President Joe Biden contends the ransomware cyberattack that shut down a major U.S. pipeline is another reason Congress should pass his $2.25 trillion infrastructure spending package, saying the Russian government bears some responsibility for the hack even though there is “no evidence” of direct Kremlin involvement.
Biden’s Department of Energy is working with the management of Colonial Pipeline, the operator of one of the country’s largest fuel pipelines, after it went offline last week. Company officials decided to go offline on Friday after the Russian cybercriminal group known as DarkSide compromised the pipeline’s information technology systems using ransomware.
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“I’m going to be meeting with President Putin, and so far, there is no evidence, based on, from our intelligence people, that Russia is involved,” Biden said at the White House. “Although there is evidence that, of actors, ransomware, is in Russia. They have some responsibility to deal with this.”
Biden insisted his administration was equipped to counter malicious state actors, even though it had been unable to stop a criminal organization infiltrating a private business.
During remarks to address the country’s economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden claimed his $2.25 trillion infrastructure-plus package would help “safeguard our critical infrastructure” from similar attacks in the future.
Biden reiterated his $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending package, along with his combined $4 trillion proposal for infrastructure and social welfare programs, are essential to the country’s economic success, despite a soft April jobs report.
Biden defended April’s jobs numbers by repeating that more than 1.5 million jobs were added to the economy during his first 100 days in office. However, the country was still 8 million jobs shy compared to the start of the lockdowns last year, he told reporters.
“Twenty-two million people lost their jobs in this pandemic through no fault of their own,” Biden said before taking a shot at former President Donald Trump. “They lost their job to a virus and to a government that bungled its response to the crisis and failed to protect them.”
“We’re moving in the right direction. So let’s be clear: Our economic plan is working,” the president went on. “I never said, and no serious analyst ever suggested, that climbing out of the deep hole our economy was in would be simple, easy, immediate, or perfectly studied.”
An estimated 266,000 jobs were added to the economy in April, and the country’s unemployment rate rose to 6.1%. Economic forecasters had expected that the economy would add almost 1 million nonfarm payroll jobs and that the unemployment rate would drop from March’s 6% down to 5.8%.
Biden detailed the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s methodology, describing its jobs report as a “snapshot” taken the week of April 12 when not every adult was eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.
“Since then, COVID-19 counts are down by more than 40%. Since then, vaccination rates among working-age Americans have roughly doubled,” he said. “Back then, 18% of working-age adults were fully vaccinated. Today, if it were taken, 34% are fully vaccinated.”
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The White House opened up a portal Monday to facilitate state and local funding allocated in Biden’s coronavirus package to assist in employing public sector workers and COVID-19 responses. It also distributed financial relief to 16,000 struggling restaurants and bars to aid, in part, with rehiring as social distancing restrictions ease around the country.
