[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 213 (Wednesday, December 16, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7521-S7524]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to ask our 
Democratic colleagues to join us Republicans in providing immediate 
relief--relief in the fight against coronavirus and economic relief for 
the people of this country.
  Americans don't ask much of their government, but they are asking us 
for something right now. No. 1, they are asking to help control the 
spread of the coronavirus, and, No. 2, they are asking to help with an 
economic recovery.

[[Page S7522]]

  America and Americans shouldn't have to choose between staying open 
and staying healthy. We need both, and Congress needs to provide a path 
beyond the pandemic.
  A path forward, as the Presiding Officer knows, is something 
Republicans have been proposing now for a long time. We have done it, 
first, with the CARES Act, and we need to do it right now with 
additional coronavirus and economic relief legislation.
  Our bill is practical. It supports our neighborhoods--men and women 
working on Main Street in our small towns and communities all across 
the country. We also need to provide unemployment help for those who, 
for no reason of their own, happen to find themselves out of work as a 
result of the pandemic. We need to get the vaccine to as many Americans 
as we can as quickly and safely as we can, especially during this 
holiday season, when we are really looking at a medical miracle.
  Now, what we have seen from the other side is gridlock--no path 
forward on the economy, no path forward on coronavirus. We have seen 
them play politics with the pandemic. House and Senate Republicans have 
tried now 40 times--40 different times--to get something accepted that 
can be sent to provide that relief for the American public. The 
Democrats, each and every time, blocked it. The gridlock must end 
today.
  Mr. President, I would like to spend just a moment on this historic 
vaccine discovery. It is, to me as a doctor, comparable to insulin, 
comparable to the vaccine for polio, and comparable to penicillin as an 
antibiotic. It is going to be that dramatic in terms of the change in 
the world.
  As we gather on the floor today, planes, trucks, UPS, and Federal 
Express are all taking vaccines across the country to many, many 
locations--over 636 this first week. So it is not just a scientific 
triumph. It is also a logistical triumph.
  Every newspaper in the country yesterday, I believe, had a picture of 
somebody receiving the vaccine, receiving the shot in that local 
community. It is a remarkable time for our Nation. As Christmas 
packages are being delivered, so is this great hope for people 
receiving the vaccine.
  All told, this week, there were 3 million doses distributed to people 
around the country, in 636 sites. In my State alone, Wyoming, there are 
5 different locations where the vaccine has arrived and over 5,000 
people being vaccinated this week. By the end of the year, there will 
be 15,000. I am sure in the Presiding Officer's State of Indiana, there 
are more locations than that, more people being vaccinated. The 
frontline workers are getting it first, and that is the way we need to 
do it.
  As part of the CARES Act--the Presiding Officer and I voted for it--
$10 billion went to help develop the vaccine and money spent to 
distribute the vaccine. But we need to do more. About $6 billion is 
additionally needed to help in a full distribution of the vaccine.
  Well, I am ready to vote for that. I want to make sure we have that 
money so the vaccine, which has been amazing in terms of the speed of 
development, can also be deployed similarly to what was done.
  This vaccine was done in an unprecedented scale--the number of people 
who are going to be vaccinated, the success, the timeline. A safe, 
effective, and powerful vaccine is truly astonishing. Never has a 
vaccine been developed or distributed faster.
  It truly is this Senate, under the CARES Act, and this 
administration, under Operation Warp Speed, which stood this operation 
up and made it successful. So we are seeing the real effects as people 
are getting the shot.
  When you think about it in the big picture--and you know this, Mr. 
President, from your background in business and contributing in your 
community--this is what we talk about when we talk about American 
ingenuity. It is why people around the world look to America for 
answers, because when things that are critical occur, it is America 
that finds the solutions, as we have done right now with this vaccine.
  We have come together, public as well as private, over the last 8 
months--the FDA--to approve a vaccine. It is interesting: Who should 
get it first--the doctors, the nurses? I know firefighters are getting 
it here in the District of Columbia. Firefighters have been getting it 
at home in Wyoming, and people like the healthcare providers, and then, 
of course, those who are most vulnerable, people who are in our nursing 
homes right now and in assisted living facilities, people who are most 
vulnerable. That is who ought to get it first.
  I know when the time comes for me, I am going to get it. My wife is 
going to get it. We will be saying yes because I believe it is safe, I 
believe it is effective, and I believe it is the solution that gets us 
through this. It gets us through the disease, and it gets the economy 
back on track.
  I talked to one of the doctors who runs the intensive care unit at 
Wyoming Medical Center. The healthcare personnel are exhausted. They 
have been working double shifts. If one gets sick, others have to pick 
up the workload, as more and more people show up in the hospitals and 
the emergency rooms with coronavirus. This is very welcome relief.
  I talked to a physician who works in the emergency room. She is going 
to be vaccinated on Friday. So this is what we need.
  It is so interesting. The pundits talk about the dark winters of the 
coronavirus surge, but for the healthcare providers in our home 
communities, they have to keep the doors open every day and keep the 
lights on and take care of these patients, one after another after 
another.
  Once the first one came--and the wave hit different parts of the 
country at different times--once the first patient came, they continued 
to come, and they are still coming today. That is why this vaccine is 
such a welcome relief and why, for the healthcare providers who have 
done such remarkable work, we can say this is their finest hour. They 
have kept us going, kept patients, offered of themselves, and now the 
vaccines have arrived.
  We need to do more in this body. We have healthcare workers leading 
by example. We have folks in assisted living. Close to half of all the 
people who lost their lives because of coronavirus were residents of 
assisted living. But of those millions of healthcare workers, we need 
to make sure that the vaccines continue to flow to them and to all of 
society and to all people in this country.
  It is by doing that, that we will put this disease behind us. We will 
be back to our strong, robust, and growing economy. Our kids will be 
back full time in school. The universities will be returning to the 
robust future that we know is ahead of them.
  It is because of the work of this body, months ago, with the CARES 
Act.
  But our work is not done. As we approach the Christmas holidays, 
there is more work to be done. I turn to my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle and say: Please, join us this holiday season to make 
sure that the American people, who don't ask for much, are able to 
continue to keep their lives on track, get back on track, and move 
forward into the year 2021 with a vaccine available to everyone and for 
a much better new year.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me say a few words on the coronavirus 
relief package that is now being negotiated. In my view, this bill of 
roughly $900 billion has a number of enormously important provisions in 
it which will do a great deal of service and help for the American 
people.
  We are talking about funding for vaccine distribution, which is a no-
brainer. We have got to get that vaccine out to every State in this 
country if we are going to finally put an end to this horrific 
pandemic. We are talking about, in this bill, in this proposal, 
increased funding for education, healthcare, childcare, nutrition, 
housing, transportation, and many other very important areas.
  I agree with all of that, but the problem is that, while this 
proposal addresses some of the major crises facing our country and the 
families of our country, there is simply not enough money in the 
proposal to deal with the unprecedented crises that we now face.
  It is no secret to anybody that right now, at this moment in America, 
we face the worst set of crises that this country has seen for perhaps 
a hundred years. The pandemic is surging throughout America. More and 
more

[[Page S7523]]

people are being diagnosed with the virus. More and more people are 
ending up in hospital. More and more people are dying.
  But it is not just a public health crisis that we are addressing; we 
are dealing with a terrible, terrible economic meltdown, where many, 
many millions of people have lost their jobs; they have lost their 
healthcare. People are working, in many cases, for fewer hours. Rather 
than 40 hours a week, they are working 30 hours a week--less income 
coming in.
  So this bill has a lot in it that is good, but given the enormity of 
the crises that we face, it simply does not go anywhere far enough.
  As the Presiding Officer may well remember, in May, in response to 
the crisis, the Democratic House passed a Heroes bill calling for $3.4 
trillion in new money to address the kind of crises that we are facing. 
And while that bill did not have everything that I wanted in it, it was 
a serious, serious step forward in addressing the multitude of crises 
facing our country. It was a $3.4 trillion bill, passed in the House in 
May.
  In July, the House came back and said: Well, we are not going to 
spend $3.4 trillion; we are going to reduce it to $2.2 trillion, and 
they passed what was called a Heroes 2 bill, which called for $2.2 
trillion in new money. Again, it did not go as far as I would want but 
was a very serious effort.
  Among other things in that bill as well as the first Heroes bill, 
there was a provision to extend unemployment benefits for another 4 
months and provide a $600 supplementary check. And there were 
provisions in it to provide a $1,200 direct payment to adults and $500 
to their children. That was the Heroes 2 bill for $2.2 trillion.
  Just a few months ago, the Trump administration, represented by 
Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin, proposed a $1.8 trillion bill--$1.8 
trillion.
  Today, the bill that is being negotiated calls for all of $348 
billion in new money. This is a $900 billion bill, but most of the 
funding is carried over from the CARES Act--$348 billion in new money. 
In other words, this is roughly 10 percent of what Democrats in the 
House passed in the first Heroes bill.
  Now, I was a mayor for 8 years. I know a little bit about 
negotiating. I, frankly, don't know how you negotiate from $3.4 
trillion down to $348 billion. You got 10 percent of what you 
originally started with.
  This is not just numbers. What this is about is whether, in this 
moment of unprecedented crisis, when families are struggling to feed 
their children, when a half a million people are sleeping out on the 
street, when in the midst of this awful pandemic over 90 million 
Americans are uninsured or underinsured and can't go to the doctor in 
the midst of a pandemic, when they are sick, at a time when many, many 
millions of families are worried about getting evicted from their 
apartments or their homes because they no longer have the income to pay 
their rent or pay their mortgage--that is the crisis that we are in 
right now. And, unfortunately, this proposal does not address that 
crisis to the degree that it should.
  Now, that is the bad news. My hope--very sincere hope--is that when 
the Biden administration comes into office in late January, their very 
first priority will be to address the deficiencies and the inadequacies 
in this bill.
  The American people today, the working class of this country today, 
are struggling in a way that we have not seen since the Great 
Depression of the 1930s. People are desperate. I will never forget, in 
my State, in my community, in my neighborhood, a few months ago--
Burlington, VT--they shut down--the State shut down a highway, and 
hundreds and hundreds of automobiles lined up, one behind each other, 
in order to get emergency food distributed by Vermont National Guard--
in my community.
  That is going on all over this country, where States are in worse 
shape than the State of Vermont. People who have never, ever gone to an 
emergency food shelter are now lining up for emergency food packages in 
the United States of America, in the richest country in the history of 
the world, at a time, by the way, when a number of billionaires are 
doing phenomenally well.
  So this bill, in my view, does not go anywhere near far enough in 
terms of addressing our crises, and I hope that as soon as the Biden 
administration comes into office, they will address those deficiencies.
  Now, the good news--there is some good news, and I am happy, as we 
enter the holiday season, to say something that I think the American 
people are wanting to hear. And that is, when you ask the American 
people--and the pollsters do that. They say to the American people that 
we are in the midst of this terrible crisis; what do you think should 
happen?
  Overwhelmingly, some 80 percent of the American people--
overwhelmingly, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, they say that, in 
the midst of this emergency, we need the U.S. Government to respond to 
our pain because we don't want to get evicted; we don't want our kids 
to go hungry; we don't want to be saddled with incredible debt. The 
government has got to do something.
  Eighty percent of the American people--Democrats, Republicans, 
Independents--understand that.
  Then, when you ask them, ``What is the most important thing that can 
be done?''--there is a long list of things--what they say is the most 
important thing that can be done is, in this moment, help my family 
out. Get me some money so I can pay my bills, so I don't get evicted, 
so I can feed my kids, so I can go to the doctor when I get sick. Get 
me a direct payment.
  As you know, the CARES Act provided $1,200 for every working-class 
adult in this country; that is, for an individual earning less than 
$75,000 a year; for a couple, $150,000; plus $500 for their kids. That 
means, for a family of four--husband, wife, and two kids--that is 
$3,400.
  Now, you don't get rich with that, but when you get a check for 
$3,400 for a family of four, it means that maybe you can pay your 
bills; maybe you can breathe a little bit easier; maybe, come 
Christmastime, you might actually be able to buy your kids a few gifts; 
maybe the fear of eviction is lessened just a little bit.
  That is what we did in the CARES Act, and that is what I wanted in 
this bill. Now, a week ago, 10 days ago nobody here was talking about 
the need for direct payments, help for working families, despite the 
fact that that is the issue, the program that the American people most 
wanted. There are a lot of other important things that we are dealing 
with. That is what the American people wanted: Help us out. Let us make 
a decision. Get us some money in this time of need.

  I am happy to say, working with people like Senator Hawley of 
Missouri; working with the Progressive Caucus in the House of 
Representatives; working with Senators Gillibrand, Warren, Merkley, 
Markey, and Wyden; working with Pramila Jayapal and many others in the 
House, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ro Khanna, 
and many others who have stood up in the House and said ``We have to 
have direct payments,'' I am happy to say that, as of now--and we are 
going to fight for more because this process is not over--the proposal, 
as I understand it, provides for a direct payment of $600 for every 
working-class adult and $600 for their kids. That means for a family of 
four, that would be $2,400. That is half of what I wanted, but it is a 
step forward. I am going do my best to make sure that we come as close 
to that $1,200 as we possibly can.
  Millions of our people today are living in desperation. Half of our 
workers are living paycheck to paycheck, while one out of four American 
workers today is either unemployed or making a starvation wage of less 
than $20,000 a year. During the holiday season, over one-third of 
Americans expect to lose income--one-third--and are having a difficult 
time paying for basic household expenses. In America today, hunger is 
at its highest level in decades. More than half a million Americans are 
homeless, and over 30 million of our people are on the brink of 
eviction. By January 1, 12 million Americans will owe an average of 
$5,800 in back rent.
  As bad as this crisis is for the whole population, from coast to 
coast, it is worse for the African-American and Latino and Native 
American communities. During this pandemic, nearly 60 percent of Latino 
families and 55 percent of African-American families and

[[Page S7524]]

many, many, many Native American families have either experienced a job 
loss or a pay cut.
  All across this country, working families are standing up and saying: 
You know what, we have served in the military. We are doing our best to 
raise our kids in this unprecedented moment in history. We need help.
  I want to thank not only my friends in the Congressional Progressive 
Caucus in the House of Representatives--Jayapal, Tlaib, Omar, Ocasio-
Cortez, Ro Khanna, and many, many others--I also want to thank the 
millions of Americans who have stood up and demanded that the 
government respond to the needs of working families.
  I want to thank the over 60 groups representing millions of working 
families, progressives, the elderly and young people, including Public 
Citizen, the Center for Popular Democracy, the Sunrise Movement, Social 
Security Works, Presente, and People's Action, for pushing a 
progressive agenda forward and for demanding that this government 
respond to the needs of our people.
  So here we are, as this proposal continues to be negotiated. As I 
said earlier, it is my hope that not only do we make sure that 
unemployment benefits are extended for another 16 weeks at $300 per 
week, it is my hope that we can see some light here and get to the 
$1,200 direct payment that adults in this country desperately need. I 
am going to do my best in the coming days to make sure that happens. I 
hope the American people will join with me and get on the phones and 
call up their Members of the House and Members of the Senate and say 
that in this unprecedented moment in American history, government has 
to respond to the needs of working families.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
scheduled vote take place now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  All postcloture time has expired.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Dawson 
nomination?
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), the Senator from Nebraska (Mrs. Fischer), the 
Senator from Georgia (Mrs. Loeffler), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. 
Perdue).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 39, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 270 Ex.]

                                YEAS--56

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Ernst
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--39

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Enzi
     Fischer
     Harris
     Loeffler
     Perdue
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President 
be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory 
quorum call be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________