The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“CORONAVIRUS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S7890-S7893 on Dec. 21, 2020.
The Department is primarily focused on food nutrition, with assistance programs making up 80 percent of its budget. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department implements too many regulations and restrictions and impedes the economy.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CORONAVIRUS
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first, I heard the remarks of the Senator from Illinois. It is a hope that we can change the way the Senate operates and do more amendments and do more debating on the floor. We haven't seen much give from some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but hopefully that could and will happen.
Now, about remarks here, every day, it seems, for the past week or so, I have come to the floor ready to talk about the merits of bipartisan legislation we have been drafting, not wanting to be critical at all. Then I listen to the Republican leader. The leader's remarks just about every day this week as he has opened the Senate have been so nastily partisan and in so many ways false that I have no choice but to correct the record as the Democratic leader.
The Republican leader's accusation that the blame for this bill's delay lies totally on one side is just ridiculous. It is ``Alice in Wonderland'' thinking. It defies all the facts as to what we have seen. Then his comparison--that the agreement we are voting on today and the most recent Republican offer are so similar--is absurd. The two bills are nothing alike, and I had to point that out several times.
I have a chart here.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this chart printed in the Record
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
BIPARTISAN EMERGENCY COVID RELIEF LEGISLATION SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVES ON
McCONNELL'S INADEQUATE PROPOSAL
------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Bipartisan December 1 GOP
Item Relief Agreement Proposal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unemployment Insurance...... $300 per week $0 enhanced UI and
enhanced UI and program extensions
other program end on January 31,
extensions through 2021
March 14, 2021
Direct Payments............. Additional round of $0
payments--$600
individual, $1,200/
married couple, and
$600/child dependent
Corporate Immunity.......... Excluded McConnell/Cornyn
Corporate Immunity
``Red Line''
SNAP........................ $13 billion $0
Rental Assistance........... $25 billion $0
Transportation.............. $45 billion $0
Support for Small Businesses $284.5 billion $257.7 billion
(PPP)......................
Support for Community $12 billion $0
Development Financial
Institutions and Minority
Depository Institutions....
SBA Grants.................. $20 billion $0
Debt Relief Payments and $5.5 billion $0
Enhancements for SBA
Lending Programs...........
SAMHSA Funding for Mental $4.25 billion $0
Health and Substance Use
Disorder...................
NIH COVID Research.......... $1.25 billion $0
Broadband................... $7 billion $0
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SCHUMER. I am just going to read from it, comparing the new, bipartisan relief agreement to the December 1 GOP proposal of Leader McConnell.
How about direct payments? This bill has $600 per individual, $1,200 per married couple, $600 child dependent. Many of us didn't think that was enough, but it is in the bill. Do you know how much was in the Republican leader's proposal? Zero.
Unemployment insurance. This bill that we are voting on has $300 per week of enhanced UI and other program extensions through March 14. What does the Republican leader's bill have? Zero enhanced UI. Program extensions end January 31.
This bill has $13 billion in SNAP; the Republican leader's bill, zero.
This bill has $25 billion in rental assistance; the Republican leader's bill, zero.
This bill has $45 billion in transportation for airlines and mass transit and buses and airports and highways. What does the Republican leader's bill have? Zero.
This bill has, very importantly, money for community development financial institutions and minority institutions, $12 billion. What does the Republican leader's bill have? Zero.
SBA grants, $20 billion this year; Republican leader's bill, zero.
Debt payments and enhancements for SBA. This bill, $5.5 billion; Republican bill, zero.
SAMHSA funding for mental health and substance use disorder. This bill, $4.25 billion; Republican leader's bill, zero.
NIH COVID research, $1.25 billion; Republican bill, zero.
Broadband so homes can get broadband. This bill, $7 billion; Republican leader's bill, zero.
The list could go on. There is a complete difference between the two bills.
We all know as well that the Republican leader, who blames Democrats for delay, said for several months that the Senate should be on pause. As Democrats were demanding more action, the Republican leader was unmoved. The Republican leader's answer was that 20 Republican Senators wanted to do nothing more at all. When he finally proposed legislation, it was completely partisan, insufficient, and littered with poison pills.
I forgot to add one thing that was in the leader's bill but not in this bill--the broad corporate liability immunity provision, which the Senator from Illinois tried to straighten out. Another huge difference--a poison pill.
So when the leader finally proposed legislation because of public pressure to do something, it was partisan--no Democratic input, zero--
insufficient, much too little in so many areas, as I mentioned, and littered with poison pills designed to ensure the bill would fail. Most notably was a provision to give corporations, no matter how egregious their behavior, sweeping immunity from legal accountability. Leader McConnell said on the floor that for Republicans, corporate immunity was a red line.
And he blames the Democrats, as he did again today, for why this bill is being debated now? It is just turning truth on its head. It is like
``Alice in Wonderland.''
Even in the recent negotiations, the Republican majority made an eleventh hour demand that had nothing to do with helping people during this pandemic but, rather, sabotaged the incoming Biden administration's recovery effort and restricted the Federal Reserve's ability to save jobs and right the economy in a time of crisis.
Thankfully, the agreement we reached contains neither the leader's corporate immunity provision nor Senator Toomey's last-minute provision to handicap the Fed's authority to stabilize the economy in a crisis. And it will do a whole lot of good, besides, some of the programs I mentioned.
Look, after months of tense and difficult negotiations, we have this agreement. It is not as large as Democrats want. It is certainly larger than what many Republicans want. That is the nature of compromise. It does us no good to end the year with the kind of bitter, partisan fighting that has defined too much of the year. In a new session and under a new administration, we can and should do better because our job is far from over.
The bill today is a good bill. Today is a good day, but it is certainly not the end of the story. It cannot be the end of the story. Anyone who thinks this bill is enough doesn't know what is going on in America. Anyone who thinks this bill is enough hasn't heard the desperation in the voices of their constituents, has not looked into the eyes of a small business owner on the brink of ruin.
By all rights, there should be direct assistance in this bill for State and local governments. The checks should be larger. While this agreement includes a new and larger forgivable PPP loan for restaurants, we need to do much more for restaurants. We have bipartisan legislation to deliver the relief that is truly needed, the RESTAURANTS Act, which, regrettably, did not make it into this legislation. We must do all we can to save restaurants, and I will not stop fighting until we pass the RESTAURANTS Act into law. This bill cannot and will not be the final word on congressional relief from the coronavirus pandemic. This is an emergency survival package.
When we come back in January, our No. 1 job will be to fill in the gaps left by the bill and then get the economy moving with strong Federal input. Still, the significance of this package should not be underestimated. It will be the second largest bill--the second largest Federal input--in the history of our country. It will be the second largest amount of Federal dollars going to the people ever. The times demand it. Even some of our conservative Republican friends will vote for it, and it is good we have it. For much of the year, it looked unlikely that it would ever get done, and our success today, our ability to pass this bill today, should give us confidence we can do more. We can end the year on a rare note of optimism.
Now, Queen Elizabeth, every year, gives a talk to her subjects about the status of the monarchy and the British royal family. In a very challenging year, she called the year annus horribilis--a horrible year. Unlike in 1992, which was the year Elizabeth referred to the problems with Charles and Diana, this year has been an annus horribilis not just for Great Britain and the royal family, which she was talking about, but an annus horribilis for the entire world.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has infected more than 70 million people across the globe. Another 500 million have gone, likely, undiagnosed. There are 1.6 million people who have died, 20 percent of whom have been Americans, more than 315,000--more than the entire population of Pittsburgh or St. Louis, more than all of the American combat deaths in World War II. The September 11 attacks to my fair city shaped much of the first decade of this century. In 2020, our dear country has suffered the equivalent of a 9/11 attack every day for 106 days in a row.
We have lost so much. We have missed holidays and reunions, retirements and graduations, bar mitzvahs and confirmations, weddings and funerals. Trapped in our homes, our companions were isolation and loneliness and the faint glow of tiny screens. The image of seeing people on the screen, watching their loved ones pass away when they couldn't be with them, will stay with us forever. Doctors had to stack iPads in waiting rooms for end-of-life conversations--how tragic, how awful. There were cars lined up, bumper to bumper, for food assistance. Grandchildren, wrapped in protective gear, waved goodbye to grandparents from across the silence of a hospital room.
It has been a horrible year--annus horribilis. Yet here, at the very end, finally, there is hope--not just one, not just two, but three strong beacons of hope. One, soon many Americans will have the vaccine. Two, Joe Biden will become President. He has the experience and the empathy to handle the COVID crisis and will replace a man who has shown no capacity or even interest in doing so. And, three, we are on the verge of passing another historic, bipartisan relief bill to deliver emergency assistance during a time of national emergency. So there are three beacons of hope: the vaccine, a new administration, and a bill that will help in an emergency.
Very soon, our country will close the book on the most chaotic President in recent history. Joe Biden, an experienced leader and a person of fundamental human decency, will become the 46th President of the United States. Kamala Harris, my good friend and hard-working colleague, will become the first woman, the first Black person, and the first Asian American to ascend to the Vice Presidency of the United States. Together, they will return competency and compassion to our government after 4 long years of division and demonization, which far too many people have tolerated and gone along with.
Even though this disease has not been vanquished yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a vaccine. Everyone should appreciate how miraculous that truly is. It usually takes between 5 and 10 years to develop a new vaccine--5 to 10 years. It took American doctors, biochemists, and medical researchers less than 10 months to produce not one but two viable vaccines for the coronavirus. The discovery of a vaccine in a single calendar year is the crowning scientific achievement of the 21st century--the medical Manhattan Project of our times. It is a reminder that, when we work together and persevere and sacrifice for one another, nothing--nothing--is beyond our capacity as a nation.
The same resilience and innovation and fortitude that saw our country through its darkest hours has emerged once again. COVID-19 has changed our country, but it has not changed our character. America is the night-shift nurse fashioning protective equipment from shoelaces and sheets of vinyl. America is a restaurant owner who sent meals to frontline workers for free. America is the home-stitched mask sent to friends and families. It is the metallic clang of pots and pans that celebrates essential workers. America is the grocery store clerk and the busdriver and the plasma donor and the lab technician, late at night, poring over the results of a clinical trial. It is the Brooklyn doctor, 62, on the verge of retirement, who, for 2 straight weeks, worked day shifts at the ICU and night shifts at the nearby hospital before finally succumbing to the disease himself.
Last week, the first American--a nurse in Queens--was vaccinated against COVID-19. Many millions will soon follow. Eventually, our businesses will reopen, our economy will reopen, and life will reopen. We will travel and worship and send our kids to school and see our friends and be together again. It won't be tomorrow or next week or even next month, but it will happen, not because we merely waited long enough, not because we were patient, but because we persevered.
Our job right now is to help the country get from this stormy present to that hopeful future, to survive this dark winter until spring thaws the ice. Our job is to do what is necessary--pass this bill, pass another stronger bill next year--whatever it takes to hold our country together until we eradicate the awful scourge of this disease.
At the end of this annus horribilis--this horrible year--let us give the American people another reason to hope
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I am, like many of my colleagues, very pleased that we have reached an agreement on a final COVID relief package and none too soon.
Last week, we celebrated what will, hopefully, be a turning point in the COVID fight--the first coronavirus vaccinations. We need to build on that momentum and make sure that vaccine distribution goes swiftly and smoothly so that we can vaccinate as many Americans as possible as quickly as possible. The COVID relief package will help us achieve that goal by providing important funding for vaccine distribution. It will also provide critical support to Americans to help them weather the rest of the pandemic, including a second round of paycheck protection funding for the hardest hit small businesses, money to help schools reopen safely and operate so that our kids aren't left behind, and more money for coronavirus treatment and other frontline medical priorities.
I am very pleased that the final package includes my Paycheck Protection for Producers Act, which will help more farmers and ranchers benefit from the Paycheck Protection Program. The bill also includes funding to allow the Department of Agriculture to provide additional assistance to farmers and ranchers. Ag producers were dealing with a challenging agricultural economy even before the pandemic hit, and the coronavirus has only made things tougher. I strongly advocated for including additional funding for farmers and ranchers in this legislation, and I am very glad that the final bill includes this support.
The final package also explicitly makes biofuels, like ethanol and biodiesel, eligible for USDA assistance at the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture. Biofuel producers have suffered from a drop in fuel demand during the pandemic, and I hope the Secretary will ensure that they are able to receive assistance, which will further help our ag economy recover.
I am very happy that the COVID relief package includes an extension of the Thune-Warner Employer Participation in Repayment Act. The Thune-
Warner bill allows employers to make tax-free contributions to their employees' student loans of up to $5,250 per year. This is a win for employees, who get help in paying off their student loans, and it is a win for employers as they look to attract and retain talented workers. Our bill was included in the CARES Act--the major coronavirus relief legislation we passed in March--but it was scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Under the coronavirus relief package, however, our legislation will be extended for an additional 5 years.
The COVID relief package also includes Senator Cornyn's Small Business Expense Protection Act, which I cosponsored. This legislation will ensure that small businesses that qualify for forgiveness of their Paycheck Protection Program loans can still deduct their ordinary business expenses on their taxes.
The relief package also includes legislation I introduced this summer with Senator Enzi that will establish antifraud measures within the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program so that we can ensure that beneficiaries are truly eligible for the program.
We have addressed a lot of coronavirus priorities in this relief package, and I am very pleased that we are finally getting it out the door. Republicans spent months pushing for additional, targeted coronavirus relief, and I am glad the Democrats finally decided that they were ready to work with us in a bipartisan way to arrive at this legislation.
The Senate Democratic leader was just here, once again, attacking Republicans over their failure--the Democrats' failure--to work with us to get a coronavirus relief bill sooner. We brought up multiple times on the floor legislation that could have passed if there had been a little cooperation from the Democrats. He pointed out that this bill we are going to be voting on today looks nothing like the Republican bill, which isn't the case. There are a lot of similarities between the bill that we put on the floor in September and again in October--about $600 billion in targeted relief that addresses the most fundamental needs the American people need right now. One is an unemployment insurance extension for those who are unemployed. The very amount that is in the bill that we will vote on today was in the Republican bill that we brought to the floor in September and again in October and voted on here.
The vaccine money--the money that is out there to help with the vaccines that are going to be so effective in trying to get this pandemic under control--was also in the bill that was on the floor both in September and in October.
The relief for small businesses that have been hit hard by this pandemic and have seen their balance sheets and their income statements get depleted by its economic impact also would have been funded with additional Paycheck Protection Program relief in the bill that we brought before the Senate both in September and again in October. That very assistance is included in the legislation that we will vote on today.
Money for schools, as I mentioned earlier, to help them reopen safely--something that was in the legislation that we voted on in September, again in October--is in the legislation that we will vote on today.
The only things that are different, really--substantially different--
from what we brought up on the floor back then are the assistance checks that are included in this legislation. That is something that was a priority. It was a priority for Members on the Republican side; it was a priority for Members on the Democratic side; it was a priority for the White House, so it ended up being included in this and, hopefully, will provide some much needed relief to people across this country who have been struggling with their personal finances and their family finances through the pandemic.
So those are all things that we have discussed and debated previously, and I would point out that, contrary to the assertions made by the Democratic leader just now, there were numerous attempts to try and move this legislation previously.
Now, it is fair to say that the House of Representatives did send the Senate a $3.4 trillion package, which was bloated and included lots of nonpandemic, noncoronavirus relief-related items--things that were on their liberal wish list. That wasn't realistic, and they knew it. That was a campaign document designed to try and help them, at the time, win an election.
But I am glad they have decided to get down and negotiate in a serious way because the number that we are going to be passing today--a little under $1 trillion, about $900 billion--is very close to what Republicans put on the floor in September and again in October.
It is a far cry from the $3.4 trillion bloated bill that the Democrats sent over from the House and the Democrats here in the Senate tried to advance and suggested that that should be what the Senate should vote on.
We have said all along that we need to address this in a targeted way, a fiscally responsible way, a way that recognizes the most critical needs out there, both on the healthcare front and also on the economic front, and we have moved aggressively to address those needs not once, but twice.
Legislation, a real bill brought to the floor, which received a majority vote in the U.S. Senate--52 U.S. Senators in September and again in October voted here on the floor of the U.S. Senate to do the very things that I just mentioned--but it was blocked from even being considered by the Senate Democrats.
We all know here in the Senate it requires 60 votes to invoke cloture. It is a procedural motion to get on a bill. The Senate Democrats gave us no support to even get on the bill.
So, as a consequence, even though there was majority support--52 U.S. Senators voting in favor of getting on and debating the bill--because the Democrats blocked it, we didn't even have an opportunity to debate--not even to get on it, let alone offer amendments and have a discussion and a conversation and work on legislation. If they had objections to it or things they wanted to improve or things they wanted to make better, they would have had an opportunity to do that if we had simply been able to get on the bill.
So we are where we are today at this late hour in the year--December 21, Christmas week--doing this now because they didn't want to do it earlier, and some have publicly acknowledged that one of the reasons they didn't want to do it earlier is that there was a campaign underway, and they had hoped that there would be a new President, an opportunity to do it their way later.
But, nevertheless, we have before us now, finally, at long last, a piece of legislation that addresses the most critical needs that are out there, and it is very similar in many ways, in terms of the substance, the content, and the features of the bill and the overall pricetag, to what Republicans have brought on the floor of the U.S. Senate previously.
So I am glad that we are finally going to get this done, but I absolutely disagree with the statements that were made earlier by the Democratic leader, because they don't reflect reality. In fact, they don't reflect anything close to reality about what has been happening here in this Chamber over the past several months when it comes to trying to provide much needed relief to the American people who are suffering from this pandemic.
There are a couple of things that I would just mention briefly that aren't included in the bill, and I wish they were.
I have a bill called the Remote and Mobile Worker Relief Act, and I am sorry that was not included in the final bill.
This bipartisan legislation would have prevented unexpected tax bills and tax complications for medical professionals who traveled to other States to help during the pandemic and for Americans who worked from home to help slow the virus's spread.
It is unfortunate that opposition from a handful of States with aggressive taxation policies--like the Senate Democratic leader's home State of New York--has so far prevented legislation like mine from getting through Congress. But I will continue to fight for tax relief for remote and mobile workers
It has been a difficult year for our country. There are way too many virus infections, way too many hospitalizations, way too many people who have lost loved ones from this dreaded virus. It has affected people in so many ways--their health, their confidence, their economic standing and status, their mental health. There are just so many--so many--effects of this, and this winter is likely to be very challenging.
But the encouraging news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel. There is a vaccine out there that will get more widely out there, and thanks to the resources that we put into the first coronavirus bill--the CARES Act that passed last March--those vaccines have been moving forward at record speed--five times faster than any vaccine in history.
Light is at the end of the tunnel. The vaccines are coming. They are going to be proven to be very effective, and there is additional funding in this particular legislation that we will vote on today to make sure that it gets distributed as quickly as possible.
We are going to make it through this, and I look forward to sending the additional relief that is included in this legislation that we will move through the Senate today and put on the President's desk, where he can sign it into law. I look forward to seeing that additional relief get out to the American people.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Barrasso). The Senator from North Carolina.
____________________
