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




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I had an opportunity to listen to my 
friend and colleague from the State of Ohio outline in great detail the 
efforts that a bipartisan group has been working on for just a month 
now.
  It was just a month ago, I was reminded--November 17, apparently--
that I had an opportunity to invite some colleagues over to my house 
for dinner and conversation. And while it wasn't pizza, it didn't make 
any difference what we were eating. It was all about the conversation 
and what we could do to be responsive to the urgency of the need.
  As my friend from Ohio has said, people in Ohio are suffering. People 
in Alaska are suffering. People around the country are suffering. And 
they are looking to us for answers and for hope.
  I felt on Monday that there was that sense of hope that we could 
offer. It is not the end-all and be-all in terms of a legislative 
proposal, but it was a dozen Members, bipartisan--Republicans and 
Democrats from this body, as well as Republicans and Democrats from the 
House--coming together over the course of a month, hours on Zoom, 
digging into the details and the issues in a way that, as someone who 
has been part of this body now for 18 years, I have not had the 
opportunity to be as engaged in every level of the debate and aspect as 
we were in these conversations.
  The Senator from Ohio, while he might not have been at that dinner, 
was with us every step of the way and was truly leading on the 
negotiations when it came to the liability provisions and the input in 
so many other areas.
  But what we were able to outline, given a framework of how we can be 
responsive to the pandemic and the economic crisis at hand, focusing on 
the most vulnerable--those who have lost their jobs, those who have a 
small business that is open but just barely open because there are no 
customers or because the limitations on your restaurant are so small 
you can barely even afford to keep your doors open--to be responsive to 
those who have lost their jobs, to those who are looking at the first 
of January and wondering if they are going to be able to stay in their 
home or in their apartment, to those families who have children at home 
who haven't been in a classroom since March of this year, for those 
rural healthcare providers that have been struggling as they have tried 
to meet the crush of demand and need within their small hospitals.
  What we tried to do was build a package that was responsive to the 
emergency at hand. And as Senator Portman has noted, this was not 
designed to be a stimulus bill. This is not designed to be the end-all, 
be-all for how we move forward. It is targeted emergency relief.
  What we were able to present on Monday, which I felt was so hopeful, 
were not only the debate and the contours of the framework but then to 
actually put that into legislative text--5 or 6 inches of legislative 
language, a bill--a bill for this body to consider, a path to move us 
forward at a time when it is so incredibly critical.
  Also on Monday, we were met with hope because the vaccine--the long-
promised vaccine--has come about in extraordinarily short order, 
historic efforts by so many to get the development to this point, to 
get the approval, the safe approval, and now moving forward to 
distribution.
  The headline in our largest newspaper yesterday was ``Morale gets a 
boost'' as vaccine arrives. And, boy, do we need a morale boost.
  This is a dark time in Alaska right now. The sun sets about, I don't 
know, maybe about 3:45 in the afternoon right now, so it makes for a 
short day. But we are used to short days because we know that in the 
darkest times of winter, there is going to come that time when things 
start to change and the days actually begin to get longer; the sunlight 
is with us more and more.
  And as Alaskans are considering the very deep, deep economic strife 
that we are in right now, we know that there is light at the end 
because the vaccine is arriving; that is coming.
  But in the meantime, they need to get from here to there. So what we 
have outlined in this proposal--this bipartisan, bicameral proposal--is 
just exactly that. It is that lifeline that can get them from December 
to March, to April, when hope really starts to return.
  So I know that there is a great deal that is being considered right 
now. As I have shared with folks, I say: Well, we were able to advance 
the ball significantly with this effort that we have made. But when we 
presented that multihundred-page package to the public, to the 
administration, to leadership, we basically said: Here is a gift. Take 
it.
  So we have kind of lost ball control, if you will. That is good. That 
is fine. That is what this process is all about. But I am just urging 
that we commit with every sense of expediency and urgency to do our 
business quickly and fairly, with the politics aside, because the last 
thing that folks back home need, whether it is in Ohio or Alaska, is to 
know that we might have wrapped up our business here, and we didn't 
hear them. We didn't respond to their need. We left them hanging. That 
is not an option for us, and that will not happen.
  We are all pledging to make sure that we resolve this before 
Christmas or we are not going home. But we can do better than that. We 
don't need to draw this out. We have an opportunity, working together, 
so I encourage those who are negotiating. We have provided not only a 
template and a framework, but we have really given you considerable 
meat in terms of this legislation.
  My hope is that we are going to have good news very, very shortly 
that will allow us to not only address the urgency in response to this 
COVID pandemic but also be able to resolve our end-of-year 
appropriations and other matters that we have had working before this 
body.
  But as they say, we are running out of daylight, so let's get moving 
with it.

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