March 18, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 52 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Pages S1784-S1786]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I thank my good friend, the Senator 
from South Dakota, for his usual display of patience.
  The coronavirus pandemic continues to test our Nation in new and 
difficult ways. There is now a confirmed case of coronavirus in all 50 
States and the District of Columbia. Our public health system was 
understaffed and underresourced, and without intervention, it could 
soon become overwhelmed.
  Even as the market shifts from day to day, the coronavirus is slowing 
our economy to a near-standstill, and we are almost certainly 
anticipating a recession. You go to the streets of many cities, towns, 
and villages, and they are empty. Schools are closed in large portions 
of the country. Businesses are struggling not to lay off workers 
because they don't have customers, they don't have clients, and they 
don't have income. There is great urgency here.
  There are really two separate and simultaneous emergencies--one in 
our healthcare system and another in the economy. We have to deal with 
both. If we don't solve the one in our healthcare, the economy will 
continue to get bad no matter what we do for it.
  Less tangible than those two emergencies but still very real is the 
impact the virus is having on American society. My home city of New 
York is effectively on lockdown. You can go to a place like the Times 
Square subway station and see actually nobody there. Americans are 
being asked--rightly--not to gather in groups of 10 or more, not to go 
to dinner or to a bar or to their church or place of worship.
  I lived through 9/11. It occurred in my city. I knew people who were 
lost. I lived through the days of the financial crisis in 2008 and 
other moments of national urgency. But there is something much worse 
about this crisis we face. I have never sensed a greater sense of 
uncertainty, a greater fear of the future, of the unknown. We don't 
know how long this crisis will last.
  You don't even know if you contracted the virus right away, or maybe 
your spouse, maybe your child, maybe your parent, maybe your friend.
  Then there is a much greater sense of isolation, a problem for which 
there is no cure. I miss not meeting and talking to my constituents. 
They are our lifeblood. That is not happening just to us here in the 
Senate; it is happening across America--friends who used to get 
together and families who had gatherings. Different social activities 
are gone--book clubs, card games. The fabric and sinew of our lives as 
human beings have been put on hold, and nobody knows for how long.
  By necessity, Americans are now sacrificing their normal lives and 
daily routines and, maybe worst of all, sacrificing the sense of 
community because we all, each individually and together as a country, 
must fight this awful virus.
  Unfortunately, we are only just beginning to see the necessary 
seriousness and mobilization of resources from the Federal 
Government. Sadly, unfortunately, and with awful consequences, this 
administration took far too long to wake up to this global crisis. It 
has wasted precious weeks in downplaying the severity of the 
coronavirus--weeks that could have been spent in earnest in the 
preparation of building our testing capacity. As a result, the United 
States continues to lag behind other countries in the number and the 
percentage of the population we are testing.

  Stories of Americans who feel sick and show symptoms but who are 
unable to access coronavirus tests appear every day in every single 
newspaper. Warnings of the potential shortages of masks, hospital beds, 
and ventilators appear in the paper every day. In 2 weeks, the issue of 
ventilators and ICU beds will be like the issue of tests today. In 
other words, 2 or 3 weeks ago, many of us were saying to get those 
tests out. A month ago, people were saying it, and now we are seeing 
the consequences--lockdowns because we can't test people. We don't know 
who has the virus and who doesn't. The same crisis will be occurring in 
a few weeks. Mark our words. Unfortunately, it is true about 
ventilators and ICU beds. We are behind the eight ball on tests, and we 
are soon going to be behind the eight ball on ICU beds and ventilators 
as more and more people get sick.
  The administration didn't pay attention to tests, and now we are 
paying the price even though many of us were hollering for weeks about 
the emerging issues with testing. The same problem is about to happen 
with ventilators. We know, in 2 weeks, the number of ventilators might 
become a massive problem. We must get ahead of it and get ahead of it 
now. I call on President Trump to use his existing authority to help 
address the widespread shortages of medical equipment, particularly 
ventilators, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

[[Page S1785]]

  I joined 27 of my colleagues in a letter to President Trump to urge 
him to invoke the Defense Production Act of 1950, which authorizes the 
President to strengthen domestic manufacturing capacity and supply in 
extraordinary circumstances. It is used in times of war, and we must 
mobilize as if it were a time of war when it comes to hospitals--beds, 
supplies, equipment. The DPA, the Defense Production Act, allows for 
the President to direct the production of private sector firms of 
critical manufactured goods to meet urgent and national security needs. 
The President should do so immediately.
  A report came out today that the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA are 
ready and willing to participate in the response process. The Army 
Corps could build temporary hospitals with beds, but it still hasn't 
received instruction from the White House, from the administration. I 
thank the men and women who are willing to be on the frontlines, 
combating the pandemic, but this kind of inexcusable action is 
maddening, infuriating, and must be rectified. Lives are at stake.
  Public health infrastructure is the top priority because, if we can 
curb this virus, the economy will get better. We need to do things to 
help it, obviously, but if you ignore the public health crisis with 
regard to the equipment and infrastructure and personnel which is 
needed in many more numbers than we have ever seen, the economy will 
not get better.
  The legislation passed by the House on Saturday--phase 2 of the 
coronavirus response--has a little bit of this, and it must pass the 
Senate today. Unfortunately, first, we must dispose of a Republican 
amendment that would make a condition of the bill a requirement for the 
President to terminate military operations in Afghanistan. Yes, you 
heard me right. Our Republican leadership has put on the floor an 
amendment that would make a condition of the bill a requirement that 
the President terminate military operations in Afghanistan.
  In a time of national emergency, this Republican amendment is 
ridiculous--a colossal waste of time. We probably could have voted on 
this bill a day or two ago if it had not been for the need to have 
scheduled this amendment. I am eager--we are all eager--to dispatch 
this absurd Republican amendment and send this bill to the President. 
For instance, it allows for the free testing and treatment of the 
coronavirus, which is very much needed. We can send this bill to the 
President and begin work on the next phase, phase 3.
  As my colleagues know, Senate Democrats have already outlined several 
proposals for the next phase of legislation, and the specifics have 
been made public. The proposal has four main priorities: public health 
capacity, unemployment insurance, paid sick leave, and priority 
treatment for labor in any bailout to industry. There are many things 
in this bill that are important: no payment on student loans or 
mortgages and help with our mass transit systems. There are many 
things, and the Democrats are going to fight for them in the next phase 
of the response, but the priorities I mentioned are key: public health 
capacity, unemployment insurance, paid sick leave, and priority 
treatment for labor in any bailout to industry.
  On the public health capacity, as I mentioned, we need masks; we need 
hospital beds; we need ventilators; and we still need testing kits. So 
the Democrats are proposing a Marshall Plan for our public health 
infrastructure. The sooner we act on it, the better. We also need to 
help in terms of public transportation for our healthcare system. Tens 
of thousands of healthcare workers in New York City and in many other 
cities cannot get to their jobs--their very needed jobs--if there is no 
public and mass transit. So a Marshall Plan for our public health 
infrastructure is what is needed now. It will prevent the situation 
from getting even worse, and it will allow our ailing economy to begin 
to heal once we contain this virus.
  Workers who get laid off or have their hours cut to almost nothing 
need expanded unemployment insurance--period. The Secretary of the 
Treasury reportedly told Republican Senators yesterday 
that unemployment could hit 20 percent. Unemployment insurance is a 
nonnegotiable part of our response to the coronavirus.

  With regard to paid sick leave, Senators Murray and Gillibrand have a 
paid sick leave policy to meet this crisis. It should be added to this 
part of the legislation. I think they will ask for it in a unanimous 
consent request or will offer an amendment to do so. If it is not 
included in this part, it should, certainly, be included in the next 
phase of legislation.
  There will be other items that we will have to address down the road. 
Certain industries are struggling--airlines, hotels--but we must make 
sure that we prioritize public health and workers over corporate 
bailouts. If there is going to be a discussion about a bailout, it must 
include workers' priorities and protections. The airlines are very 
important, for sure, as they employ a lot of people. Many of us who fly 
back and forth to our States know of the good people who work as the 
pilots and the flight attendants and the mechanics and the clerks and 
the ticket takers. They are good, fine people. We want to make sure 
they are protected. One of the reasons--let's not forget--that many 
airlines are so short of cash right now is that they have spent 
billions on stock buybacks, which is money they had to send out when 
they should have been saving it for a rainy day for their workers and 
customers. That issue should be addressed.
  A few of my Republican colleagues have proposed a onetime cash 
payment of $1,000. My fellow Americans, this is not a time for small 
thinking, and this is not a time for small measures. This is a time to 
be bold, to be aggressive. A single $1,000 check would help people pay 
their landlords in March, but what happens after that? How do they pay 
their rent in April when their offices or restaurants or stores are 
still closed for business? How about May? How about June? The President 
has suggested that this recession could last through the summer. One 
thousand dollars gets used pretty quickly if you are unemployed. In 
contrast, expanded unemployment insurance, beefed-up unemployment 
insurance, covers you for a much longer time and would provide a much 
bigger safety net.
  This is the time to put tribalism aside and acknowledge that this 
recession, if we allow it, will do real harm to Americans up and down 
the income scale, and it will hurt Americans of all ages. So, if we are 
going to provide direct payments, they need to be bigger, more 
frequent, and more targeted. Millionaires shouldn't get them.
  These are the kinds of issues that all parties are going to have to 
discuss--Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate with the 
White House. The sooner we discuss them together, the quicker we will 
be able to move forward. Yet Leader McConnell announced yesterday that, 
in his plan to develop the next phase of legislation, Senate 
Republicans would sit among themselves and then sit down with the 
administration and come up with their own proposal before presenting it 
to Senate Democrats, let alone to House Democrats. The process that 
Leader McConnell has outlined for phase 3 legislation is too 
cumbersome, too partisan, and will take far too long given the urgency 
and need for cooperation.
  Secretary Mnuchin says he wants legislation passed by the end of the 
week. The McConnell process will not get us there. The phase 3 
legislation should be the product of a five-corners negotiation, that 
being with House and Senate leaders--majority and minority--plus the 
White House. That is the way it has worked the best, the quickest, and 
the fairest in the past. If all parties are in the room from the get-
go, the final product will be guaranteed swift passage. The process 
Leader McConnell outlines is far too reminiscent of the typical 
legislative process in the Congress--a process that far too often 
results in delay and gridlock. We can't afford that right now.
  Leader McConnell was right when he said that, in times of national 
emergency, we must shed our partisanship and rise to the occasion. So 
let's begin that way--Republicans and Democrats, the House and Senate, 
Congress and the White House. The best way to advance phase 3 
legislation is to have a five-corners negotiation from the outset.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Republican whip.

[[Page S1786]]

  

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