[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 166 (Thursday, September 24, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5850-S5851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2021 AND OTHER EXTENSIONS ACT--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 
552, H.R. 8337.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 552, H.R. 8337, a bill 
     making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2021, and 
     for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.


                              Coronavirus

  Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing 
to devastate our public health and our economy, it is far past time 
that we reach agreement on another relief package that is so 
desperately needed. It will require good-faith negotiations on both 
sides of the aisle, not just saying no and turning the tragedy of 
200,000 COVID deaths into a partisan political issue.
  For my part, I believe there should be nine elements in the bill. 
First, there should be an extension of the Paycheck Protection Program, 
known as PPP. This is a program that I crafted with Senators Marco 
Rubio, Jeanne Shaheen, and Ben Cardin to provide forgivable loans to 
our small businesses so that they could pay their employees.
  I am pleased to report that, in my State, 28,000 small businesses--
that is nearly three out of four of our small businesses--have taken 
advantage of $2.3 billion in forgivable loans, sustaining 250,000 jobs. 
It has truly made a difference. Now we need to do a second round of PPP 
for the hardest hit businesses, those for whom the first PPP loan was 
the lifeline but they need additional help.
  So we have set a revenue test such that, if your revenue is 35 
percent below what it was in an equivalent quarter last year, you would 
qualify for another PPP loan. In addition, those who have never 
received a first PPP loan could apply under the initial rules. This 
would make a difference in keeping our small businesses afloat, 
particularly those in the tourism industry that have been so hard hit, 
and ensuring that their employees will still have jobs.
  Second, we need to provide aid to our schools. I have talked to 
superintendents all over the State of Maine, and I have visited schools 
in Hollis and Houlton. I have seen firsthand the enormous investments 
they have had to make in order to reopen the schools safely or adapt to 
a hybrid model, depending on where the location is and the incidence of 
COVID-19.
  In one school that I visited, they have replaced all of the round 
tables around which the elementary schoolchildren would usually be 
working with desks lined up. It reminds me of when I went to elementary 
school because that was the style of teaching back then.
  They are sanitizing and deep-cleaning the schools. They are trying to 
figure out what to do with the little toys that are used to teach 
children how to count: How do they sanitize them? Or do they get each 
child his or her own set of toys to place in individual bins?
  They are cutting new doors into the nurse's office so that no longer 
will ill children or staffers have to go through the front office. They 
are putting up plexiglass shields. They are adding additional bus 
routes in order to safely separate the children.
  These changes cost a lot of money, and it is one reason why, in 
addition to providing direct aid to our schools, we need to provide 
assistance to our States, our counties, and our communities.
  I have talked to city and town managers all over the State of Maine. 
They did not receive much from the initial allocation of funding that 
went to State governments, and they need help now.
  Let me give you an example. The city of Auburn has had to freeze six 
vacant positions because of expected revenue losses. That is two 
firefighters, a police officer, and three public works employees. These 
cuts come as the city of Auburn has spent $200,000 in new expenses 
responding to the virus.
  I have yet to talk to a city or a town manager who is not 
experiencing the need due to similar cuts and who experienced delayed 
or canceled public works projects, like paving local roads. That has a 
trickle-down effect. It affects the contractor and his or her 
employees, who will no longer have that work. It affects their 
suppliers from whom the concrete or the tar is no longer going to be 
purchased.
  This is why I feel strongly that the bipartisan SMART Act, which I 
worked on with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, led by Senator 
Cassidy and Senator Menendez, needs to be passed. We can negotiate 
exactly how much money and exactly to whom it should go, but it is 
essential that aid go to the community level.
  Fourth, we need to help our airlines. Otherwise, come October 1--just 
right around the corner--we are going to see massive layoffs. We are 
talking about between 80,000 and 100,000 layoffs of airline employees 
and also related jobs in airports, such as concessionaires. It will 
also lead to canceled service, if there are no longer crews for 
airplanes and ground crews. We are going to lose airline service to 
communities all over this country.
  We need not to forget the motor coach industry, which few people are 
talking about. They have been hurt by the cancelation of everything 
from school sports to tours. We need to help them survive this period 
of economic struggle. Senator Jack Reed and I have introduced a bill 
with more than 40 cosponsors on both sides of the aisle that would 
provide that assistance.
  No. 6, we need to continue investing in testing. That is key to 
reopening our economy and safely housing people in nursing homes and 
other long-term care facilities.
  I am excited by the new Abbott Labs test, which will cost only $5 and 
give a result in 15 minutes. I take particular pride because Abbott 
Labs has a large facility in my State, and they are expanding from 
Scarborough to Westbrook in order to produce these tests more rapidly.
  No. 7, we need to provide limited but important liability protections 
to our frontline hospital workers, to our small businesses, and to our 
schools and colleges.
  One restaurant owner put it this way to me. He said: Susan, what if I 
get sued despite taking every precaution, following the CDC guidelines, 
but a customer comes in, later develops the coronavirus, and sues me, 
saying, I think I got it in that restaurant. Well, I am pretty sure 
that he didn't, but I still have to pay to defend that lawsuit?
  Clearly we should not protect anyone who is guilty of gross 
negligence, but

[[Page S5851]]

that is not what we are talking about here.
  No. 8, we need to provide a reasonable Federal unemployment insurance 
supplement to help struggling families during this difficult time when 
so many people have lost jobs through no fault of their own, but we 
need to make sure that we are not creating a disincentive to return to 
work when jobs reopen. That is why I like the approach of either having 
an 80-percent replacement of the pre-job-loss wage or figuring out a 
formula that would approach 80 percent. That is far higher than the 
normal wage replacement under our State systems, but these are 
extraordinary times.
  No. 9, we need an emergency appropriation for the U.S. Postal 
Service. Otherwise, I am worried that the Postal Service will not be 
able to meet its payroll starting the second quarter of next year. 
Think of the costs the Postal Service has incurred. It has had to 
retrofit every post office, every processing center in this country, as 
well as provide protective gear to its postal employees who are both 
essential and frontline workers.
  Those are the elements that I believe should be in the next 
coronavirus package. While there are disagreements on perhaps three of 
the nine elements that I have suggested, by and large, there is 
agreement on seven of the elements. There may be disputes about exactly 
how much money should be appropriated, but we can work those disputes 
out, just as we do in the appropriations process.
  We simply cannot wait and do nothing and just hope for the best. Hope 
is not an effective strategy when it comes to dealing with this 
persistent pandemic. The American people have demonstrated resilience, 
courage, and compassion during this crisis, but they need our 
additional help.
  I hope that next week we will put aside the partisan bickering, the 
``just say no'' approach that we have seen, unfortunately, from the 
Democratic leader, and that we will come together for the good of the 
American people; that we will come together not as Democrats and 
Republicans and Independents but as Americans to do what our country 
needs done right now.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). The clerk will call the 
roll.
  The assistant senior legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Remembering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise today to remember a daughter 
of New York and an American giant. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an 
icon, a legend, and a role model for so many people, myself included. 
We may never see a jurist with her kind of courage again in our 
lifetimes.
  The daughter of an immigrant furrier and Garment District bookkeeper, 
born and raised in Brooklyn, she pushed back against every expectation 
and limitation that society had for her and rose to the bench of the 
highest Court in the land. She was a brilliant legal mind, an 
unparalleled jurist, an opera fan, fearless dissenter, and the 
``Notorious RBG.''
  Justice Ginsburg spent her whole life fighting against injustices, 
those she faced personally and those she could not abide in society.
  When Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to law school, she was one of just 9 
women in her class of 500. She graduated at the top of her class but 
was rejected by law firm after law firm because she was a woman and 
because she was a mother. Undaunted, she found a different path to 
success.
  She educated generations of law students at Rutgers and Columbia and 
spent her time outside the classroom at the ACLU, becoming an architect 
of the plan to eradicate gender discrimination. One strategically 
chosen case at a time, she proved to a male-dominated legal system that 
discrimination on the basis of sex is real. She was a trailblazer. She 
took herself to places that few women had ever been, and she took the 
law to places it had never been.
  She stood for all of us. She stood against discrimination in all its 
forms. She was someone who fundamentally understood the gifts that 
people have to give to this country regardless of one's sex, one's 
gender orientation, one's race, or one's background.
  She knew that the words etched in stone above the entrance of the 
Supreme Court--``Equal Justice Under Law''--were still a goal, not a 
given, and she fought to make them a reality every day of her life.
  As has been noted, in the Jewish tradition, only those of great 
righteousness die on Rosh Hashanah--because God determined that they 
were needed until the end. Justice Ginsburg was truly someone of great 
righteousness, and at the very end, she left us with one final message: 
``My most fervent wish is that I not be replaced until a new president 
is installed.''
  She asked us to respect the right of the American people to be heard, 
but within just hours of her passing, that wish was denied by Members 
of this body.
  The hypocrisy of my colleagues is breathtaking. The same Members 
rushing this process are the very same ones who denied Merrick Garland 
hearings because his nomination was supposedly too close to an 
election. He was nominated in March. It is nearly October. This 
election is not just close. It is already happening. People across the 
country are already casting their ballots. Yet this is about more than 
rank hypocrisy. Let's look at what is really at stake.
  The first case that will be argued in November will decide if 129 
million Americans with preexisting conditions will continue to have 
access to affordable healthcare. Think about that. My Republican 
colleagues are rushing through the confirmation of a judge in order to 
nearly guarantee that 129 million Americans with preexisting conditions 
will see their premiums go up or have their healthcare ripped away 
entirely. That would be inhumane at any time, but in the middle of a 
pandemic, it is truly unthinkable.
  They are rushing to vote on a Justice who will decide the fate of 
more than 640,000 DACA recipients who have known no other home, no 
other country, but this one.
  They seek to confirm a judge who will revoke the rights of 50 percent 
of the population to make decisions about their own bodies and their 
reproductive healthcare.
  This new judge could very well overturn recently decided cases that 
have finally granted same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry 
the persons whom they love.
  This new judge will likely decide on the Nation's ability to conduct 
a fair and accurate census and the right of every person in this 
country to have equal representation under the law.
  It is clear to me why our colleagues are rushing this. They fear that 
the American people simply don't agree with their views. They fear that 
this is their last chance to impose an ultraconservative view on our 
country, in which women's rights, LGBTQ rights, and immigrants' rights 
take a back seat to corporate interests and discrimination. That is not 
what the American people want. They should get the chance to have their 
say. Their ability to access healthcare, to marry, to live in this 
country, and to be represented fairly and fully by this government is 
on the line. Their rights hang in the balance.
  The actions of my colleagues deny the people a voice. What does that 
say about this Chamber? What does it say about our democracy
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Young). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________