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COVID-19 Legislative Update

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COVID-19 Legislative Update August 13, 2020 Federal Legislation Supplemental IV Timeline: Things are looking bad. There’s an expectation that no negotiations, barring an unforeseen shakeup, will resume until after both parties’ nominating conventions. Secretary Mnuchin reached out to Speaker Pelosi earlier this week, but because neither side had shifted, the calculus remained the same and nothing came of it. White House Chief of Staff Meadows is apparently on vacation currently. Negotiations will likely resume in September. Process/Politics: Before negotiations broke down, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer offered White House Chief of Staff Meadows and Secretary Mnuchin to set the top line at $2 trillion – Democrats would come down $1 trillion and Republicans would come up $1 trillion. Republicans rejected that offer and countered with negotiating and passing multiple, smaller bills, which Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer declined. Speaker Pelosi has continued to reiterate that negotiations will not resume until there is agreement on the top line number. The White House believes the numbers on new unemployment claims and the stock market’s resilience has bolstered their choice to hold on going above $1 tillion. There’s been very little, if any, pushback on Speaker Pelosi from her caucus – Democrats remain united behind the strategy to continue to hold for a better deal. However, members have been increasingly concerned about funding and management of the US Postal Service considering the election. As mentioned in previous updates, even if discussions were to start again soon, it will take negotiators a while to agree upon a framework and allow committees to hammer out details. Committees will likely not be able to work through every issue and would need to pass most contentious issues back up to leadership. Once negotiations resume, a deal and a final bill will take time to draft and hammer out. Note: As it increasingly looks like negotiations will bleed into September and funding for the government runs out September 30, Congress will need to pass a very clean continuing resolution (CR). A clean CR still requires negotiations – there are always riders, small changes, and other additions. However, there is a hope that members will recognize the necessity of reserving political will for negotiations on the COVID 4 package and limit the number of add-ons on the CR. Policy: As the executive orders the President issued last Saturday partially indicated, the next package will likely address unemployment insurance, funding for testing and providers, funding for education, and likely some form of rental and student assistance. The most contentious issues, however, continue to be unemployment insurance and the level of funding for state, local, and tribal governments. Democrats have also pushed for funding for broadband, the U.S. Postal Service, and election security, among other things. HEALS: Senate Republicans released the eight-bill package the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection, and Schools (HEALS) Act on July 27. See the following for the individual bills. American Workers, Families, and Employers Assistance Act (Senate Finance Committee provisions) text here, section by section here. Continuing Small Business Recovery and Paycheck Protection Program Act (Small Business provisions) press release here, text here, section by section here, one pager here. Coronavirus Response Additional Supplemental Appropriations Act (Appropriations provisions) text here, summary here. Restoring Critical Supply Chains and Intellectual Property Act (Supply Chain and Research provisions) text here, section by section here. SAFE TO WORK Act (Liability Relief) text here, section by section here. Safely Back to School and Back to Work Act (Health, Education, and Labor Provisions) text here, section by section here. Supporting America’s Restaurant Workers Act text here. TRUST Act text here, section by section here, one pager here. HEROES: The House passed the Democrats’ opening bid for the next bill, the Heroes Act, on May 15. While it’s been over two months since House passage of the bill and the contours of the debate and which issues are most pressing have shifted slightly, it can still serve as a marker of what Senate Republicans will be responding to in their bill. Heroes Act text (as of 5/12/2020) here. Section by section here. One pager here. State and Local one pager here. NCAI’s summary on tribal provisions here. Manager’s amendment here. House Rules Committee report here. Passed Legislation Moving forward, this section will only include new information and guidance. For past information and guidance and passed legislation, please refer to the archives. For a summary of all supplementals, please see here. New Implementation Information and Guidance 8/10 – The Treasury Department and Small Business Administration released updated data on the Paycheck Protection Program. Data here. 8/9 – The Department of Labor notified governors of their ability to apply for funding for unemployment insurance, made available through the President’s executive order last Saturday. Link to funding application here. Notice of announcement here. 8/7 – HHS and the Health Resources and Services Administration announced the next distribution for nursing homes through the Provider Relief Fund. The distribution will total $5 billion and will be used by nursing homes to protect residents. Approximately $2.5 billion in funding will be dedicated to increasing testing, staffing, and PPE needs of nursing homes and long-term care facilities. The initial $2.5 billion will go out mid-August, with the remaining distributed through the fall. Press release here. Members of Congress in Quarantine or Treatment (new additions in bold) Tested Positive (2): Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) Currently Self-Quarantined (1): Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) Recovered (10): Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC), Rep. Ben McAdams (D- UT), Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL), Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC), Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R- TX) Completed Quarantine (44): Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)*, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R- FL), Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA), Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rep. Vincente Gonzalez (D-TX), Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA), Rep. David Schweikert (R- AZ), Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-NY), Rep. David Price (D-NC), Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY), Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), Rep. Steve Scalise (R- LA), Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ), Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX), Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX), Rep. Kay Granger (R- TX), Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) *Mark Meadows was quarantined as a member of Congress, before he resigned to become the White House Chief of Staff. COVID-19 Compilation August 13, 2020 Iowa At 10 a.m. Thursday, the state was reporting 954 COVID-19-related deaths, an increase of seven deaths since the state's tally at 10 a.m. Wednesday, according to the state's Coronavirus.Iowa.gov website. The state was reporting at 10 a.m. Thursday that there are 50,135 confirmed cases of coronavirus, an increase of 501 since 10 a.m. Wednesday. According to the state's website, there were 344 confirmed cases Wednesday and have been 132 additional cases Thursday, as of 10 a.m. Earlier Thursday, the state surpassed 50,000 cases. Of those tested for the virus on Wednesday, 5.2% were positive. Since the state started tracking the positivity rate, 9.3% of people who have been tested were positive. Of the 50,135 people who have tested positive, 39,214 have recovered, according to the state. The total number of people tested is 537,339, including 6,572 on Wednesday. At 10 a.m. Thursday, the state was reporting 261 hospitalizations, up from 257 on Wednesday. In the past 24 hours, 38 patients have been admitted. Also, there are 88 patients in the ICU, up from 76 on Wednesday. Washington, D.C. Today, HHS announced combined investments of $6.5 million in two commercial diagnostic laboratories to expand capacity to conduct up to 4 million additional COVID-19 tests per month. The investments in Aegis Sciences Corporation and Sonic Healthcare USA will provide critical laboratory equipment supplied by Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and Thermo Fisher Scientific and increase staffing and infrastructure to allow the U.S. to perform an additional 1 million tests each week by early October. On Tuesday, HHS Sec. Alex Azar met with former Taiwan Vice President Chen and a group of COVID-19 response experts for a discussion on Taiwan's pandemic response and ways the U.S. and Taiwan can further their collaboration on disease response and other global health issues. HHS and the DoD today announced an agreement with Moderna, Inc. to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The federal government will own these vaccine doses. Moderna will manufacture the vaccine doses while clinical trials are underway. Manufacturing in parallel with clinical trials expedites the traditional vaccine development timeline and builds toward the U.S.
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