SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS ON HUMANITARIAN CEASE-FIRE IN GAZA

FROM:  THE STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks on the Humanitarian Cease-fire Announcement in Gaza

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

New Delhi, India

August 1, 2014

---

Good morning. I’m sorry to get you all up at this hour. I’m not going to take any questions, but I think a few of the staff will be around to answer a few questions for you, and I’ll just make a brief statement.

This morning, Israel and the Palestinian factions have agreed that they are now prepared to implement a 72-hour unconditional humanitarian cease-fire. So starting later this morning at 8:00 August 1st, the parties are expected to cease all offensive military activities, and neither side will advance beyond its current locations. They will stay where they are in place. Israel will be able to continue its defensive operations for those tunnels that are behind its lines, and the Palestinians will be able to receive food, medicine, and additional humanitarian assistance, as well as to be able to tend to their wounded, bury their dead, be able to in safe areas travel to their homes, and take advantage of the absence – hopefully, hopefully – of violence for these 72 hours.

Then, as soon as the cease-fire is underway tomorrow morning – I talked to the Egyptian foreign minister tonight – Egypt will issue invitations to the parties to come to Cairo immediately in order to engage in serious and focused negotiations with Egypt to address the underlying causes of this conflict. And we hope and we expect both sides to raise all the topics of concern. The parties, obviously, need to find a way to address Israel’s security concerns and to ensure that the people of Gaza can live in safety and in dignity. And for our part, the United States will be sending a small delegation to Cairo to assist and take part in these negotiations.
As I said, this will last for 72 hours – three days – precious time. It is a lull of opportunity, a moment for the sides and the different factions to be able to come together with the state of Israel in an effort to try to address ways to find a sustainable cease-fire and then, obviously, ultimately, over a longer period of time, address the underlying issues. Let me also add that tomorrow morning the United States will also join in the effort to provide humanitarian assistance. President Obama has made available some $47 million to help ensure that some of the relief is able to come in, and many of our international partners have also made commitments over the course of the last weeks.

Now, obviously, while we are grateful that the violence and the bloodshed has the opportunity to stop for more than 24 hours, it is up to the parties – all of them – to take advantage of this moment. There are no guarantees. This is a difficult, complicated issue, years and years in the building, and I think everyone knows it has not been easy to get to this point. And everyone knows that it will not be easy even to get beyond this point, but it is imperative that people make the best effort to try to find common ground and do so.

A lot of folks have been working hard at this effort. I want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu, who I know wants to see the people of Israel live in security, free from rockets, free from attacks from tunnels. And I know he has worked hard at this. We’ve had many phone calls, sometimes in the middle of the night, and I’m pleased that he thought this moment was an appropriate one to embrace this effort, this cease-fire. I want to thank UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Special Coordinator Serry for their continuous efforts to try to help create a framework as well as the call for a cease-fire, and helping to galvanize the international community. And I’m grateful also to President al-Sisi and to Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who has been consistently on the phone working this, and Egypt will host these talks. And this effort is built on the original Egyptian initiative that began the talk of a cease-fire. So Palestinian President Abbas has been consistently working behind the scenes, sending his emissaries to various places to work effectively, and I appreciate his leadership in this effort.

Now, I want to re-emphasize: This is not a time for congratulations and joy, or anything except a serious determination, a focus by everybody to try to figure out the road ahead. This is a respite. It’s a moment of opportunity, not an end; it’s not a solution. It’s the opportunity to find the solution. And President Obama hopes that all the parties will work diligently to do so. From the moment the President asked me to travel some 12 days or so ago, the President has been consistently on the phone, tracking this, talking with the prime minister and others in an effort to help to move us to this place.

But we have to understand: Both parties have – all the people involved in this have strong demands and strong visions about what the future should look like. Israel has to be able to live in peace and security, without terror attacks, without rockets, without tunnels, without sirens going off in the day. And Palestinians need to be able to live with the opportunity to educate their children and move freely and share in the rest of the world, and to lead a life that is different from the one they have long suffered. So we hope that this moment of opportunity will be grabbed by the parties, but no one can force them to do that, obviously.

So we come at it with sober reflection about the lives lost and the violence suffered; the soldiers killed, the individuals killed; the three kids who were kidnapped and murdered in the beginning of this, and then a retribution killing. There’s been too much of it for most people’s judgment here, and our hope is that reason could possibly prevail to find the road forward. And with that, I’ll leave you to the folks who might give you a little more sort of background and everything else. Thank you all very much.

DOJ AND IACP RELEASE MODEL FOR DEALING WITH CHILDREN OF ARRESTED PARENTS

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Department of Justice and the International Association of Chiefs of Police Release Groundbreaking Model Policy

Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents

The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP), in partnership with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), today released a seminal model policy regarding police interaction with children who are impacted when a parent is arrested and law enforcement carries out its investigative and arrest responsibilities.  Reflecting the collective input of a wide range of subject-matter experts and stakeholders, and understanding that interactions between children and law enforcement create lasting impressions, the resulting model policy, Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents , provides strategies for law enforcement to improve their procedures and positively impact the communities they serve.

“Limiting a child’s exposure to potentially traumatic events is an operationally sound and necessary law enforcement strategy,” said Deputy Attorney General James Cole.  “It is also consistent with law enforcement’s duty to serve the community as a whole.  It is an important part of the principles of community policing, problem solving, and conflict resolution.”

Funded through OJP’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents is an important resource for law enforcement.  Law enforcement agencies will find the information contained in this document highly instructive as they seek to enhance their policies and procedures and gain understanding about the trauma children experience when law enforcement carries out its investigative and arrest responsibilities.

“Trauma associated with the arrest of a parent can have devastating and long term effects on the life of a child,” said Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.  “This administration is committed to advancing policies and programs that support the children of incarcerated parents and ensure that their futures remain bright with possibility.  Implementation of this new protocol, first announced in 2013 during a White House Champions of Change event, will help limit these children's exposure to trauma and encourage positive interactions between members of law enforcement and the communities that they serve.”

In addition to the development of the model policy, IACP is developing a training curriculum that will be delivered through webinars and a number of training sessions at conferences around the country.

“Police officers are confronted with significant challenges and responsibilities when children are present or in need of care and supervision following the arrest of a parent,” said BJA Director Denise E. O’Donnell.  “We are pleased to partner with IACP on a new model policy that provides sound, practical, and child-focused guidance on how police can join with their community partners to best meet the needs of children in these difficult circumstances.”

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY'S STATEMENT ON IMMIGRATION REFORM

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE 

Statement by the Press Secretary

It is extraordinary that the House of Representatives, after failing for more than a year to reform our broken immigration reform system, would vote to restrict a law enforcement tool that the Department of Homeland Security uses to focus resources on key enforcement priorities like public safety and border security, and provide temporary relief from deportation for people who are low priorities for removal.  In the face of Congressional inaction, the Administration’s use of Deferred Action for DREAMers in 2012, which has benefitted more than 500,000 young people who are Americans in every way except on paper, is the most significant progress we have made toward immigration reform in years.  By failing to act on an immigration reform bill that requires that people who are here illegally pay taxes, undergo background checks and get on the right side of the law, the House is instead driving an approach that is about rounding up and deporting 11 million people, separating families, and undermining DHS’ ability to secure the border.

PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS FAIR PAY AND SAFE WORKPLACE EXECUTIVE ORDER

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE 

Remarks by the President at the Signing of Fair Pay and Safe Workplace Executive Order

South Court Auditorium

1:40 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody, hello!  (Applause.)  Thank you so much.  Everybody, please have a seat.  Welcome to the White House. 

The executive order I’ll sign in a few minutes is one that’s good for workers, it's good for responsible employers, and it's good for the middle class.  That explains the folks who are standing up on stage with me, including Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, who’s done a great job on this.  (Applause.)  

Yesterday, we learned that the springtime was a strong time for economic growth.  Companies are investing.  Consumers are spending.  Our energy, our technology, our auto industries are all booming, with workers making and selling goods all around the world.  Our businesses have created nearly 10 million new jobs over the past 52 months, and the unemployment rate is at its lowest point since 2008.  401(k)s have recovered their value.  Home prices are rising.  Millions more families have the peace of mind that comes with having affordable, quality health care.

And because of the incredible hard work and resilience of the American people, we’ve recovered faster, we've come farther than any other advanced country since the onset of the Great Recession.  (Applause.)  Things are getting better.  Steadily, things are getting better.  But we all know there’s more work to do.  And the decisions we make now are going to have an impact on whether or not this economy works for everybody or just folks at the top; whether we've got a growing economy that fuels rising incomes and creates a thriving middle class and ladders into the middle class.

That’s what’s at stake -- making sure our economy works for every hardworking American, and if you work hard and you're responsible, you can get ahead.  That's what we want.  We want to make sure the young dad on the factory floor has a shot to make it into the corner suite -- or at least see his daughter make it there some day.

That’s why I ran for office.  That’s what has driven every policy that we've initiated this year and since the advent of my presidency.  Policies that create more jobs rebuilding America.  Policies to ease the student loan burden.  Policies to raise wages for workers, and make sure that women are being paid fairly on the job, and creating opportunities for paid leave for working families, and support for child care. 

These are all policies that have two things in common.  Number one, they’d all help working families.  And, frankly, number two, they’re being blocked or ignored by Republicans in Congress.  So I’ve said to my team, look, any time Congress wants to do work with me to help working families, I'm right there.  The door is always open.  More than that, I'll go to them; I'll wash their car -- (laughter) -- walk their dog.  (Laughter.)  I mean, I'm ready to work with them any time that they want to pursue policies that help working families.  But where they’re doing so little or nothing at all to help working families, then we've got to find ways, as an administration, to take action that's going to help. 

And so far this year, we’ve made sure that more women have the protection they need to fight for fair pay in the workplace  -- because I believe when women succeed, America succeeds.  (Applause.)  We’ve acted to give millions of Americans the chance to cap their student loan payments at 10 percent of their income. I don’t want young people to be so saddled with debt that they can't get started in life.  (Applause.) 

We’ve acted on our own to make sure federal contractors can’t discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity -- because you shouldn’t be fired because of who you love.  (Applause.)  If you’re doing the job, you should be treated fairly and judged on your own merits.  (Applause.)

We acted to require federal contractors to pay their workers a fair wage of $10.10 an hour.  (Applause.)  And we’ve gone out and we’ve worked with states and cities and business owners to join us on our $10.10 campaign, and more and more are joining us -- because folks agree that if you work full-time in this country, you shouldn’t be raising your family in poverty.  That’s a pretty simple principle that we all believe in.  (Applause.) 

So the American people are doing their job.  I’ve been traveling around the country meeting them.  They’re working hard. They’re meeting their responsibilities.  Here in the executive branch, we’re doing our job, trying to find ways in which we can help working families.  Think about how much further along we’d be if Congress would do its job. 

Instead, the big event last night -- it wasn’t the vote on the minimum wage.  (Laughter.)  It wasn’t a vote on immigration reform, strengthening the borders.  It wasn’t a vote on family leave.  What did they have a vote on?  (Laughter.)  They got together in the House of Representatives, the Republicans, and voted to sue me for taking the actions that we are doing to help families.  (Laughter.)

One of the main objections that’s the basis of this suit is us making a temporary modification to the health care law that they said needed to be modified.  (Laughter.)  So they criticized a provision; we modify it to make it easier for business to transition; and that’s the basis for their suit.  Now, you could say that, all right, this is a harmless political stunt -- except it wastes America’s time.  You guys are all paying for it as taxpayers.  It’s not very productive.  But it’s not going to stop me from doing what I think needs to be done in order to help families all across this country.  (Applause.)

So we’ve got too much work to do.  (Applause.)  And I said to Speaker Boehner, tell your caucus the best way to avoid me acting on my own is work with me to actually do something.  Then you don’t have to worry about it.  We’re not going to stop, and if they’re not going to lift a finger to help working Americans then I’m going to work twice as hard to help working Americans.  (Applause.)  They can join me if they want.  I hope they do.  But at least they should stop standing in the way of America’s success.   We’ve got too much to do. (Applause.)  

So, today, I’m taking another action, one that protects workers and taxpayers alike.  Every year, our government signs contracts with private companies for everything from fighter jets to flapjacks, computers to pencils.  And we expect our tax dollars to be spent wisely on these contracts; to get what we pay for on-time, on budget.  And when companies that receive federal contracts employ about 28 million Americans –- about one in five workers in America work for a company that has a federal contract -– we also expect that our tax dollars are being used to ensure that these jobs are good jobs. 

Our tax dollars shouldn’t go to companies that violate workplace laws.  (Applause.)  They shouldn’t go to companies that violate worker rights.  (Applause.)  If a company is going to receive taxpayer money, it should have safe workplaces.  (Applause.)  It should pay its workers the wages they’ve earned. It should provide the medical leave workers are entitled to.  It should not discriminate against workers.  (Applause.)

But one study found that more than one in four companies that have poor records on these areas also still get contracts from the federal government.  And another study found that the worst violators are also the ones who end up missing performance or cost or schedule targets –- or even overbilled the government, ripping off the taxpayers altogether -- which makes sense.  I mean, if you think about it, if you got a company that isn’t treating its workers with integrity, isn’t taking safety measures seriously, isn’t taking overtime laws seriously, then they're probably cutting corners in other areas, too.

  And I want to be clear, the vast majority of the companies that contract with our government, they play by the rules.  They live up to the right workplace standards.  But some don’t.  And I don't want those who don't to be getting a contract and getting a competitive advantage over the folks who are doing the right thing, right?  That's not fair.  (Applause.)

Because the ones that don't play by the rules, they're not just failing their workers, they’re failing all of us.  It’s a bad deal for taxpayers when we’ve got to pay for poor performance or sloppy work.  Responsible companies that follow the law are likelier to have workers and workplaces that provide a better return for our tax dollar.  They should not have to compete on an unfair playing field with companies that undercut them by breaking the law.  In a race to the bottom, nobody wins.  (Applause.)

So over the past few years, my administration has taken steps to make the contracting process smarter.  But many of the people who award contracts don’t always have the information that they need to make sure contracts go to responsible companies.  So the executive order I’m signing today is going to do a few things. 

Number one, it will hold corporations accountable by requiring potential contractors to disclose labor law violations from the past three years before they can receive a contract.  It’s going to crack down on the worst violators by giving agencies better tools to evaluate egregious or repeated offenses.
It will give workers better and clearer information on their paychecks, so they can be sure they’re getting paid what they’re owed.  It will give more workers who may have been sexually assaulted or had their civil rights violated their day in court. 
It will ease compliance burdens for business owners around the country by streamlining all types of reporting requirements across the federal government.  So this is a first step in a series of actions to make it easier for companies, including small businesses, to do business with the government.   So we’re going to protect responsible companies that play by the rules -- make it easier for them, try to reduce the paperwork, the burdens that they have.  They’ll basically check a box that says they don’t have these violations.  We want to make it easier for good corporate citizens to do business with us.  (Applause.) 

And, by the way, for companies that have violations, our emphasis is not going to be on punishments.  It is to give them a chance to follow good workplace practices and come into compliance with the law.  If you want to do business with the United States of America, you’ve got to respect our workers, you’ve got to respect our taxpayers. 

And we’ll spend a lot of time working with and listening to business owners, so we can implement this thoughtfully and make it manageable for everybody.  But the goal here is to make sure this action raises standards across the economy; encourages contractors to adopt better practices for all their employees, not just those working on federal contracts; give responsible businesses that play by the rules a fairer shot to compete for business; streamline the process; improve wages and working conditions for folks who work hard every single day to provide for their families and contribute to our country. 

And even though it is an executive action, I want to acknowledge and thank the members of Congress who support it and who always stand up for America’s workers.  And most of them are stuck at Capitol Hill, but I just want to mention their names anyway -- Tom Harkin; Rosa DeLauro; Keith Ellison is here; Raul Grijalva; Eleanor Holmes Norton.  They’ve all been working on these issues, so I want to thank those members of Congress.  (Applause.)

The executive order I sign today, like all the other actions I’ve taken, are not going to fix everything immediately.  If I had the power to raise the federal minimum wage on my own, or enact fair pay and paid leave for every worker on my own, or make college more affordable on my own, I would have done so already. If I could do all that, I would have gotten everything done in like my first two years.  (Laughter.)  Because these policies make sense.  But even though I can’t do all of it, that shouldn’t stop us from doing what we can.  That’s what these policies will do.

And I’m going to keep on trying, not just working with Democrats, but also reach out to Republicans to get things moving faster for the middle class.  We can do a lot more.  We need a Congress that’s willing to get things done.  We don’t have that right now.  In the meantime, I’m going to do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, to keep this country’s promise alive for more and more of the American people.

So, thank you all.  We’re going to just keep on at this thing, chipping away.  And I’m confident that when we look back, we’ll see that these kinds of executive actions build some of the momentum and give people the confidence and the hope that ultimately leads to broad-based changes that we need to make sure that this economy works for everybody.

Thank you so much.  I’m going to sign this executive order.  (Applause.)

END
2:00 P.M. EDT

U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT CONTRACTS FOR JULY 31, 2014

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 

CONTRACTS

ARMY

Honeywell Aerospace International, Phoenix, Arizona, was awarded a $121,890,543 modification (P00001) to foreign military sales contract W58RGZ-14-C-0021 (Turkey, Australia, United Arab Emirates and Morocco) to procure 440 T55-GA-714A engines and 365 T55-GA-714A engine fielding kits. Fiscal 2012, 2013, and 2014 other procurement funds in the amount of $121,890,543 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Dec. 31, 2018. Work will be performed in Phoenix, Arizona. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

Lockheed Martin Sippican, Inc., Marion, Massachusetts, was awarded a $49,915,441 firm-fixed- price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiyear foreign military sales contract (Korea and Finland) for Stinger M934E6 fuses (legacy), M934E7 fuses (proximity capability), warhead body assemblies (legacy), and warhead body assemblies (proximity capability). Funding and work location will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 25, 2018. Bids were solicited via the Internet with one received. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, Picatinny, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (W15QKN-14-D-0082).

Professional Contract Services, Inc., Austin, Texas, was awarded a $32,209,556 Type 1contract for healthcare housekeeping services, Evans Army Community Hospital, Fort Carson. Work will be performed at Fort Carson, Colorado, with an estimated completion date of July 31, 2019. One bid was solicited with one received. Funding will be determined with each order. Army Medical Command Contracting Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, is the contracting activity (W81K04-14-D-0009).

Northrop Grumman, Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded a $31,000,000 modification (P00108) to contract W31P4Q-08-C-0418 to add fiscal 2014 funding for continued research and development of the integrated air and missile defense hardware and software systems. Fiscal 2014 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $31,000,000 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Sept. 30, 2015. Work will be performed at Huntsville, Alabama. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

Berg Manufacturing, Inc.,* Spokane, Washington, was awarded a $22,338,771 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a cost-reimbursable line item number to supply metalworking machine shop sets shelters with a guaranteed minimum of two and a maximum of 220 shelters and field service representative support (on an as needed basis). The government will obligate the minimum guaranteed quantity. The estimated completion date is July 31, 2019. Bids were solicited via the Internet with two received. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island, Illinois, is the contracting activity (W9098S-14-D-0051).

Carlson Constructors Corp.,* Joliet, Illinois, was awarded a $21,862,091 firm-fixed-price contract with options, for constructing family housing. Work will be performed at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 5, 2016. Bids were solicited via the Internet with four received. Fiscal 2014 military construction funds in the amount of $21,862,091 are being obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha, Nebraska, is the contracting activity (W9128F-14-C-0050).

BAE Systems Land & Armaments, L.P., Santa Clara, California, was awarded a $16,797,020 modification (P00021) to contract W56HZV-13-C-0018 for technical support and sustainment system technical support for the Bradley family of vehicles. Fiscal 2012, 2013, and 2014 other procurement (Army) funds in the amount of $16,602,803 and fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $194,217 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Dec. 17, 2015. Work will be performed in Santa Clara, California; Sterling Heights, Michigan; and York, Pennsylvania. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity.

Technical and Project Engineering, Alexandria, Virginia, was awarded a $12,084,389 modification (P00002 ) to contract W91CRB-13-C-0036 for professional software development and support, testing, training, and software and database maintenance services to support Army training models. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $12,084,389 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Aug. 6, 2015. Work will be performed in Alexandria, Virginia. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

TrueTandem, LLC,* Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $6,819,552 modification (P00006) to contract W52P1J-12-F-5110 for enterprise knowledge services for the U.S. Army Reserve. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $6,819,552 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Sept. 29, 2015. Work will be performed at Fayetteville, North Carolina. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity.

Advanced Systems Development, Inc.,* Arlington, Virginia, was awarded a $6,539,047 modification (P00049) to contract W9124Q-11-F-0020 for information systems operations support service. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $4,914,821 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is July 31, 2016. Work will be performed at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Army Contracting Command, White Sands Missile Range, White Sands, New Mexico, is the contracting activity.

NAVY

Hawaiian Rock Products Corp., Mangilao, Guam, is being awarded a maximum $90,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for airfield paving projects at various U. S. military locations in Guam. The work to be performed provides for the construction, alteration, repair and/or maintenance of asphalt and concrete airfield projects, to also include roads, streets, highways, alleys, parking areas, and their associated facilities, such as, but not limited to, concrete sidewalks, curbs and gutters, guard rails, U-ditch drainage pipe, traffic striping, pavement markings, and related work. Work will also include cold milling, excavation, embankment grading or sub-base and base course, compaction, density test, bituminous surface treatment, seal coating, asphalt/concrete paving, adjustment of existing utilities and structures, and other related work. No task orders are being issued at this time. Work will be performed in Guam, and is expected to be completed by January 2019. Fiscal 2014 operation and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $10,000 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with three proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Marianas, Guam, is the contracting activity (N40192-14-D-6000).

Joyce & Associates Construction, Inc.*, Newport, North Carolina (N40085-14-D-1321); Daniels & Daniels Construction Company*, Goldsboro, North Carolina (N40085-14-D-1322); Lifecycle Construction Services, LLC*, Fredericksburg, Virginia (N40085-14-D-1323); OAC Action Construction, Corp.*, Miami, Florida (N40085-14-D-1324); Olympic Enterprises, Inc.*, Hubert, North Carolina (N40085-14-D-1325); and Vet Built, Inc.*, Williamston, North Carolina (N40085-14-D-1326), are each being awarded an indefinite-/indefinite-quantity multiple award construction contract for general construction projects located at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, Marine Corps Air Station New River, and other outlying facilities in North Carolina. The maximum dollar value, including the base period and four option years for all six contracts combined, is $90,000,000. The work to be performed provides for a broad range of general construction services including, but not limited to, new construction, demolition, repair, interior and exterior alterations and renovation of buildings, systems and infrastructure. It may include civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, communication systems, installation of new or extensions to existing high voltage electrical distribution systems, extensions to the existing high pressure steam distribution systems, extensions to the potable water distribution systems, extensions to the sanitary sewer systems, additional storm water control systems, painting, removal of asbestos materials and lead paint, and incidental related work. These six contractors may compete for task orders under the terms and conditions of the awarded contract. Joyce & Associates Construction, Inc. is being awarded task order 0001 at $39,993 for various repairs and to paint the interior and exterior of Building 486 at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina. Work for this task order is expected to be completed by November 2014. All work will be performed in Jacksonville, North Carolina (65 percent); Havelock, North Carolina (30 percent); and other outlying facilities in North Carolina (5 percent). The term of the contract is not to exceed 60 months, with an expected completion date of July 2019. Fiscal 2014 operation and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $69,993 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 47 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

General Electric Co., Lynn, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $68,550,240 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-13-C-0132) for the procurement of 16 GE38-1B engines, closure kits, tooling, and associated systems engineering and program management in support of the CH-53K helicopter program. Work will be performed in Lynn, Massachusetts, and is expected to be completed in January 2017. Fiscal 2013 and 2014 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $22,499,879 will be obligated at time of award, $19,424,878 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

Korte Construction Co., doing business as The Korte Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded a $48,276,440 firm-fixed-price contract for design and construction of the hangar 6 extension to accommodate P-8 aircraft, hangar 9 extension to accommodate P-3 aircraft, and repair and modernization of hangar 6 including seismic upgrades at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington. The work includes an addition to hangar 6 and the construction of a tent fabric extension to hangar 9. Hangar 6 would be capable of accommodating four P-8A squadrons with sufficient maintenance space with a hangar bay. The expansion of hangar 9 is required to fully enclose P-3C aircraft during the construction period. Hangar 6 repair and modernization will renovate all interior administrative and shop spaces to include demolition of existing finishes, modernization of heating, ventilation and air conditioning, electrical system, and interior finishes to include walls, paint, flooring, and fixtures. The facility will also be brought up to current seismic code and current Americans with Disabilities Act requirements; current antiterrorism/force protection criteria will be integrated into the repairs. Work will be performed in Oak Harbor, Washington, and is expected to be completed by August 2017. Fiscal 2014 operation and maintenance (Navy) and fiscal 2014 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $33,355,000 are being obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with 12 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Northwest, Silverdale, Washington, is the contracting activity (N44255-14-C-5001).

DRS Laurel Technologies, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, is being awarded a $31,823,189 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N00178-14-D-3036) utilizing firm-fixed-priced orders for production hardware for Ship Self-Defense System (SSDS) Mk2 production hardware. The scope includes hardware production, assembly, configuration, alignment, integration, testing and shipping of the SSDS hardware. Work will be performed in Chesapeake, Virginia (60 percent) and Johnston, Pennsylvania (40 percent), and is expected to be completed by July 2017. Subject to the availability of funds, fiscal 2015 and 2016 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) and fiscal 2014 and 2017 other procurement (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $497,733 will be obligated at contract award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively solicited via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with two offers received. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace LLC, Madison, Mississippi, is being awarded a $29,803,395 modification to a previously awarded indefinite-delivery requirements contract (N00019-14-D-0019) to provide organizational, intermediate, and depot level maintenance and logistics support for T45TS aircraft based at Naval Air Station Meridian, Mississippi; Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas; and Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. This requirement also includes the support and maintenance of the T-45 aircraft at all operational sites, numerous outlying fields, and various detachment sites. Work will be performed in Kingsville, Texas (58 percent); Meridian, Mississippi (36 percent); and Pensacola, Florida (6 percent), and is expected to be completed in September 2014. Contract funds will not be obligated at time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual delivery orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

USA Environmental, Inc.,* Oldsmar, Florida, is being awarded $26,153,599 for cost-plus-fixed-fee task order 0006 under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N62470-11-D-8007) for munitions and explosives of concern removal at the former Vieques Naval Training Range and former Naval Ammunition Support Detachment, Puerto Rico. The work to be performed provides for the removal of surface, subsurface, and underwater munitions and explosives of concern. Work will be performed in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and is expected to be completed by July 2017. Fiscal 2014 operation and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $6,538,404 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One proposal was received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

Computer Sciences Corp., San Diego, California, is being awarded a not-to-exceed $24,904,083 undefinitized contract action (UCA) to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee bridge contract (M00264-13-C-0004) that will expire on August 28, 2014, for information technology services to support the Technology Services Organization's (TSO) requirements and its role as an enterprise business systems integrator for the Marine Corps. Services required are in support of highly complex government designed and owned Marine Corps business systems that have no parallel in other sectors of the government or private industry. Software engineering design, programming, testing, and integration to be performed under this contract will involve tasking that is so integrally related that it requires personnel with highly developed experiences with the specific systems supported by the TSO and outlined below. The TSO supports a number of business mission areas across the Marine Corps, including the Deputy Commandant Program & Resources, Deputy Commandant Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and the Deputy Commandant Installation and Logistics. This UCA involves a 6-month base period and two 3-month option periods, which if exercised, will bring the tentative value of the bridge to $49,735,547. Work will be performed in Kansas City, Missouri (95 percent) and Indianapolis, Indiana (5 percent); work is expected to be completed by Feb. 28, 2015. If all the options are exercised, work will continue through Aug. 28, 2015. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $18,678,062 will be obligated at the time of the UCA award, and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Regional Contracting Office, National Capital Region, Quantico, Virginia, is the contracting activity (M00264-14-C-1014).

Goodwill Industries, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is being awarded a $12,748,338 firm-fixed-price contract on behalf of Naval Station Great Lakes to provide food and logistics support services for the Galley and Uniform Issue Department, which supports the overall training mission of the Recruit Training Command (RTC), Training Support Center (TSC), and other tenant activities located within the Naval Station. This contract will provide for the continued operation of the galleys at RTC and TSC, which serve to support Navy recruits undergoing their initial basic training and subsequent training schools. This contract will also provide for logistics, financial management and administrative support of the galley and uniform issue operations; galley equipment maintenance and repairs; traffic material movement operations; material handling equipment maintenance, training and licensing support and fuel operation; uniform issue; base postal service; and affiliated warehousing and storeroom management functions. This contract contains three 1-year options, which if exercised, will bring the contract value to $239,565,843. Work will be performed in Great Lakes, Illinois, and work is expected to be completed Sept. 30, 2014. If all options are exercised, work will continue until Sept. 30, 2017. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount $7,248,338 and fiscal 2014 military personnel (Navy) funds in the amount of $5,500,000 will be obligated at the time of award, and both will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The requirement was solicited and awarded non-competitively pursuant to the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act and the rules of the Committee for the Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled which implements the AbilityOne Program. NAVSUP Fleet Logistics Center Norfolk, Contracting Department, Philadelphia Office, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity (N00189-14-C-Z021).

H.V. Collins Co.,* Providence, Rhode Island, is being awarded an $11,761,926 firm-fixed-price contract for renovations to three levels of Hewitt Hall Research Centerof the Naval War College at Naval Station Newport. Renovations include converting the existing garage (lower level) to interior high capacity book storage space, and repairs to the basement and first floor levels of Hewitt Hall, as well as garage conversion and other system modifications. The contract also contains five unexercised options, which if exercised, would increase cumulative contract value to $13,737,241. Work will be performed in Newport, Rhode Island, and is expected to be completed by December 2015. Fiscal 2014 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $11,761,926 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with six proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N40085-14-C-5221).

I.E.-Pacific, Inc.,* San Diego, California, is being awarded $10,435,000 for firm-fixed-price task order 0017 under a previously awarded multiple award construction contract (N62473-09-D-1657) for renovation of Building 302 at Naval Base Point Loma. The work to be performed provides for repair and renovation that shall eliminate all deficiencies, and bring the facility up to latest codes and regulations and Navy criteria (United Facilities Criteria (UFC) and other instructions/guidance). Room layouts shall be changed to meet accessibility requirements. All interior finishes shall be removed and replaced with new finishes, including interior and exterior signage. Building elevators shall be renovated/repaired/upgraded to the most recent codes/UFC and Interim Technical Guidance 2013-01 and accessibility (Architectural Barriers Act/Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance. The superstructure shall also be upgraded to current seismic codes/regulations. All plumbing systems, fixtures, waste water systems, heating, exhaust fans, ceiling fans, electrical and fire distribution systems shall be replaced. Work will be performed in San Diego, California, and is expected to be completed by January 2016. Fiscal 2014 operation and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $10,435,000 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Three proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity.

Rolls Royce Marine North America, Walpole, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $9,000,000 firm-fixed-price repair order (N00104-09-G-A755) for the repair of one Marine Trent 30 marine gas turbine engine for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Freedom variant. This contract provides for the repair and overhaul of the Marine Trent 30 marine gas turbine engine, replacement of non-repairable re-assembly to the LCS configuration, and pass-off testing to validate performance. Work will be performed in Bristol, United Kingdom, and is expected to be completed by February 2016. Funds in the amount of $9,000,000 will be obligated at time of award. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $9,000,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The order was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1). The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity.

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, is being awarded an $8,737,000 modification to a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N00019-13-D-0002) for services in support of Tomahawk Depot Missile maintenance, including direct fleet support for resolving technical issues with forward deployed, in-theater weapons and inventory management for the U.S. Navy and the United Kingdom. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona (60 percent); Camden, Arkansas (36 percent); and various other continental United States locations (4 percent). Work is expected to be completed in March 2015. Contract funds will not be obligated at time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual delivery orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

Black Construction/MACE International Joint Venture, Harmon, Guam, is being awarded $6,678,072 for firm-fixed-price task order 0002 under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N62742-14-D-1303) for repairs to worn out and deteriorated building components and utility systems of Unaccompanied Personnel Housing 7 at the U. S. Navy Support Facility, Diego Garcia. Work will be performed in Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory, and is expected to be completed by November 2015. Fiscal 2014 operation and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $6,678,072 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One proposal was received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, is the contracting activity.

AIR FORCE

Exelis Inc., Herndon, Virginia, has been awarded an estimated $49,900,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for new and enhanced software. The contractor will research, develop, enhance, deploy and support the next-generation Cross Domain Transfer Solutions. This will be accomplished by the following: researching new cross domain transfer solution technologies to improve performance, enhance security, increase autonomy and reduce life-cycle costs; enhance current solutions utilizing technologies from varying Technology Readiness Levels; providing authorized users the ability to securely transfer data between interconnected security domains while protecting against unauthorized access or malicious attack; and by deploying and supporting these solutions to meet the current and rapidly evolving intelligence needs. Work will be performed at Rome, New York, and is expected to be completed by July 30, 2020. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and offers were solicited electronically, and two offers were received. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $100,000 are being obligated at time of award. Air Force Research Laboratory/RIKE, Rome, New York, is the contracting activity (FA8750-14-D-0001).

BAE Systems, Rockville, Maryland, has been awarded a fixed-price level of effort $32,409,117 modification (P00032) for option 1 of the Integration Support Contract (FA8214-13-C-0001). The contract modification is to exercise option I to provide systems engineering/technical assistance support, training and development in performing integration, sustaining engineering and program management support functions for the Minuteman III Weapon System. The total cumulative face value of the contract is $67,625,630. Work will be performed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and is expected to be completed by July 31, 2015. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance, and research and development funds in the amount of $26,285,927 are being obligated at time of award. Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center/PZBF, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is the contracting activity.

Exelis Systems Corp,, Systems Div., Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, has been awarded a $21,536,294 cost-plus-award-fee modification (P00947) to F04701-0l-C-0001 to provide the following Launch and Test Range System support functions to the Eastern Range and Western Range: range sustainment; external user support, projects and engineering services (Missile Defense Agency, Navy, NASA, etc.; systems engineering; and interim supply support spares for the sustainment period). The total cumulative face value of the contract is $1,772,689,908. This modification extends the basic contract by a maximum period of performance of three months. Work will be performed at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and the work for this effort will be completed by Oct. 31, 2014. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance, other procurement, and research and development funds in the amount of $18,203,081 are being obligated at time of award. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity.

The Boeing Co., Seattle, Washington, has been awarded a $17,858,824 firm-fixed-price, incentive-firm modification (25), on delivery order 0067 to F19628-01-D-0016 for E-3F enhancements. The total cumulative face value of the contract is $378,494,386. The contract modification is for the full Mode 5 and Mode S-FAA radar capabilities for incorporation into the French Air Force mission and ground system suite. Work will be performed in Seattle, Washington, and is expected to be completed by June 30, 2017. This contract supports 100percent foreign military sales for France, and $17,858,824 will be obligated at time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Operating Location, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity.

Hewlett-Packard Co., Herndon, Virginia, has been awarded an $8,792,988 firm-fixed-price delivery order (FY15) on an AFWAY contract (FA8771-10-A-0601) for the technical refresh of laptop and desktop computers in support of the Air Force Reserve Command mission. Work will be performed at Herndon, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by Sept. 29, 2014. This award is the result of a Quarterly Enterprise Buy on the Air Force Way Mandatory Website. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $8,792,988 are being obligated at time of award. Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity (FA8771-10-A-0601).

*Small business

ADM LOCKLEAR TALKS N. KOREA THREAT

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS ON $378 MILLION ADDITIONAL FUNDING TO SYRRA

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

The United States Contributes $378 Million in Additional Funding to Syria

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

July 30, 2014

---

Nearly 11 million Syrians today are struggling to survive one of the worst humanitarian crises in living memory.

The brutally indefensible and illegitimate Asad regime continues to pursue its appalling “starve or surrender” tactics against the Syrian people. The regime is asphyxiating half a million Syrians in Aleppo by obstructing deliveries of food, water, and medicine, and dropping dozens of barrel bombs a day on the city and surrounding suburbs. Syrians all over the country are being butchered at the hands of a ruthless tyrant.

The world must act quickly and decisively to get life-saving assistance to the innocent civilians who are bearing the brunt of this barbaric war. That’s why the United States is providing nearly $378 million in additional aid to help those battered by conflict. The United States remains the single-largest donor of humanitarian aid for the crisis, and total U.S. humanitarian assistance will now reach more than $2.4 billion. Of that total, nearly $438 million is supporting cross-border assistance through non-governmental organizations to reach the children, women, and men residing in areas outside of the regime’s control.

This assistance is having an impact on the ground – right now. With our help, more than 4 million people in Syria have food to eat. More than 1.9 million patients have been treated in more than 300 U.S.-supported hospitals and health clinics across Syria. And our assistance feeds, shelters, and provides medicine and water to millions of refugees throughout the region in countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt, all coping with the burden of hosting thousands of refugees.

We endorse full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2165, which was adopted unanimously. This resolution authorizes UN organizations to bring life-saving assistance across the border into Syria without the Asad regime’s consent. Late last week, truckloads of UN humanitarian aid began crossing into Syria, and we look forward to more UN aid convoys in the coming days.

As we continue our humanitarian efforts, we remain committed to finding a political solution to this crisis. We must bring the violence and bloodshed to an end, and work toward a future of dignity and freedom that all Syrians deserve.

CANADIAN ANTIQUE DEALER CHARGED WITH CONSPIRING TO SMUGGLE WILDLIFE PRODUCTS LIKE IVORY, RHINOCEROS HORN

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Canadian Antique Dealer Charged with Trafficking Wildlife

Antique Company President Charged with Smuggling Wildlife Worth More Than $500,000

Canadian antiques dealer Xiao Ju Guan, aka Tony Guan, 39, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Manhattan today for conspiring to smuggle wildlife, including rhinoceros horn, elephant ivory and coral, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Sam Hirsch for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara for the Southern District of New York and Director Dan Ashe of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS).

Guan, the president and owner of an antiques business in Richmond, British Columbia, was arrested on March 29, 2014, after flying from Vancouver to New York and purchasing two endangered black rhinoceros horns from undercover special agents with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service at a storage facility in the Bronx.   After purchasing the horns in a storage pod, Guan had the undercover agents drive him and a female accomplice acting as his interpreter to a nearby express mail store where he mailed the horns to an address in Point Roberts, Washington, less than a mile from the Canadian border and 17 miles from his business.   Guan labeled the box of black rhino horns as containing “handicrafts” worth $200, even though he had just paid $45,000 for them.   Guan indicated that he had people who could drive the horns across the border and that he had done so many times before.

Guan and his co-conspirators allegedly smuggled more than $500,000 of rhino horns and sculptures made from elephant ivory and coral from various U.S. auction houses to Canada by the same method or by having packages mailed directly to Canada with false paperwork and without the required declaration or permits.   One part of the criminal scheme was to falsely describe the wildlife in order to conceal Guan’s wildlife smuggling.   In the case of a rhino horn purchased in Florida, the Customs paperwork claimed it was a “Wooden Horn” worth $200.

At the same time that Guan was being arrested in New York, wildlife enforcement officers with Environment Canada executed a search warrant at Guan’s antique business in Canada.   Environment Canada and Justice Canada are working cooperatively with U.S. investigators and prosecutors.   The Guan case is part of “Operation Crash,” a U.S. Fish & Wildlife and Justice Department crackdown on illegal trafficking in rhinoceros horns.

“Illegal wildlife trafficking is a multibillion-dollar business that must be stopped,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Hirsch.  “The Justice Department is working vigorously to uphold the laws designed to protect rhinos and elephants and other threatened species from extinction and is working alongside our international partners to bring black-market wildlife traders to justice.   We are also very grateful here for the assistance from Canadian authorities.”

“ There is an ever-expanding black market for objects made from endangered species that fuels the devastating and senseless slaughter of noble animals,” said U.S. Attorney Bharara.  “The charges levied today are designed to deal a heavy blow to those that are deliberately profiting from the trade in rare and endangered species. ”

“As this case illustrates, the United States plays a key role in the illegal wildlife trade – often as the source of, or transit country for, poached and smuggled wildlife products headed elsewhere in the world,” said Director Ashe. “This makes coordination vital with our international partners as we work together to halt the slaughter of rhinos, elephants and many other imperiled species.   We have a long history of collaboration with Environment Canada on wildlife trafficking and other issues, and we appreciate the invaluable assistance they’ve provided in this case.”

Rhinoceros are an herbivore species of prehistoric origin and one of the largest remaining mega-fauna on earth.  They have no known predators other than humans.  All species of rhinoceros are protected under U.S. and international law.  Since 1976, trade in rhinoceros horn has been regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a treaty signed by over 170 countries around the world to protect fish, wildlife and plants that are or may become imperiled due to the demands of international markets.

Operation Crash is a continuing investigation by the Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in coordination with the Department of Justice.   A “crash” is the term for a herd of rhinoceros.  Operation Crash is an ongoing effort to detect, deter and prosecute those engaged in the illegal killing of rhinoceros and the unlawful trafficking of rhinoceros horns.  The Guan case was investigated by FWS, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Complex Frauds Unit and the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section with assistance from Environment Canada’s Wildlife Enforcement Directorate.   Assistant U.S. Attorney Janis M. Echenberg and Senior Counsel Richard A. Udell of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section are in charge of the prosecution.

An indictment is an allegation based upon a finding of probable cause.   A defendant is presumed innocent until convicted.   If convicted, Guan faces up to five years in prison for the conspiracy and wildlife charges and up to ten years in prison for the crime of smuggling.   Guan could be fined up to $200,000 per count or up to twice the gross gain from the criminal conduct.

FTC GETS COURT TO SHUT DOWN MOBILE CRAMMING OPERATION

FROM:  FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

At FTC’s Request, Court Shuts Down Mobile Cramming Operation That Stuck Consumers with More Than $100 Million in Unauthorized Charges

Over a Million Consumers Were Crammed With Charges for Text Message “Services”

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a federal court has temporarily halted a mobile phone cramming scheme that deceptively piled more than $100 million in charges on consumers’ mobile phone bills without their permission. In its complaint, the FTC seeks permanently to shut down the operation and recover money lost by consumers.

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued a temporary restraining order against six companies and six individual defendants behind the scheme, halting the operations and freezing their assets pending litigation.

“This scheme demonstrates the kind of widespread harm that mobile phone cramming can inflict on American consumers,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “It also shows why we’ve made it a priority to crack down on this problem.”

In its complaint, the FTC charged that the defendants used deceptive practices, including fake websites with bogus offers of “freebies” or gift cards, to trick consumers into providing their mobile phone numbers. The defendants then placed monthly subscription fees for a variety of “services” on consumers’ mobile phone bills without their authorization.

The practice, known as mobile cramming, relies on the fact that many consumers often don’t closely examine their monthly statements, or assume that charges are legitimate.

The “services” described in the complaint consisted of subscriptions for text messages sent to consumers’ mobile phones that contained short celebrity gossip alerts, “fun facts,” horoscopes, and other items.  The subscriptions typically cost consumers $9.99 or $14.99 per month and were set to renew automatically each month.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the process of disputing the charges was frustrating and time-consuming for consumers. Some consumers were crammed for multiple months before noticing the charges and, even after significant effort, were unable to obtain a full refund.

According to documents filed in court by the FTC, the defendants continued cramming charges on to consumers’ mobile phone bills even after wireless carriers terminated their billing privileges. For example, two mobile carriers terminated MDK’s billing privileges because of its high refund rates and its association with deceptive websites. In spite of that, MDK continued cramming through use of a fictitious business name.

The defendants in the case are MDK Media Inc.; Tendenci Media LLC; Mindkontrol Industries LLC; Anacapa Media LLC; Bear Communications LLC; Network One Commerce Inc.; Makonnen Demessow Kebede; Sarah Ann Brekke; Christopher Thomas DeNovellis; Wayne Calvin Byrd II; James Matthew Dawson; and Casey Lee Adkisson.

The FTC’s complaint alleges that the defendants violated the FTC Act, through their deceptive tactics and by unfairly billing consumers for unauthorized services.

In recent months, the FTC has brought a number of law enforcement actions in addition to policy and education activities designed to combat mobile cramming that are part of the Commission’s overall work to protect consumers in the mobile environment. Earlier this week, the Commission released a staff report with best practices for companies in the carrier billing industry to help prevent mobile cramming. The Commission voted 5-0 to authorize the staff to file the complaint.

NOTE: The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court.

.Contact Information
MEDIA CONTACT:
Jay Mayfield
Office of Public Affairs

SKIN CANCER RATES INCREASING: SURGEON GENERAL ISSUES CALL TO ACTION

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

Surgeon General issues call to action to prevent skin cancer

Skin cancer rates rising: most cases are preventable

Skin cancer, the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States, is a major public health problem that requires immediate action, according to a new Call to Action released today by the U.S. Surgeon General.

Even though most skin cancers can be prevented, rates of skin cancer, including melanoma, are increasing in the United States. Nearly 5 million people in the U.S. are treated for skin cancer every year, at an average annual cost of $8.1 billion. It is also one of the most common types of cancer among U.S. teens and young adults.

A key message in today’s report is that although people with lighter skin are at higher risk, anyone can get skin cancer—and it can be disfiguring, even deadly. Over the last three decades, the number of Americans who have had skin cancer is estimated to be higher than the number for all other cancers combined.

“While many other cancers, such as lung cancer, are decreasing, rates of melanoma -- the deadliest form of skin cancer -- are increasing,” said Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, M.D., M.P.H. “As a skin oncologist who worked in this field for many years, I have cared for both the young and old with skin cancers. Almost all of these cancers were caused by unnecessary ultraviolet radiation exposure, usually from excessive time in the sun or from the use of indoor tanning devices.”

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. Each year, more than 63,000 new cases are diagnosed in the U.S. and nearly 9,000 people die from this disease. Rates of melanoma increased more than 200 percent from 1973 to 2011. Melanoma is also one of the most common types of cancer among U.S. teens and young adults.

According to research cited in the Call to Action, more than 400,000 cases of skin cancer, about 6,000 of which are melanomas, are estimated to be related to indoor tanning in the U.S. each year. Currently, as many as 44 states plus the District of Columbia have some type of law or regulation related to indoor tanning, but nearly one out of every three white women aged 16 to 25 years engages in indoor tanning each year.

“Tanned skin is damaged skin, and we need to shatter the myth that tanned skin is a sign of health,” said Acting Surgeon General Boris D. Lushniak, M.D., M.P.H. “When people tan or get sunburned, they increase their risk of getting skin cancer later in life.”

The Surgeon General’s Call to Action helps to educate consumers by providing everyday steps they can take to lead healthy and active lives while being outdoors. These steps include wearing protective gear (such as a hat, sunglasses, and other protective clothing) and seeking shade along with the use of a broad-spectrum sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15 or higher to protect any exposed skin, especially during midday hours.

“We want all Americans to lead healthy, active lives,” Dr. Lushniak said, “We all need to take an active role to prevent skin cancer by protecting our skin while being outdoors and avoiding intentional sun exposure and indoor tanning.”

The report calls on all sectors of Americans society, including the business, health care, education, government and nonprofit sectors, as well as families and individuals, to do more. Examples include communities providing shade in outdoor settings, health care providers counseling patients on the importance of using sun protection, and educational institutions discouraging indoor tanning.

WHITE HOUSE FACT SHEET ON PRESIDENT'S CLIMATE DATA INITIATIVE

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE 

FACT SHEET: Empowering America’s Agricultural Sector and Strengthening Food Resilience through the President’s Climate Data Initiative

“My administration will work with tech innovators and launch new challenges under our Climate Data Initiative, focused initially on rising sea levels and their impact on the coasts, but ultimately focused on how all these changes in weather patterns are going to have an impact up and down the United States…and how do we start preparing for that.” – President Obama, remarks on the California Drought, February 14, 2014.

In March 2014, the Obama Administration unveiled the Climate Data Initiative—a key deliverable of the President’s Climate Action Plan to cut carbon pollution in America, prepare communities for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to address this global challenge. The Climate Data Initiative leverages the Federal Government’s vast and open data resources to stimulate the kinds of innovation and entrepreneurship that can empower America’s communities and businesses to take action against climate change and prepare for the future.

Today, building on the Climate Data Initiative’s initial focus on coastal resilience, the Obama Administration is unveiling the Initiative’s “Food Resilience” theme, aimed at empowering America’s agricultural sector and strengthening the resilience of the global food system in a changing climate.

The National Climate Assessment, released in May, 2014, confirms that climate disruptions to agriculture have been increasing, are projected to become more severe over this century, and that climate-change effects on agriculture will have consequences for food security, both nationally and globally, through changes in crop yields and food prices, as well as effects on food processing, storage, transportation, and retailing. 

That’s why the Obama Administration is working to connect farmers, food distributors, and agricultural businesses with the data, tools, and information they need to understand how climate change impacts—such as more intense heat waves, heavier downpours, and severe droughts and wildfires out west—are affecting their operations today and steps they can take to both prepare for and help fight climate change.

To continue momentum under the Climate Data Initiative, the Obama Administration is today renewing the President’s call to America’s private-sector innovators to leverage open government data and other resources to build tools that will make the U.S. and global food systems more resilient against the impacts of climate change. In response to this call, today’s launch includes a number of commitments by Federal agencies and private-sector collaborators to combat climate change and support food resilience through data-driven innovation.

Administration Commitments: 

• Convening Agriculture and Technology Leaders at the White House. Today, Senior Obama Administration officials are meeting at the White House with representatives of leading food, agriculture and technology businesses to discuss ways these companies are leveraging open government data, related information tools, and other innovations to improve the resilience of the U.S. and global food system and reduce the contributions of food production to climate change.
• New Features on climate.data.gov. The Obama Administration is today unveiling an expanded climate.data.gov to include new pages and features that make data about the risks of climate change to food production, supply, nutrition, and security more open and accessible to innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers. Through a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other Federal agency partners, hundreds of datasets, web services, and tools on these topics and more are being made accessible through climate.data.gov, including data from the Census of Agriculture, current and historical data on production, supply, and distribution of agricultural products, and data on climate-change-related risks such as storms, pests, and drought. The Administration is also expanding climate.data.gov to include datasets from climate models, projecting potential future climate impacts.
• Hosting Agriculture-Innovation Workshops. The Obama Administration will host and participate in a series of innovation workshops focused on data-driven innovation at the nexus of climate-change and agriculture, including:
  • On July 30, USDA will host two innovation workshops in Washington, DC, one with young and beginning farmers and another with food distributors, to spur the development of creative information-technology tools that can help farmers and those in the food supply chain to prepare for climate-change impacts.
  • On August 1, USDA and NYU’s Governance Lab (GovLab) will host an Open Data event in Washington, DC, focused on food resilience and climate change, as well as preparedness for food emergencies. The event will encourage dialogue between government agencies and the businesses and organizations that use their data, in support of the goals of the Climate Data Initiative.
  • On August 5, concurrent with the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Government, IBM, and partners of the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative will host a data-innovation event focused on developing technological innovations based on open data that can help address global food security and nutrition in Africa.

Private-Sector Commitments:

• Principles for Responsible Investment. The United-Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has formed an investor group made up of Rockefeller & Co. and five European-based institutional investors (PGGM, Aberdeen Asset Management, Hermes, MN, and Nordea) to address the risks from climate change to companies with agricultural supply chains – including in the food, beverage, and apparel sectors. Using data from the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Water Risk Filter mapping tool and Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ (PwC) ESCHER model, the investor group will engage approximately 50 major companies in constructive dialogue to increase resilience to water risks and foster more informed investment decision-making. PRI and the investor group are launching an Investor Guidance Document and issuing a call to action to support the effort to PRI’s 1260 global signatories representing more than $45 trillion USD in assets.
• Microsoft. In support of the President’s Climate Data Initiative’s, Microsoft and USDA will co-host a series of workshops, webinars, and an app-athon aimed at demonstrating the value of open-data and data-driven tools to boost climate preparedness and resilience in the agricultural sector. Microsoft and USDA will also jointly launch a climate-change-focused Innovation Challenge to inspire the development of new tools and services that harness data available via data.gov, as well as an initial collection of USDA datasets that will be made available through Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace. Microsoft Research will issue a special request for proposals focused on food resilience and climate change and grant 12 months of free cloud-computing resources to 20 awardees whose proposals are submitted by Sept. 15, 2014 through the Azure for Research program.
• Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. Through the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, the U.S. dairy industry is today committing to advance a series of science-based efforts, including additional research to understand and optimize dairy’s role in a resilient, efficient, and sustainable food system, as well as testing and piloting four new Farm Smart modules—energy, feed, nutrient, and herd management—by the end of 2014.  Farm Smart is a data-driven online tool that helps dairy farmers assess their farm’s environmental footprint; explore the potential environmental value and cost-effectiveness of on-farm innovations; and communicate progress.
• The U.S. Water Partnership. Recognizing that open data can help inform actions to meet the growing water crisis in regions at home and abroad, the U.S. Water Partnership (USWP) will deploy a web-based portal called “H2InfO” during World Water Week on September 2, 2014, to increase access to high quality US-based water- and drought- information resources. In addition, the U.S. Water Partnership will develop a virtual community of practice to share data, experiences, lessons, and best practices and will convene an in-person technical dialogue for community members and other key public and private stakeholders to create a two-way exchange of expertise on drought preparedness and water resilience.
• IBM. IBM is announcing an expansion of its philanthropic World Community Grid program, which enables members of the public to donate their computer or mobile device's unused computing power to scientists. The expansion will provide scientists studying climate change topics including staple food crops and water management with free access to dedicated virtual supercomputing resources and a platform to engage the public on their research. Each researcher will have access to up to 100,000 years of computing time, a value of $60m in today's costs. IBM is inviting researchers to submit project proposals and members of the public to donate their unused computing power to these efforts at worldcommunitygrid.org. 
• GoodCompanyVentures. During the summer of 2015, GoodCompanyVentures will launch Climate Ventures 2.0, a project to source, accelerate, and deploy entrepreneurial solutions to climate-change preparedness in collaboration with the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, the Impact Hub, and the MIT Climate CoLab.  Over a nine-month period, Climate Ventures 2.0 will provide mentoring, design consulting, and access to capital for 10 high-potential teams working on ongoing climate data innovation challenges, such as those issued by NASA and MIT.  Climate Ventures 2.0 will focus on innovations that leverage scientific and government data to enhance climate change preparedness in areas such as food security, agriculture, flood, and drought.  
• The Coca-Cola Company. To help reduce the company’s environmental footprint across its value chain, the Coca-Cola Company is committing to rapidly expand the application of the Field-to-Market program and its data-driven tool to quantify water use, fertilizer use, energy use, greenhouse emissions and more. By the end of 2014, Coca-Cola will launch major initiatives with two of its four leading suppliers to implement this commitment. By the end of 2015, Coca-Cola will aim to engage farmers representing 250,000 acres, and by 2020, up to 1 million acres—equating to roughly 50% of the company’s global corn supply.
• World Wildlife Fund. In support of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF’s) collaboration with the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), WWF is combining detailed agricultural, water, and economic data from its Water Risk Filter to help the PRI’s 1000+ signatories better assess and manage water risks in the agro-commodity supply chains of portfolio companies. WWF will work with leading technology partners to make public and leverage detailed datasets that include more than 15,000 agricultural-crop/water-basin combinations in order to empower industry, financiers, and policy-makers as they work to strengthen global water stewardship, food security, and climate resilience.
• The Agricultural Model Intercomparison & Improvement Program and the Center for Integrated Modeling of Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition Security. The Agricultural Model Intercomparison & Improvement Program (AgMIP) and the Center for Integrated Modeling of Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition Security (CIMSANS), in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), are announcing a new public-private partnership on open data and open-source code modeling to enhance the climate-resilience of food systems. The new partnership will secure the resources and expertise necessary to evaluate seven novel nutrition and sustainability metrics of global food systems, including all of the world’s important staple and non-staple foods, through the year 2050.
• Amazon Web Services. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is today launching the Amazon Climate Research Grant program and a call for proposals designed to drive innovativeclimate-change research with a focus on computational analysis. In early September 2014, AWS will award grants of free access to supercomputing resources through Amazon EC2 Spot Instances. By providing grants totaling 50 million core hours, AWS is enabling researchers to accelerate research that can result in an improved understanding of the scope and effects of climate change, and analyses that could suggest potential mitigating actions. Early results of the program will publish in November 2014. Expanding upon AWS’s participation in the Open NASA Earth eXchange (NEX), this program will also accelerate the development of open climate data and software resources. Details can be found here.
• National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center at the University of Maryland. The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) at the University of Maryland is committing to fund 25 early-career scholars to address critical, actionable research questions on the resilience of food systems to climate change. Advanced Ph.D. students and scholars fewer than two years post-Ph.D. with relevant interests will be invited to apply through an open call. Successful candidates will participate in workshops in which SESYNC and USDA computational experts guide participants in a highly interactive and dynamic process of data discovery, analysis, and visualization, and will be invited to submit proposals for interdisciplinary team projects. SESYNC will fund up to six teams as well as a postdoctoral fellow with expertise in food systems research to undertake and help coordinate research for the program.
• PepsiCo. PepsiCo is announcing the installation of a 1.7 megawatt solar photovoltaic system designed to supply 3.3 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy for the company’s Gatorade manufacturing operations in Tolleson, Arizona.  Over the 25 year life of the project, this initiative will prevent the release of approximately 50,000 tons of carbon and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. PepsiCo will use data from this solar project to help inform future solar installations and projects as the company works to meet its goal of achieving an absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. 
• Esri. Esri will work with USDA, GEOGLAM, CGIAR and others to expose and unlock authoritative data as live data feeds across dimensions of agricultural production, risk and trade.  In the fall of 2014, Esri will host an Executive White Boarding session to target the development of common information products (maps, apps and templates) needed to address specific needs in the domain of climate, society, and agriculture.  
• Michigan Agri-Business Association. In August 2014, the Michigan Agri-Business Association will launch a publicly-available web-based mapping tool for use by the state’s agriculture sector. This platform will incorporate Federal, state, and local data that could prove useful to farmers, rural businesses, conservationists and economic development professionals. Resulting maps will aggregate soil, water, meteorological and infrastructure GIS data that can be compared and visualized to meet the needs of a particular project. It is anticipated that this tool will be particularly useful for planning future agricultural activities in response to climate change in Michigan.
• Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Columbia University Earth Institute. The Sustainable Development Solutions Network is announcing a new initiative on Healthy and Sustainable Diets that will include efforts to build datasets that enable the analysis of food and nutrition security achievements across landscape-level scenarios and rural livelihoods. The Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development (CGSD) in Columbia’s Earth Institute, as a partner in the Agriculture and Food Systems group of the Network, is committing to provide this initiative with tools, research, and policy support to address these challenges in a global context.
• SWIIM System. SWIIM System, Ltd. will develop an application using USDA Quickstats data that will allow users to easily view trends in water use by irrigated agriculture as climate changes occur and as water transfers from agricultural to municipal and industrial (M&I) uses take place. This new application will allow users to explore the consequences of future climate- and water-use scenarios to water available for crop production, and will educate the user on effects of water transfer and climate change on irrigated agriculture on a localized basis. The application will be made available on the SWIIM client page and its parent website. Development is expected to commence in August 2014 and completed within approximately six months.
• Nestle. Nestlé will review and expand the scope of its public commitments on climate change leadership (detailed in the Nestlé in Society report), setting greenhouse-gas reduction targets that are based upon science and incorporating both absolute-carbon and carbon-intensity aspects. Nestlé will also incorporate climate change provisions into its responsible sourcing & traceability program, will engage in further water stewardship programs, and will extend education and training within its Farmer Connect initiative regarding good farming practices and water stewardship. Nestlé’s nutritional profiling tool (which can be used to link nutritional value calculations to calculations of environmental impact) and related data will be made available outside Nestlé through the publication of algorithms for nutritional assessments in peer reviewed scientific journals, the sharing of data on Life Cycle Inventories, and other mechanisms. 
• Rock and Wrap it Up. Rock and Wrap It Up! (RWU) is launching an updated Whole Earth Calculator, a simple mobile app that resides on a mobile-friendly website and can be used on both mobile and laptop/desktop devices. Using EPA datasets and based on information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and USDA, the Whole Earth Calculator converts the total pounds of paper products and plastics that are diverted from landfills into the amount of carbon dioxide that is not produced as a result – and then sends this information to social media (Twitter).  The tool can also be used to convert total pounds of donated food into meal equivalents and total CO2-averted equivalents.
• Monsanto. Monsanto is announcing that it will donate a multi-site/multi-year maize breeding trial dataset to open data portals maintained by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the Agricultural Model Intercomparison & Improvement Project (AgMIP). Opening these data will it make it possible for public- and private-sector scientists to improve models being used to understand how climate and water-availability changes will impact crop productivity and therefore food security. Monsanto is also partnering with a number of external scientists in the AgMIP community to improve one of the leading publicly available crop-growth simulation models (AgMaize).
• HabitatSeven and Quandl: HabitatSeven is announcing a partnership with the data platform Quandl to combine Federal climate-impact data with private-sector commodity and supply-chain data. Through this partnership, visualization tools will be developed for private-sector decision makers, investors, and commodity traders to incorporate climate risks and opportunities into commodity prices and resilience strategies.
• The Climate Corporation: The Climate Corporation has launched a free online and mobile service called Climate Basic that provides farmers with hyper-local weather information to help them identify the impact of recent and current weather conditions on their fields. To enable the development of additional data science driven tools and services to help farmers increase production to meet increasing global demand, the company helped found the Open Ag Data Alliance (OADA), an open source software project to ensure farmers have full data access across different agriculture technology platforms. The Climate Corporation is today committing resources to support OADA's work, as well as code development to enable farmers to fully leverage their data. 
• Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy at the University of Chicago. The Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP), a research center at the Computation Institute of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, is announcing several new tools to expand access to the data and methods used by experts to understand climate change and its impacts. The RDCEP climate emulator, enables users to work in their own web browser with output data from state-of-the-art climate models that typically require powerful supercomputers. ATLAS, which will launch this fall, will enable users to explore climate impact data on global food security and land use. Additional web tools make up RDCEP’s FACE-IT platform, which will be adapted later this year for use by researchers in seven countries, including China, Nigeria, and India, to model and understand local climate risks and vulnerabilities in food supply, agriculture, and economics. Preliminary versions of these applications will be unveiled at the African Food Systems in the Information Age forum in Ibadan, Nigeria, on August 28-30, 2014.
• Kellogg Company and University of Minnesota. The Global Landscapes Initiative at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment is committing to openly share data and maps that illustrate how climate change affects risks to major crops within the food system. In conjunction with this commitment, Kellogg Company is committing to use these agricultural data and climate-related maps to foster geographically relevant implementation in its global sourcing. Kellogg Company, the Global Landscape Initiative, and other partners will use climate data, research, and assessments to guide education and actions that help create efficient, adaptable, and sustainable supply chains, as well as identify information gaps and needs to improve the resilience of the agricultural sector to climate change.
• American Red Cross and Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre: To better help communities in East and Southern Africa prepare for climate and weather related events, the American Red Cross and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre are committing to scale up the distribution and use of their participatory games to communicate risk information. This scale-up will bring Climate Centre game designers, trainers, and facilitators to more places served by American Red Cross in the developing world. It will focus initially on a river basin in East or Southern Africa and will help to ensure that communities are better prepared to respond to flood warnings. This experience will be documented and made publicly available on the Climate Centrewebsite and the Global Disaster Preparedness Center website. 
• Mars, Incorporated: Mars, Incorporated, will continue to make major investments in science, including in areas such as food safety and plant science, to create resilienceacross its agricultural supply chains, improve safety, quality, resource management, and yields. Mars, Inc. will also continue to invest in renewable energy resources. For example, the company has recently invested in a 200 megawatt wind farm in Lamesa, Texas that will provide energy equal to the needs of its North America offices and factories.
• Walmart. Walmart is committing to the ongoing use of data to help set priorities for future actions to reduce greenhouse gases, including meeting the company’s 2020 goal of driving the production or procurement of 7 billion kWh of renewable energy globally every year and reducing the kWh/sq. ft. energy intensity required to power Walmart’s buildings globally by 20 percent compared to 2010 levels. Walmart will use data-driven tools such as the Sustainability Index to measure, track, and identify hot spots in its overall supply chain and provide buyers with transparency into the key impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions, of the products they source. In addition, Walmart recently announced a partnership with eight of the largest food companies to help ensure that tomorrow’s food supply is more sustainable, including by bringing an additional eight million acres of farmland into sustainability agriculture programs.
• UN Global Pulse: In May 2014, United Nations Global Pulse hosted its first Big Data Climate Challenge, calling for cutting-edge examples of how scientists, researchers, and citizens are using big data and analytics to address social, economic and environmental challenges. Submissions were received from 40 countries, representing over 20 disciplines, including agriculture. UN Global Pulse will fly winners of the Challenge to the upcoming Climate Summit on September 24th in New York City and their work will be showcased prominently in front of media, decision-makers and civil society. In addition, Global Pulse will work with partners to summarize the results of the Big Data Climate Challenge in a report that maps the intersection of big data and climate change to build global understanding of how big data can reveal critical insights for strengthening resilience, including in the agriculture sector. 

Climate Data in Action:

In addition to the food- and agriculture-focused commitments launching today, a host of new and ongoing efforts continue to broadly advance the President’s Climate Data Initiative, including:

• iSeeChange and Berkeley Atmospheric C02 Observation Network collaboration:The public media platform iSeeChange and the Berkeley Atmospheric CO₂ Observation Network (BEACO₂N) are launching a new collaborative project to develop a pilot citizen-science story-corps to help monitor carbon emissions in the San Francisco Bay area and Oakland. Combining BEACO₂N’s network of carbon sensors, most mounted atop local schools and museums in the Bay Area, and iSeeChange’s digital platform and public media partners, the collaboration will create an information network to monitor local carbon emissions, produce stories that effectively match data and local impacts over time, and more. The partnership will kick off its work at the AAAS Citizen Science Workshop scheduled for February 2014.
• UCLA Luskin Center and EDF: The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are releasing the newest version of the Los Angeles Solar and Efficiency Report (LASER)—a data-driven mapping tool designed to help communities identify opportunities to invest in projects that will save households money, create clean energy jobs and strengthen climate resilience. The tool illustrates existing pollution and climate change impacts at a community level, and illustrates “hot spots” ripe for rooftop solar investment and energy efficiency building potential at the parcel level.
• Trust for Public Land: The Trust for Public Land will commit new organizational resources through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to help America's cities lessen their vulnerability to climate-related heat events. Specifically, over the next two years the Trust for Public Land will help fill national gaps in heat-risk spatial data and modeling for cities, expand its Urban Heat Risk Explorer App to new cities, and develop a heat risk reduction GIS toolkit to help cities strategically target green infrastructure for heat resilience.   
•