[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 214 (Thursday, December 17, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7572-S7576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am here on the floor today to talk 
again about the need for us to pass a legislative package, which I 
would call an emergency package, to deal with our COVID-19 crisis we 
have in this country.
  As we talk today on the floor of the Senate, there are negotiators 
working busily in a room nearby to try to come up with that package, 
and that is a good thing. I know they have run into some roadblocks, at 
least so I have been told. We need to work through those roadblocks. 
They are relatively small compared to the importance of the overall 
mission of helping the people we represent, helping those small 
businesses, helping those hospitals, helping those families who find 
themselves without a paycheck through no fault of their own. And my 
hope is that we can get there.
  The legislation that is being looked at today, which may be part of a 
larger package that we will vote on either tomorrow or the next day, 
is, as I understand it, informed by work that a bipartisan group of us 
did over the past several weeks. I appreciate my colleagues so much. I 
see Senator Murkowski is here on the floor today. She was one of those 
people. Senator Manchin was one of the people to help organize it. In 
fact, I think the first meeting was because Lisa Murkowski invited 
people to have pizza at her place. And that resulted in a very positive 
interaction between Democrats and Republicans on a lot of detail, a lot 
of specific issues, to be able to put together a package that will help 
our country right now to work through this crisis.
  I wish I could say that things are better. But when I look at my own 
home State of Ohio, I see just the opposite. In fact, over the past few 
weeks, we have had weekly cases that have increased, not decreased. Our 
number of daily new cases is averaging around 10,000 a day now every 
day. That is double what it was just a month ago. At least in my State, 
the coronavirus crisis has increased, not decreased.
  By the same token, the economic crisis that is a result of the COVID-
19 crisis has continued to grow. We have seen people who have lost 
their jobs because their restaurant doesn't have any business, not 
because there is a government edict; although, there are in some 
States. Some States have said you have to shut down. Some States have 
gone so far as to say you have to shut down outdoor dining, not just 
indoor dining. Of course, those people have lost their jobs.
  In many cases, it is just because the virus is so prevalent, people 
aren't

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going out; they aren't going shopping; they aren't going to the movie 
theater; they aren't going to the bowling alley; they aren't going to 
the restaurant; and they aren't going to the hotels. Folks are losing 
their jobs. Again, not because of something they did or something they 
could control. It is almost like a natural disaster, and, therefore, 
they need some help and need it now.
  We really have kind of a K-shaped recovery here. People talk about a 
V-shaped recovery, where you have a recession and you come right back 
out the same way you went in. I wish that were the case here. Instead, 
it is kind of K-shaped. We do have some industries that are doing quite 
well, actually. In some areas of the country, they are doing OK. That 
is the top of the K. But the bottom of the K is those who are not. If 
you are in the hospitality business, the travel business, if you are 
someone who has a job that is no longer there because of this crisis, 
then you are in trouble. You are in trouble.
  I am told that I have now given 20 floor speeches on the need for us 
to do something. I think it ought to be targeted. I think it ought to 
be focused. What I have said is that we have this wonderful new vaccine 
coming out. Moderna is about to be approved, I believe. Pfizer was just 
approved. I am in a trial for the Janssen, J&J--Johnson & Johnson--
vaccine, actually. I think that is coming along well. We will probably 
have AstraZeneca coming soon.
  This is something that is very positive about this crisis. We 
actually finally have something that can help us turn the corner. I 
think it is important that we wear our masks. I think it is important 
that we social distance. I think it is important that we use the hand 
sanitizer--all of that. We need to keep doing it. But the difference 
between that and the vaccine is that the vaccine gives you the immunity 
we are all seeking. People talk about herd immunity and that that could 
come--early on people said--by so many people getting infected. We 
can't have that happen. Why? Because that will lead to a lot of pain, a 
lot more deaths. Three hundred thousand people have already died in 
this country from this crisis. We don't want to bring herd immunity in 
that way. We want to bring herd immunity from the vaccine.
  By the way, these vaccines are safe. They are effective. I mean, if 
you look at the numbers, 95 percent efficacy--unbelievable. Do your 
own research and look at it and make your own decision, but this is not 
a situation where, as with the flu, actually--when you take the flu 
shot, I am told, only about one-third of the time does it work and 
about two-thirds of the time it doesn't. That has happened to my family 
members, probably to you or your family members, where you take a flu 
shot, and it doesn't really help. But here, 90, 95 percent, 98 
percent--the numbers are amazing. Take a look at them--``efficacy,'' 
meaning that is how effective they are. Again, in the trial that I am 
in, the initial numbers are quite positive.

  Also, it was done in a way that I think makes a lot of sense for the 
future in terms of public-private partnership. The government basically 
said to these companies that we will provide a market for you if you 
get busy producing this lifesaving vaccine. By the way, you can go 
ahead and start producing the vaccine, even before it is approved so we 
don't have to wait 4, 5 months after an approval to then get the 
production up and going. If you don't get the approval, we are going to 
throw away the vaccine.
  It was worth doing. It was probably the best expenditure of Federal 
money we had here in the last package, the CARES package, because it 
ensured that we not only would get these vaccines quickly, but we would 
get them distributed quickly. As an example, even while the vaccines 
were being approved recently--and these were the Pfizer vaccines--those 
vaccines were already on their way to my home State of Ohio. They were 
pre-positioned there. And when the approval came, we could move 
quickly. People are being vaccinated today in my State and in your 
State--primarily, people who are on the frontlines as healthcare 
providers.
  Next, we are helping with the nursing homes, people who come in and 
out of the nursing homes, which is where, obviously, most of this 
disease happens, and then the people in the nursing homes, then our EMS 
and other first responders, people who have health problems, 
preconditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus, seniors. 
This is really exciting. This is the answer. This is what is going to 
help us turn the tide, but that is going to be a ways off until that is 
widely available.
  What I think, in terms of this package, again--I think of it as a 
bridge. It is an emergency package to get us from where we are now to 
this period probably in the March, April, May time period, when the 
vaccine will be widely available, and we will be able to have that kind 
of herd immunity we talked about earlier. We don't want community 
spread. We want community immunity. And that is the idea.
  The package that the bipartisan group put together was $908 billion. 
Six of the ten of us voted for that. All of us voted for a smaller 
package, which was $748 billion. It is important to note that of that 
$908 billion, or $748 billion, we also repurposed a lot of money that 
has already been spent. So, roughly, $600 billion was pulled back from 
the PPP program that had not been spent yet and also from a Trump 
program that the Treasury and the Fed had to provide loans that were 
not being used. That is the 13(3) Program you might have heard about. 
That program, fortunately, was not tapped into because the commercial 
bank stepped in and provided a lot of that lending that was necessary. 
Rates are at historic lows right now for mortgages, as an example, and 
other loans, so they didn't need to step in. That money is being 
repurposed. So, instead of $748 billion, it is more like $148 billion; 
instead of $908 billion, if you went for the whole thing, it is more 
like $300 billion--not that that is not a lot of money. It is. But 
compare that to what was being talked about only a couple of weeks ago 
and for the previous 9 months, by the way, which was a package in the 
House of Representatives, called the Heroes Act, which was trillions of 
dollars--$3.5 trillion, initially, and then they agreed, maybe, $2.4 
trillion. I think the last offer that was on the table that they didn't 
take was $1.8 trillion. We are not talking about those kind of numbers 
now. We are talking about a bridge, on an emergency basis. It is 
targeted and focused. I will give you an example of that.
  In this package--the bipartisan package, which I hope is picked up, 
and I think it will be by the package that the final negotiators are 
working on. That would be Secretary Mnuchin, who has been very eager to 
get an agreement that helps the American people, working for the 
President, but also the leadership here--the Democratic leader, the 
Republican leader, and in the House, the Democratic leader, the 
Speaker, and the Republican leader. That is the group right now. What 
they are saying is, we want to get a package done. I think, as an 
example, with the PPP program, they will end up picking up what this 
bipartisan group agreed to, which is to have a more narrow Paycheck 
Protection Program, PPP, to help small businesses but to particularly 
focus on those businesses that are small businesses, instead of under 
500 as an example, maybe 300 people, and those that are really hurting; 
in other words, those that are losing money relative to where they were 
last year. When you do a quarter-to-quarter comparison--fourth quarter 
this year, fourth quarter back in 2019--if you have a loss, let's say, 
of 25 percent or 30 percent, that is significant. With the funding that 
we have, isn't it better to target that funding toward those small 
businesses that are really hurting? That, I think, will be in the final 
package.
  Again, I commend my bipartisan colleagues for coming up with some of 
these ideas and working out some of this stuff because there are some 
differences. By the way, no one of the 10 of us involved in this thing, 
agreed with every part of this package, trust me.
  I would have written a different package, as any of my colleagues 
would have, but it was necessary to get to yes, to get to a result. We 
have done that and, I think, again, it will inform where we end up in 
terms of the package coming to the floor.
  The Paycheck Protection Program is a good example of that. We also 
provided in that program loan forgiveness for small loans--$150,000 or 
less--in a

[[Page S7574]]

very simplified manner, so you wouldn't have to go through all the 
bureaucracy and the costs and the loops and the hoops, which small 
businesses just can't afford to do. So I am proud of our work there as 
well.
  We also provided help to some of the hardest hit industries, 
including the airline industry. We want to keep a viable airline 
industry in this country. We don't want them to go bankrupt and planes 
to stop flying. We actually want, over this bridge period--between now 
and, as I mentioned, March, April, May--to be sure that the economy can 
get back on its feet as quickly as possible. That is why we don't want 
these small businesses to go out of business and their employees to be 
put on the unemployment lines. That is why we want to be sure our 
airlines can continue. They are having a tough time. But 90,000 jobs 
alone in this industry will be lost, we are told, unless we do 
something along the lines we did in the bipartisan package--90,000 
additional jobs lost. We don't want that. We want to be sure we are 
positioned for growth.
  By the way, in my view--for whatever it is worth--I think this 
economy is incredibly resilient. I know it is not going great right 
now. We still have 10 million people out of work who were working as of 
February of this year. We have 10 million people who haven't found 
their way back to work yet. We still have relatively high unemployment 
compared to where we were. In my State, it is about double where it 
was. But we have been resilient, given what we have been hit with. I 
believe that if we can get to this period of time where we have the 
vaccine readily available, we are poised for a takeoff.
  I think there is pent-up demand. Among my constituents, they are 
going to be happy to get out and shop again--to go to the restaurants 
and go to the hotels, to travel, to go to the movie theaters and go to 
the stages, the places where there is a performance that has to be 
canceled now and where people are struggling to keep these venues open. 
Those will not just be reopened. People, I think, will flock there. We 
have to get through to that period.
  In my view, it is worth helping to ensure that in the interim period, 
we don't have even more pain and more loss in jobs and are prepared to 
move forward.
  On unemployment insurance, again, if you lost your job, not because 
of what you did but because of what I said earlier--almost like a 
natural disaster of the virus--we should provide additional help. We do 
that in the legislation.
  The day after Christmas, the current relief ends in terms of the 
Federal help and unemployment insurance. That is not something that any 
of us should want to see. If you are self-employed, if you are a so-
called gig economy worker, then, you are able to get unemployment 
insurance right now if you don't have a job. If you can't work because 
of this virus, you can get unemployment insurance. That is not typical 
in my State, and it is not typical in most States.
  But because of the Federal law we passed, the CARES Act--again, 9 
months ago--that is permitted, but it ends the day after Christmas. I 
have people self-employed coming up to me back home saying: I have to 
know. I don't know if I can pay the rent. I don't know if I can make a 
car payment. I need to know. I don't know if I can make my mortgage.
  We are going to tell them, I hope, in this legislation that passes 
that, indeed, they are going to get the coverage. And the 13 weeks of 
the Federal extension on the State unemployment will also be extended 
so that the day after Christmas, again, people aren't falling off the 
cliff.
  Again, the Federal supplement per week originally was $600 per week, 
as you know. That $600 per week, I thought, was relatively high, 
meaning that many people were getting more on unemployment than they 
were in their jobs. That was a problem for many employers, typically 
small employers that had a tough time getting people to come back to 
work. As the economy started to improve after the March, April, May 
time period, when things started to pick up a little bit, it was tough.
  This compromise, I think, will be $300. Maybe it will be $200. I 
don't know what exactly they are working out. Our proposal was $300, 
which is a bipartisan compromise. Many Democrats would like to go back 
to the $600. Some Republicans think it should be less than $300. But 
this is a compromise, and it is a way for us to ensure that during this 
time period--and this is for 16 weeks only, so between now and the end 
of March--on this bridge that we talked about, if people are unemployed 
through no fault of their own, they should be able to get a little bit 
to be able to put food on the table, make the car payment, make the 
rent. That is in this package, too.
  There is also funding in here for rental assistance. As you know, 
some people have been hanging on wondering if they are going to be 
evicted or not. Evictions make no sense right now for the tenants or 
the landlords or the economy. We don't want people out on the street. 
Landlords don't want to go through the pain of having to go through an 
eviction and trying to find somebody else. They can get some help just 
to hold on during this period. There is funding in rental assistance to 
help keep people in their homes with a roof over their head as we go 
through this period.
  The final one I want to talk about--and there are a lot of other 
provisions here that I don't have time to go into. What I want to talk 
about is one that is a heartbreaker for me. For many years now, we have 
been challenged with this drug addiction issue, particularly opioids. 
It is prescription drugs and heroin and fentanyl, the deadly synthetic 
opioid--to the point that only 4 years ago, we had the highest rates of 
overdose deaths in the history of our country. Seventy-two thousand 
people were dying a year. A lot of us focused on that year.
  For the past 4 or 5 years, this Congress spent money and changed 
policies to help people get treatment and get into longer term 
recovery. More money went into prevention activities to keep people 
from getting into the funnel of addiction, in the first place. This was 
at epidemic levels.
  In 2018 and 2019, we started to see a reversal of that for the first 
time in really 3 decades. Every year--for something like 30 years--in 
my home State of Ohio, we would see more overdose deaths every year--
every year. In 2018, we had a 20-plus percent reduction in overdose 
deaths. It was about a 22-percent reduction in Ohio--a 22-percent 
reduction of deaths. That is because we all focused at the Federal 
level, State level, and local level, and we made a difference.

  We began to change this dynamic of young people and middle-aged 
people and across the spectrum. Regardless of the ZIP Code you lived 
in, you were being affected by this. We changed it so that people were 
actually getting the help they needed, getting out from under their 
addiction, getting back to work and back to their families. It was good 
news. The heartbreaking part of this for me is that, having made that 
progress, finally, we now see, during this coronavirus pandemic, an 
epidemic underneath it. It is the epidemic of drug addiction.
  There are new numbers out today that I saw that don't surprise me as 
much as they discourage me, which is that, this year, instead of 72,000 
people dying of overdose deaths in America from drug abuse--this is not 
just opioids but all drugs, including psychostimulants, like 
methamphetamine; crystal meth from Mexico that is cheap, powerful, 
deadly--this year, it is expected that our overdose death rate will be 
the highest ever. We are getting back to where we were. Plus-83,000 is 
the number I saw today. Remember, I mentioned 72,000 people dying only 
4 years ago. Now we are back to 83,000. This is a crisis within a 
pandemic, and we need to deal with it.
  There are lots of different opinions out there as to why this is 
happening. I believe strongly a lot of this is just from the isolation 
that comes from this pandemic. People haven't been able to go and meet 
with and talk to their recovery coaches, which is one of the ways that 
we were changing this dynamic. People were able to meet with people who 
were recovering addicts themselves to help them get through it. It was 
working for a lot of people.
  Yet at some of these longer term recovery places where people can 
be--say a home, a sober home--they had issues with the pandemic and 
have not been

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able to have the group homes provide that care.
  Also, people have not been able just to go see their doctors or their 
treatment providers. Telemedicine has helped. That is one reason in our 
package that we put more funding into telemedicine, because that is a 
way you can get to people. Both in regard to behavioral health, mental 
health issues, and with regard to addiction, it hasn't filled the gap.
  Also, a lot of people are feeling a great deal of stress and even 
despair and joblessness. And, obviously, if you go to the food banks in 
Ohio, you see people who are in their cars waiting for 3, 4, 5, 6 hours 
at times. There is something going on here, folks. These are people who 
are feeling desperation. To wait in line for 6 hours to get a box of 
food means that you have a real problem in your family.
  By the way, some of these people--because I talked to people who have 
gone to these food banks--have never been in a food bank in their 
lives. They found themselves in a tough situation.
  Again, it is not everybody. Remember the K-shaped recovery? For some 
people, it has been fine. If you are a white collar worker and you can 
telework from home virtually--maybe you are in the finance industry or 
maybe you are in the tech industry--you might be doing great. But your 
neighbor who has a job at that restaurant or perhaps in another 
business like the travel business or the motorcoach business, they 
don't have the opportunities to get that job. They are the ones in the 
food bank line.
  By the way, putting more funding into the food banks, as well as into 
helping people to be able to afford food, is, obviously, a big issue 
right now.
  The notion here is that, with this legislation, we are going to 
provide more help for people who are suffering from addiction, with the 
thought of trying all we can to try to reverse this trend.
  Ultimately, again, the best way to reverse it is to have this 
coronavirus pandemic behind us so that people can socialize again and 
gather again and aren't feeling the despair, aren't isolated. And that 
is coming.
  But the bridge to there is important so we save as many lives as we 
can. There is $5 billion in our legislation--the bipartisan bill--to do 
just that. My hope is, again, that that will be in the final package, 
and I believe it will be. I believe that what the negotiators are 
working on is very similar to what is in the legislation that we came 
together with as a bipartisan group.
  My only disappointment in the group is that we couldn't end up with 
this combination of State and local funding--targeted toward need, by 
the way, not the way it was done last time, per capita, but targeted 
for need--and liability protection for these small businesses, for 
these private nursing homes, for these EMS personnel, for emergency 
medical people who are concerned. They are concerned about it.
  What we tried to put together was a package that said: OK, if you are 
a bad actor, if you didn't follow the rules--and the rules were pretty 
clear--you aren't protected. You are accountable.
  But if you followed the rules, and you were trying your best to deal 
with ever-changing standards--and, let's face it; they have been quite 
different. Remember back in March and April, people were saying: Don't 
wear a mask. Now, of course, we know that was a mistake. At the time, 
we didn't. The notion is to protect people from frivolous lawsuits who 
were doing their best.
  By the way, there was a survey done of people saying: Do you think 
there should be protection for people who are doing their best, whereas 
people who are grossly negligent--that was the word used, ``gross 
negligence''--would not be protected; they would be accountable? And 79 
percent of the American people agreed with that.
  There has also been polling out there with regard to small 
businesses, from the NFIB, saying that 70 percent of small businesses 
are very concerned and worried about this. Again, think of the 
business. Revenue has crashed. Profits have crashed. They are hanging 
on. The PPP is going to help them because we are getting more PPP. The 
Paycheck Protection Program, which we talked about earlier, will help 
to get them through this.
  If they are facing a lawsuit--whether they win it or not, whether 
they can prove that they were doing the right thing--just the cost of 
that lawsuit could well be the difference of that small business 
continuing operations or not.
  Nonprofits. The nonprofits in Ohio are very interested in the 
liability reforms, as are the education community--the higher ed 
people, the school teachers--as are people in the healthcare industry 
across the board--nursing homes and hospitals. My hope is that we can 
get back to work on that. Perhaps after this legislation has passed, as 
we look at what we do next, let's be sure that we are providing that 
protection in combination with providing that help to our State and 
local governments that need it, where they can demonstrate they need 
it. I don't think it will be in this package, but it should be in the 
next package.
  I will say, this legislation on COVID is needed and we ought to move 
it now. We cannot go home for the holidays without passing COVID-19 
rescue legislation.
  Again, to me, it is a rescue package. It is not a stimulus package as 
much as it is getting us through this period, providing that bridge 
between now and when the vaccine is readily available.
  This legislation is likely to be part of a broader bill that will 
include a number of things, including spending for the year so we don't 
have a government shutdown. It is a good thing not to have a government 
shutdown.
  It is also likely that it will include some tax provisions which are 
so-called tax extenders.
  I would say one thing, that I hope it includes is the permanent 
extension of tax relief for our craft beverage industry. This would be 
craft breweries, craft vintners, craft distillers. We passed 
legislation a few years ago that was very important to them, that 
allowed them to have a reduction in the excise tax they pay on certain 
volumes--relatively low volumes of their product.
  As a result, many of these businesses have been able to expand, hire 
people, and now they have the possibility of this expiring at the end 
of the year and having a big bill due that they cannot afford.
  We are proud in Ohio to be the home of an industry, the craft beer 
production industry. It is now No. 6 in the country. It supports 81,000 
jobs. It is a business that has been hurt for two reasons: One, if you 
think about it, the restaurants aren't doing the business they used to 
do, so if you are providing your product to a restaurant, you are hurt. 
But also, a lot of these craft distillers or craft brewers or craft 
vintners have their own tasting rooms or their own brew pubs, and 
those, in some cases, have been shut down altogether. In other cases, 
their revenues have crashed, so it would not be the time for them to be 
facing a big tax bill, and that is what the excise tax would be. Income 
tax you pay later in the year; excise tax you would have to pay right 
away.
  So my hope is that that will be extended permanently. More than half 
the Members of this body joined me and Senator Wyden on a letter to our 
leadership about this, urging that this extender, which has worked so 
well to increase jobs and opportunity in America, can continue on a 
permanent basis going forward.
  My hope is that that is part of the package as well. That will help 
in terms of the economic stimulus part of this, which is also 
important.
  I thank you for what you are doing if you are one of those people out 
there who is promoting the vaccines and talking about the importance of 
our getting the vaccines. If you are not, I hope you will look at the 
research. I hope you will look at the fact that we should be 
encouraging everyone to get vaccinated unless someone has a health 
problem that makes it difficult for them.
  The polling data is not encouraging on this. The last Gallup poll 
shows that only 58 percent of Americans are comfortable being 
vaccinated. That needs to change.
  I have heard some people say: Well, when you look at the polling, it 
shows that Democrats are concerned because this happened in the Trump 
administration, this vaccine development.
  This is not political. Take the politics out of it.
  These are scientists. They have been working around the clock over 
the past

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9 months, 10 months, to get us to this point. These are scientists who 
are now working around the clock to look carefully at these vaccines to 
determine whether they are approved or not. These are the scientists 
who are making decisions, not the politicians. It is the people in the 
white coats. We need to trust them, for the sake of our country, 
because we need to reverse this terrible virus and the pandemic that is 
causing all of the issues that we talked about earlier today, to our 
communities, to our families. So the way to do that is to ensure that 
we do, in fact, not just have this vaccine available but that people 
take advantage of it and are willing to be vaccinated.
  I hope, if you are listening this evening, that you will pass that 
word along and that you, again, will do your own research. Look at it. 
But my hope is that the conclusion will be to get to the period we want 
to get, which is to have people feel like they can reengage in the 
economy and feel like they can be back with their loved ones and 
congregate and feel like they can go back to church or their other 
place of worship; they feel like they can send their kids back to 
school; they feel like they can get back to a more normal life. That 
will happen through the accessibility and the ability to actually get 
that vaccine.
  So my hope is that those listening tonight will do that and do their 
part in spreading that message instead of spreading the virus.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska

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