today i want to tell you the story of this man. his name is manual bernell. emergency department advocate for christ medical center. manuel grew up in memphis, tennessee. always wanted to become a doctor. he wrote me a letter and he said, early on i developed a appreciation for the medical profession when i witnessed the compassionate care received by a loved one at saint jude children's research hospital. manuel graduated in the taxpayer 10% of his high school class. he was a leader of several high school honor societies. in his spare time he was a swimmer and football player and volunteered at the saint jude club. he continued his education at the university of tennessee at chattanooga. graduated summa cum laude.

in biology with a minor in chemistry. in college he worked as a medical scribe for doctors in the emergency room in a small hospital in chattanooga and after decided he wanted to become an emergency room physician. he continued his education at loyola university, the school of medicine. allow me a few seconds to praise this wonderful school. he was one of dozens of daca recipients, which was the first medical school to admit daca students. they do not receive any special treatment in the selection process and they are not eligible for a penny in federal financial assistance. many of them borrowed money from the state of illinois to complete their medical education in the hopes that once they are licensed they can come back and practice in our state which they promise to do. here's what manuel says about what daca means to him.

and i quote. daca has opened up many doors for me. it allows me to serve people through emergency medicine. if daca ended, i would have to stop not only what i love doing but what i trained so hard to do. today dr. manuel bernell is an emergency resident at one of the busiest trauma hops in our city. his supervisor told him he did not have to treat covid-19 patients because he's only a resident student but he stepped forward and volunteered to do it any way. his daca is set to expire in october. will america be stronger if this doctor leaves, will we be better at the hospital and the trauma department if manuel is forced to leave this country? i can't imagine anyone would answer yes. manuel and hundreds of thousands of other dreamers are calling on

president trump to -- and they are counting on those of us who serve in the senate to solve the crisis that president trump alone created. as long as i'm a u.s. senator, i'm going to continue to come to the floor of the senate to advocate for manuel and for thousands of others who simply want a chance to prove themselves to earn their way into america's future. it would be an american tragedy at this moment when we face this national emergency to lose their brave and talented young people. they are saving lives every day, and they are risking their own to do it. can we ask anything more of anyone else in this country? we must ensure that manuel and hundreds of thousands of others in our essential workforce are not forced to stop working when their services are needed now more than ever. and ultimately -- ultimately we need to pass legislation that is just common sense, that says that these young people who came here as kids and have worked

doubly hard under the greatest oppressors and have made a success of their lives like this young man can stay in america and be part of our fiewmplet he's truly a health care here -- future. he is truly a health care hero, an immigrant health care hero and there are thousands just like him across america. we need them now more than ever. i see senator cortez masto is here and i will yield the floor to her. the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. ms. cortez masto: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cortez masto: thank you. mr. president, i rise, along with my good friend and colleague, the senior senator from illinois, to stress the importance of what's happening in this country right now and who's on the front line during

this health care crisis and why we need to support them. there's no doubt i just came from nevada. there's so many essential workers that are risking their lives as well as their loved ones to provide essential care and help for individuals not just in nevada but across the country. we were talking about health care workers, we're talking about transit drivers, sanitation workers, first responders, those who are working in the grocery store, those showing up every day to make sure that individuals have their groceries during this health care crisis. so much is at stake right now and i do not want to forget the state and local government workers. right now in my state there are so many state workers who are showing up to ensure that the individuals are getting the essential paycheck or the expanded unemployment insurance that we fought to make sure they

can receive and they are showing up as well. i too stand with my colleague because i think it's important that we recognize not only our health care workers but some of those who need extra help from this legislature, and we spent, unfortunately, the last three years this administration of attacking them, and those are immigrants in nevada and across this country who are actually going out every day and risking their lives to help others in need and they are working in our health care. one of them i rise to talk about today. her name is anna ludezma. she is a daca recipient in nevada and works in the pediatric i.c.u. as a nurse in las vegas. she has been in the united states since she was 7 years old. she was interested in health because of her aunt.

she loves biology and how disease process works, but most of all, anna loves her patient. she says i love connecting with them over disney stuff. anna will tell you that i think i'm a good pediatric nurse because at heart i'm a kid too. she, along with others, are working to help others in need during this health care crisis. they are working as teachers, they are staffing retirement homes, taking care of at-risk seniors in the middle of a pandemic that targets our elders, they are harvesting, shelving and cooking food for all of us. more than 200,000 daca recipients in the united states are the front lines of health care, education, agriculture, and other essential jobs. and there are almost 5,000 of them in nevada alone, among the 12,000 nevada daca recipients. these are our friends.

they are our neighbors. yet this administration continues to demonize them with anti-immigrant rhetoric and has turned their lives upside down by trying to end daca. these are the young professionals at risk if the supreme court upholds president trump's decision to terminate daca. these young men and women have grown-up in our communities and they are giving back even in the face of their uncertain futures, they are still showing up to work each shift, still demonstrating by their every day heroism that they belong here. now, more than ever, we need to understand that those who come to america in search of a better life don't diminish us. they enrich us. you can see how cruel and twisted the immigration debate in this country has become if you just think about this. in the middle of a worldwide health crisis when they should be focused on keeping their patients alive and limiting

their own exposure, the 27,000 daca recipients in health care have to worry about their own legal status. anna says that the health crisis her hospital is facing has almost managed to push out the fear that always is in the back of her mind about attacks on daca and attacks on her future. almost, because it never really goes away. a few weeks ago anna was transferred to other parts of the hospital to help adult patients with covid-19. she told me about the utter isolation of these patients who are fighting for their lives far from their loved ones. and she told me about former university medical center friends and colleagues now in new york and in seattle who are witnessing the same scenes. lately the number of children suffering from covid-19 has increased in nevada. so anna is back in the pediatric i.c.u. where patients are mostly

asymptomatic. with these healthier patients easier to do what she does best which is to teach the kids about a procedure or operation they are facing, to distract them and making them laugh. we need to let anna do her job. we need to let the thousands of immigrants who are on the front line right now continue to do their jobs. we must allow her to keep serving the community she's known. we need to create a pathway for citizenship for so many like anna and we need to give them all the tools that they need to keep themselves and the rest of us healthy. you know, mr. president, anna's story is an american story. one of struggle, courage, and sacrifice for your community in order to build a brighter future for those who come after. i'm going to continue to fight

for daca recipients and immigrants like anna and everyone else who has contributed not just in my state but in this country to not only enrich all of our lives but continue to contribute to our economy and to make our lives better. the least we can do is give them the peace of mind and let them know that the only country they've ever known is one they can stay in forever. that is my fight, and, mr. president, i hope that's your fight and many of my colleagues. this is something that must be done. we have to pass legislation to make sure dreamers in this country and their parents have every opportunity to stay and find that pathway to citizenship. they are already contributing. so thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois.

mr. durbin: mr. president, i want to thank my colleague from nevada. anna's story is so touching, this young girl concerned about her own future, worried about deportation, gets into a giving, caring profession and risks her life in caring for those who may be suffering from covid-19. to think that someone would question whether we want that kind of person in america's future is beyond me. thank you for telling that story. it's an important part of the record. mr. president, this week amid the devastating global coronavirus pandemic, we saw world powers do what world powers are supposed to do in this situation, join forces to raise funds for research, manufacture, and to distribute a vaccine and treatments. this makes obvious strategic and lifesaving sense being both the moral and strategic thing to do. you see, join forces, all of us

working together will help speed up efforts and eventual discovery of a coronavirus vaccine that we all desperately seek. many of us believe when that day comes and the vaccine is effective and safe he, we will still see our normal lives compromise dz. this vaccine will save lives around america and around the world. who knows where that vaccine is going to be discovered, produced, distributed. so i want america in on this conversation from the start and in on the collective efforts. clearly other world leaders understand this and so when there was an effort to raise $8 billion $8 billion for the discovery of this new vaccine,

they had a virtual global telephone conference. our allies in the european union and norway each offered to bif $1 billion -- to give $1 billion each for this goal. who was absent from this critical effort to save lives around the world to discover this vaccine, including the distribution of it to those who need it in every corner of the world? which country did not participate in this global virtual telephone conference? the united states of america. you see, in yet another short-sighted missed opportunity to address the coronavirus, this administration refused to participate. america was missing in action when leaders around the world came together with a determination to find and distribute a vaccine against

coronavirus. the president's supporters in congress said nothing. boasting instead on judicial appointmentings and other things on their mind. given this president's penchant for blaming others but not himself for this virus, maybe this should come as no surprise, but it does because of the devastating consequences that could result. what does this mean for america if the united states sits on the sidelines while other countries set out to discover this lifesaving vaccine? well, we still continue to have some of the best researchers in the world at the national institutes of health, centers for disease control and prevention, many private universities and other researchers around this country.

many n.i.h. funded researchers have spent years studying the coronavirus. perhaps their knowledge could be helpful with these other countries in quickly developing an effective vaccine. some clinical trials are already under way at the national institutes of health. i want to commend dr. frances collins who heads up the n.i.h. and of course dr. anthony fauci, a friend of many years, for their amazing work. but it's quite plausible, it's even possible, that the best vaccine may turn up in another country. there's efforts under way in england and germany and many other countries to find this vaccine as well. in rush to research and validate a vaccine, ramp up production, address global allocation and supply needs and foregoing access worldwide, where will the united states be? on the sidelines again? when the united states pursues a go it alone, america first --

not just america first but america only approach while the rest of the world is working together, where does that leave us? it hasn't been that long ago that the united states first opted to develop and distribute its own american coronavirus test kit. that turned out to be faulty. instead of choosing the world health organization's test kit which was available at the time. that set our nation back at least a month, up to six weeks. in fact, many believe we still haven't recovered from that critical first missed step by this administration. even when its own incompetent response was increasingly obvious, president trump turned and tried to place all the blame on the world health organization, even cutting off all u.s. funding to this critical international body with decades of experience in dealing with pandemic. "the new york times" columnist nick cristov starkly wrote last month, and i quote, thousands of

americans would be alive today if president trump had spent more time listening to the world health organization instead of trying to destroy it. don't get me wrong. w.h.o. and many international bodies are imperfect and make mistakes. and they are often only as strong as their member states are willing to help make them or help fund them. but the world health organization first warned of the coronavirus on january 4, issuing increasingly urgent warnings in february while the president was saying publicly that the issue was, quote, totally under control. american personnel at the world health organization were also sending warnings back to washington about the threat. the president's response -- on february 10, he said of the coronavirus, and i quote, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. on february 27, the president said, and i quote, it's going to disappear. one day it's like a miracle and it will disappear. well, more than two months

later, we are still waiting for that and praying for that and 70,000 americans have died. the w.h.o. is a critical lifesaving body that helps eradicate polio, reduce the number of women and children that die in childbirth and stem malnutrition. the w.h.o. led a historic global vaccination campaign to eradicate smallpox. when it was issuing coronavirus warnings, the president and all of us should have been listening. instead the president ignored them, chose to walk away from the world health organization, undermining its international efforts and ultimately getting more global leadership to, of all nations, china. which is only more than happy to step in when the united states steps away. we should be increasing our investment and leadership with the world health organization as one of the many efforts to stem this virus and not covering our ears and walking away from it. the world health organization's efforts to halt ebola are an example of what its work can do

to save lives at the outbreak of a pandemic and stop one from reaching the united states. presidents obama and george w. bush understood this need for global health engagement. i was proud to rally to president bush's call to stem the scourge of aids around the world through a historic program, a bipartisan international global effort. the world first, not just america first. many of my republican friends in the senate supported these efforts, and we need them now with this coronavirus outbreak. i was equally proud of president obama's efforts to set up infectious disease prevention systems and his leadership on the ebola crisis. you see, presidents bush and obama understood the traditional leadership role of the united states on such matters and how important it was for the world to know that we were engaged and involved. sadly, so much of the world looks at us in dismay today as president trump undermines american governors who are doing their best to try to save lives

and refuses to take any responsibility. snubs our allies and withdraws from global efforts. that's why i plan to introduce a resolution here in the senate calling on the united states to join this important global vaccine and treatment effort, something i hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support. can we put aside our political differences for a moment and agree on one basic thing? wherever this vaccine is to be discovered, we pray that it will be done quickly, effectively, safely. we want the united states in on the effort, whether it's discovered here in our country or in another country. we want to be at the table to help support the research and development efforts. we want to be at the table when the good news of discovery of this vaccine is delivered. we certainly want to be at the table when it comes to questions of manufacturing and distributing this vaccine around the world and especially here in the united states. standing by the sidelines with our arms folded, chin jutted out, saying it's america first

or else, this is the wrong moment for it. this is a global challenge. it's a global solution. we don't know which country god will bless with the ability to come up with this vaccine. whatever it is, we want to be at that table with them in its development and distribution. let's remember, this global pandemic and any real solution involves more than just our great country. we cannot isolate ourselves from this international race to find treatments and develop the vaccine. doing anything else will only waste more time and cost lives. mr. president, i ask consent that the "washington post" article of may 5, 2020, on this subject be placed in the record after my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: can i add one last thing? yesterday, we had a telephone conference with bill and melinda gates. they were part of the summit that the united states government boycotted. they pledged to spend $125 million of their own money

in this fight to find a virus vaccine as quickly as possible. let's join them. let's join them as a nation. democrats, republicans, independents, those who vote and those who don't, all of us who understand that the sooner this vaccine is found, the sooner it's proven safe, and the sooner it's distributed, it will be the best for america and for the rest of the world. it isn't just america first. it's america involved, america committed, america willing to work with the world to find a solution to one of our greatest public health crises of our time. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes. ms. klobuchar: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i come to the floor today in the midst of this national crisis, this pandemic, to talk about one hero among, of course, many. first i want to thank my friend, senator durbin, for his tireless leaner on a very important -- leadership on a very important topic, and that is the topic of immigration and for his taking the lead in bringing us together

today to recognize heroes in health care during this coronavirus pandemic. as many of you know, this pandemic is personal for me. my husband, john, was hospitalized with the coronavirus not too lopping ago, and though he is a great person and i'm so proud of him for coming through it all and giving his plasma recently, he's actually not the hero i am referring to. i am talking about an immigrant doctor who is on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic in rochester, minnesota. she's asked that her name not be used publicly because she's applying for a green card. she came to the united states from her home country for postgraduate medical training and completed not one but two fellowships in critical care and pulmonary diseases at the mayo clinic, which happens to be where my husband gave the

plasma, which we hope will save other lives. under normal circumstances, an immigrant doctor who completes his or her postgraduate training in the u.s. has to leave the country for at least two years when their residency is completed. now, let's look at that again. they have studied in an american medical school, they have completed their postgraduate training in the u.s., but then they have to leave the country for two years when their residency is complete, just at a time when we need more doctors and more health care professionals and not less. why? because our immigration laws require them to be outside of the country for two years before they can apply to come back here on a work visa. but under the conrad 30 program, doctors -- and that's named

after kent conrad, the senator who once represented north dakota. and i have taken on this program. why did he get involved in this in north dakota? well, that's because they had a shortage of doctors in rural areas. under the conrad 30 program, doctors who commit to caring for patients in an underserved area, like rural community or other areas that may be underserved including urban asian if they face a shortage of doctors, these doctors are allowed to start practicing in the u.s. immediately without having to wait two years. i just keep repeating this. they got their training in the u.s., they got degrees in the u.s. that's why for years i have led bipartisan legislation, which has been endorsed by the american medical association,

the american hospital association, and the national rural health association, that would extend this program and allow international doctors trained in the united states to remain in the country if -- if -- they practice in underserved areas. it was through this program that this hero i'm talking about today, this immigrant doctor, was able to stay in minnesota and eventually began practicing at the mayo clinic as a critical care specialist where she sees patients from all over rural areas of southern minnesota, and she was working in the intensive care unit when the first coronavirus cases started coming through the door. critical care and pulmonary disease specialists are some of the most in-demand doctors during this pandemic.

and as one of these specialists, this doctor has been managing patients on ventilators, patients with kidney failure, patients with blood clots. she has cared for coronavirus patients on oxygen and manages the team -- she manages the team that resuscitates patients whose hearts have stopped. she has literally saved lives, this immigrant doctor. her hospital regularly provides telemedical support to other mayo clinic facilities and even a hospital in georgia they've helped. and when the mayo clinic received clearance to provide assistance to a hospital in the bronx where the medical staff was stretched dangerously thin, as we see on tv every single day, she volunteered, this immigrant doctor volunteered, during her free time using the

hospital's telemedicine equipment. talking about her service during this pandemic, she has said, this is not a job. this is a calling. we do this for love. her requirement to work in an underserved area as a condition of the conrad 30 program ends this year. but she has no plans to move and to leave our country and to stop providing care to patients if she can help it. she said, i love minnesota. i hope mayo never lets me go. i hope that, too. she is an american hero, and we could use a lot more like her. over the last 15 years, the conrad 30 program has brought more than 15,000 doctors to underserved areas, including many rural areas that are short on doctors and rely on the

program to fill the gaps. i have been at v.a. hospitals in other parts of the country, and their number-one ask was this -- because they don't have enough doctors in the rural areas where their clinic is located to serve their patients. this is a commonsense program with bipartisan support. i introduced a bill to reauthorize the program, which we have successfully done in the past, but i introduced a bill to reauthorize it with senator collins and senator rosen, and it has 15 cosponsors -- listen to the names here: senators king, ernst, kramer, coons, blunt, capito, baldwin, wyden, thune, merkley, wicker, carper, and paul. what brings all these senators together? it is not a common ideological

belief on many issues. it is because they are looking out for their states and they want to save the lives of people in their states, especially during this pandemic, by allowing doctors who have been trained in the united states of america, who've gotten their degree, who've done their residencies, to be able to stay in our country. today i am asking all my colleagues to support the inclusion in the next piece of legislation that is coming our way that we must pass to address the coronavirus. i've also called on the administration to take action to increase the number of doctors that are here to help fight this pandemic and help alleviate the serious strain this pandemic has placed on our health care system. first, u.s. citizenship and immigration services should resume expedited processing for employment-based visas for doctors. on march 20, uscis announced a

freeze on expedited processing during the pandemic, which would exacerbate our shortage of doctors, especially in underserved rural areas. with representative bradley schneider of illinois, i led a bipartisan group of 24 senators and i want to again thank senator durbin who's been such a leader on these issues, for his support for this. and 13 members of the house in asking uscis to ex-he diet processing for doctors again. -- to expedite processing for doctors again. we still haven't received a response. let's think about what's been happening since we sent that letter on march 20. the increasing number of deaths. the assisted living homes, including those in rural areas which have been plagued by this pandemic, which have lost dozens of their residents to this

pandemic. think about the some of the rural areas that have been hit hard that simply don't have the hospital beds or the ventilators. think about all that that is going on, the thousands and thousands of people who have lost their lives and still we wait. march 20, bipartisan group of senators that have asked for help since that freeze on march 20 was put into place. we await a response. second, uscis should give flexibility to health systems so that doctors on employment-based visas, like the minnesota doctor, the hero that i just told you about today who couldn't even have her name released when she is managing teams of people -- not because she's here illegally, no, because she wants that chance to get her green card. like that doctor who i told you

about today who can provide care where they need it the most. many doctors in similar circumstances are willing to volunteer to treat patients in the hardest-hit areas, just like she did when she volunteered to help with that hospital in the bronx. but they are worried that doing so and leaving their home hospital will put their immigration status in jeopardy. last month i led a letter with representative tom cole, abby fink nare of iowa and bradley schneider that was signed by 18 other senators, including senator durbin and 29 house members, urging uscis to waive restrictions so that doctors can practice in crisis locations. once again, we have not received response. is that because the president wants to take a back seat again to the governors of this country

when in fact federal policy is holding back not just equipment from going where we have hot spots but now actually doctors and medical personnel? and if they're good enough to get a degree at a medical school in the u.s. and if they're good enough to practice in some areas of the country, they're not good enough to practice where we have the hot spots? rather than acknowledging the help that immigrant doctors are providing during this public health emergency, this administration's rhetoric has made them feel -- well, unwelcome. that would be a euphemism. it is one of the reasons that minnesota doctor asked that i not use her name. when discussing the process of applying for a work visa, she noted, at the same time you're taking boards -- medical boards -- you're also filling out hundreds of pages of paperwork

to provide that you're worth and to prove that you're worth keeping. okay, picture this. while she's saving lives, managing the time that that -- mapping the team that resuscitates people, caring for patients on ventilators, bringing their hearts back to life, while she's doing all of that, she somehow has to prove that she is someone worth keeping. as she says, it is very disheartening as times. but she isn't giving up on us. she said, all of us who come from foreign countries were here because we want to be here. we love this country. and for these brave men and women, it's so important that we do everything we can to protect them and their loved ones, not just from the uncertainty that comes with being immigrants, but the risks with the current

crisis. so many of our immigrant medical personnel have died, not just in our country, but in other parts of the world as well. they've died saving lives for people in the country that they love. we need to ensure that all our doctors and front line health workers have supplies and equipment like face masks, gowns, and shoe covers so no one has to use their supplies and risk exposure to the virus. and we need to implement a real national testing strategy so we can get ahead of the target. the testing bloot print announced on april 27 falls well short of a comprehensive tefg plan and puts all responsibility for testing on the states. two weeks ago i was proud that we passed an interim relief package that included $25 billion to expand our nation's coronavirus testing capacity, and it will go a long

way to ramp up serum testing, something that mayo is a leader on, to diagnose active virus infections, identify antibodies against the virus. this investment is a start, but we know there is so much more work to be done to ensure that americans across the country have access to accurate testing technologies and treatment to reduce the risk of infection of our health care workers on the front lines, including our immigrant health heroes who sacrifice so much inform the pursuit of medicine and service, they deserve better. and when the president goes after immigrants in his press conference, you know who i keep thinking of? i keep thinking of this doctor, this hero in my home state who risks her life every day managing these patients and managing teams of doctors because of her know how, because of the trust that an institution

like the mayo clinic has put in her. what are we thinking? these heros should be heralded and not condemned. in closing i want to share this quote from president franklin roosevelt. courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear. that's exactly what these immigrant health heros are doing. they chose to be in this country and to come here because, yeah, they wanted a good life for themselves and their families and they knew they were going to have to work hard to make that happen. they got a degree. they are on the front lines. then they chose to keep working and to save lives during an incredibly dangerous pandemic. they understand that courage is not the absence of fear.

of course they are afraid when they go to those jobs, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear. their life's mission to them is more important than fair. saving someone's grandma or saving someone's husband, they decided that that's more important to them than fear. they choose service over fear. and what i'm asking our colleagues to do here is, we understand there's anti-immigrant sentiment out there. we know it. we hear it every day from the president. but i'm asking you to actually believe that your service is more important than that fear that's been stoked. certainly a number of our colleagues have decided that when they when willing to get on that bill democrats and republicans to reauthorize the conrad 30 program to allow these immigrant heros, these doctors trained in our country to be able to keep doing our work and

let me mention their names, the cosponsors of this bill, collins, rosen, king, ernst, cramer, cruz, baldwin, wyden, wicker, cardin and paul. of course i mentioned senator durbin. they are willing to do that and there's so much more we can do and we still await an answer of why these visa processing for these health care workers was suspended. service first, fear last. that's what these doctors did and that's what we must do first. that's what we must do now. madam president, i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. cardin: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i would ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: madam president, i take this time to go over with my colleagues the status of where we are in regards to the professions in the cares act that relate to small businesses. first i want to make it clear

that our top priority for america's businesses, whether they be small businesses or large businesses, is to get this covid-19 behind us, to stop the spread of this deadly disease, to give confidence back to the american people that it's safe to pursue their economic desires and, therefore, to have businesses be able to go back to a situation where they have customers and they can be open for business. we have appropriated significant resources in order to make sure we do what's right financially to deal with this deadly disease. and we have provided the tools to -- to protect our economy. so let me talk a little bit about the attention to small business. i'm pleased and proud to be the ranking democrat in the small business and entrepreneurship committee. i serve with senator rubio, who is the chairman of the committee.

and we have worked together, democrats and republicans, in order to help small businesses during this pandemic. we did that because we understand that small businesses do not have the same degree of financial resiliency that larger companies have and when you're going through an emergency situation, when you're going through a pandemic, they don't have the same capacity to get credit and to get the cash that they need that larger companies have. we also understand that small businesses is where the job creation most will take place in our country. most jobs are created through smaller companies. we also understand that smaller companies are more innovative. they come up with new and creative ways in order to build our economy. but we recognize that we had to do something to make sure they could survive through the pandemic, and that's where the cares act came in. so on a bipartisan basis we crafted new tools under the small business administration to help small businesses.

i was proud to work with senator rubio and senator shaheen and senator collins. the four of us got together well before the cares act was brought to the floor of the united states senate in order to deal with what is necessary to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic. and new tools were created and the cares act enacted tools that can help small businesses survive this pandemic. the program that's getting the most attention is the paycheck protection program, the p.p.p. program, in the original cares act we authorized and appropriated $349 billion for that program and then we replenished in the second round an additional $310 billion for a total of $659 billion for the p.p.p. program. it's a program in which small businesses go to their financial institution and take out a 7-a

loan which is a loan which is provided for under the small business act but there are private lenders who lend the money to the small businesses. but we made special provisions in this law to provide 100% federal guarantee so there's no risk to the borrower. we made it easier for those companies to get those 7-a loans and provided additional lenders for other communities. we expanded the 7-a program to include not only conventional for-profit small businesses but also nonprofit businesses as well as individual proprietors and to date the program's been very successful. over four million 7-a loans have been made under the paycheck protection program. but we have concerns. so let me talk a little bit about the concerns that we have. one of our concerns is that it's been difficult for the underserved community, the

underbanked community to be able to be able to get these 7-a loans as a priority. we found that in the first round that it was the larger companies that had established relationships with their banks that got priority on the processing of these loans so that minority businesses, women-own businesses, businesses located in rural communities, veteran-owned businesses did not receive the same attention as the larger businesses did. so our first priority is to find out exactly how the program is working. we need to get the data. we need to know where these loans were made. we need to know what industries got the different loans. we need to know the locations of these loans. we need to know the size by dollar value and by number of employees. we also need to know how the different provisions of the p.p.p. program have been allocated by loans.

for example, we made an exception on the 5000 employee -- 500 employees to come under the nic code. they are really hurting. we need to know how many hospitals and moments -- we need to know how much went to the nonprofit community, how much went to the self-employed community. and for that reason, madam president, i have introduced legislation to senator shaheen and senator schumer to require the s.b.a. to make that information available to us on a very regular basis. we need to get that information in order to properly carry out our oversight function. today the small business committee in the senate had a briefing with secretary mnuchin and administrator carranza and we talked about one of the

problems we have in administering this law. that is the self-certification. that is, the business makes the certification they need, the standards they need under the act. we are concerned there may have been abuses, but until we see the information, it's difficult for us to do our restrictive oversight. and we don't know if we still have adequate funding. to date, there has been somewhere around 500 -- over $500 billion. closer to $600 billion that's already been lent out. $557 billion has already been lent out under this program. are we going to need more money? until we get the specific information, we don't know what the future funding needs will be. we need to be able to get that information so we can provide the adequate resources. and i must tell you, i think every member of the senate has been approached by ways in which this program could be made better. there is questions as to why certain groups are eligible and others are not. there is going to be a need for

modification in this program, and it's difficult for us to make these modifications unless we get the data we need to understand where the loans have been made. there is a second program that was created under the cares act and expanded under the cares act, and that's the eidl program, the economic injury disaster loan program. we added a grant program to that. the initial cares act provided $10 billion when we went through the second round funding, we put another $60 billion into this program. and why did we do that? because the loan program under eidl -- which is an emergency program for businesses that have suffered disasters, and covid-19 qualify for that -- gives relief beyond just the eight weeks of payroll and the other expenses covered under the p.p.p.

program. small businesses need help with working capital. they can get that under the eidl loan program. a small business might need an immediate influx of cash. they can get that under the grant program under eidl up to $10,000. and yes, when the programs were announced, they were oversubscribed. we had over a million small businesses make immediate applications for these funds, and the s.b.a. was overwhelmed. that's why we provided, in addition to the original $10 billion for the grant program, another $10 billion, and in addition to the loan capacity, we put another $50 billion into that program so they could execute $300 billion worth of loans. but it's been very slow at the s.b.a., which is a concern of ours. only about 50,000 loans have been successfully processed under eidl. we just got that information today. yes, there has been over a million grants given out, most

of them have been under $10,000 whereas the maximum we thought most small businesses would get a $10,000 grant. there needs to be better coordination between the p.p.p. program and the eidl program, and we must make sure that the window remains open, but today, a nonagriculture business applies for an eidl loan are told that they can't process that loan, that the window is basically closed. that's not the intent of congress. we want to make sure those windows are open. so i come here today to tell you the first priority is we need to get the facts. we need to fix the program to make sure it works well. but i want to qualify that by saying how proud we are of the men and women at the s.b.a. and treasury, they are implementing this new program literally overnight, working 24 hours a day in order to make sure this program can work. we recognize that. and we recognize this is a major

challenge. but we need to make sure the program works right. we need oversight and accountability. we can't do that overnight and accountability unless we get all of the facts, unless we get the information. those who abuse the program need to be held accountable. i was pleased to hear secretary mnuchin talk about that today in the briefing to our committee. and we have to have oversight as to the program working efficiently. but we also have to make sure that we take care of the problems that we have seen in the program, the underserved community. we can do a better job in reaching those businesses that are traditionally underserved. so we specifically allocated $60 billion of p.p.p. to smaller financial institutions. we now need to make sure they really get to the institutions that can serve minority small businesses, that can serve the smaller of the small businesses, that can serve women-owned businesses and veteran-owned

businesses and businesses located in rural communities. i would suggest that we need to make sure that the cdfi's and the minority depository niewgz get their fair share of allocations under the p.p.p. program in order to reach these hard-to-serve small businesses. and yes, we do need to look at how we can modify the program to make it work even better. we recognize that when we crafted a program eight weeks we thought would be enough. we now know that our economy is not going to be up and running within that eight-week period in most of the country. how do we improve this program cigna i want to tell you we all recognize that the paycheck protection program may not be enough, even in conjunction with the eidl program may not be enough because businesses are not returning to normal within the next few weeks. we need to design a program that provides the next level of relief to those small businesses that really need it. those that have had significant

revenue losses. those small businesses that are really small small businesses, the mom and pop type businesses. and yes, those small businesses that have traditionally been left out, minority businesses and women-owned businesses and businesses in smaller rural communities, better-known businesses. the success of the p.p.p. program, the success of the eidl program was because democrats and republicans worked together in a strong bipartisan manner. we're continuing to do that in the small business committee and i applaud our leader, senator rubio, for reaching out to work together between democrats and republicans. we need to continue to work together and enact the type of oversight that is necessary for the programs that are currently existing, make the modifications so these programs can work effectively and well. we heard today about the

inflexibility of the eight-week period and how we need to deal with that. we need to work together to improve the program and to make sure that the next level of help for small businesses is targeted to those small businesses who really need the help so that we can continue to have an economy that can grow, that can create jobs, that can be innovative, and that protects the ability of small business owners to be able to participate in our economy. with that, madam president, i would yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: let me join with senator cardin in appreciating the work that federal employees do to make these programs work. i was with the s.b.a. director, i think about two weeks ago on friday.

she said in the first 14 days of the p.p.p. program, they did 14 months of loans in that 14-day period. i sought many times secretary mnuchin set these high standards for how quickly we would get to each of these points and probably only later realized just how difficult it is to get the federal government to move, but this is a case where the federal government has moved, the congress has moved, working together. we didn't have the element of time on our side. we really had to move quickly. and i think we all knew when we were doing that that we were going to have some miscalculations. whether it was the amount of money for p.p.p. or a program that wasn't quite as refined as it needed to be, and hopefully we are right now trying to look at not only how we have filled in the blanks on the programs that we so quickly dealt with in march, but also to look forward at may and july and try to

figure out what the city is going to need, where we're going to be in this health care crisis in may and july. certainly a number of our states are beginning to reopen, states like missouri are opening in what i think is exactly the appropriate way. the governor has looked at the whole state and said we're going to allow -- we're going to step back from our initial order in the entire state. we're going to remove that order, but he has then worked thoughtfully and carefully with the mayor of st. louis and the mayor of kansas city and the county executives and bigger counties, the mayors of columbia and springfield and not gotten in fights with local officials about situations that they have every reason to know more about than he does, just like the governor of missouri has every reason to know more than somebody in washington, d.c. about when our state should reopen. i'm glad the president has let governors have that sort of authority, and i think in most states, including mine, governors have stepped back and

let local officials assert their view of what should happen in the area where they have been elected to be responsible, and with that combination of things, we're going to reopen and begin to see the economy reconnect again like it has not connected for the last couple of months. at the same time, we have got these two fights. one is to save the economy and one is this important fight against the virus. i think in the two months since we went home after the cares act, i have spent most of my time working on the health care side of this. senator alexander is the authorizing chairman for these health care programs. i'm the appropriating chairman for most of them, programs that certainly in the last months americans have learned a lot more about than they ever knew about before. who knew that the center for disease control, the c.d.c., was doing what it was doing or the

health and human services had the responsibility that they had or how troublesome it was if we let our hospitals get out of whack in terms of mcand continuing expenses. all of those things happen. one of the things i have worked on hard has been to get that research funding at the national institutes of health where dr. fauci runs only one of the double handful of agencies at n.i.h., the infectious disease part of that. but the american people begin to see those things that the government does and also see that the government, like every other family or every other institution, doesn't respond to crisis with immediate efficiency but does begin to work its way toward a solution. so we have spent a lot of time together, senator alexander and i have with f.d.a. and with all of those other agencies, and

what we see happening, what i see happening is a real willingness with the total backing of the congress, a real willingness to get out there and try to move these solutions at a faster rate than we ever have before. dr. fauci said early on if we develop a vaccine in 18 months, that would be the world record for a u.s.-developed vaccine from a new virus to having a vaccine available. we're trying to do everything we can, not only to meet that potential world record but to beat that world record, and how are we doing that? we're doing that with things like the shark tank concept at n.i.h. that we specifically put $1 billion behind in the last bill, $1 billion for a place where people would bring ideas for vaccine, for therapy, for testing, and you would have that shark tank environment begin to evaluate which of those ideas

deserve the help of the federal government to push them forward faster. and how would we do that? how would we push them forward faster? obviously, vaccine is what we need to fully emerge in my view from this, therapies to deal with people who get the virus before we have the vaccine, and testing to know whether you have had it or not and hopefully have some level of immunity or testing to know whether you have got it. and we have got to do better on all of those fronts. on testing, we need tests that are easier to take and get a quick response. we need millions of these tests that millions of americans will take more than once. if you're in a factory, if you're in a close situation, if you're on a college campus, the administrator, the boss, you may decide i want to take that test every week. i want to call my mother every

week from this college campus and tell her i have taken the test again just like i told you i would. i was okay last week. i am still feeling okay. nobody in my dorm is sick. it's okay that i'm here. and that's the kind of thing that will get us started. so how do we get to that quick, easy response test? how do we get to that therapy and how would the shark tank work? people bring in ideas. let's assume that on testing that the shark tank decides there are really ten of these that have real potential to work, and we're going to begin to advance them. then at some point there are four of them that are still one or two steps away from being fully vetted, but you don't want to wait until they're fully vetted to go into production. so that's where another billion dollars in an agency called barda is, to take that $10 billion and find a private

partner and say we're going to go ahead and produce all four of these tests. we're going to have all four of these tests ready 30 days from now when we know which one works. because 30 days really matters. 30 days in getting back to school, 30 days in generating the economy. if you're 30 days ahead of where you would have been otherwise, that has -- you can put a lot of money behind that and still pay only a fraction of what we've been putting behind trying to stabilize the economy. and if two of them work in that 30-day period of time when you're going ahead manufacturing all four of them, their ejust -- they're just ready quicker than otherwise. if the to conts work, -- if the two don't work, madam president, we hear the idea failure is not an option. this is a case where actually failure is almost a certainty on some of the things you're trying. if you're not failing, you're not trying enough things.

if all you did was advance four things that were going to work anyway, you really didn't take much of a chance to fast forward or dual track what you're trying to do. so we're working hard to get ready to have those tests, the tests where you have a normal blood draw to check your cholesterol, you could say when you turn that to your doctor, also check for covid-19 if they don't ask you if you want to check for covid-19. then they can say you have it and hopefully by the time that test is available, you can say you have it and you have enough of the antibodies, you have enough of what it took to fight this off, that you should have immunity up until the time we're likely to have a vaccine. that many americans then know they're out there with no danger to themselves or no danger to others. that many americans know that in all likelihood they can safely visit somebody they haven't been visiting for a while because

they didn't want to take a chance of carrying a virus that now they know they can't possibly get. and so those kinds of things will make a real difference in our economy. therapeutics that we don't have the vaccine yet. you get the disease. we need to find and fast forward the manufacturer of the therapeutics we think are most likely to work. and the same with vaccines. and on all those fronts we're making headway. i think we're probably testing, sophisticated testing for the antibodies and for just a diagnostic test. we're having lots of interest in that. lots of private sector interest in an antibody test, this test where you -- particularly if scientists begin to say if you've had it and you have this level of antibodies, you can't get it again. who wouldn't want to take that test? and we believe that authorizing chairman, the appropriating

committee, senator shelby, senator alexander, senator murray and i all believe that the government should pay for that test. and we've said the government should pay for that test if your insurance company won't. most insurance companies have said they'd pay for that test. seems like to me if you've got millions of customers and a guaranteed payer, this is one that the private sector is quickly about to take care of on their own and thank goodness for that. this is one of those times when a -- the most sophisticated pharmaceutical, medical science laboratory system in the world begins to pay off. and that's what we're going to see here. we've got other areas where companies are working together like they haven't before. i know they've told our friends at the national institute of health if we can test their experiment better at our facility than they can, bring it

over here and test it over here. we need an all-out effort to get this economy going again. we need an all-out effort to get people's health secure. and once that's happened, i think we'll see all of those things come together. and so, madam president, i think we've made great strides. i haven't heard anybody say in some time on this issue that congress just hasn't provided enough resources to do this job. on the testing therapeutics, medical device side of this, personal protective equipment side of this, people look at what the congress has stepped up and done and said, okay, congress has given us the tools. now the administration, the research scientists of america, american pharmaceutical companies, medical companies have to step in. i believe they are stepping in.

let's break some records here. let's do some things quicker with the same amount of safety that we've done in the past. there is a dynamic need to do this. the american people understand why it needs to be done. people all over the world would benefit from our leadership here. i think we're seeing it. hopefully we can continue on these efforts to have the bipartisan determination to win these two fights. the fight against the virus and the fight for the economy that the american people deserve. and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: for our colleague and friend from missouri leaves the floor, i want to thank him for a very thoughtful presentation. and i want to thank him for that. and for his leadership. i know he has other places to go. but i'm glad i was here to hear that.

madam president, i wasn't sure if i would continue to wear my mask. i saw you were wearing yours. i said well, i'll just keep wearing mine, too. all of our staff on the floor, including -- one of our staff members who takes down our words for the congressional record and folks who accept documents at the desk in front of us all are wearing masks. i was wearing a mask earlier today going into what we call a markup, a business meeting of the environment and public works committee. they were also wearing masks as i was about to go into the hearing, the business meeting. there was a police officer. i asked her, a capitol police officer. i said to her, how are we doing, how are you doing today? she said i'm doing fine. i said, any idea how many of our capital police officers -- capitol police officers have been infected? developed symptoms and have the -- had the virus at some point in recent weeks.

she said i believe it's somewhere between 15 and 20 which came as a surprise to me. we haven't heard that much about it. coming over here today, this afternoon we've been here to vote several times. i was coming over here this afternoon to say a few words about the legislation that we passed unanimously out of the environment and public works committee today. i passed any number of people, capitol police officers, people that were cleaning the building, maintaining the building, folks who serve food in the cafeteria, the people working here, so they can get something to eat. they were almost without exception wearing masks. and the reason why it's important for us to do that is because they are at risk. and we need to exhibit -- as leaders we need to lead by example. i no he my colleagues are endeavoring to do that. it's important. these are people who serve our country just as we do and they deserve not just our respect and our thanks, but they deserve our

protection. and for everybody -- maybe it's not something they're comfortable in doing or used to doing or hand sanitizing a lot, they're washing their hands even more, these are good things, not just for us, not just for our families but for the people who are serving this country here with us in our nation's capitol. madam president, i didn't come here to say those words but i wanted to -- they were on my heart and i just wanted to share them with you and others. but i've come today to talk about a couple of bills that the senate committee on environment and public works reported out today. unanimously. that will invest and improve our nation's water infrastructure. our water infrastructure. what does infrastructure include? it includes the pipes that bring us our water, that take our wastewater where it can be treated. they are -- infrastructure

includes our dams. it includes our harbors, our ports, our waterways, all that and a whole lot more. when we talk about improving our water infrastructure, what we're really talking about is keeping the promises afforded to every american through the declaration of independence. remember those words? life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. the legislation that we acted on today, two bills that will be combined into one later on here on the floor called the water resource development act, but the underlying -- the underlying message is our work today directly reflects the words in the -- those words in the declaration of independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. certainly none of those things, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness are possible without access to clean water or to wash our hands or to drink. we can't have life without clean

water to drink. the covid-19 pandemic has reminded us of that, too, just how important it is to have access to clean water to wash our hands and soap to wash our hands. we're reminded daily, almost hourly that washing your hands with soap and water is a simple preventive way. senator sullivan from alaska talked about the native americans who live in his state who don't have running water. they don't have a spicket to turn on. they don't have the ability to flush toilets. they -- for them this is like the idea that you could actually do those things is a dream that they never imagined being realized. the thing is too many communities across our country do not have access to clean

water because of harmful contamination in their ground water or water supply pipes. sadly this public health disparity usually goes hand in hand with economic opportunity. and while water is the essence of life, it's also an essential part of our economy. more than 99% of the u.s. oversees trade -- more than 99% of u.s. overseas trade moves through our waterways. imagine that. most people would never imagine that. our nation's water infrastructure, our port, our shipping channels and other related projects support economic growth, facilitate commerce, sustain jobs and create new jobs as well. americans cannot truly pursue happiness without the economic opportunity that comes with having strong water infrastructure. a lot of which we can't see. we've been joined on the floor by the chairman of our committee. those pipes and wastewater treatment plants and the facilities that clean the water for us, we don't see those.

fortunately somebody does. somebody has built them. somebody minute obtains them in order to us to have that, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. today our committee led by john barrasso, the senator from wyoming, i had the privilege of being the ranking democrat on that committee, we approved two bills that will help us keep those promises. laid out in that declaration of independence. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. america's water infrastructure act of 2020 and a drinking water infrastructure act of 2020 will help thest army corps of engineers and the environmental protection agency make improves to key water infrastructure systems throughout our country. the programs we pass in our committee today will support the army corps of engineer's operation and maintenance -- listen to this -- 13,000 miles of commercial deep draft ship channels. 13,000 miles. 12,000 miles of commercial

inland waterways. i said earlier, mr. chairman, before you joined us, i explained how 99% of the cargo we send to other countries that comes -- comes by ship. doesn't come by airplanes. doesn't come by train. it comes by ships. and those ships don't move without waterways largely maintained by the army corps of engineers. these are little known projects that keep our economy moving. they're essential to our way of life as well. what comes into the port of los angeles today will be on shelves in stores in the midwest in a day or so later. in delaware we have a port on the delaware river called the port of wilmington not far from where i live, my wife and i live. supports more than 19,000 jobs in our region. for a little state -- big states, 19,000 jobs, that's not much. delaware, wyoming, that's a huge deal. port of wilmington is the united

states' top seaport for fresh imports. the even part of the united states -- you got up with creole with banana on your cereal, a good chance that banana came through the port of wilmington. the army corps of engineer is working with us on a new facility a couple miles north of the current port along the delaware riff. the army corps is responsible for dredging and maintaining access to this new channel which over time will the support more commerce, more jobs for our region, not just for state but for our region. we're such a small state, we're like -- you can stand probably a circle around my house where my wife and i live, about a 10-mile radius, you cover new jersey, you cover pennsylvania, and you get pretty darn close to maryland as well. so the impact will be regional impact. in addition to authorizing necessary corps projects in two

billswe reported out of committee today, the two bills we reported out of our committee today included authorizing the clean water revolving fund for the first time since 1987. we created -- it used to be e.p.a. would provide grant programs to fund water projects in states, to help fund water projects -- wastewater treatment projects in our states, and we changed that when ronald reagan was president. we've these revolving loan funds. the federal government replenishes them every now and then and invest the money out of these funds. bus we haven't reauthorized the clean water revolving fund which focuses less on drinking water and more on cleaning without and reducing the effluent we're producing in our communities. in the drinking water bill, we

also authorized more than a half billion for the water infrastructure through the small and disadvantaged communities grant program. that -- i just talked about it earlier when i spoke of senator dan sullivan. in our committee today he spoke about native americans in his state that don't have flush toilets in a number of cases a, they don't have clean -- they turn on the facet and the clean water doesn't just come out. in my state and other states where there are disadvantaged communities and we have a grant program that we're going to use to help more and more of -- not all of them, but more of them. and this will help us keep the promise of clean and safe drinking water, maybe not for every american but for americans, no matter what their zip code is or what kind of bank account they have. i think matthew 25 pertains

here. it starts out, when i was thirst thank you, did you give me a drink? when i was hungry, did you feed me? when i was thirst city and i didn't have any clean water to drink, what did you do about it? in this bill, i i'm proud of what we have done. we will continue to continue to address what are called forever more chemicals. chemicals that don't degrade. there is a word about a mile long, a couple of words that describe it. we call it pfas. i like this acronym a lot. these are forever chemicals, there are thousands of them that don't just -- just don't deglobal aids our environment. and for the most part they're not dangerous, but a couple of them are really dangerous. they can lead to thyroid and liver cancers. we have a pretty good idea of which ones they are.

we need to do something about it. and we sought to do that earlier this year, late last year through other legislation. we have an opportunity with the bill that we reported out today to do more good work on addressing these forever chemicals and one of the ways is by developing a clean drinking water standard for two of them that are most concerning -- pfoa and pfas. between today reporting the bill out of committee and the time we come back to the floor to debate it here, we have the opportunity i hope to do even more good work in addressing that. madam president, i know you have a military base in your state. i have been to one or two of them. we have one big one military base in our state. it's the dover air force base. 6,000 uniformed and civilian

personnel. they have some of the biggest planes in the world, c-5's, c-17'. it is a cargo base. it has been recognized as the best cargo base and air force base in the world. about five, six, seven years ago one of our c-5's took off -- they can fly around the world carrying a full load of fuel, a full road of cargo. as they took off, the flight engineer noticed an engine light came on in one of the engines. not a good sign. the flight engineer turned off not that engine, turned offed that engine. two engines working and two not working. long story shortcut the airplane came around and tried to land again where it had just taken off. crashed miles short of the runway and fortunately nobody was killed. the fire departments came rushing out and foamed down the area and helped put out the fire. nobody died. i'm sad to say when i was on

active duty as a naval flight, a huge fire, nasa airplane, big plane, landed on top of thest of an airplane. i think one person survived in the whole crash. again, firefighters rushed out and try to save lives with this fire fighting foam. of the -- there is a cruel irony here because the foam which is used to save lives in air crashes and all actually when it rains, it get washed into the ground and a lot of times ends up in wells and undergroundwater that people drink and consume and creates very serious health results for that. so, knitway, between now and today, and the time our bill comes to the floor, our bills come to the floor, we hope to make some more progress in addressing those forever

chemicals. well, millions of americans rely on the army corps projects to safely navigate our waters, and reap the benefits of healthy aquatic ecosystems and marshlands. we know the impacts of climate change pose a real danger to the durability of our infrastructure. i like to use the example of ellicott city, maryland. a couple of years ago within 18 months of each other, they had 2,000-year floods. it is a flood that's supposed to occur every thousand years. we had two within 18 months of each other. we're seeing that kind of weather in places all over the country. it not only wreaks havoc on our homes and businesses and road transportation systems but also our drinking water systems. one of the things that we do in our bill is to address that and these two bills expanding grants that will help small- and medium-sized communities and create some resiliency for the water systems during extreme

weather. before i yield the floor, madam president, to my friend and colleague, our chairman, john barrasso, i want to the thank him. again -- i already thanked you once. but now that you're here, i want to thank you g.n.p. i want to thank you for your leadership in helping us move this legislation through. we've all heard a saying, i think it is joe biden saying, just because somebody is my adversary, they don't have to be my enemy. don't let this word get out in wyoming. i think you could say we're friends. we like to work together and our staffs most days like to work together and hopefully we can do even better. but i want to thank him and his surtax i want to thank all the senators -- we pleaded with our colleagues from all 50 states to give us their ideas of what

should go into this bill and a budge of our clerks a majority of them did that. it's not just something we dreamed up. we had great input from a whole bunch of our colleagues, democrats and republicans, and were able to put together a bill that passed our committee unanimously. i just want to mention the names of a couple of people who on both sides of the aisle and they include richard russell, lizzie olson, craig thomas, beth lang, christina robuse, and on my team marie frances, mark men deny that will, andy demato, and john cain. he works harder than any person i have had the privilege of working with. and lastly, senator barrasso introduced me last year too a fellow from wyoming who'd been nominated to be a very senior official in the commerce

department. he would be an assistant or assistant secretary of interior to handle, among other things, national parks, national wildlife refuges, fish and wildlife. important job for all of our states, certainly mine and certainly wyoming. during his testimony, rob wallace testified i thought so well and it is hard not to like the guy. i liked him almost immediately. but he said these words, bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. that's what he said. bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. and i sat there that day thinking, boy, he nailed it. i've stole than line. sometimes i give him credit for it. sometimes i don't. bipartisan solution are lasting solutions. we need lasting solutions, especially with respect to making sure those words in the declaration of independence, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, aren't just words on a sheet of paper. but they're real words. and we've renewed our commitment

to them with the legislation reported out of our committee. so with some work to do -- people have strong views, not always in sync with each other. how do we deal with it in ways that are smart and respect science and enable us to make sure that we better protect people's health? so i think with that said, these bills are a win-win-win for our nation's economy, for our public health and environment in a time we need it. as we face down the covid-19 before us, i hope that these two pieces of legislation will serve as a model for how we can continue to work together, which is what i intend to do with our chairman. i'm happy to yield to him at this time. thank you. mr. barrasso: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. before my friend and colleague, senator carper from delaware, leaves the floor, i will tell you what a privilege it is to work with him.

and we work together as partners on the environment and public works committee. as know, madam president, every chair works with a ranking member. and i couldn't have a better partner than i have in tom carper. he has been magnificent in time, always trying to find a right solution that is a bipartisan solution. and we've done it again today in the environment and public works committee as we passed two major pieces of water infrastructure legislation. last year we passed highway legislation and he is focused, as am i, on rebuilding -- rebuilding for america the highways, the bridges, repairing as well the tunnels, all of the areas, roads, bridges, ports, riverways, reservoirs -- could not find a better partner. it's interesting he mentioned matthew 25. and if you research matthew 25, it was ben franklin's favorite

bible verse. ben franklin would say, if someone chose to live their life by one baseball verse, if theyies -- one bible verse, if they chose matthew 25, he said the world would be a better place. tom carper is one who leads his life every day consistent with the teaching and the readings and the writings of the gospel of matthew 25. he mentioned my good friend rob wallace from wyoming who has -- is now the assistant secretary of interior overseeing parks as well as fish and wildlife for the country. and rob always said, as was so quoted by ranking member carper, that bipartisan solutions are the best solutions. and he's somebody who knows. he worked on the hill. he worked as a staffer for former senator malcolm wallop of wyoming. then on the energy committee can

when senator wallop was involved in those days, in the 1980's and 1990's. the other thing that rob wallop talked about to which -- rob wallace talked about to which we agree as well is there are lands in this great country that needs to be protected and preserved and passed on. as rob pointed out that day, he said, whether it was john muir, who carried a stake, whether it was ancel adams, who carried a camera, or teddy roosevelt, who carried a gun, all into these vast areas of our country, they all recognized no matter what they were carrying the value that these wonderful lands meant for the country and we needed to make sure they were there for generations to come. know that the work that senator carper is doing is on this committee is meant for generations to come and it is a privilege towork with him. and then, madam president, i come for an additional reason, and that's to tell you that in

my home state of wyoming, we have reopened, we did that starting last friday. many states across the country are continuing to do so. and people all across my home state are ready, willing, able, and needing to get back to work. and we are doing it safely and we are doing it smartly, and we're following the guidelines set out by the white house. states all across the country are doing it, governors and local leaders are reopening and they are doing it in a responsible way. as of today over 30 states have reopened. on thursday michigan will reopen. on friday, pennsylvania, north carolina, as well as california will begin to reopen. by this time next week nearly 40 states will have opened again. now, we do hear on the other side of the aisle democrats complaining about wanting to do significant amounts of

additional spending. madam president, americans are busy getting back to work. that's where our focus should be. people are packing their lunches, they are taking proper precautions, they are putting on their work gloves and they are earning their keep. they are not looking for favors. they are not looking for frills from washington. they want to do their jobs and they want to make sure we do ours as well. we have spent close to $3 trillion in this country over the last two months and we have a duty to make sure that that money is spent properly and that we got it right. so we need to make sure that we are here and focused on work-friendly policies and this doesn't necessarily mean additional spending. it means making it easier for the 30 million people who currently are out of work, who have lost their jobs to get back to work sooner. our priorities are americans' priorities, rebuilding the

economy and jobs, addressing the coronavirus and helping our health systems. plenty of dollars have started to go out the door. many more dollars already approved are still slated to dp to the american people -- to go to the american people, to small businesses, to states and to our health care system. $3 trillion doesn't get spent overnight. the support that we have provided is fining its -- finding its way through the economy, through the health care systems, through the states to the men and women of america. states are looking at the dollars coming in and they are figuring out how best to use the resources. they are asking for more flexibility and i believe they need to have more flexibility in how the money's spent. senators in committees are here to make schoor we get this right. we need to do that through hearings, oversight, through confirmations. just this week the senate will have covid-related hearings in the homeland and banking

committee, in the commerce committee. we are just getting started. importantly this is not the time to reshape america along some liberal wish list of ideas that democrats have suggested. it's not time to legitimate from brooklyn or san francisco. it's not time to veer to the left. it's time to stay focused. and senate republicans are here, mr. president, and we are going to state focused on the future of america. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. i so agree with the comments the senator from wyoming was just making and i hear them repeated every day in tennessee by my constituents, and i will tell you, mr. president, i want to thank my colleagues who have asked me this week how tennessee

is doing. you know, we had another terrible storm. it was our third this year. we've had two tornadoes, and we had lots of power outages and damage on trees that were down in middle tennessee, and the tornadoes, the storm on sunday evening and covid is a lot for anybody to handle, but i think the -- the senator's point is so well taken. wyoming, tennessee, these are states that are saying, we can do this. we're going to use the resources that are there for us because, yes, we want to get back to work and we want to get back to normal. now, what is normal is a question and the right question for people to be asking because what is it going to look like and how is it that -- is that

daily routine going to be reshaped and how do we give up these worries that we have about health and wellness and safety and protection for ourselves, our family? our employers, our employees, health care workers, all of this goes into the shape of a new routine for the day, the things you worry about, the things that you're focused on and about your jobs, about businesses, about the future. another point that comes up regularly from tennesseans was well made by a "wall street journal" article that ran on monday and it was discussing that the u.s. government would borrow $4.5 trillion this year -- for this fiscal year. now, that is something that i

think legitimately could be added to the worry list for those of us who are fiscal conservatives, and we're looking at $25 trillion in debt. and we are looking at this debt load and thinking about that in relation to our g.d.p., thinking about the importance of federalism. and we are very concerned about this. we are going to have -- c.b.o. says our annual deficit is going to be the highest it has been since world war ii. now, when we think about that, we have to think about the fact that the greatest generation looked at that and they said, let's get in behind this and let's get that debt down. they were good about that.

i think about parents and relatives and grandparents, and what did they say? if there was a task to be done, let's go do it. that's why they lined up and they fought in world war ii. and they reshaped the way our communities worked. they planted victory gardens. they changed their daily routines and they went to work. but they said, let's get in here and let's get this job done. and they then put their focus on economic growth when they came out of the war, and look at what they did accomplished -- at what they accomplished. so while we think about the economy shrinking and jobless numbers growing and our vulnerable citizens, we have to think about the high price that is being paid there.

we also have to think about what it does to our children and our grandchildren because our forebearses certainly thought about -- forebears thought about that for us and our children and grandchildren deserve no less. now, when i'm talking with tennesseans who are stuck at home and they are watching the news every night and they are listening to what we're saying, they are in on zoom meetings and we're communicating with them daily, they have a tendency to say, how did we get here with the situation that is this bad that occurred this quickly? should we not have seen this coming? in february, we had some of the best numbers we ever had economically. and now you look at what has

happened in this short transition, and what they will ask is, what kind of breakdown took place in our international order that could have allowed covid-19 to spread beyond china's borders and into our neighborhoods and into our communities? and i have to tell you, they are upset about this. they are angry that lives have been disrupted. i had a call from a lady who has high school children, and she said, you know, marsha, i've got to tell you, i went to the grocery store and i looked at where every product was made before i put it in my cart. the reason she is checking where products are made, she said i'm so angry with china. i'm angry with the lies, the

deceit, the lack of information. i'm angry that lives have been lost and livelihoods have been lost, and i'm angry that my children have missed class days, field days, school sports, graduations, proms, summer camps, summer jobs. it's the season of their life that they are not going to recover. it's a loss of life and livelihood and the order that we've had is the reason that tennesseans are turning to us and they say we expect you to investigate what happened, to review it, to oversee it, and to make certain that our preparation is better and more forethought is given to how we're going to address this. addressing all of these federal

agencies and making certain that the bureaucracy doesn't get in the way of the decision-making. now, at this point we do know that there are a lot of unknowns. but what we do know is this, that the chinese government -- the chinese communist party, the chinese government spent the early days of the covid-19 outbreak destroying testing samples, intimidating doctors, expelling journalists, hiding information, lying to the world. you know, mr. president, it's so interesting that they still have not let the scientists from the c.d.c. into that wuhan lab. they still don't want anybody in there. they lied to everybody about how dangerous this was and they did

that on purpose. think about it. an intentional act of deception -- an intentional act of deception, repeated acts by the chinese communist party to hide something that was an outbreak and try to keep it from the world. this seems inconceivable that a permanent member of the u.n. security council and a former and likely future member of the human rights council would be so careless with the lives and livelihoods of billions of people, but they did it. but if you consider their track record, it does start to make sense because china is not a new problem. it is just a newly recognized problem, and i fear america has forgotten the lessons we learned as we watch the communist dogma

burn its way through eastern europe, russia, and asia, twisting the minds of ambitious men who leveraged political mass murder as a messaging tool, killing tens of millions of innocent people in the process during the cold war the divide between the soviet block and the west was pretty clear. we could see that alignment with the soviets. see that that would derail our global fight for democracy. we also caught glimpses of mao's china where upwards of 30 million people decide of starvation, disease, and directly at the hands of party officials. not an appreciation for the sanctity of life. one of our first principles and

tenets. today the communist chinese party is playing that soviet playbook and it's time for us to remember what that means before time runs out. although shing xing xing ping have modernized their efforts, they are all about cyber, they are all about technology, here's what we have to remember. their philosophy and their goals are exactly the same. they want to dominate the world militarily, economically, politically. they are wanting domination and they will step over and run over whatever gets in their way.

what we have to do is to remember that china is capable of funneling mass amounts of cash, equipment, and physical support to developing countries. they're doing it all in exchange for loyalty to the chinese communist party's agenda. for example, debt diplomacy schemes, that's their new thing. debt diplomacy schemes have ensnared sri lanka and djibouti and other countries in africa and asia. those countries have in turn opened the doors to strategically important ports and waterways and granted access to valuable natural resources. to be clear, these are not aid programs. they are tools of manipulation offered to nations in desperate circumstances. for nations not in desperate circumstances, beijing has to

work a little harder, but they still are working to get the job done. they can't on the promise of cheap labor and production and low-cost products to open doors with nations that normally are not going to work with somebody with such an abysmal human rights record as china has. the world is recalling some very hard lessons right now, but there is a path forward. we must secure our supply chains, and we must begin to return these critical infrastructures of supply chains to the united states. to make certain that we can bolster ourselves and that we're not completely dependent on china or some items that are essential for us. the pharmaceutical simply chain is one where i have focused with

senator menendez with our legislation. this week, senator mcsally and senator daines and i introduced the stop covid-19 act to hold china legally liable for the damage caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus. our colleagues have other pieces of legislation that are the same focus -- accountability for china and making certain this doesn't happen to us again, and i encourage all of my colleagues to look at these. and i also encourage my colleagues to accept that our relationship with china is broken right now and that it was never that great to begin with, but right now it is broken. it is time for us to realize that we have to treat china as an adversary and we have to protect ourselves as we move forward. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mrs. loeffler: my first priority in the covid-19 pandemic has been to keep all americans safe and heeled. while at home in georgia the last two weeks, i see the measures we need to take to fight this unprecedented health crisis has created dramatic economic and societal impacts. one in five georgians is unemployed. in the last six weeks, the georgia department of labor has issued more unemployment payments than in the previous four years combined. hotels in the golden isles were seeing 80% to 90% occupancy

rates at the beginning of march, the start of peak season for our beach communities. as the number of tourists plummeted, the president of our visitor's center described the economic impacts as absolutely devastating. school districts like forsyte county schools are giving food pickups for those who rely on eating breakfast and lunch at school. then there is the emotional toll the coronavirus has taken. a police officer has told me his department has seen a dramatic strike in domestic abuse calls. an emergency hotline run by the substance abuse and mental services administration saw a 1,000% increase in calls last month compared to last april. the full cost of this pandemic remain to be seen, but it is clear we need to look ahead and plan for a future that protects americans' lives and the lively lively -- lives and livelihoods.

as a member of the president's opening up america again congressional group, i'm putting my work of nearly three decades of experience building companies and creating jobs. over the last few weeks, i have held more than 100 calls to hear directly from georgia hospitals, state officials, first responders, food banks, small businesses, farmers, large employers, nonprofits, chambers of commerce, as well as the president and his administration to address the needs of georgians. with my experience and feedback, i have heard from georgians, i have developed the u.s.a. restoring and reigniting the strength of our economy plan, u.s.a. rise. this is a plan to bring back our thriving economy. it offers a four-pillared framework for investing in america, growing jobs, and helping families without expanding the grip of the federal government. it builds on the success of president trump's america first

agenda. the u.s.a. rise plan calls on all of us in congress to ensure that the more than $2 trillion in relief already passed in the cares act and in phase 3.5 is targeted to the areas of the economy that need it most while providing prudent oversight. the first pillar, made in the u.s.a., addresses the fact that for too long, our manufacturing has moved overseas. now more than ever, we're reminded of how dangerous it is to rely on other countries, especially competitors like china. the u.s.a. rise plan calls for incentivizing companies to return to the united states, investing in infrastructure to spur economic development, and having a competitive tax and intellectual property framework to promote hiring and capital expenditures. we need to ensure that america remains the best country in the world to do business. the second pillar, grown in the

u.s.a., is saimed at supporting our farmers and helping americans who are seeing empty grocery shelves or local food banks that are depleted. i grew up working in the fields of a -- as a fourth generation of my family's farm, and i know firsthand the challenges that farmers face even in the best of times, so today fruit and vegetable prices are down about 50% to 60%, and cattle and pork producers have been affected by meat processing plant closures and limitations. so at the same time the georgia food bank association told me they have seen a roughly 40% increase in demand for their services. we need to ensure the relief in the cares act is making its way to our farmers and agriculture businesses. any future trade deals with china must hold the chinese communist party accountable for their role in spreading the coronavirus and should focus on shifting supply chains back to the united states.

farmers account just for 2% of america's population but 100% of us eat. it is time to harness our agriculture advantage to support our farmers who put their businesses on the line every single day to feed americans and the world. the third component of my plan, hiring in the u.s.a., proposes removing regulatory barriers and cutting taxes to help small businesses keep employees on the payroll and to create jobs. half of all americans are employed by small businesses, and these are the small businesses that have been particularly hurt by covid-19. congress has already taken extensive action to provide loans and grants to small businesses like globalus, a small trucking company in fulton company, and jan's family day care in dalton. i recently talked to the day care owners bill and jane whit stone who received a p.p.p. loan. this will allow them to keep

their doors open and to serve working families. our economy cannot recover without our small businesses. my plan also calls for ruing the temptation for -- for reducing the temptation for trial lawyers to use covid-19 lawsuits to drain profits from employers at the expense of productive jobs. local shops and restaurants are the lifeblood of our communities, and there is more we can do to help them. and finally, we must support families in building strong futures. right now, too many families have lost their incomes and are struggling to afford their rent and put food on the table. the fourth component of my plan is families in the u.s.a. it saims to provide targeted relief for families and for children. among other things, it supports churches who are helping families during this difficult time and other organizations like ymca's across our state, which are the largest providers of child care in georgia, and they're providing thousands of meals each day to families

across our state. in the last several weeks, we have made great strides in expanding testing for the covid-19 outbreak. this is a crucial tool for getting back to work. over seven million americans have been tested through monday, and as president trump noted, no one else, no other country in the world has even come close to this level of testing. this is something we are proud to build on. in fact, the president has also announced the testing blueprint which is a partnership to help states build out their testing capabilities, and in my state of georgia, governor kemp has partnered with our universities and private companies to expand testing capabilities, and that's now at record levels. so anyone who thinks they may have the virus can use an app developed by augusta university to screen their symptoms and schedule a test at one of the 66 testing centers in our state. testing is a key component to

restarting our economy safely, but we must start to adapt to this new reality now. before this pandemic hit, we saw job creation and opportunity that lifted up all americans. the four pillars i have outlined are critical to reigniting our economic engine. the u.s.a. rise plan offers solutions to grow our economy without unnecessarily growing the federal government or our deficit. americans want to get back to work and back to their lives but safely. while we continue to fight covid-19 on the health front, we also must look ahead and make plans to rebuild now. i'm confident we will because i know that when americans unite, we rise to meet any challenge.

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, it's good to be back in session. after six weeks away from this place, it's good that we're all together, working on some very important things. in the past six weeks since we haven't been here in session working together, a lot has changed. america has been overtaken, really, not just by the coronavirus but by the economic damage that it's caused. more than 30 million americans have now filed for unemployment, and most believe we're

approaching the highest unemployment we have had in this country since the great depression. it's a concern. and particularly troubling because you think about it just a few months ago, back in february, we hit a 50-year low in terms of unemployment in this country. we have gone from a strong and growing economy to one where so many people are out of work, so many businesses have been shuttered. some of these businesses tell me they may have to shutter permanently. i hope not, but it's been a tough time. and at the same time churches and schools have been closed, some states have begun to reopen their economies, which is fantastic, but a majority of americans are still living by very strict social distancing guidelines. i hear constantly from ohioans how much this has upended their lives. sometimes small business owners will tell me a heartbreaking story of how they spent 30, 40 years building a business and now they have seen it be

devastated. they are in a situation where they have no cash flow and can't keep the business open. at the same time, a lot of americans had been teleworking, so they still have been working, but they haven't been going to the office or going to the factory. they have been working from home and figuring it out. just like everything else, here in the senate, we have been affected by this pandemic. as i said, we have been shut down for six weeks. and this started back in march. one of our colleagues actually came down with the virus. it was really on the advice of health officials and public health experts that we decided not to reconvene. it was probably the safe thing to do at the time. again, it's good we're back now. we're back now with the recommendation of the attending physician and other top medical experts. we have been wearing our masks dutifully, when appropriate. we have been keeping our social distance. my desk is actually over there,

but there was another senator over there so they put me here, which is good. but we have been doing this successfully this -- this week, and that's great because we need to be here representing the voice of the american people. however, i will tell you during these six weeks when we weren't convening, there was a lot of work to be done, too. yet congress was unable to do it. why? because unlike probably the majority of the people i represent, we don't telework. we work, yeah. we were homeworking hard but we weren't involved in the debate here. we weren't involved in hearings. we weren't involved in debates on the floor. we weren't involved in voting. during that time period, the six weeks, over a half trillion dollars was appropriated. in other words, this body chose to spend over a half trillion dollars. that used to be a lot of money, over a half trillion dollars of taxpayers' money. without people being here to weigh in, to vote, to offer amendments, to have a debate. and that legislation had to be

done because it had to do with helping small businesses in particular but also health care providers around the country getting more testing which was very important. but wouldn't it have been good had congress been able to weigh in. but we couldn't. why? we don't have the ability to remotely vote, much less engage in a debate, much less have hearings. so i think we should be able to do that. i think we should be able to meet and discussenings even when we -- discuss things even when we can't physically be here in the capitol. a couple of months ago i introduced legislation here on the floor of the senate with my colleague dick durbin from illinois. he's on the other side of the aisle and in a bipartisan way we said let's let congress vote remotely. let's use safe, secure means to do that and the technology is out there to do that. it's got to be safe. but let's let congress weigh in and vote remotely when we can't meet. this last six weeks is an example of that but it's not

just about this pandemic. i actually have been talking about this for 25 years because i believe it's important congress be able to meet when there is any reason that we can't come together or shouldn't come together. after 9/11 a lot of people were more focused on this because a terrorist act, particularly a bioterrorist act could have the same effect, of course. there have been periods of time where congress has not been able to meet here and there have been other periods of time like during the cold war when there was actually a bunker set up in the hills of west virginia somewhere for us to convene for fear there could be a nuclear attack. so congress has thought about this before but congress has never been able to put in place the ability for us to vote remotely, for us to have debate remotely, for us to have hearings remotely. and i think that's too bad because we are the voice of the people. we represent individual congressional districts on the other side of the capitol. we represent individual states here. the constitution set it up so we're out there listening to people we represent and we come here and represent that voice.

the executive branch has its own role and it's a very important one. but it shouldn't take over the legislative branch role because they're different. and the founders intended it that way, to have this separation of powers. by the way, other countries have done this. the united kingdom has begun to conduct its proceedings remotely. the e.u. has started to vote remotely, the european union and there are several other countries that have come up to work remotely, to telework in essence. about 14 states have figured this out so that they can convene meetings and so on and some even vote remotely. so i think it's time to do it. last week the permanent subcommittee on investigations which i chair had the first remote hearing in the history of the congress, i'm told. and it worked really well. we had three witnesses. we had several members of the senate participate. the witnesses were all around the country so we didn't have to call them here to country. we didn't have to -- here to

washington. we didn't have to gather as a group risking exposing us to the coronavirus. the witnesses were testifying from their homes, sometimes from a living room in one case one of the witnesses actually testified from the cab of a pickup truck because she was at her sister's place and didn't want to do it in the house. so she got in the pickup truck with her laptop and it worked great. it worked great. we were able to ask questions, get answers. it worked just like a regular hearing. so i was appreciative that the rules committee allowed us to do that. the technology, by the way, is in a sense off the shelf -- off-the-shelf technology. we didn't have to recreate the wheel. we worked last week. we used it. i think it can be a template for other hearings. by the way, today i'm pleased to say i participated in two more remote hearings. even though we're here in session, we're having remote hearings because it is not wise for us to all gather together

with the staff and with the capitol hill police and others. it's safer for us to do this remotely. and by the way, both these hearings went well. one was the finance committee. the other was the homeland security government affairs committee. by the way, our hearing last week is online. you can check it out. psi.gov. the two hearings today were both online, live streamed today. so this is not -- does not mean you cut out the public. i would say just the opposite. during the last six weeks we could have had hearings every week and kept the public informed and got more input from the public in an official way and a way that was so transparent that everybody could be engaged in it who wanted to just like c-span except it's online. so this is something we can now do and i hope we will continue to do it. i hope that we will be sure that as we do this, we also take seriously this idea of not just having hearings and not just having the ability to interact

as republicans and democrats but actually have the ability to vote remotely when we shouldn't be here. again it needs to be safe. i think we can do that. i'm convinced that if we put our mind to it, the technology is not the problem. the problem is tradition. i'm not against tradition. a lot of them make sense but you know what? extra decision around here has changed a -- tradition around here has changed a lot over the years. there didn't used to be a filibuster which is how we live right now to get 60 votes for everything. it's okay. i'm not saying it's a bad tradition to have chaimged. but the point is we change traditions. it's time for us to essentially catch up. most of the people i represent are doing this. they're teleworking to one extent or another. most people in america today are realizing that you can actually get a lot done online remotely. today i talked to some health care professionals who are telling me about one of the rare silver linings in this dark

cloud that's descended upon our country is the fact that telemedicine has been proven over the past couple of months to be pretty darn effective. and in many cases it has been used because people are concerned, they're afraid about coming to -- going to a hospital or their doctor but can get the advice through telemedicine. i talked to some educators today. in fact, also talked to the ohio farm bureau today and talked to a mom whose a he at hom with -- who's at home with her kids because her kids are home from school because schools have been closed. we talked about how much she's been able to learn about telelearning and how there is an opportunity here to do more outside of the classroom. not that we shouldn't get back to classrooms. i think we should. it's an opportunity for kids to interact which is important but we can also do more after school in terms of telelearning. we are beginning to acknowledge. so this is just another example of it. this is a change that i think must be made to prepare us for

the realities of this 21st century where these contingencies come up. it's a pandemic today. maybe something else tomorrow. by the way, the way our legislation works for voting is it's temporary. i don't think this should be the norm. i think it should be only in emergencies and only when the majority leader and the democratic leader, so in a bipartisan way decide it's the appropriate thing to do. and then under our legislation every 30 days congress would have to vote presumably remotely to reaffirm it. otherwise it ends. so it would be temporary. it would be an emergency -- in emergencies only and would be up to republicans and democrats alike at leadership level to decide it's time to try remote voting and to be sure that we as the members of the peep's house across the way and the members of the world's greatest deliberative body here in the senate as we're called have a chance to represent the millions of people who we are charged

with representing by being their voice here on the united states senate floor. i hope we can along with the times change here and begin to be more effective at representing those constituents. mr. president, i'm also here to talk today about the work that's being done to help my home state of ohio get through this coronavirus. it's a crisis in so many ways. it's a health care crisis but it's also become an economic crisis, a family crisis. it's affecting everybody in ways that are truly heartbreaking for me to see. and so many instances. i've talked to people who have been unemployed for the first time in their lives and have never had to access the unemployment insurance office. they've been fortunate and now they have to. i've talked to people who started a small business and

took a big risk to do that and have five or six employees, a family-owned business, and they've been through thick and thin over the years. but this one has really knocked them out. they have no income coming because they're in one of these businesses that by government order was shut down. and cannot continue to serve the customer. i've talked to hospitals in a rural area of our state that cannot continue to operate. they've got about a week left of cash reserves. luckily they're getting to get some of this funding that congress just provided with regard to the phase 3.5 as we're calling it legislation, the cares act. but they're really hurting. they have had to lay off more than half of their hospital staff. they can't do elective surgery. they can't have the normal work they're used to because people aren't coming in to see the

doctor. they aren't coming into the emergency room. the good news is in ohio and in some other states around the country we're starting to open up and doing so safely. doing it with more testing, and that's all good. but it's been a tough time. like so many americans, i've been on the phone a lot. i've been on the phone pet much all day every day -- pretty much all day every day into the night. a lot of what i've been doing is talking to constituents and talking to stakeholders across the state and hearing their concerns. and trying to explain what we're doing here in washington, how it would affect them and their families and getting their input as to what we should do. but also i've been working with the white house and h.h.s., fe fema, the f.d.a., the federal drug administration, treasury, the s.b.a., the bureau of prisons, the u.s. trade representative, state of ohio and others on corona-related matters to be able to help ohio companies and help ohio individuals. and we've had some success if that and i'm proud of that.

in terms of constituents, we've held seven tele-town hall meetings in the last six weeks where we hear directly from people, thousands of ohioans. again a lot of heartbreaking stories. also a lot of really inspiring stories about people who have stepped up and helped. one guy lost his job and decided to volunteer at a food pantry. and he wears the p.p.p., -- the p.p.e., the mask, gloves and delivers food to people who never have had to worry about food security before because they always had a job. now they don't have a job and are waiting to get their unemployment insurance and they can't put food on the table. some of them feel fufny about going -- funny about going to a food pantry because they haven't done that before. he makes them feel pore at home and understand -- more at home and understanding and welcome. i talked to people who are delivering groceries to their neighbors who are seniors and are more vulnerable. god bless them. i've talked to people who are making homemade masks at home.

i brought some with me on my trip to washington and, you know, they're doing it as volunteers, not asking for anything other than that if you take this mask, you have to agree that you're also going to be helping your neighbor. so the front line workers, you know, the hospital workers, they are putting their health care on the line for us so they're risking their own health care and the possibility of getting this virus to help all of us, to help our grand parents and our parents and god bless them. and i love when the health care workerworkers are being held upy everybody. today is -- i think it's official nurses day today. we should also be thanking our health care professionals and specifically today our nurses for what they do every day and every time period, but particularly during this crisis where they've been working really long hours and doing everything they can to try to protect us.

i appreciate the people who are doing everything else on the front lines right now, whether you're working in a grocery store and stacking shelves or whether you're driving a truck. i drove my pickup truck from ohio to washington on sunday to be here for this week and every time i went by a truck, i said thank you just for being out there. and delivering the food and delivering the products. so we thank those folks for what they're doing, all of them. and so one thing i've tried to do is to help in terms of explaining what's going on and getting input. we've talked to more than a dozen groups out there. i talked to the farm bureau today in ohio but i've also talked to the hospitals, small business owners, food bank, the nonprofits, and many others to hear how we can support them during this tough time. this afternoon we had a telephone call with some of the largest businesses in ohio, a group called the ohio business

round table. they talked interest some of the things they're doing. some are essential businesses, to keep their employees safe. i encouraged them as i always do get your best practices out to all your other business associates. let them know how they can reopen safely because we're starting to reopen in ohio. we want to be sure it's safe. the best advice is not going to be from some piece of paper, guidance as important as that is from the white house or state of ohio. it's going to be from other businesses who have found out that, hey, guess what you can do? you can stagger the lunch break. that helps to spread people out. things that might not be obvious. do the temperature testing as people come in. do everything that you can do to explain to people what they can do if they feel like they're getting sick, who they can come to and how they can be sure that they're not infecting others. so i think there's an opportunity here to be able to reopen and do it safely. one reason we were able to

reopen in ohio safely is because we have a lot more testing now. like many states, we didn't have enough testing until recently. now we're getting it. we had about 3,700 tests per day two weeks ago. within two or three weeks from today, we'll have 23,000 tests per day. the state of ohio to its credit, with governor dewine, reached an agreement with a company to take the lead in providing us a guaranteed supply chain of this reagent under their tests which enables us to dramatically respond -- increase our testing and we're getting to the point where you can have a lot more drive-thru testing. so at kroger and walmart and some of our drugstores we're starting to get the testing is much easier for people because you can drive through. you don't have to get out of your car. you feel safer. the saliva test, as opposed to a

test where they take a test deep into your nasal cavity. so we're beginning to have a lot more testing where we can say we can be open but we're going to test people a lot. we're going to do the contact tracing so we can quarantine those people. that's a lot better than quarantining all of us, is to really test, test, test where there is a problem. and to get to the point where we can test people who are even asymptomatic. because even if you don't have the symptoms, you can be a carrier. i think it is a key thing. this is the diagnostic test. there is also the immunity test that's coming up. but nothing replaces the diagnostic test that says whether you have it or you don't. we're also seeing good news around the country on these antiviral notifications. if someone does get coronavirus

you can take something. so remdesivir, this most recent one the f.d.a. has approved, has a record of being very helpful. people want to know that if they get the virus, they can take something for it. that's helpful. and then finally we are getting our hands around the p.p.e. issue, the personal protective equipment, the masks and gloves and government shutdowns. this afternoon, this evening after this talk i'm going to be talking with an ohio company that's interested in dramatically expanding the government shutdown production. that would be great. working with the white house and others to enshould you are that -- to ensure that that can happen. we have a lot of world-clausius abouts in ohio. what i'm talking about tonight is an example of that. there are other examples in the health care system that have contributed to this coronavirus solution around the country. one of the key contributions from ohio has been from a

company called batell, headquartered in columbus, ohio. they do awesome work all over the world. they run some of our national labs, for instance, for the energy department. we worked with the trump administration and with ohio governor mike dewine to help them get approval for a really innovative technology where they can take a mask, an n-95 mask, one like this except even better because it's n-95 mask, and they can recycle that mask. they decontaminate it. these masks can be recycled up to 20 times. think about that. 20 times. it's groundbreaking because they now have enough machines spread out around the country, 60 machines, that they can recycle, decontaminate between four million and five million masks a day. i worked with fema and h.h.s. and the white house to help

batell secure a contract to do that, to take their technology it, their machines and spread them, initially to hot spots around the country, like new york, chicago, detroit, now other place. i would tell people who might be listening that if you are connecting with a health care entity, a hospital, a nursing home, e.m.s., if you are a firefighter and you use these n-95 masks, don't throw them away. when you're done with them, put them aside in a separate bin for recycling and get them picked up. we also worked 0 an contract with the federal government to help with the pickup and delivery, which is also available now -- you can get them pain-capabled -- you can get them picked up. taken to battelle, hopefully they have a cleaning station near you and get a new mask

back. if you are close to one, you can get them overnight. but we are not at full capacity on these machines. we should be. it is a great idea. why spend the money to get some overpriced masks from china -- because they're all overpriced now. and it is a lot -- go to our website, find out if there is a machine near you. even if there's not, you can send them. we can help connect you with companies including cargo health in ohio that are providing some of the logistics to get the masks back and forth. that's an example of some of the things we've been working on over the past six weeks to try to help with this effort. and i want to again, as i've done before, commend the folks at battelle for devoting their time and energy to this project. as soon as coronavirus came up, they said to their engineers

forget what you're doing, go work on this. now they're working on some other really interesting technology that could be very helpful in detecting coronavirus. so it's an example. we had a another company -- correspondent goa health that i mentioned, that did something else early on. they came to me and said we've got 2.3 million protective gowns in storage. we're not using them. they are the kind of gowns that can be used as isolation gowns, very effective. they are a not qualified as surgical gowns, but they can be used as isolation gowns. we're willing to donate them to the national stockpile. well, we worked with, again, f.d.a. and h.h.s. and the white house to get through some of the red tape because it is tough to get things approved throughout federal government. we want to be sure things are safe, right? but we got approval for those gowns. they started to go out. they went to new york, they went

to detroit, they went to places where they are hot spots. there are now 2.3 gowns donated. so how companies have been helpful? one that's been very helpful is go-jo. it is a company that makes purell. they have been going 24/7 producing all they can. it is tough to find it in the grocery store. i know, because as soon as the shipment comes in, people take it and use it. it is helpful to have purell now that we're reopening. it means wearing a mask when you are in proximity with someone else, it means washing your hands more often, it means following the rules to be able to stay safe. so purell will continue to be needed. but they had a problem because the federal government was

assessing a tariff, a 25% tariff on two critical items they had to have for their disexpensers. the items, as least one of them, had a patent in chairman. so china had a patent on it. we were able to go to the u.s. trade representative and i commend bob lighthizer, who is the trade rep for working with us on this. for this period of time, to take that 25% tariff off. why? because you are having a tough time getting the supply. and it was increasing the cost by 25%. we were able to do that. now they're able to produce more of this purell and do it less expensively. this leads me to a comment on china. we need to pull back some of what we make it china and make it here. it is harder to implement sometimes because our supply chains are global now and complex. who would have thought that in a

go-jo dispenser there would be a chinese-patented product. but there is. whether it is gowns, most of which are made in china, or masks or other products like something essential that's in a hand sanitizer dispenser, you've got to pull those products back. i think the way to do it isn't to beat up on china burkes rather, to provide the incentive, the carrot to american companies and other companies to say make it here, make it in america. i think we can do that as a group. republicans, democrats alike, i think there is a consensus now we should do more, sometimes for the first time, products that have been moved overseas and particularly to china. we wouldn't have had to get that special permission on the 25% tariff if it was made here. we also worked with the f.d.a. to get approval for a company called second breath in cleveland, ohio. another example. a company that didn't make ventilators at all. it's actually a consortium of

several manufacturing companies that work together. but they again early on in this crisis said, us know what? we need ventilatorsment we can do that. we're manufacturers. we're ohioans, inventors. and they went out and they made these ventilators on their own that were then tested at three different ohio hospitals and the medical community loved them. and they're relatively inexpensive, relatively simple, and very effective. but again the f.d.a. had to go through its process and my job was not to say that the f.d.a., you need to approve this. my job was to say, please expedite this process so that if it can be approved, we can get these out to people who are dying, literally, and need these ventilators. and to the f.d.a.'s credit, dr. jeffrey surehahn, they got that product approved. now those ventilators -- they had already made a bunch of them. they were willing to take a loss with the opportunity to save

people. now that's ventilators, boom, have gone out to stockpiles and hospitals, including new york when they needed them all over the country. and so it's an example of the kinds of things over the last six weeks we've been able to do in ohio. there's also companies in ohio now making swabs, making masks, making shields, face shields, making hand sanitizer. the procter and gamble company has converted some of their perfume manufacture making factory to making hand sanitizer. it probably smells pretty good. but i don't know if it actually has a particular odor to it. but about it comes -- but if it comes from a perfume factory, it might be not just effective but smell pretty good, too. so anyway, thanks to them and all these companies that are willing to step up and do things they've never done before and to

to respond to this crisis. that's what americans do. we get knocked down. we figure it utah, we get back on our -- we figure it out, we get back on our feet. so ultimately i'm optimistic. think about what's happened in the last couple of weeks. a 0% of testing in my -- a 600% increase in testing in my state. new medication has been approved, something people can rely on. p p.e., like the recycling that we can do in earthquake in. the gowns we're trying to get mass-produced in america right now. we're starting to catch up on things that frankly we were pretty far behind on. on the testing, i would tell you for the first few weeks of this crisis, you couldn't get a test in most parts of ohio unless you were so severely ill you had to be hospitalized. that was wrong. and we just weren't prepared as a country. by the way, the last

administration wouldn't have been any more prepared, nor would the previous administration where i served. we just weren't expecting a pandemic like this. we should have been, of course. there were some warnings. but the country now will be prepared and one thing we're doing is we're adding to that stockpile. with the p.p.e., with the ventilators, with obviously the antiviral medications for this virus and the vaccine for this virus, and my hope is that that vaccine, which is -- the administration calls their process warp speed -- and i appreciate that. they're working around the clock. there are some scientists that have devoted their lives to this. that's all they're doing. god bless them. and there's a budge -- there's a bunch of them. some of these won't work. people have spent billions of dollars on stuff that won't work. but kind of like those

ventilators were made even though they didn't know if they would get approval, we want to have that virus vaccine ready. and if a it does work and it gets approval, we want to have lots of dot doses of it -- lots of doses of it already made. to ensure that we end up with something that can be effective. on the testing, i can tell you in my own hometown of cincinnati, ohio, in the first few weeks, we really couldn't be tested unless you were to be hospitalized. we had an interesting issue there, again, showing how washington sometimes can make things a little slower. our primary academic medical center in southern ohio had ordered a testing machine back in february. they had ordered it because they knew this was coming, and they wanted to get the best of the best. so it was a high-quality machine, high accuracy.

could do a thousand tests a day. by the way, at the time they were doing about 100, 80 to 100 tests a day in their own little lab, but they needed this equipment. and they had a contract for it back in february. come march, they kept hearing next week, next week, next week. they called me and i got involved. i got to the company and got to the university of cincinnati and said, you know, what's the real problem here? they said well, we were being told by the federal government we can't deliver it to cincinnati. it needs to go somewhere else. i said they contracted for this back in february. we are desperate for testing. we may not be a hot spot right now, but we're going to be unless we get some testing. again, we broke through the red tape, broke through what was some miscommunication, it turned out. with the help of the white house, we got the approval to get the diagnostic test there they had already been contracted for. it's called a covid 6800

machine. it can process more than 1,000 diagnostic tests per day. it is working. it is every day giving more people the sense of security that they know whether they have this or not, and they know whether the person that works in the store has it or not, and they know that we have more access to testing. not enough yet. we're getting there. but that will be key to getting us back to business but also reopening in a way that we don't have to stop if there is an outbreak because we will have the testing to be able to really throw at it and then the contact tracing and be able to ensure that we can stop the spread of the virus. so those are some of the things that we have worked on. we have worked with fema to unlock additional resources for ohio. that's happened around the country. usda has now allowed the ohio department of child and family services to operate the disaster household distribution program. we appreciate them. we worked with them on that so we can officially get meals to

food banks and families in ohio. we worked with the department of veterans' affairs to ensure veterans to get an extension on the filing of claims and appeals during this time period for veterans compensation benefits. and other benefits. during a time when v.a. offices have been closed. we helped stop the bureau of prisons, the federal bureau of prisons from sending more prisoners to one of our hot spots. it's a really sad case, the elkton federal prison in ohio. we also helped them bring more health care to the elkton prison. frankly, i'm discouraged that they aren't doing more testing there. i talked to them -- i talk to them constantly. they are providing more testing, but not enough. not enough. and i think it's inexcusable. i think in a situation like a nursing home or a prison, we should be focused on getting the testing in there. these are what they call congregant living situations. in this case, it's a low

security prison so it's more like a dorm-type style living. and unfortunately, if they were to test as much as they should, i believe they would find out as we have found out in other state prisons in ohio that more than half the prisoners there are carrying the virus. you have to separate those people out from those who don't have it and do much more treating and tracing. but we have made progress there and will continue to. the phase 3.5 rest exiew package we passed a few weeks ago does have funding for the p.p.p. program, which is for small businesses, to be able to keep their doors open. it also has funding for health care. but the piece that hasn't gotten much attention that may be the most important aspect of the bill of all is $25 billion in the bill for more testing. again, i am a broken record here on testing, but that money is so important, and we're using it in ohio right now. about $43 million has come to ohio recently, aaliyah told, and that funding will be helpful not just to ensure that we have

testing but that we have enough testing so that we can really get a sense of what's going on in terms of the health care crisis, and then when there is a hot spot address it again immediately and be able to stop the spread of the virus. it's so important to us reopening and getting people back to work, back to their churches and other places of worship, back to school. we need to get back to a more normal life, and we can, and we will. we'll figure this out. but we do need the help of having the necessary testing capacity. diagnostic testing. and then it's also helpful to have the antibody test so you know whether you have developed an immunity or not. but those are both needed. you can't do it just with the antibody test. you also have to know through the diagnostic test whether or not someone has the disease or not to be able to pull that person out of a situation where he or she is with others and find out who they have been in touch with and do the contact tracing. again, quarantining those

people, not quarantining everybody else. that's the effective way to do it. congress has now passed four of these legislative measures in a overwhelming bipartisan fashion. it's a lot of money. about $3 trillion have gone out the door from federal taxpayers. i hope we can continue to be bipartisan. i hope we can work together to figure out how to move forward. in my view, moving forward means looking at what we have done carefully -- let's not start to legislate again and spend more money until we know how what we have already sent works. the money is just being distributed now. in fact, most of our money in ohio that goes to the state and local governments is not being distributed yet. let's get that money out by the way. they need it. they need it badly. they need it to pay police and fire and e.m.s. our cities in ohio are really hurting because they depend so much on income taxes, on earning taxes. other cities in america don't because they can't, but about four of the top five cities in america that are most affected by the reduction in revenue from the coronavirus are in ohio.

columbus, cleveland, cincinnati, and toledo. so they have got a real problem on their hands. i strongly urge the department of treasury to loosen up their requirement to allow that state and local funding to be used for flexibly, specifically for payroll, for public safety, based on monday's guidance that we just got a couple days ago here, they can now do that. that's just guidance. it's not legislation. i would love in whatever we do going forward to get that in legislation. to say let's provide flexibility, to the states but also to these municipalities. i will tell you in my home state of ohio, again, at the municipal level, we are really hurting. budgets are being slashed. because the revenue is not coming in because it's based on the economy. most cities rely heavily on property tax. we don't. property tax has not been affected in the way that income tax has or sales tax. so we do need to pay attention to this. people say we shouldn't send any

more money to municipalities. let's start with flexibility. let them use the money they have more effectively for what they actually need. i don't want a situation where you have got a 30%, 40% cut in police, which is what's happening in some of our municipalities, to affect the public safety of our communities at a time like this. police officers need to be on the street doing their jobs. god bless them, they are out there. we need them. e.m.s. personnel. if your grandmother needs to be rushed to the hospital, you want the e.m.s. to come. you don't want to have a 40% cut in their services. so we do have to deal with this issue and be sure providing flexibility is the first step. and let's codify that by statute, make sure it's clear. not just guidance that doesn't seem to be consistent with the underlying law because the underlying law says it has to be directly related to the covid-19. and some of this is not. you need police officers on the street whether you had covid-19 or not. so let's be sure we codify that, and then let's see what's

needed. but i also think in this next legislation, we also have to be sure that we are not just looking into what's already passed but looking ahead, and looking ahead means the ability to reopen. that means stimulating the economy. creating whether it's tax relief or whether it's smart investments in infrastructure. let's say the projects that are already on the books, in my state and yours, projects that are already shovel ready because they are ready to go. they have gone through the merit-based process in our state. many of those projects won't be able to be funded this year by our states. why? because their revenues have collapsed. their gas taxes have collapsed. the state match, which is based on the amount of gas you buy, has gone down because people aren't driving nearly as much. what if we picked up some of that at the federal level? these are good projects because they aren't bridges to nowhere because they have been through the merit-based process. and they're ready to go.

that's an idea. it's good jobs, one. which are needed right now. good benefits. but also it's economic benefits. those dollars will come back in terms of improved roads and bridges and ports, airports, rural broadband would really help right now as people are telelearning and teleworking more and more, they are finding out oh, my gosh, there are big parts of our country that don't have broadband access. you can't get wi-fi. if you can, it's way too slow. again, talking to the farm bureau today, you would think they would be talking about the price of corn and soybeans, and they were, and the huge issues we have right now in the beef industry and the pork industry and poultry, but they were also talking about i got my kids at home, and we can't do the homework because you can't get broadband in a lot of parts of ohio. probably about a third of our state. ohio. not viewed as a state that has huge sparsely populated rural

areas, but we have enough, and we have a real lack of access to broadband to be able even to do school work, much less to start a small business. so this is another area where we could provide some help for that here and it would come back in terms of increased dollars from having more economic development in some of these rural areas. so i think there are some things we need to do there as well. there has been a lot of discussion about this issue of liability protection. let me tell you my perspective on this. it's very simple. this should not be a partisan issue. i mean, we should not want these hospitals and these schools and these small businesses and anybody to be able to be sued for something that was totally out of their control. this is not something anybody should be blamed for, certainly in this country. we know where it started and wh,

but the fact this has come over here and people are affected by it, let's not have a trial lawyer bonanza here because that will result in people not getting back to work. it will result in more costs for our universities. i understand some are being sued right now because they have students who are telelearning. well, yeah. it's not their fault. you can't bring students together right now in the dormitories. it's not safe. i know there is, again, kind of a partisan nature to this. it shouldn't be partisan at all. we should all want people to go back to work, to be able to go back to school, to be able to access the health care system. i also think for my colleagues on my side of the aisle who might want to make this broader than the coronavirus, let's keep it to the coronavirus. and i think that's what people intend. let's keep it to covid-19. and let's provide the kind of protection, sensible protections that are necessary to be able to allow people to get back to a more normal life.

people say well, things are going to be so different now in america. they will be different. we'll be more cautious. you know, we'll probably therefore have a less drastic flu season, too, because we will be more careful. and with this pandemic, you know, we don't know if it's going to come back again like it did a couple months ago, if it will come back again in the fall or the winter like that, but we have to be prepared for that. so life won't be exactly the same, there's no question about it, and there will be some things that will be different, too. there will be more teleworking because it's worked well. it's cost-effective, it's efficient. there will be more telemedicine because it's worked well. i have talked to a number of doctors who are actually very pleased with some of the things they have been able to do remotely. i hope we will have a congress that works more remotely so when we're on our recesses as we do every august and we do periodically that we could have remote hearings on a regular basis because it's great information. but ultimately i think our

country will get back on track. again, we as americans when we get knocked down, we get back up on our feet, and that's what we will do. we will again have not just the greatest economy on the face of the earth, but we again will be that beacon of hope and opportunity for the rest of the world. people will again look at america and say i want to be like that. we will be able to show that and how we get back on our feet and how we get back to a more normal life, and once again the greatest country own the face of this earth will be able to once again be able to show the world an ideal for everyone to aspire to. thank you, mr. president.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: as the senate received the president's veto message on s.j. res. 68. the presiding officer: it has. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the veto message on s.j. res. 68 be considered as having been read, that it be printed in the record, and spread in full upon the journal. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that at 1:30 tomorrow, the senate vote on passage of s.j. res. 68 notwithstanding the objections of the president to the contrary. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. con.

res. 38 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. con. res. 38, concurrent resolution to establish the joint congressional committee on inaugural ceremonies for the inauguration of the president-elect and vice president-elect of the united states on january 20, 2021. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the concurrent resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 562 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 562 designating march 25, 2020, as national cerebral palsy day. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate

will proceed. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to consideration of s. res. 563 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 563 designating march it 20 -- march 2020 as national women's history month. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. thursday, may 7. further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for

the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. further, following leader remarks, the senate resume consideration of the veto message on s.j. res. 68 under the previous order. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. mcconnell: so if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until the u.s. senate gambling out. earlier lawmakers voted to approve william, the director of the national cancer intelligence and security center credit they've also been debating coronavirus legislation. life on here on "c-span2". the federal government to work dc and throughout the country, the con contact

information, order your copy online today at cspan floor .org. sunday night, on book tv, on afterwards, author tara talks about wing of the navajo mountains with survivalist parents. >> i think my mother did a pretty decent job of homeschooling. but as emma came along, she was a midwife, and there was not a lot of homeschool going on so it i never, never anything like a lecture. >> the 10:00 p.m. eastern, with his book, together. on the impact of holiness on health. >> but it felt this was growing for my e-mail or social media

feed. i don't need to do that. i just follow into it. it's very clearly, what we do what we think, we are actually wishing, very rapidly. this is why think that is so important for us to ask the question, how do we expect, but perhaps even more importantly the quality of time. >> was full to become this weekend on "c-span2". during today senate session, number of lawmakers come to the floor to talk about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. and the senate agenda including judicial and executive nominations. the session opened with a prayer, by senate chaplain very black. >> let us