[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 211 (Monday, December 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7453-S7454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this past weekend, we saw that the 
historic nationwide effort to bring this pandemic to heel has begun a 
critical final chapter. After months of development, the first U.S. 
doses of COVID-19 vaccine rolled off the assembly line, bound for 
treatment facilities all across our country.
  I am particularly proud that an important waypoint on that journey is 
my hometown of Louisville, KY. Yesterday alone, Pfizer shipped 2.5 
million vaccine doses, and less than an hour after their airlift began, 
shipments bound for the eastern United States were passing through the 
UPS Worldport logistics hub at Muhammad Ali International Airport in 
Louisville. In the days and weeks ahead, the hard work of Kentuckians 
at UPS's new healthcare command center in Louisville will play a 
critical role in finishing this fight.
  Already they have helped direct tens of thousands of doses to 
Kentucky hospitals, where they are being administered to the 
Commonwealth's healthcare workers and most at-risk residents.
  There is a historic success story being written today along the 
vaccine supply chain, from Missouri to Massachusetts, to Michigan, to 
Kentucky, to frontlines all across our country, and it is emblematic of 
an approach that has been helping our country since the earliest days 
of the crisis. From the personal precautions that helped save our 
health system to the bravery of the doctors, nurses, and other 
healthcare workers who spent sleepless nights tending to victims of the 
virus, to the ingenuity of entrepreneurs who have spun out masks and 
sanitizer or kept serving their customers safely, to the patience of 
parents and school kids who have had to adapt in extraordinary ways, to 
our economic efforts to blunt the pain of a self-inflicted slowdown 
without precedent, all along the way, it has been a heroic, resilient 
American people fighting and winning this battle, with the government 
providing smart, targeted, and essential support to sustain them.
  It is the American people who have brought the light at the end of 
the tunnel within sight, but Washington has played a key role in 
creating the conditions for them to do it. That joint effort is how the 
unanimous, bipartisan CARES Act programs helped to sustain struggling 
families, prevented millions more layoffs, and gave Main Street a 
fighting chance. It is how Operation Warp Speed has helped to unleash 
private enterprise and the genius of researchers on a breakneck 
campaign for a cure that, just a few months ago, the mainstream media 
was lecturing President Trump would be impossible.
  At every step, the story of this year has been American workers and 
families digging deep, muscling through, and lending one another a 
helping hand, with an assist from those of us here in Congress. But 
there is a problem. The American people's work is not

[[Page S7454]]

finished. The struggle continues every day. Cases and deaths are 
mounting. The commerce that sustains small businesses is still 
depressed. Working families are still trying to grind through, but 
recently Washington has not held up its end of the bargain.

  For months--literally months--both sides in Congress have known 
roughly what the shape of a compromise rescue package could look like. 
We know all the areas where we do not even disagree and should be able 
to make significant law. But, alas, partisan dynamics and political 
posturing have prevented us from getting more relief out the door, even 
in areas where nobody even claims to disagree.
  I don't want to relitigate the last weeks and months this afternoon. 
Anyone who wants to dole out blame has a clear record they can analyze.
  It is time for this body to collectively recognize that finger-
pointing doesn't put food on the table for struggling families. Finger-
pointing doesn't help people avoid having to choose between Christmas 
gifts and making rent. And finger-pointing does not do a darn thing to 
fund vaccine distribution so we can slam the door on this virus as fast 
as possible and maximize the number of lives we can save.
  That last point is a concern that State health officials across the 
country have raised repeatedly. Even with vaccines on the way, many are 
reporting that they don't have the funds to hire enough trained workers 
or purchase enough PPE to safely administer them as fast as possible. 
As one health observer put it, ``It would be a shame if all the effort 
on Warp Speed for development isn't warp speed for distribution.'' That 
is what we risk if Congress can't get our act together and supply the 
funds to deliver this literal shot in the arm to our people. This is 
the support that State and local governments need most urgently--not 
unfettered slush funds for non-COVID-related needs that predate the 
pandemic but incredibly urgent, targeted money to get citizens 
vaccinated right now and finish the fight.
  That isn't the only urgent priority that Congress must not leave 
behind. The same business owners and working families who relied on the 
Paycheck Protection Program to get them through the bleakest points of 
the spring and summer are, once again, facing tough choices. Renewed 
health restrictions and decreased demand mean that some American jobs 
that have been sustained all this period may not survive the last home 
stretch.
  So we can help. We can provide a second round of job-saving PPP 
tailored to those who need it most.
  And what about Americans who have already lost their jobs in the 
pandemic through no fault of their own? Several key unemployment 
programs are set to expire at the end of the month. This is not an 
outcome that struggling people deserve, least of all during the 
holiday. So we should act. We should act.
  The next several days are going to bring about one of two outcomes. 
Either 100 Senators will be here shaking our heads, slinging blame, and 
offering excuses about why we still have not been able to make a law, 
or we will break for the holidays having sent another huge dose of 
relief out the door for the people who need it.
  So, look, it is up to us. It is up to us. We decide. This is entirely 
within our control. I can speak for the Republican side: We want to 
make a law to agree where we can and help people who need it. I hope 
and believe that my Democratic colleagues will feel the same way. It is 
about time to get this done.

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