[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 180 (Wednesday, October 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6378-S6380]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTION

      By Mr. REED (for himself and Mrs. Capito):
  S. 4825. A bill to provide clarification with respect to the 
effective date of

[[Page S6379]]

Medicare coverage of COVID-19 vaccines without any cost-sharing; to the 
Committee on Finance.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Ensuring 
Access to COVID-19 Vaccines for Seniors Act with Senator Shelley Moore 
Capito of West Virginia. It is critical that a future COVID-19 vaccine 
be made available to Medicare beneficiaries with no cost sharing, which 
is the goal of our legislation.
  The CARES Act, which Congress passed overwhelmingly and was signed 
into law at the end of March, included provisions requiring Medicare to 
cover FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines with no-cost sharing. These 
provisions are designed to ensure that as soon as there is an approved 
and available COVID-19 vaccine, seniors across the Nation would be able 
to get the vaccine for free under Medicare. Vaccines are one of the 
best public health interventions in our lifetime and we must do 
everything we can to encourage everyone to get the vaccines recommended 
by their doctors. One of the most effective ways to improve vaccination 
rates is to remove barriers such as cost. In fact, working with my 
colleagues, I was able to include provisions in the Affordable Care Act 
to ensure that vaccines are covered by insurance with no cost-sharing. 
This not only makes our population healthier, but it also saves money 
in the long-term.
  While the COVID-19 vaccine development and testing protocols are 
ongoing, it is very likely that the first vaccines will be made 
available under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by FDA. An EUA may 
be granted to one or more COVID-19 vaccines in order to get vaccines to 
those who need them the most, while the pharmaceutical companies 
continue testing and evaluating vaccine candidates and pursuing full 
FDA approval. While I have concerns that the Trump Administration may 
attempt to interfere in the vaccine approval process, most public 
health experts believe that the first vaccine candidates will be made 
available under an EUA. In this case, the CARES Act provisions 
requiring Medicare to cover COVID-19 vaccines would not apply, as 
vaccines made available under an EUA would not yet be considered FDA-
approved. Our bipartisan legislation would address this oversight and 
ensure that COVID-19 vaccines would also be covered by Medicare if made 
available by an EUA.
  I am pleased that the House of Representatives has already passed 
this provision as a part of the much broader Heroes Act. It is my hope 
that the Senate will follow suit immediately. It has been more than six 
months since the CARES Act was signed into law, and the need to provide 
additional relief to combat the health and economic impacts of the 
COVID-19 pandemic has only increased. We are far overdue for another 
robust relief package, and it is shameful that the Senate has not yet 
acted to pass such a measure. It is critical that the Ensuring Access 
to COVID-19 Vaccines for Seniors Act be considered swiftly in the 
Senate, along with a number of other critical efforts to help the 
American people during this difficult time.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Ms. HIRONO (for herself, Mr. Booker, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. 
        Casey, and Ms. Baldwin):
  S. 4831. A bill to provide resources for States, State educational 
agencies, local educational agencies, educators, school leaders, and 
others to measure and address instructional loss in students in 
kindergarten through grade 12; to the Committee on Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, recently Hawaii public schools resumed 
classes for the start of the 2020-2021 school year.
  Faced with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, our schools had planned 
to combine in-person, distance, and blended learning this year. 
Unfortunately, a sudden increase in coronavirus cases required a shift 
to fully distance learning through the first quarter. Now schools are 
navigating distance learning as they determine how they will return to 
the classroom.
  The pandemic has made it difficult to plan, and our principals, 
teachers, parents, and students are doing the best they can. Many are 
still recovering from earlier this year, when the coronavirus closed 
campuses for two months--resulting in 46 fewer days in the classroom 
for students, who almost certainly experienced learning or 
instructional loss.
  I have heard from parents and students, and they have been effusive 
in their praise for educators who are making this school year work. I 
have also heard from educators, who have been clear in their need for 
more training and resources--especially when it comes to learning new 
strategies for providing effective distance learning and addressing 
instructional loss in students. Many educators are concerned about how 
the pandemic will disproportionately impact at-risk and marginalized 
students. In Hawaii, educators are concerned about how it will impact 
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students, who before the pandemic 
already experienced achievement gaps in reading, math, and science, and 
graduated from high school and attended college at lower rates than 
their peers. These are not new challenges that we need to address, but 
they could certainly be made worse by the pandemic unless we provide 
the appropriate resources.
  Until a vaccine is widely available, we must make decisions based on 
the best science and public health information we can get in order to 
keep families, teachers, and school support staff safe. For many school 
districts around the nation, distance learning will be a key component 
of our education system, and we owe it to our students to do it right. 
For these reasons I am introducing the Learning Opportunity and 
Achievement Act, or ``LOAA'', which would provide professional 
development and training resources for educators, tutoring and academic 
services for students, and resources for innovation grants, learning 
hubs, and research and best practices related to instructional loss in 
at-risk and marginalized students.
  No one anticipated how the coronavirus would change our schools, as 
the abrupt shift to distance learning this past spring showed. Our 
educators need additional professional development and training 
resources so that they can provide the most effective educational 
experience to students of all ages and backgrounds.
  LOAA provides these resources through new and existing programs. 
Specifically, the bill provides $2.25 billion for ESSA Title II-A 
programs, $50 million for new professional development programs, and 
$100 million for new training programs.
  Building on what we know about effective professional development, 
the bill promotes programs that are evidenced-based, collaborative, 
job-embedded, content-based, and sustained. These kinds of programs 
will be helpful for educators.
  We do not know the full impact the coronavirus will have on schools, 
but preliminary estimates have indicated that recent closures could 
result in severe setbacks for students--including, on average, 7 months 
of instructional loss for all students, 10.3 months for Black students, 
9.2 months for Hispanic students, and more than a year for low-income 
students. LOAA provides $50 million for new tutoring programs to 
address instructional loss in at-risk and marginalized students.
  The bill also includes funding for innovation grants and learning 
hubs to give public schools the resources they need to provide 
effective, equitable distance learning opportunities to all students. 
These resources will allow different school districts to take different 
approaches based on their local needs and circumstances, while offering 
opportunities for at-risk and low-income families who cannot afford to 
create privately tutored ``pods'' to ensure that their children don't 
fall further behind.
  And finally, the bill includes requirements for the U.S. Department 
of Education to identify and disseminate best practices for schools to 
address instructional loss. It also requires the Department to study 
instructional loss in at-risk and marginalized students.
  Let me be clear. K-12 schools need additional support during this 
difficult time. Senate Democrats are fighting to provide this support, 
including at least $175 billion for K-12 schools, and will continue to 
do so. But we can go even further to make sure our educators have the 
resources they need to help students succeed--not only during the 2020-
2021 school year, but also in future years. LOAA would help to provide 
these resources.

[[Page S6380]]

  I encourage my colleagues to support this important bill.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Ms. HIRONO (for herself, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Markey, and Mr. 
        Booker):
  S. 4837. A bill to repeal the Alien Enemies Act, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Neighbors 
Not Enemies Act. This long overdue legislation would repeal the Alien 
Enemies Act, one of four laws from 1798 that were collectively known as 
the Alien and Sedition Acts. These controversial laws were enacted 
during a period of threatened war and were an attempt to severely limit 
freedom of speech and press and the rights of noncitizen residents. Of 
the four laws, only the Alien Enemies Act remains in effect. The Alien 
Enemies Act allows the President of the United States to ``apprehend[ 
], restrain[ ], secure[ ] and remove[ ],'' noncitizens without due 
process during times of war.
  In 1941, President Roosevelt used the authority of the Alien Enemies 
Act to apprehend ``alien enemies deemed dangerous to the public health 
or safety of the United States by the Attorney General or Secretary of 
War.'' These actions allowed for the detention of Japanese, Italian, 
and Germans as well as confiscation of their property. Then in 1942, 
Roosevelt expanded on his actions by issuing Executive Order 9066, 
which authorized the mass removal and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese 
Americans, both U.S. citizens and noncitizens, during World War II. The 
internment of Japanese Americans was a shameful act, and it was not 
until 1988 that the Civil Liberties Act was passed, formally 
apologizing to Americans of Japanese ancestry and providing reparations 
of $20,000 to each surviving victim who was incarcerated during World 
War II.
  During the 2016 election, Donald Trump invoked President Franklin D. 
Roosevelt's application of the Alien Enemies Act during World War II 
when he called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United 
States. Since taking office, President Trump has continued to advance 
divisive policies and hateful rhetoric that target and demonize Muslim 
and other minority communities. The President's cruel anti-immigrant 
policies have resulted in the separation of children at the border, 
detention of families with no end in sight, and many more harmful 
policies that betray the principles and values on which our Nation was 
built upon.
  The President has brought the need to repeal the Alien Enemies Act to 
the forefront. We must stop his attempts to divide us through 
intolerance and fear. We must prevent civil and human rights travesties 
from happening on U.S. soil again. Sadly, we cannot trust the 
President. The Neighbors Not Enemies Act would help keep our Nation 
from repeating history in targeting an entire group of noncitizens for 
unconstitutional and discriminatory arrest, detention, and deportation. 
The repeal of the Alien Enemies Act is long overdue, and I call on my 
colleagues in the United States Senate to swiftly pass the Neighbors 
Not Enemies Act during the 116th Congress.
  I yield the floor.

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