[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 210 (Friday, December 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7435-S7436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the CARES Act passed the Senate on March 
27, 2020. It was a rare moment in bipartisanship--a legislative triumph 
that saved our country from disaster in the very early days of the 
pandemic. As you know, I sat and negotiated a great deal of that with 
Secretary of State Mnuchin. And we all agreed it did a lot of good--a 
lot of good. But, unfortunately, for the past 259 days, as the virus 
continued to spread--when we did the CARES Act, we thought, well, maybe 
COVID will be over by the summer. Everyone thought that, but obviously 
it wasn't. And so the virus has continued to spread. Thousands of small 
businesses have closed their doors for good. Tens of millions of 
Americans lost their jobs and livelihoods. As American families waited 
in 21st century bread lines, cars snaking for miles down American 
highways; as tens of millions of Americans fell behind on the rent and 
the mortgage and face eviction; as 15 million Americans got sick; and 
as 292,001 Americans died, the Senate Republican majority, led by the 
majority leader, made sure the Senate could not do anything of 
significance to help the American people.
  May, June, July, August--pause; we don't need to do anything, said 
the leader. Let's wait and see what happens. Democrats didn't say that. 
The leader did. Waited and waited and waited. Now it is December, and 
we still, because of the leader's intransigence, have nothing of 
significance to help the American people during the worst economic 
crisis in 75 years and the greatest public health crisis in a century.
  Why? Why can't we get together? Why can't there be the bipartisanship 
that Americans search for and yearn for? At a time of such great 
crisis, there is one reason why America's two major parties have not 
gotten together during the time of acute national emergency, and that 
is because the Republican leader has demanded a partisan poison pill--a 
sweeping corporate liability shield--be included in any legislation. 
Otherwise, he won't let it pass.
  It sounds like an exaggeration, but that is what the leader has said. 
``We're not negotiating over liability protection,'' the leader said, 
on July 28.

       I'll be responsible for putting the final agreement on the 
     floor. And as I said, it will have liability protection in 
     it. We're not negotiating with the Democrats over that.

  That is the fact. That is the history. There is not equality here.
  Finally, yesterday, as the bipartisan group of Senators and House 
Members were closing in on a final agreement, what happened? Yesterday, 
the Republican leader's team told the other congressional leaders that 
the bipartisan group would be unable to satisfy Senate Republicans. 
Why? Because it might not grant the exact sweeping liability 
protections for corporations that Leader McConnell has demanded. It is 
an unconscionable position. No relief for the American people unless 
corporations receive blanket immunity from lawsuits.

[[Page S7436]]

  That particular poison pill that has foiled bipartisan agreement for 
more than 8 months is the nub of the problem. If we could just get past 
that, if the Republican leader would only back off maximalist demands 
on corporate immunity, we could get something done. I mean it. We could 
actually get something done.
  Now, I know the Republican leader will say: Wait a minute, Democrats 
have partisan demands of their own, like providing assistance to save 
State and local services. But to equate State and local aid--money for 
policemen and firefighters, busdrivers, sanitation workers--to complete 
corporate immunity is a false equivalence. We know the two policies are 
not equivalent.
  First of all, there is broad bipartisan support for State and local 
aid. It is not a Democratic demand. Many Republicans support it too. 
There are bipartisan bills on the floor of the Senate demanding $500 
billion in aid for the States. There are Governors--Democrats and 
Republicans--sending letters to all of us saying we need money; we need 
help. But the leader's corporate immunity provision doesn't have the 
support of a Democrat. Not a single person voted for it. It is 
expressly partisan. There is not equivalence.
  I know the media likes to say, on the one hand, on the other. There 
is not equivalence here. One is helping people who desperately need 
help. The other is a partisan demand that has been around for a long 
time that simply does not get bipartisan support.
  State and local aid is a solution to a real and urgent problem. 
Corporate immunity from lawsuits is not. They are not equivalent. State 
and local budgets are deeply in the red. Since the beginning of the 
pandemic, State and municipalities have laid off 1.3 million public 
employees--firefighters, police, first responders, teachers. We are 
talking about jobs--jobs--in red States as well as blue States.
  The leader likes to cite one statistic about tax revenue in one blue 
State to argue that no State--no State deserves Federal aid, not 
Wyoming or Alaska, North Dakota, that have each seen sharp declines in 
tax revenue; not Florida or Nevada or Louisiana, that depend on tourism 
and face revenue declines of 10 percent or more.
  State and local aid is a real and urgent problem. It is not abstract. 
It is people, and it is workers. PPP that helps small businesses--one 
of its main rationales, an important one, something I agree with--
prevents workers who work for small businesses from being laid off. 
What is the difference between a worker being laid off by a small 
business because they don't have funding or a worker being laid off 
from a State and local government because they don't have funding? 
There is no difference. There is no difference.
  The leader's corporate immunity provision, on the other hand, is a 
solution, ideological, in search of a problem. Almost a year into this 
pandemic--15 million Americans infected, 290,000 lives lost to COVID-
19--there have been only 23 personal injury suits from exposure to the 
coronavirus--23 in the entire country, over the entire year. And that 
is why Senate Republicans can't reach a bipartisan agreement to help 
the unemployed, feed the hungry, fund a vaccine, or support our 
schools?
  Corporations that want protection from a few dozen lawsuits is 
equivalent to millions of workers from State and local governments 
being laid off? Give me a break. Again, there are a few States that 
don't need the help, but many more States do--many more.
  This is mind-boggling. The Republican leadership is blocking a 
solution for the entire country until they get a favor for corporations 
who don't even need it. The American people, all of us, are sick of 
this ridiculous gamesmanship by the majority leader.
  We need to come together. We need to get something done. The American 
people deserve an outcome. It is not going to happen if the Republican 
majority insists on getting 100 percent of its partisan demands
  I yield the floor.
  I, once again, thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his courtesy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

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