[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 5, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2229-S2232]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Business Before the Senate

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, after a few weeks of working remotely to 
help flatten the coronavirus curve, we are back in Washington to 
continue our coronavirus response and address other important issues. 
It has been an incredibly difficult couple of months for our country 
and, in fact, for most of the world. More than 1 million Americans have 
contracted the coronavirus, and thousands have died. Our economy has 
taken a huge hit. Millions of Americans are out of work, and businesses 
are struggling to stay afloat. Americans are worried. They are worried 
about their own health. They are worried about the health of their 
families and loved ones, and they are worried about their finances.
  My colleagues and I know that Americans are suffering. Our overriding 
priority over the past 2 months has been

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responding to the coronavirus crisis. We passed several major response 
bills and provided substantially more than $2 trillion in assistance. 
We have funded testing, medical care, personal protective equipment for 
frontline medical personnel, vaccine and treatment development, paid 
sick leave, unemployment benefits, direct relief payments to American 
citizens, forgivable loans for small businesses, and much more.
  Our goal has been to provide a comprehensive response, addressing not 
just the medical priorities but also the economic impact this virus has 
had on so many American families, and there is more work to be done. 
Right now a big part of that work is monitoring the implementation of 
legislation we have already passed. We provided a tremendous amount of 
money, and we need to make sure it is getting to where it needs to go 
as quickly as possible and is being spent in the most effective way.
  Monitoring the implementation of the legislation we have already 
passed is also crucial for informing any future legislation. As I said, 
we have provided a tremendous amount of money for coronavirus, equal to 
almost 50 percent of the entire Federal budget for 2020, and it is 
important that any future funding be carefully targeted. We need to 
make sure that Federal dollars are going only to real coronavirus 
priorities. Our children and grandchildren will be footing the bill for 
the money we are adding to the national debt.
  As a case in point, the debt to GDP, which was scheduled to be 79 
percent this year, is now expected to be, in the Year 2020, 101 
percent. That jump from 79 percent debt to GDP to 101 percent debt to 
GDP is the largest jump, I am told, literally, since 1943, in the 
middle of World War II. So it is essential that we spend wisely.
  In addition to overseeing the implementation of the coronavirus 
legislation we passed and gathering data to inform any future bills, we 
also have a number of coronavirus-related nominations to consider, 
something that is a role that is unique to the U.S. Senate under the 
Constitution. When it comes to judicial nominations, nominations to the 
executive branch, the Senate has the responsibility to ensure that we 
conduct the research, investigate nominees, hold confirmation hearings, 
and ultimately vote to put people into key positions in the 
administration and on the courts.
  So the question about why we are here this week I think is a fairly 
easy one to answer, and that is because there are lots of really 
important positions that are key not only to the healthcare crisis we 
are facing in this country but to our ongoing national security 
priorities as well as to the economic challenges we are facing through 
this crisis.
  In fact, this week, the Senate Banking Committee will be holding a 
hearing on the nomination of Brian D. Miller to be the special 
inspector general for pandemic recovery at the Treasury Department, a 
key role created by the legislation that we passed here in the 
Congress, critically important to the implementation, making sure 
everything is done in the right way. As we all know, inspectors general 
pay a key oversight role in Federal departments, helping to root out 
waste, fraud, and other abuses of taxpayer dollars. If confirmed, Mr. 
Miller will be an essential part of ensuring that the trillions we 
provided for coronavirus relief are spent properly.
  Committees are doing other essential coronavirus work this week as 
well. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is 
holding hearings on an initiative Senators Blunt, Alexander, and others 
worked to get included in the coronavirus legislation. This initiative 
was designed to spur innovation in private sector and public sector 
collaboration, with a goal of dramatically increasing our coronavirus 
testing capabilities. So that is going on in the Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee.
  The Senate Commerce Committee, of which I am a Member, is holding a 
hearing this week looking at the impact of COVID-19 on the airline 
industry, an industry we know is being profoundly impacted by what is 
happening with the virus.
  Next week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee will be hearing directly from the leaders of our fight 
against the coronavirus--Drs. Fauci, Redfield, and Hahn and Admiral 
Giroir. Committee work will play a key role in any future coronavirus 
bill, and it is good to have committees able to meet once again here in 
Washington, DC.
  Of course, while the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to be our 
priority in Washington in the coming weeks and months, there is other 
essential work that we have to do for the American people: 
appropriations bills, nominations to essential administration posts, 
and critical national security legislation is just some of the items on 
our agenda over the next couple of months. This week, the Senate Armed 
Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee are holding 
hearings on nominees for key national security positions, including the 
Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of the Navy.
  Senate Republicans are committed to getting our country through this 
crisis and helping American workers and businesses deal with the 
virus's impact. We will be discussing a lot of ideas over the next 
couple of weeks, from tax and regulatory relief to support farmers and 
ranchers to ways to spur job creation and shield responsible businesses 
from frivolous litigation once the economy is opened up again. As I 
said, we will continue to focus on making sure that the money we 
provided gets where it is needed as fast as possible.
  The United States undoubtedly has more tough days ahead, but we are 
going to get through them. We are going to come out tougher on the 
other side. In the meantime, we have work to do here in the U.S. 
Senate. People across this country are hurting and struggling, and 
there are many priorities that need to be addressed. So I am pleased 
that the Senate is open for business. We are going to be working the 
next few months, as I mentioned, on the national defense authorization 
bill, a piece of legislation that we have to do on an annual basis that 
deals with all of our national priorities, making sure that the men and 
women who defend this country, the American people, and our interests 
around the world have the training, equipment, and resources to do 
their jobs to keep Americans safe.
  We have a critical water infrastructure bill that will be marked up 
by the Environment and Public Works Committee, also a piece of 
legislation that is important to the economy in this country. If you 
look at the long list of things and priorities that we need to deal 
with here in the U.S. Senate, it is important that we be about the 
people's business.
  I know I can speak from personal experience that over the past 
several weeks, like my colleagues, we have worked really hard to stay 
connected. I worked really hard to stay in touch with people across 
South Dakota using technology, platforms, and apps that I never really 
had much experience with using in the past. From Zoom to Skype, to 
Google Hangouts, to Shindig, there are all kinds of interesting new 
apps that I think many of us became acquainted with, conducting lots of 
virtual meetings and staying in touch with our constituents to see what 
is important to them, finding out what is working and what is not 
working and getting feedback on what we could be doing to even better 
respond to the crisis that is out there. But there is no substitute, 
when it comes to doing the Nation's business, for being here, for 
committees to work, to meet, for us to be able to vote, for us to be 
able to deal with the important nominations I mentioned that under the 
Constitution, we, the Senate, have an obligation and responsibility to 
advise and consent on, whether that is a judicial nomination, key 
Cabinet post, or an important administration position that pertains to 
national security and the virus.
  There are lots of priority items for which the U.S. Senate has a key 
and principal responsibility, and we need to be about that business. So 
I hope, in the days and weeks ahead, as we take on those challenges, 
that we can work together in a way that provides maximum safety for the 
people who work here but also gives the important priority to the items 
and the issues that are critical to Americans at this point, in the 
middle of this crisis and, hopefully, when we get on the other side of 
it, those important critical national security priorities, economic 
priorities, and other business that the American

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people need us to deal with on a daily basis.
  I thank the Presiding Officer for the time and look forward to 
working with my colleagues, albeit in different circumstances than we 
have had to deal with in the past but, nevertheless, to have the U.S. 
Senate, the people's representatives, here doing the important work the 
American people expect us to do.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, let me join our friend and my friend, 
the Senator from South Dakota, and say that I am glad to be back in 
this Chamber doing the work of 29 million Texans. I see the Presiding 
Officer and my partner, my fellow Senator from Texas, joining us as 
well.
  I was listening closely to the Senator from South Dakota's recitation 
of all the things we have to do. There is no shortage of work for us to 
do, and there is no reason for us to continue to curl up in a fetal 
position in some undisclosed location and be afraid to go outdoors.
  The fact is, the experts at the Centers for Disease Control, people 
like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, whom we have seen on TV on a nightly 
basis, tell us what we need to do in order to function safely. It is 
the same thing that our grocery clerks and our doctors and nurses and, 
frankly, our law enforcement personnel are doing. We know how to do 
this and how to do it safely.
  At the same time, we simply cannot hide out and not show up for work. 
What kind of message does that send to the American people?
  We know this is an extraordinary crisis, an unprecedented crisis, and 
we have done some things we would never consider doing under normal 
times--appropriating more than $3 trillion at warp speed. I, frankly, 
think it is a good time for us to tap the brakes and to consider what 
it is we have already done and where we need to make some corrections.
  Anytime you do anything this big and this fast, you are going to make 
some mistakes. We have seen that, and there have been corrections both 
in terms of the way the Treasury is administering the program, but also 
we have heard about gaps. For example, I have done a number of video 
conferences with our chambers of commerce around the country, and they 
ask me: Why did you leave the chambers out of the support under the 
Paycheck Protection Program for nonprofits? I, frankly, don't have a 
good answer for that. I said that is something we need to go back and 
fix. If we can't do it by Treasury guidance, then we need to do it by 
future legislation.
  I have no doubt we will continue to legislate, but we need to do it 
smartly. We need to be here in person so we can have the interaction 
and deliberation and debates that are so important to coming up with a 
good product.
  We have done some pretty extraordinary work in the last 6 weeks or 
so. Both Chambers have come together and quickly passed four separate 
pieces of legislation to strengthen our response to the coronavirus.
  We sent vital funding to our hospitals. Ironically, at a time when 
our hospitals were the frontline of defense dealing with people with 
COVID-19, many of them were laying off employees because we had asked 
them to forgo elective surgery, which is one of the ways that they end 
up paying the bills.
  Then we learned, in the global competition for personal protective 
equipment, literally every mayor, every Governor, every President, 
every leader of every country around the world was in a global rush to 
try to come up with personal protective equipment.
  One of the things I have told my constituents and friends that I 
think we have learned is we can't depend on China and on these 
uncertain supply chains for things as important as personal protective 
equipment--or pharmaceuticals, for that matter. So these are some of 
the lessons and some of the feedback we have gotten as we have 
interacted with our constituents.
  We know that testing has gotten much more widespread, and we have 
made tremendous advances in terms of treatment with all the clinical 
trials that are underway--well over 70 of them--and now the hope of a 
vaccine, hopefully sooner rather than later. Once we get a vaccine, 
then hopefully this will be relegated to the same status as the 
seasonal flu, for which we typically do have a vaccine, so the 
particularly vulnerable individuals--the elderly, people with 
underlying chronic disease--can be protected first and foremost.
  We also sent funding to our State and local Governors: $150 billion. 
Now, we have all talked to our mayors and our county judges--in Texas, 
that is what we call our county leaders--and Governors. Obviously, the 
sales tax revenue has fallen off a cliff because there is not much 
business going on in our retail stores, to be sure, although there is a 
lot going on online with deliveries and those sorts of orders.
  But we know our State and local governments provide for law 
enforcement and other essential services, so we felt it was important 
to throw them a lifeline, too, to help them meet their budgets and 
maintain those vital services.
  Perhaps the most ambitious and the most popular thing we did is to 
try to help our small businesses stay afloat through the Paycheck 
Protection Program. Obviously, this was successful--or it is certainly 
popular in that $350 billion was spent in 2 weeks. Then we had to come 
back and replenish that with another $320 billion. But we know that 
money is flying out of our local community banks and credit unions, 
helping small businesses keep their employees on the payroll. And, if 
they do that, then this low-interest loan will turn into a grant.
  The goal, of course, is, once we defeat this virus--as we will--we 
will then be in a position for those businesses to bring their 
employees back, if they have furloughed them, to help us build out of 
this recession in which we are currently involved.
  We also provided critical funding for our farmers and ranchers and 
other producers so they can keep our country fed. We have taken 
unprecedented steps to minimize the impact of this virus on the 
American people and our economy and tried to provide some modicum of 
certainty amid so much uncertainty.
  I don't think there is a single event in my lifetime that rivals the 
breadth and depth of the crisis that we have reached. Certainly, 9/11 
was a different type of crisis. The 2008 great recession--with the 
meltdown of the banks on Wall Street and the great recession, those 
were significant events to be sure, but nothing quite has rivaled what 
the coronavirus has done to our public health and to our economy.

  The cascading consequences of this virus have reached every 
community, every sector of our economy, and every corner of the globe. 
Every single American has experienced some sort of shift in their daily 
routine as a result of the virus. Maybe ``shift'' is too tentative a 
word. Actually, many of us have had our lives turned on their head.
  For some, the changes were very significant. Think about those who 
contracted the virus, the loved ones who couldn't be at their side, the 
healthcare workers who were there and are helping them, those who are 
sick. Then there are billions of Americans who have lost their jobs, 
small business owners wondering whether they are going to cease to 
exist and whether they can survive this current crisis, and then the 
farmers seeing a glut of supply and reduced demand.
  Now, many people have been able to safely work from home, and that is 
wonderful, but often they end up pulling double duty as teachers for 
their children with the schools having been closed, and others have 
continued heading out to work every day to keep the cogs of our society 
running--so-called essential workers.
  By the way, I really don't like the designation between essential and 
nonessential. I think, really, what we ought to call it is safe and 
unsafe because all workers are, I believe, essential.
  In ways big and small, this virus has affected everybody in this 
country. While we must continue working to slow the spread and reduce 
the economic impact, we cannot ignore the profound human impact it has 
had. Many people have been isolated under very difficult circumstances, 
not knowing whether they will still have a job to go back to. Many are 
living with the uncertainty of this pandemic, perhaps in a crowded 
house or apartment with children, maybe elderly parents and others, cut 
off from the rest of society.
  It is no secret that this pandemic is taking a toll on America's 
mental

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health. Last weekend, the family of a New York City emergency room 
doctor released some devastating news. Dr. Lorna Breen had been in the 
trenches battling this virus for weeks. She was working long hours, as 
many of our healthcare providers are, and told her family about the 
devastation that she was seeing every day.
  She contracted COVID-19 and took a week and a half off to recover, 
but then she went back to work, eager to help where she could. Shortly 
after, Dr. Breen's family intervened and brought her home to 
Charlottesville, VA, to rest and to spend a little time with her family 
and for R&R.
  Sadly, tragically, the struggles Dr. Breen was facing felt untenable. 
After overcoming COVID-19, she ultimately took her own life by suicide.
  Dr. Breen was a hero who devoted her entire life to caring for 
others, to putting others before herself. While her tragic death cannot 
be reversed, it should serve as a warning signal about the broader 
impact of this virus.
  In a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly half of 
Americans reported that coronavirus is having a negative impact on 
their mental health--one-half. That is up from one-third in March. The 
number of texts to the Federal Disaster Distress Helpline skyrocketed 
in April--more than a 1,000-percent increase.
  As we continue to discuss what future coronavirus legislation could 
look like, we cannot ignore the mental health impact. Nationwide, we 
rely on the community mental health centers and community behavioral 
health organizations to support those battling mental health and 
substance abuse disorders. As the need for these services has 
increased, resources have actually decreased. More than 90 percent of 
the community behavioral health organizations nationwide have been 
forced to reduce their operations--reduce their operations at a time of 
increased need and demand--and more than 60 percent of behavioral 
health organizations project they can't survive financially for more 
than 3 months under the current COVID-19 conditions.
  Congress tried to do something to help. We provided $175 billion for 
the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund to support 
healthcare providers on the frontlines of this crisis. As this funding 
is being distributed, mental health providers cannot be forgotten.
  Along with 24 of our colleagues, Senator Stabenow and I have sent a 
letter to Secretary Azar and Administrator Verma, urging them to 
quickly allocate this funding and ensure that these mental health 
organizations are included. Not only do they provide vital care and 
support for individuals struggling with mental health issues; they also 
are key to fighting addiction and substance abuse
  Those struggling to overcome addiction are often living in a fragile 
state, fighting each day to stay the course, but the current 
circumstances have made those daily battles much more difficult. They 
are isolated from their friends and loved ones, and they are dealing 
with the anxiety caused by the virus and possibly--probably--facing 
financial struggles.
  The new stressors brought on by this virus are compounded by reduced 
capacity for treatment. In-person support meetings are canceled, 
treatment clinics and counselors are curtailing appointments, and the 
barriers to overcoming addiction loom even larger. For those 
individuals, treatment cannot simply be delayed.
  Our country has made serious inroads in our battle against the opioid 
epidemic. In 2018, overdose deaths were down 4 percent from the 
previous year, the first decrease in nearly three decades. We can't let 
the coronavirus derail the progress we have fought so hard to make.
  The CARES Act--I am glad to say--does expand access to telehealth. I 
think many Americans are experiencing the benefits of telehealth, and I 
predict at some point this will change a lot of the ways that we 
receive consultation by healthcare providers: not having to drive our 
car and make appointments, pay for parking, spend a lot of time out of 
our day. We can simply do it through video conference, conveniently and 
effectively. But more must be done to support those battling addiction 
and mental health challenges.
  For those who are transitioning from the criminal justice system, the 
need for additional resources and support is especially dire. Earlier 
this year, Senator Blumenthal and I introduced the Crisis Stabilization 
and Community Reentry Act to support those who have been a part of the 
criminal justice system and to provide stable treatment for those with 
mental illness.
  Most prisoners who are receiving treatment for a mental health or a 
substance use disorder are released without a plan to keep them on 
their regimen. This often leads to higher recidivism rates, 
unsurprisingly, which could be avoided. It also means that law 
enforcement is, all too often, left to be the first responders for 
those suffering a mental health crisis, which can escalate those 
confrontations and put both the officer and the individual in that 
crisis at risk.
  This bill creates grants to connect law enforcement, State and local, 
and community resources to help individuals who are either engaged in 
the criminal justice system or have been released from prison and makes 
it possible for them to access the resources they need to have a 
successful reentry into civilized society. These grants connect those 
services to make sure that people suffering from an acute episode can 
access treatment without the risk of being reincarcerated.
  We are facing a battle unlike any we have seen in my lifetime, and 
the stress and the anxiety that come with it are taking a tremendous 
toll on the American people. It is not just the virus and the threat of 
catching the virus that are taking the toll. We need to look at this 
holistically and realize, if you are a victim of domestic violence and 
you are forced to be confined with your abuser and have nowhere else to 
go and maybe have no money coming in the front door, only to have your 
abuser abusing alcohol and perhaps becoming even more violent--there 
are a whole catalog of problems associated with this virus and the 
virus itself, the risk of infection being just one, and we need to look 
at this holistically.
  As our discussions continue this week on how to support the American 
people during this unprecedented time, resources for mental health and 
substance abuse treatment providers cannot fall by the wayside.
  (Mr. CRUZ assumed the Chair.)

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