[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 171 (Thursday, October 1, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6020-S6021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. President, on another matter, with the school year well underway, 
I, like, I am sure, many of my colleagues, am continuing to listen to 
and learn from our teachers and administrators about how this 
unprecedented school year is unfolding. Whether kicking off the year in 
person or online or with some hybrid model, educators are facing a 
whole new range of challenges that have made the past several weeks 
anything but ordinary.
  Over August, I spent some time talking to kindergarten through 12th 
grade teachers and students to learn how they were preparing to 
overcome the hurdles brought on by this pandemic. I also visited our 
colleges and universities to see how they were handling the start of 
the new year, and since then, I have stayed in close contact with all 
of them to learn more about how it is proceeding.
  Our college campuses, for example, in most cases, are home to more 
than just classrooms and libraries. They are whole communities unto 
themselves with student housing, offices, dining facilities, gyms, 
convenience stores, and with, in some cases, full-service utility 
companies.
  Lee Tyner, who serves as general counsel for Texas Christian 
University in Fort Worth, testified before the Judiciary Committee 
earlier this year and compared running a campus to leading a small 
city. You have a vast set of responsibilities that extend far beyond 
the education you are providing to your students, and those 
responsibilities have only grown more challenging during the pandemic.
  Back in July, I spoke with some of the chancellors of our public 
colleges and universities to learn more about how they were preparing 
to deal with the immense challenges higher education was facing, and 
last Friday, I was able to catch up and see how things had gone--
whether they had gone according to plan or whether they had encountered 
problems they had not been able to anticipate
  I learned about the University of Texas System's comprehensive plan 
to keep students and staff safe at each of their campuses across the 
State, which involves a serious testing infrastructure. Four 
institutions have built labs on their own campuses to conduct the 
testing that is necessary, and each has the capacity to test between 
500 and 2,000 people each day. Other campuses are partnering with the 
UT Health Science Center institutions for their own testing, and these 
are providing a no-out-of-pocket cost testing opportunity for students, 
faculty, and staff.
  The University of North Texas System has reopened campuses with a mix 
of in-person, online, and hybrid instruction, and it has been very 
effective at stopping the transmission of the virus. If a student or 
any close relative tests positive, there are clear guidelines for 
isolating and then contact tracing to minimize the spread.
  When I spoke last week with the chancellors, UNT had only 27 active 
cases on campus, and it has seen no evidence of COVID-19 transmission 
in the classrooms or buildings where they conduct face-to-face 
activities.
  This is the trend most campuses are seeing. There is a low to zero 
transmission rate in classrooms, thanks to these preparations and these 
precautions. The biggest risk to students, staff, and the surrounding 
communities actually comes from off-campus activities or people who 
bring it onto the campus who are not part of that student body or 
administration.
  In Texas and States across the country, we have seen news articles 
about how off-campus parties and gatherings have been linked to 
clusters of these new cases. Appropriately, the universities have 
cracked down on these campus groups or individuals hosting those 
events, and they are trying to do what they can to identify them and 
then stop the spread.
  John Sharp, who is the chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, 
talked about one unconventional way that A&M is trying to pinpoint 
potential outbreaks as soon as possible.
  A&M has adopted the practice of wastewater surveillance, which has 
been used for years as a way to detect viruses or diseases within a 
community. Now it is being used to find the source of individual COVID-
19 cases or clusters of cases in student housing, particularly 
dormitories. The university takes wastewater samples from sewage 
systems on campus, and a positive test allows them to then go back and 
target individuals for testing.
  Obviously, if there is no virus detected, they know there is no need 
for that conditional testing, at least at this time. This practice can 
help to detect an outbreak at a dorm that can otherwise go unnoticed 
for several days and, thus, be spread far and wide.
  Our colleges and universities across the State have gone to great 
lengths to manage the crisis that did not come with a manual. They have 
implemented the best practices to protect the health and safety of 
students and staff members and to ensure that their students have 
access to a quality education, which is the very purpose for which they 
exist.

  In our conversation last week, these chancellors told me how helpful 
the CARES Act funding has been over the last several months, and they 
reiterated that they need more help. They need Congress to come 
together and provide more help. It is not just colleges and 
universities. It is also our elementary, middle, and high schools.
  Congress has already provided more than $30 billion in emergency 
relief for education, including $2.6 billion in Texas alone. This 
funding has gone a long way to prepare for this school year and to 
allow these leaders to manage the risks associated with the spread of 
the virus.
  They say they need more help, and it is incredibly frustrating that, 
despite this being a bipartisan goal and something we were able to do 
together in four separate bills, we have now been unable to pass 
another relief bill to give our schools and our children the resources 
they need in order to be safe. You would think this would be a 
priority.
  The two House proposals we have seen--one of which passed the House 
earlier this year and the other of which was introduced last week--did 
include additional funding for education, and a bill we proposed over 
the summer included another $105 billion for education--more than 
tripling the investment that has already been made in the CARES Act.
  History has proven that legislation gets harder to do the closer we 
get to an election, and perhaps nothing is better evidence of that than 
where we find

[[Page S6021]]

ourselves today, but the need for additional help should transcend 
those partisan differences.
  I spoke to Secretary Mnuchin less than an hour ago, and he continues 
talking to Speaker Pelosi, but at some point, while talking is good--it 
is better than not talking--sometimes it is important not just to talk 
but to actually do something. In this case, that would mean the House 
and the Senate working with the President to agree on another bill. So 
I hope we are at a point at which we can see some relief soon.
  I am thinking about the airline industry and the tens of thousands of 
airline employees who are being furloughed, actually, starting today. 
American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are headquartered in my State. 
I know, through no fault of their own, the airlines are struggling. We 
have tried to help them, and we have helped them, but we need to help 
the airlines' employees by providing them with more assistance during 
this challenging time. We can do that if we would get off of dead 
center and work out some mutually agreeable compromise.
  Nobody is going to get everything one wants. It is not the nature of 
life or the nature of this business, but the American people are 
depending on us to do our jobs, and we cannot let them down.
  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 senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). Without objection, it 
is so ordered.

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