[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 5, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S2227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Madam President, there are serious questions about the fitness of 
both of these nominees--Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Miller. Yet, more 
broadly, the Republican leader has made a mistake by choosing to 
dedicate this session to nominations only instead of to urgent 
legislative business--COVID-19.
  We could and should be focused on issues like testing. The first 
diagnosed case of COVID-19 was diagnosed here in the United States just 
over 100 days ago. We still don't have a national testing strategy that 
is adequate. In early March, President Trump said that anybody who 
needs a test gets a test, which has entered the pantheon of 
Presidential lies, alongside: ``I am not a crook,'' and ``Read my lips: 
no new taxes.'' It was not true then, and it isn't true now. We still 
don't have a situation in which everyone who needs a test and wants a 
test gets one.
  As nations around the world, like South Korea and Canada, flatten the 
curve with rigorous national testing programs, the United States--this 
great United States, usually the leader of the world--is lagging so far 
behind. So, today, 42 Senate Democrats are sending a letter, demanding 
that the Trump administration fulfill its responsibility to produce a 
comprehensive, national strategic plan of action by May 24. Congress 
provided $25 billion in the last round of COVID legislation to help 
build up our testing capacity. The administration needs to take those 
resources and produce results. We have given him the money and the 
wherewithal. Where are they? The strategy they must come up with must 
include a strategy for managing supply chains and for making sure 
resources are equitably allocated and a strategy to use all available 
tools, like the Defense Production Act, to make sure we reach the level 
of testing that will manage this disease, save lives, and get our 
economy moving again.
  Until we have a vaccine, the most important tool we have at our 
disposal for tracking the disease, limiting its spread, and 
understanding where we can safely open is testing, testing, testing. We 
await the President's response to our letter and want to work with the 
administration to make sure we can end its embarrassment of inadequate 
testing, which, frankly, is far more than an embarrassment--it is 
crucial. It is life and death