration risked legitimizing and even funding Taliban leaders.The U.S. actions and mixed response underscore the challenge that Afghanistan continues to pose for the Biden administration four months after the last American troops withdrew from the country. Administration officials have been struggling to address the dire humanitarian needs without empowering the Taliban.The United States fought a 20-year war against the Taliban and does not recognize them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. After the group’s takeover in August, the Biden administration halted most aid to Afghanistan, froze $9.5 billion of its foreign reserves and pressured the International Monetary Fund to delay emergency support.A combination of the coronavirus pandemic, a severe drought, the loss of foreign aid and frozen currency reserves have left Afghanistan’s fragile economy on the brink of collapse, with aid groups warning that the harsh winter could lead to mass starvation and a refugee crisis.After weeks of calls for swifter action, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday that it was issuing new “general licenses” that would make it easier for nongovernmental organizations, international aid groups and the U.S. government to provide relief to Afghans while maintaining economic leverage over the Taliban to prevent human rights abuses and terrorist activity..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The actions came soon after the United Nations Security Council passed a related resolution, sponsored by the United States, that exempts humanitarian activities in Afghanistan from international sanctions for a year.Biden administration officials note that the United States remains the world’s top provider of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, even after it cut off most assistance after the Taliban takeover.“We are committed to supporting the people of Afghanistan,” Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, said in a statement.The department’s general licenses allow financial transactions involving the Taliban and members of the Haqqani network, who share power in the new Afghan government, as long as the money is used for purposes such as projects to meet basic human needs, civil society development, environmental and natural resource protection and similar efforts. The United States considers both groups terrorist organizations.The Treasury move expands the type of relief activity that can take place in Afghanistan and broadens the level of contact that international groups can have with the Taliban. It also allows the Taliban to collect taxes related to that assistance.Alex Zerden, the Treasury Department’s financial attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul from 2018 to 2019, called the move “absolutely a step in the right direction,” saying it addressed requests for clarity from private sector and nongovernmental organizations about how to operate in Afghanistan without violating U.S. sanctions and providing the Taliban with illegal revenue.But many close observers said far more remained to be done.“We need a bigger humanitarian response, but without a functioning economy and banking system, we are facing terrible odds,” David Miliband, the president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, wrote on Twitter. “Need massive economic stabilization package to stop the rip current.”The United States provided Afghanistan with $3.95 billion in foreign aid last year, about two-thirds of which was security assistance for the former government’s fight against the Taliban. U.S. humanitarian aid for the country and for Afghan refugees in the region has totaled nearly $474 million so far this year.“We’re very conscious of the fact that there is an incredibly difficult humanitarian situation right now, one that could get worse as winter sets in,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a news conference on Tuesday.He added that the United States was determined to ensure “that the Taliban make good on the expectations of the international community,” including by respecting women’s rights, not carrying out reprisals against political enemies and denying safe haven to international terrorist groups.Morgan Ortagus, a State Department spokeswoman during the Trump administration, condemned the U.S. actions as “extremely dangerous.” She said on Twitter that the Treasury Department licenses “send the signal that if you take over enough territory with enough people in it, you too can gain legitimacy.”The Security Council resolution, which was adopted unanimously, seeks to reduce the legal and political risks of delivering aid to Afghanistan. It exempts humanitarian activities such as payments and delivery of goods and services from U.N. sanctions for a one-year period, and requires updates to ensure that aid is not diverted to the Taliban.China on Monday blocked a narrower version drafted by the United States that would have allowed only case-by-case exemptions.After passage of the broader measure, China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, said on Twitter that the new resolution “can only fix the faucet, but to keep the water running, the international community need to make joint efforts.”Citing “shocking levels of need and suffering,” the top U.N. official for emergency humanitarian efforts, Martin Griffiths, said the effect that the 160 aid organizations working in Afghanistan could have “depends on the cooperation of the de facto authorities in the country and on the flexibility of the funding we receive.”Governments and international organizations have been accelerating their efforts to provide assistance in recent weeks.The World Bank has said that the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund donors would transfer $280 million to UNICEF and the World Food Program by the end of the year to provide humanitarian aid.The Treasury Department this month issued a license allowing personal remittance payments to be sent to people in Afghanistan. And the United States on Wednesday announced that it would donate another million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Afghanistan, bringing the total U.S. contribution to 4.3 million doses.But the need remains enormous. Three former U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan and several former ambassadors and other officials this month signed a letter, published by the Atlantic Council, calling on the Biden administration to show “the courage to act” and expedite creative steps to prop up the Afghan economy and feed the hungry without benefiting the Taliban.“We believe the United States has a reputational interest and a moral obligation in vigorously joining efforts to help the Afghan people preserve at least some of the social and economic gains made over the last 20 years,” the authors wrote. “We believe that ways to do so can be found, while erecting barriers to assistance being diverted to purposes other than those for which it is intended.”Such admonitions came as Taliban officials pleaded for swift international relief, which they said was also in the West’s self-interest.“The impact of the frozen funds is on the common people and not Taliban authorities,” the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, said on Sunday, according to Reuters.Mr. Stanikzai warned that if “the political and economic situation doesn’t change,” Afghan refugees would pour into neighboring countries and Europe.Rick Gladstone More

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    Why Janet Yellen’s Signature Is Not on U.S. Currency

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    Until a new treasurer is selected, currency will continue to bear the autograph of former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.WASHINGTON — At a now infamous 2017 ceremony inside the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary at the time, and his wife, Louise Linton, posed for the cameras with an uncut sheet of $1 bills, the first to bear his signature.The images went viral, prompting comparisons of Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, to a Bond villain.More than four years later, America has a new Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen. But the U.S. currency continues to bear Mr. Mnuchin’s signature.The reason has to do with the vagaries of Washington bureaucracy and the fact that, despite having a Treasury secretary in place since January, President Biden has yet to appoint a United States treasurer. The two signatures must be added to new series of currency in tandem, meaning that the process of adding Ms. Yellen’s signature to the greenback is frozen for the foreseeable future.Ms. Yellen sat for her currency signing in March, meeting with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing director, Leonard Olijar, and providing her official signature for printing on the new 2021 series of paper currency. At the time, the Treasury Department said in a statement that it would “reveal her signature in the coming weeks.” Nine months later, Ms. Yellen’s signature is nowhere to be seen on America’s bank notes, depriving the first woman to be Treasury secretary of one of the job’s prized perks.“It is a little odd,” said Franklin Noll, the president of the Treasury Historical Association.Previous Treasury secretaries have had their signatures added to money, a process which takes several months, within their first year on the job.The delay owes to the slow pace of White House nominations across the federal government, including at the Treasury Department. By tradition, the treasurer must also sign the money along with the secretary, and both signatures are engraved on plates, printed and submitted to the Federal Reserve, which determines what currency will be added to circulation.Since the Treasury secretary has the ultimate say over currency design, in theory Ms. Yellen could do away with the tradition and incorporate her signature right away.The treasurer post, which oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Mint, does not require Senate confirmation. But even if Mr. Biden appointed someone before year-end, it could take until mid-2022 before the new series of notes was in circulation.The White House appears to be in no rush. A spokesman said that while Mr. Biden is actively considering treasurer candidates, the administration’s priority has been on filling Senate-confirmed positions that are important for protecting national security and combating the pandemic.The Treasury Department declined to comment and referred an inquiry to the White House.The history of who gets to sign the money dates to 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill allowing the Treasury secretary to delegate the treasurer of the United States to sign Treasury notes and bonds. According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1914 was the first year that the Treasury secretary and the treasurer started signing the currency together.In recent years, the signature of the secretary has captured the nation’s attention, as changes to America’s currency are relatively rare.Former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner acknowledged in 2012 that handwriting was not his strong suit and that he polished his penmanship when President Barack Obama offered him the job.“I didn’t try for elegance,” Mr. Geithner said. “I tried for clarity.”Clarity was an Achilles’ heel for Jacob J. Lew, Mr. Geithner’s successor whose loopy autograph was laughed at for being illegible. Mr. Obama joked in 2013 that Mr. Lew, who had been his chief of staff, nearly did not get the job out of concern that his scrawl would debase America’s currency.Early versions of Mr. Mnuchin’s signature on personal documents were not easy to read. But ultimately, former President Donald J. Trump’s Treasury secretary broke with tradition and wrote his name in print rather than cursive.The signatures are closely watched by collectors and students of financial history.Mr. Noll said that during events or lectures at the Treasury Department with former secretaries, attendees would often bring money to be “countersigned” next to their name on the note.“It was kind of cool to get the real signature,” Mr. Noll said.Ms. Yellen’s signature on the money is not the only change to America’s currency that has been delayed. Soon after Mr. Biden took office this year, White House officials said the administration would accelerate efforts to have Harriet Tubman’s portrait grace the front of the $20 bill, a process that stalled under Mr. Mnuchin.However, at a congressional hearing in September, Ms. Yellen indicated that doing so would take some time, saying that redesigning the note is a lengthy process given the need to develop robust anti-counterfeiting features.Rosie Rios, who served as Treasurer under Mr. Geithner and Mr. Lew during the Obama administration, said that it was a privilege to have her signature on nearly $2 trillion worth of currency that is in circulation. Having helped to lead the effort to get images of women added to U.S. currency, she said, she will find it meaningful to have Ms. Yellen’s name on the money.“I’m very excited to see Secretary Yellen’s signature on there,” she said. More

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    The Path Ahead for Biden: Overcome Manchin’s Inflation Fears

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    A key Democrat’s decision to pull support from the president’s sprawling climate and social agenda is rooted in the scope of the bill.WASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III, the West Virginia Democrat, effectively killed President Biden’s signature domestic policy bill in its current form on Sunday, saying he was convinced the spending and tax cuts in the $2.2 trillion legislation will exacerbate already hot inflation.Economic evidence strongly suggests Mr. Manchin is wrong. A host of economists and independent analyses have concluded that the bill is not economic stimulus, and that it will not pump enough money into consumer pocketbooks next year to raise prices more than a modest amount.The reason has to do with the pace at which the bill spends money and how much it raises through tax increases that are intended to pay for that spending. The legislation spends funds over a decade, allowing the taxes it raises on wealthy Americans and businesses, which will siphon money out of the economy, to help counteract the boost from spending and tax cuts.The bill also does not provide the type of direct stimulus included in the $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package Mr. Biden signed in March — and which Mr. Manchin supported. Some of its provisions would give money directly to people, like a continued expanded child tax credit, but others would fund programs that would take time to ramp up, like universal prekindergarten.Economists say the net result is likely to be at most a tenth of a percentage point or two increase in the inflation rate. That would be a relatively small effect at a time when supply chain crunches, surging global oil demand and a pandemic shift among consumers away from travel and dining out and toward durable goods have combined to raise the annual inflation rate to 6.8 percent, its fastest pace in nearly 40 years.For months, Mr. Manchin has warned the president and congressional leaders that he was uncomfortable with the breadth of what had become a $2.2 trillion bill to fight climate change, continue monthly checks to parents, establish universal prekindergarten and invest in a wide range of spending and tax cuts targeting child care, affordable housing, home health care and more. He has cited both the risks of inflation and his fear that the package could further balloon the federal budget deficit, saying several programs that are now estimated to end in a few years would likely be made permanent.Over the past week, he has insisted that the bill shrink to fit the framework of less than $2 trillion that Mr. Biden announced this fall, and that — crucially — the legislation not use budget gimmicks to artificially lower the bill’s effect on the budget deficit.In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Manchin said Democrats “continue to camouflage the real cost of the intent behind this bill.”White House officials have tried to promote the idea that the bill would reduce price pressures right away — an outcome economists have not entirely bought into. But the general economic consensus finds little evidence to suggest the bill risks exacerbating rising food, gasoline and other prices.Today’s inflationary surge stems from a confluence of factors, many of them related to the pandemic. The coronavirus has caused factories to shutter and clogged ports, disrupting the supply of goods that Americans stuck at home have wanted to buy, like electronics, televisions and home furnishings.That high demand has been fueled in part by consumers who are flush with cash after months of lockdown and repeated government payments, including stimulus checks. Research from the Federal Reserve has shown that inflation is most likely getting a temporary increase from the coronavirus relief package in March, which included $1,400 direct checks to families and generous unemployment benefits. But Mr. Biden’s social policy bill would do relatively little to spur increased consumer spending next year and not enough to offset the loss of government stimulus to the economy as pandemic aid expires.White House aides have tried to make that case to Mr. Manchin — and the public — in recent weeks, pointing to a series of analyses that have dismissed inflationary fears pegged to the bill. That includes analysis from a pair of Democratic economists who warned about rising inflation earlier this year — Harvard’s Lawrence H. Summers and Jason Furman — and from the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania. All of those analyses conclude that the bill would add little or nothing to inflation in the coming year.The disconnect between economic reality and Mr. Manchin’s stated concerns has exasperated the White House, which is struggling with voter discontent toward Mr. Biden over rising prices, as well as an unyielding pandemic.In a scathing statement about Mr. Manchin on Sunday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, noted that the Penn Wharton analysis found Mr. Biden’s bill “will have virtually no impact on inflation in the short term, and in the long run, the policies it includes will ease inflationary pressures.”White House officials, who along with party leaders have spent weeks trying to bring Mr. Manchin to a place of comfort with Mr. Biden’s bill, registered a sense of betrayal after the senator’s declaration.Ms. Psaki said Mr. Manchin had last week personally submitted to the president an outline for a bill “that was the same size and scope as the president’s framework, and covered many of the same priorities.” He had also promised to continue discussions toward an agreement, she said.Republicans celebrated Mr. Manchin’s statement as evidence that the bill, which Democrats were attempting to pass along party lines, was full of inflationary policies that even the president’s own party could not get behind.Biden’s ​​Social Policy and Climate Bill at a GlanceCard 1 of 7The centerpiece of Biden’s domestic agenda. 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    Biden Assails Kellogg’s Plan to Replace Striking Workers

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    President Biden on Friday waded into a strike involving 1,400 employees at four Kellogg plants, whom the company said it planned to permanently replace after workers voted down a proposed contract this week.“I am deeply troubled by reports of Kellogg’s plans to permanently replace striking workers,” Mr. Biden said in a statement, adding that “permanently replacing striking workers is an existential attack on the union and its members’ jobs and livelihoods.”The strike began on Oct. 5 and has largely focused on the company’s two-tier compensation system, in which employees hired after 2015 typically receive lower wages and less generous benefits than veteran workers. Many veteran Kellogg workers, who the company says earn about $35 per hour on average, believe that adding lower-paid workers puts downward pressure on their wages.Kellogg raised the possibility of hiring permanent replacements in November. The company and the union last week reached a tentative agreement in which the company would lift a cap on the number of workers in the lower tier, which was 30 percent under the previous contract. In exchange, the company agreed to move all workers with four or more years experience into the veteran tier, as well as an amount equivalent to 3 percent of workers at its plants in each of the five years of the contract.On Tuesday, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which represents the workers, said its members had “overwhelmingly voted” against the deal. In response to the result, Kellogg said that it would “hire permanent replacement employees in positions vacated by striking workers.”A Kellogg spokeswoman, Kris Bahner, said Friday that the company had posted job listings for permanent replacement roles in each of its four locations and that its hiring process was “fully operational.” The statement added: “Interest in the roles has been strong at all four plants, as expected. We expect some of the new hires to start with the company very soon.”After Mr. Biden’s statement, Ms. Bahner said that the company was “ready, willing and able to negotiate with the union” and that it agreed with the president “that this needs to be solved at the bargaining table.” Ms. Bahner indicated that the company had moved ahead with permanent replacements out of an obligation to consumers and other employees.Permanently replacing workers who are striking over economic issues like wages and benefits is legal, but Democrats, including Mr. Biden, have sought to outlaw the practice through the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act. The House approved the bill in March but it has stalled in the Senate.“I have long opposed permanent striker replacements and I strongly support legislation that would ban that practice,” Mr. Biden said in his statement Friday. “Such action undermines the critical role collective bargaining plays in providing workers a voice and the opportunity to improve their lives.”The statement is not the first time Mr. Biden has appeared to weigh in on a prominent labor action. The president appeared in a video during a union campaign at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama this year warning that “there should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda” — an unusual interjection by a president during a union election.Mr. Biden has made no secret of his support for unions over the years. He quickly ousted government officials disliked by unions, reversed Trump-era rules that softened worker protections and signed legislation that allocated tens of billions of dollars to stabilize union pension plans.His $2 trillion climate and social policy bill, pending in the Senate, includes numerous pro-labor measures, including incentives for employers to offer union-scale wages on wind and solar projects. More

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    U.S. and Others Pledge Export Controls Tied to Human Rights

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    A partnership with Australia, Denmark, Norway, Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom aims to stem the flow of key technologies to authoritarian governments.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced a partnership on Friday with Australia, Denmark, Norway, Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to try to stem the flow of sensitive technologies to authoritarian governments.The partnership, named the Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative, calls for the countries to align their policies on exports of key technologies and develop a voluntary written code of conduct to apply human rights criteria to export licenses, according to a White House statement.The effort is aimed at combating the rise of “digital authoritarianism” in countries like China and Russia, where software and advanced surveillance technologies have been used to track dissidents and journalists, shape public opinion and censor information deemed dangerous by the government.The announcement was part of the last day of the Summit for Democracy, the White House’s virtual gathering of officials from over 100 countries aimed at bolstering democracies.By working to synchronize export controls across countries, American officials hope to cast a wider net to prevent authoritarian nations from accessing important technologies, as well as help companies with U.S. operations operate on a more even playing field.While a decade ago the internet was seen as a force for democracy and openness, authoritarian governments today have learned that big data, internet controls, artificial intelligence and social media “could make them even more powerful,” Samantha Power, the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said at the virtual summit on Friday.Ms. Power said the United States would undertake a suite of new measures over the next year to help set global norms around technology and human rights. Those steps include investing up to $20 million annually to drastically expand the digital democracy work of the Agency for International Development, working with like-minded countries to establish principles for open source technology products, and introducing an initiative with Canada and Denmark to lay out how governments should use surveillance technology in a manner consistent with human rights and the rule of law. The United States will also provide up to $3.75 million to fund new “democracy affirming” technologies, like privacy-preserving artificial intelligence, and establish a separate fund for anti-censorship technology, Ms. Power said. The government’s use of export controls, especially against China, greatly ramped up during the Trump administration, which imposed restrictions on ZTE, Huawei and other Chinese technology firms to prevent Beijing from gaining access to sensitive technologies like quantum computing, advanced semiconductor chips and artificial intelligence that could give its military an advantage or build up the Chinese surveillance state.But critics say those measures, by focusing only on American exports, fell short of their goals. While companies that manufacture products in the United States no longer ship certain goods to China, competitors in Japan, Europe and elsewhere have continued to make sales. That has encouraged some high-tech companies to devote more spending on research and development outside the United States, to maintain access to the lucrative Chinese market.American-developed technology has also been used by authoritarian governments for more nefarious purposes, like monitoring and censoring their citizens.In a joint statement issued Friday, Australia, Denmark, Norway and the United States said that “authoritarian governments increasingly are using surveillance tools and other related technologies in connection with serious human rights abuses, both within their countries and across international borders, including in acts of transnational repression to censor political opposition and track dissidents.”They added, “Such use risks defeating the benefits that advanced technologies may bring to the world’s nations and peoples.”The work at this week’s summit included exploring how best to strengthen domestic legal frameworks, share information on threats and risks, and share and develop best practices for controlling technology exports, a White House statement said.In the coming year, the countries are expected to consult with academics and industries on their efforts. Any decisions on controls of specific technologies will be voluntary and left up to individual countries to carry out.The Biden administration has continued a trend, begun in the Trump administration, of leveling export controls at companies engaged in human rights violations, including those that have supported China’s repression of Muslim minorities.This week, the Biden administration announced new restrictions on Cambodia to address human rights abuses, corruption and the growing influence of China’s military in the country. In November, the administration blacklisted the NSO Group, an Israeli technology firm, saying the company knowingly supplied spyware used to target the phones of dissidents, human rights activists and journalists.The administration has also accelerated discussions of export controls with Europe, through a partnership set up this year called the Trade and Technology Council. But given that there is no legal basis for imposing import bans across the European Union, decisions on those restrictions fall to its member states.The United States is already part of a multilateral arrangement on export controls called the Wassenaar Arrangement, which was established in 1996. But critics say the grouping, which has more than 40 members, including Russia, has moved too slowly to match the pace of technological development. More

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    U.S. Threat to Squeeze Russia’s Economy Is a Tactic With a Mixed Record

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    Sanctions, like aiming to cut oil exports, could also hurt European allies. “It’s a limited toolbox,” one expert said.LONDON — When Russian soldiers crossed into Ukraine and seized Crimea in 2014, the Obama administration responded with a slate of economic penalties that ultimately imposed sanctions on hundreds of Russian officials and businesses and restricted investments and trade in the nation’s crucial finance, oil and military sectors.Now, with Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s border, the White House national security adviser has declared that President Biden looked Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in the eye this week “and told him things we didn’t do in 2014 we are prepared to do now.”Whether harsher measures would persuade Russia to stay out of Ukraine, however, is far from clear. Historically, economic sanctions have a decidedly mixed track record, with more failures than successes. And actions that would take the biggest bite out of the Russian economy — like trying to severely curb oil exports — would also be hard on America’s allies in Europe.“We’ve seen that over and over again, that sanctions have a hard time really coercing changes in major policies” said Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has spent decades researching the topic. “It’s a limited toolbox.”President Biden is looking at the options available to ratchet up economic penalties against Russia.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe best chances of success are when one country has significant economic leverage over the other and the policy goal is limited, Mr. Schott said — yet neither of those conditions really applies in this case. Mr. Putin has made clear that he considers Russia’s actions in Ukraine a matter of national security. And outside of the oil industry, Russia’s international trade and investments are limited, especially in the United States.With direct military intervention essentially off the table, Biden administration officials have listed a series of options that include financially punishing Mr. Putin’s closest friends and supporters, blocking the conversion of rubles into dollars, and pressuring Germany to block a new gas pipeline between Russia and Northern Europe from opening.Work on that pipeline — called Nord Stream 2 — has been completed, but it is waiting for approval from Germany’s energy regulator before it can begin operating.Any request from Washington would coincide with a leadership change in Berlin. The new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his cabinet were sworn into office on Wednesday. He has not yet made any definitive statements on the pipeline. Gas reserves are unusually low in Europe now, however, and there are worries about shortages and soaring prices as winter approaches.Russia supplies more than a third of Europe’s gas through the existing Nord Stream pipeline and has already been accused of withholding supplies as a way of pressuring Germany to approve Nord Stream 2.Washington could impose much more sweeping sanctions on particular companies and banks in Russia that would more severely curtail investment and production in the energy sector. The risk of tough sanctions on a company like Gazprom, which supplies natural gas, is that Russia could retaliate by cutting its deliveries to Europe.“That would hurt Russia a lot but also hurt Europe,” Mr. Schott said.In terms of ratcheting up the pressure, James Nixey, the director of the Russia-Eurasia program at the Chatham House think tank, suggested that financially squeezing the oligarchs who help Mr. Putin maintain power could be one way of bringing more targeted pressure.“I would place a great premium on going after the inner and outer circle around Putin, which have connections back to the regime,” he said.At the moment, the swirl of ambiguity about possible United States actions is useful, he added: “It’s quite good if the Russians are kept guessing.”Russia, the United States and the European Union — which on Wednesday proposed expanding its power to use economic sanctions — are all playing something of a guessing game in order to pursue their policy goals. Russia is deploying troops on the border and at the same time is insisting on a guarantee that Ukraine won’t join NATO, while the West is warning there will be painful economic consequences if an invasion occurs.Ukrainian soldiers patrolling along the Kalmius River, which divides Ukrainian government-controlled territory from non-government-controlled areas, in November.Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesOne of the most extreme measures would be to cut off Russia from the system of international payments known as SWIFT that moves money around the world, as was done to Iran.In 2019, the Russian prime minister at the time, Dmitri A. Medvedev, labeled such a threat as tantamount to “a declaration of war.”Maria Shagina argued in a report for the Carnegie Moscow Center that such a move would be devastating to Russia, at least in the short term. “The cutoff would terminate all international transactions, trigger currency volatility, and cause massive capital outflows,” she wrote this year.The SWIFT system, which is based in Belgium, handles international payments among thousands of banks in more than 200 countries.Since 2014, Moscow has taken steps to blunt the threat by developing its own system to process domestic credit card transactions, she noted. But it is another measure that would affect European countries more than the United States because they do so much more business with Russia.Several economic and political analysts have said restricting access to SWIFT would be a last resort.Arie W. Kruglanski, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland, said that in assessing the impact of sanctions, economists too often overlook the crucial psychological aspect.“Sanctions can work when leaders are concerned about economic issues more than anything else,” he said, but he doesn’t think the Russian leader falls into that category. To Mr. Kruglanski, strongman authoritarians like Mr. Putin are motivated by a sense of their own significance, and threats are more likely to stiffen opposition rather than encourage compromise.When it comes to Ukraine-related sanctions so far, the impact has been negligible, Mr. Nixey of Chatham House said.“A lot of these things the Russians have learned to live with, partly because implementation has been slow or poor and effects on the Russian economy are manageable,” he added.Success can be defined in various ways. Mr. Nixey said that the 2014 measures most likely deterred the Kremlin from further military interventions in Ukraine. A report for the Atlantic Council, a think tank that focuses on international relations, released this spring came to the same that conclusion.Sanctions certainly did not compel Russia to reverse its annexation of Crimea, Mr. Nixey said, but they may have persuaded Mr. Putin from taking more aggressive actions — at least until now. More

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    How Tech Is Helping Poor People Get Government Aid

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    Even as the government expanded aid programs, many people faced barriers to using them. That problem is now being addressed with apps and streamlined websites.WASHINGTON — In making his case that safety net programs should be easier to use, Jimmy Chen, a tech entrepreneur, recalled visiting a welfare office where people on food stamps endured long waits to submit routine paperwork.They passed the time as people in lines do, staring at their phones — which had the potential to do the work online with greater convenience, accuracy and speed.The image of aid-seekers wasting time with a solution literally in hand captures what critics call an overlooked challenge for people in poverty: Administrative burdens make benefits hard to obtain and tax the time and emotional resources of those who need help.“Too much bureaucracy prevents people from getting the help they need,” said Mr. Chen, whose start-up, Propel, offers a free app that five million households now use to manage their food stamp benefits.Barriers to aid are as old as aid itself, and they exist for reasons as varied as concerns about fraud, the bureaucratic tension between accuracy and speed, and hostility toward people in need. But the perils of red tape have drawn new attention since the coronavirus pandemic left millions of Americans seeking government help, many for the first time.The government approved vast increases in spending but often struggled to deliver the assistance. While some programs reached most households quickly (stimulus checks), others buckled under soaring demand (unemployment benefits) or daunting complexity (emergency rental aid).“The pandemic highlighted how difficult these programs can be to access,” said Pamela Herd, a professor at Georgetown and an author, with Donald P. Moynihan, of “Administrative Burden,” which argues that excessive bureaucracy deepens poverty and inequality.The share of eligible people receiving benefits varies greatly by program: It is about 82 percent for food stamps, 78 percent for the earned-income tax credit and 24 percent for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or cash welfare, according to government estimates. That means billions of dollars go unclaimed.On his first day in office, President Biden issued an executive order asking agencies to identify “systemic barriers in accessing benefits,” with the results due in January.Shaped by forces as diverse as the tech revolution, welfare rights and behavioral psychology, the movement to create a more user-friendly safety net was underway before the pandemic underscored the perils of bureaucracy.Code for America, a nonprofit group, spent years devising a portal that makes it easier for Californians to apply for food stamps. Civilla, a Detroit-based nonprofit, helped Michigan shrink its 42-page application by 60 percent.In an age of ambitious social movements, the cry of civic tech — power to the portals — may seem obscure, but Mr. Chen, 34, says democratizing technology’s rewards is essential to social justice.“For someone like me, a phone is like a magic wand,” he said. “If I want to call a cab, there’s an app; if I want to book a hotel, there’s an app; if I want to get a date, there’s an app. It’s just incredibly unfair that we don’t apply more of this sophisticated knowledge to the problems of lower-income Americans.”Among those drawn to the app — recently renamed Providers, from Fresh EBT — is Kimberly Wilson, a single mother in Spindale, N.C., who has a 7-year-old son and cleans vacation rental homes. With her work interrupted by the pandemic, she turned to food stamps, which is also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.Kimberly Wilson, a single mother in Spindale, N.C., said the app’s most appealing feature is that it gives her the ability to check her food stamp balance.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesWhat Ms. Wilson said she likes most about the SNAP app is the ability to instantly check her balance, which she does almost daily. “It’s a comfort knowing I’m going to be able to feed my kid,” she said.The app also explains the timing and amounts of her payments better than the state, she said, and it steered her to a broadband subsidy that saved $50 a month.But the app’s rewards transcend the particulars, Ms. Wilson said: It leaves her feeling respected.“It makes you feel like it’s normal to need help,” she said, which is especially welcome because she has relatives who post memes depicting people on SNAP as lazy and overfed. “It’s like somebody behind the screen is looking out for us. You feel like they care.”Andrea Young, a Providers user in Charlotte, N.C., goes as far as to say the app “makes us feel like we’re Americans, too.”Propel offers an account that can also receive paychecks and other government benefits with the same balance-checking features, in recognition that most low-income households have multiple sources of income and need stable banking.PropelWith 42 million Americans receiving SNAP, many conservatives dispute the notion that aid is elusive. They see dependency as a greater concern than red tape and argue that administrative contact serves important goals, like deterring people who do not really need help or letting caseworkers encourage the jobless to find work.“The system should be striving to help individuals achieve self-sufficiency through employment” rather than maximize benefits, said Jason Turner, who runs the Secretaries Innovation Group, which advises conservative states on aid policy. “When you pile benefit on top of benefit, you make it harder to break free.”Poverty has long been linked to oppressive bureaucracy. “Little Dorrit,” the 1857 novel by Charles Dickens, lampoons the omnipotent “Department of Circumlocution,” whose stupefying procedures keep the heroine down. The 1975 documentary film “Welfare” offers a modern parallel with footage that one critic called “unbearable in its depictions of frustration and anger” among caseworkers and clients.Sometimes barriers to aid are created deliberately. When Florida’s unemployment system proved unresponsive at the start of the pandemic, Gov. Ron DeSantis told CBS Miami last year that his predecessor’s administration devised it to drive people away. “It was, ‘Let’s put as many kind of pointless roadblocks along the way, so people just say, oh, the hell with it, I’m not going to do that,’” he said. (Mr. DeSantis and his predecessor, Rick Scott, are both Republicans.)Other programs are hindered by inadequate staffing and technology simply because the poor people they serve lack political clout. Historically, administrative hurdles have been tools of racial discrimination. And federal oversight can instill caution because states risk greater penalties for aiding the ineligible than failing to help those who qualify.To show that Michigan’s application was overly complex, Civilla essentially turned to theater, walking officials through an exhibit with fake clients and piped-in office sounds meant to trace an application’s bureaucratic journey. Working with the state, the company created a new application with 80 percent fewer words; the firm is now working in Missouri.Michael Brennan, Civilla’s co-founder, emphasized that the Michigan work was bipartisan — it began under a Republican governor and continued under a Democrat — and saves time for the client and the state.“Change is possible,” he said.With its California portal, Code for America cut the time it took to apply for food stamps by three-quarters or more. The portal was optimized for mobile phones, which is how many poor people use the internet, and it offers chat functions in English, Spanish and Chinese. In counties with the technology, applications increased by 11 percent, while elsewhere the number fell slightly.During the pandemic, Code for America built portals to help poor households claim stimulus checks and the expanded child tax credit. The latter alone delivered nearly $400 million. David Newville, who oversaw the work, quoted a colleague to explain why web design matters: “Implementation is justice.”Mr. Chen, right, and Propel’s chief operating officer, Jeff Kaiser, at the company’s office in Brooklyn. Propel has landed investments from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and the sports stars Kevin Durant and Serena Williams.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAs the son of struggling immigrants from China, Mr. Chen, the founder of Propel, understood hardship before he understood technology. “There wasn’t always enough to eat” in an otherwise happy Kansas City childhood, he said. (The family did not receive SNAP, though Mr. Chen does not know why.) He graduated from Stanford, worked at Facebook and left at 26 for a fellowship in New York, hoping to produce software for people in poverty.Mr. Chen founded Propel in 2014 with $11,000 from a Kickstarter campaign, pitched about 60 investors without success and went two years without a salary. After planning to work on SNAP applications, he shifted to focus on people who were already enrolled and developed the balance display.The existing technology did allow people to check their balances, but it did not work well on mobile phones, and a phone line required a 16-digit number. While studying how poor people shop, Mr. Chen saw them buy cheap items — often a banana — to check the balance on their receipts. It struck him as “disrespectful,” one more hassle that they did not need.In tech terms, a balance display was no special feat, but reaching SNAP recipients was. Mr. Chen said the app’s users checked it on average 17 times a month. Ms. Young, 54, said she checked it more frequently than that.“I check it all day, every day,” she said. “It makes me reassured, knowing that I’m going to have food.” Ms. Young, who gets by on a disability payment of about $800 a month after injuring her back, said she had run out of funds at the register; discarding items while others watched “makes you feel like you’re just pitiful.”Ms. Wilson said the app created a sense of belonging among people used to feeling stigmatized.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesMs. Wilson is so concerned about her balance that she keeps it in her head: It was $14.02 the other day.While the app does not let users talk to each other, she said it still created a sense of belonging among those who felt stigmatized. “It just made me see there were a whole group of people out there in the same circumstance,” she said.The app also tells people how much they have spent and where they spent it; offers recipes and budgeting tools; and provides news about other benefits. It generates revenue by selling ads, often to grocers offering discounts or employers offering jobs; Mr. Chen said the goal was to align the company’s financial interests with those of its users.In early 2016, the app had a few thousand users. A year later, it had about 200,000. Propel landed investments from Andreessen Horowitz, a top venture capital firm, and the sports stars Kevin Durant and Serena Williams. Forbes estimated that the company was worth $100 million, a sum that Mr. Chen called “not far off.”Partnering with a charity, Give Directly, during the pandemic, Propel distributed $180 million to randomly selected app users, offering them $1,000 each. It also moved into advocacy, adding a feature that lets users ask their members of Congress to extend the temporary child tax credit expansion. The app now offers an account that can receive paychecks and other government benefits, prompted in part by the difficulties that the poorest households experienced in collecting stimulus checks, because they often lack stable bank accounts.However they make ends meet, Mr. Chen said, poor people should know where they stand without having to buy a banana.“We pay hundreds of billions of dollars to fund these programs,” he said. “Why not make them work well?” More

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    The Achilles’ Heel of Biden’s Climate Plan? Coal Miners.

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    For years, environmentalists have sought compromises with labor unions in industries reliant on fossil fuels, aware that one of the biggest obstacles to cutting carbon emissions is opposition from the unions’ members.States like Washington, New York and Illinois have enacted renewable-energy laws that were backed by unions representing workers who build and maintain traditional power plants. And unions for electricians and steelworkers are rallying behind President Biden’s climate and social policy legislation, now in the Senate’s hands.But at least one group of workers appears far less enthusiastic about the deal-making: coal workers, who continue to regard clean-energy jobs as a major risk to their standard of living.“It’s definitely going to pay less, not have our insurance,” Gary Campbell, a heavy-equipment operator at a coal mine in West Virginia, said of wind and solar jobs. “We see windmills around us everywhere. They’re up, then everybody disappears. It’s not consistent.”Mr. Biden has sought to address the concerns about pay with subsidies that provide incentives for wind and solar projects to offer union-scale wages. His bill includes billions in aid, training money and redevelopment funds that will help coal communities.But Phil Smith, the top lobbyist for the United Mine Workers of America, said a general skepticism toward promises of economic relief was nonetheless widespread among his members. “We’ve heard the same things over and over and over again going back to J.F.K.,” Mr. Smith said. The union has been pointedly mum on the current version of Mr. Biden’s bill, which the president is calling Build Back Better.Unfortunately for Mr. Biden, this skepticism has threatened to undermine his efforts on climate change. While there are fewer than 50,000 unionized coal miners in the country, compared with the millions of industrial and construction workers who belong to unions, miners have long punched above their weight thanks to their concentration in election battleground states like Pennsylvania or states with powerful senators, like Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.When Mr. Manchin, a Democrat and one of the chamber’s swing votes, came out against Mr. Biden’s $150 billion clean electricity program in October, his move effectively killed what many environmentalists considered the most critical component of the president’s climate agenda. The miners’ union applauded.And Mr. Manchin and his constituents will continue to exert outsize influence over climate policy. Mr. Biden’s roughly $2 trillion bill includes about $550 billion in spending on green technology and infrastructure. Even if the bill passes largely intact, most experts say future government action will be necessary to stave off the catastrophic effects of global warming.All of that has raised the stakes for courting coal miners.“Our guiding principle is the belief that we don’t have to choose between good jobs and a clean environment,” said Jason Walsh, the executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, which has united labor and environmental groups to marshal support for initiatives like Mr. Biden’s. “But our ability to continue to articulate that belief with a straight face depends on the policy choices we make.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Coal miners,” he added, “are at the center of that.”It is impossible to explain mine workers’ jaundiced view of Mr. Biden’s agenda without appreciating their heightened economic vulnerability: Unlike the carpenters and electricians who work at power plants but could apply their skills to renewable-energy projects, many miners are unlikely to find jobs on wind and solar farms that resemble their current work. (Some, like equipment operators, have more transferable skills.)It is also difficult to overstate the political gamesmanship that has shaped the discourse on miners. In her 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton proposed spending $30 billion on economic aid for coal country. But a verbal miscue — “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” she said while discussing her proposal at a town hall — allowed opponents to portray her as waging a “war on coal.”“It is a politicized situation in which one political party that’s increasingly captured by industry benefits from the status quo by perpetuating this rhetoric,” said Matto Mildenberger, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies the politics of climate policy.And then there is Mr. Manchin, a complicated political figure who is among the Senate’s leading recipients of campaign money from the fossil fuel industry.Mr. Manchin has sometimes resisted provisions favored by the miners’ union, such as wage-replacement payments to coal workers who must accept a lower-paying job. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t something he was interested in doing,” said Mr. Smith, the union’s lobbyist. A spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin declined to comment.Yet in other ways Mr. Manchin has channeled his constituents’ feelings well, suggesting that he might be more enthusiastic about renewable-energy legislation if they were.At a forum in the spring, he talked about the tendency to forget coal miners — “We feel like the returning Vietnam veteran,” he said — and questioned the proposed trade of “the traditional jobs we’re about to lose, for the transitional jobs that I’m not sure are going to be there.”In interviews, coal workers said they were skeptical that Mr. Biden’s spending plan would ultimately benefit them. Mr. Campbell, a recording secretary for his union local, said he would be pleased if an electric-vehicle battery plant opened in West Virginia under a manufacturing tax credit pending in Congress.“It’s definitely going to pay less, not have our insurance,” Gary Campbell, a heavy-equipment operator at the Loveridge mine, said of wind and solar work.Kristian Thacker for The New York TimesBut he doubted it would happen. “Until something gets done, I don’t want to jump on anyone’s coattail,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of promises, that’s about it.”Dustin Tingley, an expert on public opinion on climate policy at Harvard University, said that while investments in green technology were popular among the general public, many coal country residents simply didn’t believe these investments would produce jobs in their communities over the long term.“If you’re some 35-year-old, 40-year-old worker in fossil fuels thinking about transitioning to some new industry, you need to have the expectation that the jobs will actually be around,” Dr. Tingley said.The clean-energy bill that Illinois passed in September illustrates the tension. The legislation allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and ensures that construction workers will receive union-scale wages on most nonresidential projects. It also includes tens of millions of dollars for worker training.But Doris Turner, a Democratic state senator from central Illinois whose district includes a coal-powered plant and mine workers, said she had voted “present” rather than “yea” on the bill because of lingering concerns about workers.Ms. Turner, a first-term senator who helped win a concession to extend the life of the local coal plant, said she sometimes felt like the Joe Manchin of Illinois. “I’m trying to build relationships with new colleagues, and all of a sudden here we are with this energy legislation and I’m like, ‘I can’t do that,’” Ms. Turner said. “Nobody was very rude, but I could hear sighs.”Pat Devaney, the secretary-treasurer of the Illinois A.F.L.-C.I.O., who was involved in negotiating the bill, said coal workers presented the most vexing policy dilemma.“That one is a little bit tougher of a nut to crack,” he said, adding that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other labor groups would continue to push for proposals like health benefits and lost-wage compensation for displaced workers, programs that didn’t make it into the recently enacted Illinois law.Such delays in economic relief are typical and have heightened miners’ opposition to clean-energy legislation, said Heidi Binko, executive director of the Just Transition Fund, a nonprofit group focused on growing local economies hit hard by the decline of fossil fuels.Ms. Binko cited the example of the Obama administration, which in 2014 proposed an ambitious regulatory effort to reduce carbon emissions that appeared likely to accelerate the closing of coal-fired plants. The administration later unveiled an economic development package for coal country — after voters there had already become alarmed.“It would have been received so differently if first the administration had done something to help the people left behind,” Ms. Binko said.Private philanthropists have often reinforced the problem, Ms. Binko said, by spending millions on campaigns to shut down coal plants, but little on economic development that would ease the political opposition to renewable energy in states like West Virginia.Carrie Doyle, a senior fellow in the environment program of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which makes grants to organizations working on climate change, said philanthropists were only beginning to address the shortfall in funding for economic development.“It feels like it should have been put into place a while ago,” Ms. Doyle said. “Some of that funding is happening now, but it needs to scale.”While such efforts will come too late to ease the passage of Mr. Biden’s climate legislation, they could be essential to ensuring that renewable energy remains politically viable.Some scholars point to international trade as a cautionary tale. In the 1990s and 2000s, Congress approved multiple trade deals. Economists argued, as they do on renewable energy today, that the benefits to the country would far outweigh the costs, which would be concentrated among a small group of workers who could be compensated for their losses, or find new jobs for similar pay.But the failure to ease the economic blow to manufacturing workers, who many economists now concede were devastated by greater trade with China, helped unravel political support for free trade. In 2016, both major presidential nominees campaigned against the 12-nation trade pact that the Obama administration had spent years negotiating.If displaced fossil fuel workers go through a comparable experience, these scholars say, the political effects could be similar, unraveling support for climate policies.“There are lessons to be learned from that experience,” said Dr. Tingley, speaking of the fallout from trade. Among them, he added, “was just recognizing how hard it is to pivot, given where people are in life.” More