advancing on confirmation. now to live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, you have taken care of us in the years that have gone. we honor you for your glory and strength. may we place our hope in you and

never forget that you can also sustain us in the future. today, give our senators the wisdom to trust you in the small things, realizing that faithfulness with the least perhaps them for fidelity with the much. as they seek to be stewards of your justice, mercy, and grace, use them to fulfill your purposes. lord, give them a love for your wisdom and a passion to be guided by your precepts. we pray in your holy name.

amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask so speak in morning business for one minute. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. grassley: thank you. now that the united kingdom has separated from the european union, it's our opportunity to sit down with the united kingdom and do some business. therefore, i'm pleased that the united states and the united kingdom are making strides in our negotiations to complete a free trade agreement. our two countries, as you know, has a century ri-old relationship. that -- centuries old relationship. that will be further strengthened by a comprehensive deal that presents economic opportunities for our farmers, our manufacturers, and our service providers to the benefit of both sides of the atlantic. i will continue to insist that an agreement reached between our two countries will allow us to

reach our full potential as trading partners, particularly when it comes to agricultural trade. the united kingdom has been sub to very restrictive european union rules that have no scientific basis. we call those sanitary and vital sanitary rules. and i urge the administration to work with the united kingdom negotiators to achieve greater market access for u.s. farmers. in other words, i'm tired of the e.u. restrictions that we've had over the last couple of decades on our g.m.o. grains. i yield the floor. mr. mcconnell: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: when the senate passed the cares act back in march, we were trying to prepare the nation for economic paralysis and the medical battle of the century at the very same

time. hospitals, health care providers, small businesses, and working families needed help fast and the senate stepped up in historic fashion. for months our legislation has helped cushion the pain of the crisis from coast to coast, but our nation is not finished with this fight. more americans are dying every day, millions and millions are unemployed, and the institutions of american life cannot stay totally shut down until our race for a vaccine hits the finish line. our nation needs to smartly and safely reopen while keeping up the medical battle. we need to get kids safely back to school and adults safely back to work without losing ground in the health care fight. the coronavirus does not care that we are divided. the coronavirus will not care if washington democrats decide it

suits their partisan goals to let relief run dry. the american people are hurting and congress should have their backs. on monday i laid down a marker to shape the bipartisan conversations that need to happen now, not a loony ideological fantasy like the house democrats' bill from a few months ago which would have cut taxes for rich people, raised taxes on others and provide nothing for the paycheck protection program. no serious talks require a serious talking point. that's why we have a bill with largely bipartisan policies. another round of cash for households. nearly $3,000 for an eligible family of four. another round of additional federal unemployment benefits, assistance which will otherwise

simply expire. and another targeted round of the paycheck paycheck to keep -- paycheck protection program to keep paychecks coming to american workers. power incentives to starting rehiring, bring down unemployment and create safe workplaces for workers and customers. more support for hospitals and health providers, more support for testing, p.p.e. and diagnostics and more resources for a sprint toward a vaccine. and historic support for schools to reopen. a higher dollar amount than house democrats managed to propose in their bill by cost three times as much as ours. and uniting all three pillars of kids, jobs, and health care, we have legal protections for medical workers, schools, nonprofits, and businesses so well-connected trial lawyers can't get even richer off of stopping the recovery in its

tracks. this is more than fair, more than bipartisan framework for democrats to engage with. the only reason i can see that speaker pelosi and the democratic leader would sabotage negotiations is if, as some concluded when they killed police reform in june, they actually think bipartisan progress for the country would actually hurt their own political chances. that's why i said a few days ago we'd quickly learn if the american people would get the responsible democratic party from march or the cynical obstructionist democratic party from june that blocked police former. so let's review the early going. almost the instant we put out this proposal which would send thousands of dollars in cash to families and even more families to unemployed people, the democratic leader proclaimed, quote, those republican hard-right money people don't want the federal government to help anybody, end quote.

a trillion dollar proposal for kids, jobs, and health care just proves republicans don't want to help anyone? yesterday, after a meeting with the administration, the speaker of the house said, quote, this isn't a negotiation. so here we go again, madam president. it's the script from police reform all over again. weeks of talk from democrats about the urgency of the issue, weeks of democrats thundering that people will be hurt if we don't act. but then when it's time to actually make a law, democrats would rather keep political issues alive than find a bipartisan way to resolve them of. take the issue of additional federal unemployment insurance. for weeks now it's been clear to a majority of americans that we should not pay people more to stay home than we pay people who continue working. should we have generous

unemployment insurance in this crisis? of course. republicans want to continue the federal supplement at eight times the level democrats themselves put in place during the last recession. but obviously we should not be taxing the essential workers who kept working to the government can pay their neighbors a higher salary to stay home. let me say that again. we should not be taxing the essential workers who kept working so the government can pay their neighbors a higher salary to stay home. until about five minutes ago this was not a controversial opinion. democrats shared it with us. the house democratic majority leader said yesterday, quote, that's an argument that has some validity to it. it's not $600 or bust. a few days earlier our democratic colleague senator coons said he thought we'd be finding some path forward with a different dollar figure.

the day before yesterday, our colleague senator cardin said, quote, what is the right number? well, we certainly understand we don't want someone to have higher benefits than what someone can make working. that was senator karpd inn. at the state level, the democratic governor of connecticut greece. is this what he said. i think sometimes it discourages work. i would put off this extra $600 true-up they are talking about. i don't think we need that. that's the democratic governor of connecticut. like i said, not controversial. the congressional budget office says that five out of six recipients of this aid, 83%, receive more to stay home than they made on the job. let me say that one more time. the congressional budget office says that five of six reu79s of this aid, 83%, receive more to stay home than they made on the

job. and we all know that's not fair and it's not workable in a reopening job market. we've already heard from small business owners who had trouble reopening because it would be financially irrationale for their employees to come back. this is why republicans propose continuing providing federal aid, continue providing hundreds of dollars per week, but do it in a more targeted way while providing even more incentives for rehiring. with but -- but now, madam president, the speaker of the house will not let a package go forward unless we continue paying people more not to work. that's apparently the speaker's position, that we will not let a package go forward unless we continue paying people more not to work. that's why -- that's what speaker pelosi signaled yesterday. no money for schools.

no money for households, no second round of the p.p.e., no money for hospitals or testing, nothing at all unless we continue to pay people more not to work. if the democrats don't get the continued tax and essential workers more to stay home, then nobody gets a dime. to put it gently, madam president, that is -- that is a completely unhinged position. 62% of americans say that paying people extra to remain unemployed creates the wrong incentives. our democratic governor says he doesn't want that continuing. her own deputy, the house democratic majority leader said yesterday, there should be room to negotiate. but speaker pelosi is literally moving the goalpost so fast that even democrats can't keep up. and now she apparently feels that any rescue package will have to be the political left of her own democratic majority leader to the political left of

the democratic governor of connecticut or she will not even consider it. she will just refuse to legislate and wish the american families good luck in dealing with the pandemic. these are not the positions of people who are putting the common good above politics. these are not the positions of people who actually want to reach an agreement to save federal federal unemployment insurance from -- from completely expiring. the american people deserve better than this. the american people cannot afford for the democratic people in congress to decide in june that they are finished legislating until november. not during a crisis like this. the country needs help. the country needs action. if democratic leaders decide they won't negotiate, they will answer to the american people.

the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, executive office of the president, derek kan of california to be deputy director. mr. mcconnell: i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the minority leader is recognized. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now, over the past three months, madam president, as americans stayed home, forfeiting their routines and their livelihoods to combat the spread of the virus, as essential workers risked their safety and their families' safety, as 50 million americans filed unemployment claims, small businesses folded, and the disease spread rapidly through the summer, the republican

majority paused on addressing covid-19 while they confirmed more right-wing judges. americans pitched in and sacrificed, and many suffered greatly while senate republicans kept their assembly line of extreme judicial nominees humming along and did little else. and now, after an interm minutable delay, senate republicans have finally admitted that the country needs relief, but they can't even get their act together to produce a halfway legitimate legislative proposal. we all witnessed a week and a half of infighting on the republican side as the country careened toward several cliffs created by republican delay. republicans bickered amongst themselves as the moratorium on evictions expired. state and local governments shed jobs and cut public services, and the lassen hansed unemployment checks went out thd unemployment checks went out the door. when the republicans finally

convinced themselves they were ready for a plan, republicans released several incongruent drafts littered with corporate giveaways, k street handouts, presidential pet projects. some republicans proposed billions of dollars for large agribusiness and defense contractors, but not a dime to help american families stay in their homes. the republican bill has a tax break for three-martini lunches, but no food assistance for hungry kids. there is a $2 billion -- there is $2 billion for a new f.b.i. building whose location will increase the value of the trump hotel, but no funding to help state and local governments retain teachers, firefighters, bus drivers, and other public employees. there is no support for medicaid, for nursing homes, or those with disabilities. the proposals to support our health system and meeting our testing needs are wildly insufficient. and if you're one of the

20 million to 30 million of americans who lost your job through no fault of your own and you can't find work, senate republicans think you have it too good right now. you should take a 30% pay cut, republicans are saying. this is not a serious proposal no a country in the midst of a once in a generation crisis. you can imagine when reviews started rolling in yesterday, they weren't too positive. one republican senator said -- so as you can imagine when reviews started rolling in yesterday, they weren't too positive. one republican senator said there are a hundred problems with the plan. another republican, it's a mess. i can't figure out what this bill is about. another republican of this chamber said, you look at the package that was rolled out by the republican leadership and it

contains virtually nothing that will actually aid in the recovery. those would be harsh criticisms if they came from democrats, but those quotes weren't from democrats. those were republican senators talking about their own party's plan. two senior republican senators have said that the republican proposal would be lucky to get even half of the republican conference to vote for it. leader mcconnell warned democrats against blocking the democratic proposal. it turns out that senate republicans are blocking the republican proposal. so it's abundantly clear that the senate republican proposal for the next phase of covid relief is not a useful starting point. you don't have to take my word for it. just ask president trump who took the podium yesterday afternoon and called the senate republican proposal semiirrelevant. at this point i'm beginning to wonder who does support the

republican proposal on covid-19. so here's where we are. we need to turn the page on the republican proposal and quickly. the legislative train wreck by senate republicans cannot derail our efforts to provide urgent, comprehensive, and necessary relief to the american people. speaker pelosi and i have started negotiating with chief of staff meadows and secretary mnuchin. we want to work with our republican colleagues and the white house on a bill that actually meets the needs of the american people in these unprecedented times. but it's going to take good faith and compromise. we're not hearing that from leader mcconnell. leader mcconnell already is drawing lines in the sand insisting that any agreement include his specific corporate immunity provision. no negotiation. put this provision, extreme provision in the bill without negotiation. that sure doesn't sound like

someone who wants to reach a bipartisan agreement. we're going to need everyone to pull together. we're going to need to focus on the needs of the american people. with all due respect to the republican leader, americans on the brink of eviction are not crying out for a sweeping corporate liability shield. no one should be also to torpedo all the relief americans are counting on unless there's a giant corporate giveaway attached. time is short. speaker pelosi and i will be back at the negotiating table with the white house later today. it's time for our republican colleagues to roll up their sleeves and get serious as well. and one final point on this subject. again, this morning, the republican leader continued his alice in wonderland interpretation of what has happened. when what has happened is black, he says white. when would has happened is white, he says black.

he's the total opposite of the truth in what's happened. he's suggested democrats might be trying to block progress on covid relief because it might suit our party in the election, that we democrats had decided to stop legislating until november. i mean shocking stuff. over ten weeks ago democrats, democrats passed a bill three times the size of the republican proposal that was more generous and beneficial to the american people on nearly every measure. leader mcconnell dismissed it. senate democrats spent the entire month of june asking our republican colleagues, including leader mcconnell, to pass crucial legislation related to jobs, health care, and small business. we went on the floor and made those requests. republicans blocked every single one, nearly every single one of those requests. so this absurd, nasty insinuation by the republican leader doesn't pass the laugh

test. the fact that leader mcconnell would even consider the idea that a political party might deny support for the american people in order to help win an election says more about the republican leader than anybody else. on another matter, today the senate will vote on two nominations to the nlrb, the national labor relations board. one nominee from the republican side and another from the democratic side. on bipartisan boards and commissions like the nlrb, this used to be the tradition. the president's party always enjoys a majority on these boards. but it's crucial for the opposite party, whoever it is at the time, to have their recommendations approved to these bipartisan boards. unfortunately, the vote comes today after more than two years during which the republican majority refused to even schedule a vote on a democratic nominee to the nlrb mark pierce. the republicans waited so long

that both democratic nominees that were already on the nlrb had their terms expire. so while democrats look forward to confirming lauren mcferran to the nlrb later today, we are still frustrated, frustrated that the republican majority denied any democratic representation on the board for too long. and they continue to deny a vote on the second democratic seat. i yield the floor.

mr. thune: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we're not. mr. thune: madam president, i intend to talk about section 230 here in just a moment. i just wanted to sort of react to what the democratic leader said and also sort of make some observations generally with where i think we are with respect to coronavirus relief bill. the democratic leader indicated that the republican bill wasn't a serious bill and frankly i think it could be argued that the bill that he has endorsed passed by the house of representatives was not a serious bill.

it was about $3.5 trillion which would make it about a trillion dollars larger than the massive coronavirus relief bill that we passed unanimously in the senate back in march. and that bill at the time for a lot of people represented something unlike anything that they had ever seen before, both in terms of scale and scope, the expanse of all the issues that it addressed, and i think in many respects it was a bill that most members believed at the time that we needed to get as much assistance out there as quickly as we could and as a consequence of that, there was broad support for that. we're at a different point now obviously, several months later and have some perspective that enables us to look at what might be effective, what's worked, what hasn't worked. we've gotten a lot of input from state and community leaders, from businesses, schools, hospitals, health care providers who have been impacted by the

virus and have been able to respond to what has already been done by the congress in terms of assistance. and so i think at this point as we look at what the greatest needs are, it's pretty clear that we have to do something to assist those, provide sift--- safety-net assistance to those who have lost jobs in the form of unemployment insurance. i think there's a commitment on both sides to address that. i would argue that the proposal advanced by the democrats which would just be a continuation of the existing program is not one that i think most people across this country think is wise policy, and it certainly to the degree that it provides an incentive for people to stay home and not to go back to work, it does provide a disincentive to work and i think that's something that this legislation ought to address. that's pretty much widely -- a

widely held view not just by republicans but democrats. there are democrats here? the house. democrat governors would said the assistant unemployment needs to be modified, needs to be reformed, needs to be revised. the question has been raised at what level. it strikes me at least we ought not be putting a benefit out there that exceeds the amount people would make if they were actually working because what that essentially says is those who are working, those who stayed in the workforce and are basically paying benefits to those who did not when in fact if there was -- if there wasn't a benefit that exceeded the amount they made when they were working, they might get back in the workforce if those jobs become available again. that's certainly something we want to incentivize. i would hope that in any deal that is struck, that as we address unemployment insurance, we can come up with a solution that does tailor it to the need of the moment. and that is to get people back to work.

we want to have policies that create jobs. that's something that i think ought to be first and foremost in this bill. we have indicated that this ought to be about kids, getting them back to school in the fall. it ought to be about health care. it ought to be about coming up with therapeutics and more testing and better testing. and it ought to be about ultimately hopefully getting a vaccine. and then in the meantime making sure that we are addressing the needs of our providers as doctors and nurses, nursing home caregivers who are on the front lines. so those are the things, the priorities that ought to be in this bill. it seems to me there is plenty of room for bipartisan cooperation, but it will take that. and it also strikes me that the suggestion that, you know, you have to do more dollar wise isn't always necessarily a sound approach. in fact, i would argue that anything that we do right now ought to be targeted. it ought to be focused on those who have needs. if it's assistance to state and local governments, if it's

assistance to small businesses who are out there creating jobs, anything that we do at this point ought to be based and predicated upon where the needs are. and we ought to have accountability for the funds that are going out there. my impression is from the bill passed by the house democrats and supported by many senate democrats here is that the more we spend, the better it is. and i don't think the american people subscribe to that view. i think they realize like i do that we are operating in an environment where we have a $26 trillion debt, and we have already added this year because of the first coronavirus bill about another $3 trillion to that debt. and increased our debt to g.d.p. ratio up over a hundred percent which is pretty dangerous territory if you look at any relevant metric in history. and so i would argue, madam president, that the approach that we take right now, it ought to be focused. it awed to be targeted. it ought to be measured. and it ought to be directed to

those who really have the needs. by that, i mean people who are unemployed, through unemployment insurance. it ought to be small businesses who are trying to keep their employees employed and trying to get back and going again and creating jobs. it ought to be health care providers who are dealing with the frontline crisis and also the heavy investment that we need to make in an ultimate solution which will be the vaccine. and, of course, in terms of the fall, getting kids back to school. and that entails a whole lot more testing. those are all things that are included in the bill that was put forward by republicans. most of the democrat observes to that bill, madam president, are that it doesn't spend enough, that it's just not generous enough. well, again, i think that we have to be very, very careful, very thoughtful, and aware and conscious of the fact that we're operating at the time when we are $26 trillion in debt, where every dollar we spend is a

borrowed dollar. and we need to be effective, surgical, targeted, and wise about how we spend the american people's hard earned tax dollars. i'm hopeful that these discussions will lead to a solution. we knew right away that there weren't going -- there wasn't going to be unanimous support for this. it's not like the last time around. i've said all along i wouldn't expect every republican to support the bill that came out and was released a couple of days ago. i think it's a starting point. but i hope that the democrats will negotiate in good faith and not simply try to raise the ante because they have a bill that's already passed the house that's at $3.5 trillion. that to me not to mention the size of it but also the components of it was a very irresponsible bill. that's not a serious bill. the fact that it mentions the

word cannabis more times than it mentions the word jobs i think gives you all you need to know about how serious that effort was. but there is a place that we can land that addresses those critical elements that i mentioned, and i hope that notwithstanding the rhetoric that we're hearing from the democratic leader, that democrats will enter in good faith into discussions and play a constructive role in trying to come up with a bipartisan solution to the challenges that we face because of an unprecedented and historic pandemic. madam president, yesterday in my role as head of the commerce subcommittee on the internet, i looked at section 230 of the communications decency act. what is section 230? it provides internet sites that host user-generated content, sites like youtube or facebook with consent that users post on

their sites. if somebody uploads a video with defamatory content, youtube is not spofnl for it. without section 230 protections, many of the sites we rely on for social connection or news or entertainment would not come into being. if a solo blogger could be responsible for monitoring each and every comment on his or her site no matter how many thousands there are, it is unlikely blogging -- vloging would take off. if youtube is responsible for every video on its site, it is unlikely that youtube would have grown like it has. there is a reason that they are u.s. companies and not, for example, european companies and that's because other countries do not offer the liability protections of section 230. but section 230 was written long before sites like twitter and facebook were created and as we've seen the internet grow, we

have come to realize there are changes that need to be made. for example, while i support the principle that sites should not be held responsible for everything that users generate, there's a difference between an inappropriate video a site misses and a site that knowingly allows itself to be used for criminal purposes. in 2018 after it was obvious that certain sites were allowing themselves to be used by child traffickers and predators, congress held them responsible for allowing child sex trafficking. as a previous chairman of the senate commerce committee and current chairman of the of internet, aye been focusing on internet issues related to user-related content sites. i've chaired several hearings on the topic, including terrorist content and the hearing on the allegeo rhythms that they use. and at the end of june, senator

schatz and i introduced legislation, the platform accountability and consumer transparency act or the pact act to address some of the issues around section 230. our bill would preserve the benefits of section 230 like the internet growth and widespread dissemination of free speech while increasing accountability and consumer transparency. one reason that section 230 has become so controversial is the internet platforms cultivated the notion that they are merely providing the technology for people to communicate and share their thoughts and ideas. but the reality is somewhat different. the truth is, websites have a strong incentive to exercise control over the content each of us sees because if they can present us with consent that will keep us engaged we will stay on is that site longer. today sites like facebook and twitter make use of algorit hms

to shape the content that we see on these platforms. moderation can improve the user experience. most of us would prefer that youtube suggests videos that match our interest than something completely unrelated. the problem is that content moderation has been and largely continues to be a black box with consumers having little or no idea how the information that they see has been shaped by the sites they are visiting. the pact would increase transparency around the content moderation process. it would require internet platforms like facebook and twitter to submit quarterly reports to the federal trade commission that would outline their posts. foreexample posts they seclude from user feeds and it would have an easily digestible disclosure and importantly they would be required to explain their decisions to remove

material to consumers. until reftively recently sites like facebook and twitter would remove a post without an appeals process. even as platforms start to shape up their act with regard to due process, it is still hard for users to get good information about how content is moderated. under the pact act, if a site chooses to remove our post, it has to tell you why it decided to remove your post an explain how it violated the terms of use. the pact act would require sites to create an appeals process. if facebook removes one of your posts, it would not only have to tell you why but provide a way for you to appeal that decision. to some extent, some platforms like facebook are already starting to do this but by no reasons are all of -- means all of them are not doing so. it would provide 230 protections on their sites but require companies to remove material

adjudicated as illegal by a court. large sites like facebook and twitter would be required to remove illegal content within 24 hours, smaller sites would be given more time. failure to remove the illegal material would -- a provision that matches a recent recommendation made by the department of justice for section 230 reform. finally, madam president, in addition to promoting transparency and accountability the pact act contains measures to strengthen the government's ability to protect consumers. as the department of justice noted in its recommendations to reform section 230, broad section 230 immunity can pose challenges for civil enforcement matters. it is questionable whether section 230 was intended to allow companies to invoke section 230 immunity against the government acting to protect american consumers. this contributes to the creation of a different set of rules for

enforcing consumer protections against online companies compared to those in the off-line world. madam president, i'm grateful to senator schatz for his work on this bill and i'm proud of when we put together. we've both done a lot of work on these issues and this bill is a serious, bipartisan solution to some of the problems that have arisen around section 230. our hearing yesterday which included one of the original authors of the section 230 pro vision -- provision, chris cox, confirmed that the pact act would go a long way to making user generated internet sites more accountable to consumers. i look forward to working with senator schatz to advance our legislation in the senate and i hope we'll see a vote on our bill in the near future. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the minority whip is recognized. mr. durbin: madam president, to date american has lost nearly 150,000 people who have died

with diseases related to coronavirus. we are quickly approaching five million cases of infections in the united states of america. consider this for a moment. the united states has 5% of the world's pop laition. we have almost 25 -- population. we have almost 25% of all the covid infections in the world. how did we reach this point that we have such a rampant rate of infection in what is considered the most developed nation on earth? part of the problem is a president who pedals worthless medical advice and part of the problem is the republican senate has been unwilling to face the economic hardships which have been created by this pandemic and our economy. it was ten and a half weeks ago the house of representatives, under democratic control and speaker pelosi, passed the heroes act. ten and a half weeks ago. they knew this day was coming

when the unemployment benefits that we put in the original legislation would expire, as they will this week, when the help for those who are renting to meet their obligations would expire, as it did last week, so ten and a half weeks ago, speaker pelosi put on the table her proposal to deal with america after these things occurred. today on the floor of the senate, senator mcconnell, the republican leader, called her efforts, quote, a loony, ideological fantasy. loony ideological fantasy. well, the obvious question to senator mcconnell, who is the leader of the majority here in the united states senate, is where have you been for the last ten and a half weeks? where is the republican alternative, the republican substitute? why have we not seen that come forward and a real negotiation take place between the house and the senate? well, for the longest time

senator mcconnell told us he just did not feel, quote, a sense of urgency to take up this matter. did not feel a sense of urgency. well, history was made in the senate chamber this last monday because senator mcconnell came to the floor and actually used the word urgent. finally urgency is stirring in his loins and he announced this week a republican alternative, but not quite. what he announced was a series of bills to be introduced by the republican side, a series of bills. we are just days away -- we are days away from the situation where these issues are expiring, like unemployment assistance, and, yet, in this circumstance we are dealing with a problem where we do not have alternative from the republican side. we have some and one was addressed this morning when it came to the unemployment assistance.

understand what happened last march 26 when we passed the cares act. this bill passed 96-0 in the senate chamber. unanimous bipartisan. but when we sat down to establish the amount of money to be given to unemployed workers in america, we ran into a problem, one we didn't anticipate. the secretary of labor in the trump administration, secretary scalia, came to us, sat down at a table and said, you have a lot of interesting formulas when it comes to unemployment compensation but just remember the reality. and the reality is that 50 different states have 50 different computer systems, some of which are very modern and up to speed and others are ancient and not up to speed. when you start coming up with complex federal formulas for sending money to unemployed workers in these states, you're going to run into 50 different reactions, and that's exactly what we faced. so the alternative was simple.

we either gai a flat -- gave a flat dollar amount in the federal unemployment supplement or we just wondered what the states might do with any other formula. so the decision was made with the white house, with the republicans for the $600 a week federal -- pardon me, a $600 a week federal supplement to unemployment. there was argument on the floor some workers may come out ahead if that happens. undoubtedly that might be the case because the federal supplement was in addition to whatever they qualified for state unemployment and each state has a different formula for unemployment. but we went forward believing that we need it had to do something dramatic and significant for the economy and the first place to start was with unemployed workers. economists will tell you when you're facing a recession, when there's a lack of consumer demand, the first dollar you

want to hand out as a government is to an unemployed worker. you know they will spend it. they have to spend it to pay the rent or mortgage or utility bills, put food on the table or clothes on their kids, pay for health insurance. so we put money in the economy and it worked. we managed to slow the decline of the economy, even though we see more unemployment still coming around. it would have been much worse if we hnd made this commitment and -- hadn't made this commitment in unemployment benefits. so now with the explanation of this unemployment benefit on july 31, what will we replace it with? democrats proposed that we extend the current program to the end of this year. that is certainly a direct way to deal with this and one that would provide assistance to these families that would continue. the republicans have come up with a much different approach. what they have suggested is we take the $600 a week federal

supplement and reduce it to $200 a week and then by october 1, we require the states to implement a program that would give the unemployed worker 70% of their last wage. they have obviously ignored what secretary scalia told us just a few months ago, and that is that the states would run into a terrible challenge trying to meet this new republican standard of 70% of your last paycheck. we were told we couldn't do that back in march. has landscape changed so much when it comes to state computer systems? i doubt it. i doubt it very much. in illinois, we have a good system, but it has been dramatically overwhelmed by the federal supplemental payment and the new pandemic unemployment insurance and other provisions which we passed in washington. so to think we could move to a new formula in illinois while meeting our current obligations is very difficult in our state,

which we think is more modern than some. having said that, though, the republicans have argued that if by october 1, you can't provide 70% by formula to the federal workers, i suppose they will go back to the $20 a week. it's unclear. what is behind this? there are several things that need to be noted on the floor. here's the sums. listen to this. the assumption that has been made by the republicans in their approach to unemployment insurance. they assume that if people are receiving $600 a week in a federal supplement to unemployment that they are going to refuse to go back to work, even when offered a job. they are making more money to stay home than they did on the job. at least that's what has been repeated over and over again. madam president, this morning i'd like to put in the record an article from yale news, and this

yale study which was just released this week says the yale study finds expanded jobless benefits did not reduce employment. exactly the opposite of what we have heard over and over again from the republican side. this report from yale economists said as follows. it found that workers receiving larger increases in unemployment benefits experience very similar gains in employment by early may relative to workers with less generous benefit increases. people with more generous expanded benefits also resume working at a similar or slightly quicker rate than others did, according to the report. quote, the data do not show a relationship between benefit generosity and employment path under the cares act which could be due to the collapse of labor demand during the covid-19 crisis. put in simple terms, there aren't that many jobs out there looking for workers, and as it turns out, some workers

unemployed have gone back to work even though they might make slightly less than they did in their unemployment. why? the reason's obvious. unemployment is a temporary benefit. unemployment may not be as good and generous as what a person has in the workplace when you count the benefits that come with some jobs, and ultimately, many workers unemployed today want to get back to work. we should not assume, as some politicians do, that if a person is unemployed, they must be lazy. with 47 million unemployed americans, that is hardly the case. and certainly when it comes to whether or not people have the incentive to go back to work, i believe most americans do want to work. and the notion that we have to change the whole system for fear that some might not is definitely unfair. let me just say as we move forward with this -- i see a colleague on the floor seeking recognition in a few minutes. as we move forward with this attempt to deal with the economy, we have to face the

reality, and the reality is, as made clear by the chairman of the federal reserve, that if we take our foot off the accelerator right now, we're going to plunge over the cliff in a deeper economic mess than we're in today. they are trying by every means in monetary policy and the interest rates to enliven this economy and create an environment that it may reopen soon, and i hope that happens, but if we take the republican approach, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, it's not going to work. we're going to find ourselves with a recession that's even worse. and for those deficit hawks, how badly do you think our deficit will look if we face an even deeper recession? it's going to get worse and dramatically so. shouldn't our first obligation be to the workers across america who have lost their jobs so they can keep their families together? this notion of cutting the federal benefit from $600 a week to $200 a week, i can guarantee you will mean much more traffic

and activity at the food pantries around america as these unemployed families try to keep things together. and then there is a proposal from the republican side for a three-martini lunch federal tax break. three-martini lunch. is that the way out of our economic morass? and at the same time they are encouraging the three-martini lunch federal tax break, they won't give any additional assistance to those who are receiving snap benefits. that's low-income americans who are needing some help just to feed their families. it seems that things are upside down. the last point i will make is this. senator mcconnell has said repeatedly for months, nothing is going to happen in the senate, nothing to help anybody in america unless he gets his wish to give immunity to american corporations from coronavirus lawsuits. finally we get to see his proposal that was released this week. i want to tell you this is the

most dramatic tort reform proposal i have seen since i served in the united states senate. it basically takes away the rights of workers as well as those who are customers and businesses from recovering under a coronavirus lawsuit. it lowers the standard of care that is required of businesses to a level which basically will not protect americans that face this pandemic across the country. and at the same time, it is providing assistance and relief, it is unfortunately creating an environment where some businesses, some, unfortunately, will not be as careful as they should be in the way they conduct their businesses with customers and their employees. we know that we face a challenge here with this pandemic, but giving this kind of corporate break when it comes to immunity and liability only will make things more dangerous for customers and employees across the united states of america. and let me say a word about what has been said on the floor over

and over again by senator cornyn and senator mcconnell, the so-called tsunami of lawsuits, the epidemic of frivolous lawsuits, the trial lawyers on parade to the courthouse because of this pandemic. well, we have checked every lawsuit filed in the united states this year that mentions the word coronavirus or covid-19. do you know how many medical malpractice cases have been filed so far this calendar year with this so-called tsunami of lawsuits? six. six. and how many personal injury cases have been filed this year mentioning covid-19 or coronavirus? this epidemic, this flood of lawsuits? 15. across the entire united states of america. it's an imaginary problem that they are creating at this point. we can deal with it. 28 states have already by changing their state laws. but giving immunity to corporations for coronavirus lawsuits will not make us safer,

will not make the workplace safer for workers or the business safer for customers. if we're going to restore consumer confidence, everybody has to pull together. we ought to have standards established by the c.d.c. based on public health and not politics, and businesses, conscientious businesses i am sure will follow those standards because they do care. currently we don't have these standards, and this effort will make it even less likely that we will. i yield the floor. mr. casey: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. i rise this morning to cover a couple of topics. one of some comments on the legislation that i hope we're going to complete to provide relief to the nation with regard to both the public health crisis and the jobs crisis, and then i will have two other sets of remarks in different parts of

the record. but let me start with what we're facing right now. we know that it's been four months since the cares act way back at the end of march. we all expect i think at that time that that piece of legislation and then the legislation prior thereto and subsequently would have an impact on americans we hoped in a miff way, and i think there is some evidence to indicate that the cares act had a positive impact. obviously, not perfect legislation, but i don't think any of us thought that was the end of the road. and then we saw just ten weeks ago, the heroes act passed the house of representatives. so you have the cares act enacted into law and operative, and thank goodness for that, as well as other -- several other pieces of legislation. but the heroes act only passed by the house and no action by

the senate in those intervening ten weeks. if you were on the majority side of the aisle, the republican side, as leader mcconnell has outlined, and you wanted to delay, wait to see the full impact of the cares act, there is an argument that some would make in that direction. i don't agree with it. but what i don't understand is why, even if you believe that you should wait, why you would not be preparing for the worst. preparing for the kind of outbreaks we have seen across the country when the virus moved away from the northeast generally to the south and southwest and then to the west even more so. why you would not prepare at least an outline of legislation. why you would not begin negotiations many, many weeks ago as opposed to waiting to the last minute. not just to respond to the overall problem, the worst public health challenge in a century, but also in a

particular way, why would you wait as the majority did to the very last minute on the issue of unemployment insurance when we know benefits are running out now in a matter of hours, really , even -- not even a few days now. so if that's your -- if that's your perspective that we should have waited, why wouldn't you prepare for the worst, so that when the worst was hitting or something comparable to that, you would have legislation ready to go. a majority chose to delay, and i think in a real sense seemed to adopt the president's kind of virus denial, that if you just don't talk about it, if you try to change the subject, or in the case of the majority, if you don't legislate about it or prepare, just prepare to legislate about it, it will somehow recede into the background and you don't have to worry about it.

well, that was -- that delay and that denial has proved to be i think misguided, and i think that's being charitable. so we're faced with a number of challenges at the same time as we face a public health and jobs crisis. i'll start with nursing homes and long-term care. and the very related issue of home and community-based services. we know that in long-term care settings, most of those settings being nursing homes, the nation has endured more than 59,000 deaths. that number may have hit 60,000, but we know that it is more than 59,000 deaths. so more than 40% of all the deaths in the united states of america, which is now about to reach 151,000 i think at last from what we saw this morning, more than 40% of those are in long-term care settings, most of them in nursing homes.

this isn't theoretical to people out there. this isn't theoretical to families across my home state of pennsylvania or a lot of other states. where in many states, 60% or more of all the deaths were in long-term care settings. the deaths are, of course, residents of those nursing homes in addition to workers. so when you combine resident deaths and worker deaths, you get more than 59,000. we have got to ask ourselves, as americans, is that just going to be acceptable? are we going to stand here three months from now or four months or six months from now and say wow, it's really tragic all these deaths, and another 59,000 people died in long-term care settings, mostly nursing homes? is that the america we want? is that the america we're going to settle for? and i know, i can hear the arguments. you know, it's a terrible virus,

it is. it's a virus that hits the very old in disproportionately higher numbers. and if you happen to be an older citizen and you have all kinds of chronic conditions or other health issues that might compromise your immune system or otherwise, you are especially susceptible. so some will argue, well, this is just going to happen. but, mr. president, we know exactly how to get the numbers down. the case numbers down and the death numbers. is it sever? no. can we get the 59,000 to zero? of course not. no one would argue that. but the idea that the united states of america, in addition to not responding effectively to the onset of the virus itself, i'm just talking about a subset or a part of the tragedy, and that's the tragedy in our

nursing homes, both for residents and their families, and for workers and their families. we know exactly what workers, and i have got a bill that would substantially reduce the deaths and the cases. what is it? well, first of all, it's important to know the number, 3768. that's the bill. i would hope that my bill would be included wholly or in substantial fashion in the next bill. senate bill 3768. what does it do? it allocates $20 billion. now, we've heard numbers that this next piece of legislation might hit a trillion dollars or more, and i think that's likely. we should ask ourselves, can't we set aside $20 billion of that, a fraction of that trillion-dollar-plus or more bill that we will pass, we hope, can't we set aside a fraction of that for older citizens and their families and the workers

that take care of them? these are americans who fought our wars. they worked in our factories. they built the strongest middle class the world has ever seen over the course of the last 75 or so years. these are people who were inventors and innovators. these are people who made america what it is today. they are our fathers and mothers, our grandmothers and grandfathers. they gave us life and love. the least that we could do is make an american effort to get the death number down and the case number down. and anyone who says we can't do that is defeatist and i think invoking an anti-american spirit. we know how to do this. what would the $20 billion go for? it's real simple but could be profound in its impact. number one, we know one practice in a nursing home that reduces

the case number, the number of cases of people contracting the virus and the death number is cohorting. what does that mean? separating, separating those with the virus in the nursing home from those who don't have it. nursing homes who did that were successful in getting their numbers down president and they did it early like way back in early march, maybe even earlier in some cases. and it worked. and it's been implemented in a number of states. but that has a cost to it. you might have to build out. you might have to retrofit and you also need extra dollars for personal protective equipment. there should be no question that in the united states of america, every nursing home has every piece of protective equipment it needs. p.p.e. is lifesaving, lifesaving for the resident to be guarded from contracting the virus and essential for the workers as well. what else do we need the money

for? well, if you have a problem in a nursing home with an outbreak, we ought to be able to surge expertise from other settings. that nursing home might need more doctors in that crisis or that outbreak, might need more nurses or nurses -- certified nurses assistants or other personnel. we should have the dollars at the state level to surge those professionals. also need more money for testing in nursing homes. vitally important. so i think families across the country expect us to directly address this. unfortunately, the republican bill proposed the other day does not do that, does not invest as my bill would. here's the headline from just this week, july 24, "new york times." i won't read the story but the headline is, fema sends faulty protective gear to nursing homes battling virus. faulty protective gear.

we're months into this and we've got fema sending faulty protective gear. here's the first line of the story. expired surgical masks, isolation gowns that resemble oversize trash bags, extra small gloves that are all but useless for the typical health worker's hands. it goes on and on. i don't have time to do it today. but that article and do many other documented reports indicate that these facilities don't have the protective gear that they need. second issue, mr. president, unemployment insurance. we're told that the majority in their proposal wants to cut the $600 per week down to $200. so do the math. cutting it by $400 a week. this is at a time when we're told that since february, the united states has lost 15 million jobs.

my recollection is in the great recession of around a decade ago between the fall of 2008 and sometime in the spring of 2009 roughly, about 8.5 million jobs were lost. we've already lost basically double that. 15 million jobs. and we were told oh, don't worry, april is going to be a bad month and may and june are going to be a lot better. that unemployment rate is just going to roll down from there. and i was hoping that was the case. but in pennsylvania in april, a million unemployed. what was may? fortunately it went down, 849. i expected june in our state to be a lot lower than 849. maybe it would go down by a hundred thousand or 150,000. i hoped even more. it went from 849 to 821. 821,000 people out of work in pennsylvania in the month of june. so we still have a jobs crisis that will endure for a good while yet and therefore an

unemployment crisis, the worst time to cut those benefits, those extra benefits would be right now. and i know we've heard the argument that if you continue this, you're creating a disincentive to work. that's what we're told. well, according to the washington center for equitable growth in a report this month, just a couple of days ago, this is what they found. quote, lack of opportunities to work not a disincentive to work are keeping unemployment -- are keeping unemployment elevated. unquote. that's what they found. they document -- a document that more than that statement would entail. that's what they found in their research. they also found 23% fewer job openings in july 2020 versus july 2019. so fewer job openings. the bureau of labor statistics in the department of labor said almost four unemployed in the united states for every job

opening. third issue, state and local funding. the republican proposal has nothing to help states and local governments. now we now that state and local governments got to balance their budgets. so extra dollars can only come from one source, the federal government. state and local governments have had to spend more to protect their citizens with the onset of the virus and the disease covid-19 and that -- the impact of the virus in the pandemic blew a hole in their budgets. so what's going to happen? well, when a state whether it's a red state or blue state or whatever the political conditions, they're all the same when it comes to revenue loss. here's what's going to happen. as sure as night follows day they're going to have to cut education. so i would say to school districts, get ready for cuts

because if your state cannot balance its budget, they're -- there are going to be education cuts and there will be cuts to health care, probably medicaid in most instances. and there will be other cuts. public transit. we were on a call last night with transit advocates from around pennsylvania. and our side is asking for more help for transit. but you can go down a long list, whether it's education or health care or even public safety itself at the local level. so we should do a lot more. we should be replicating something -- or at least proximating what the house did when they allocatedfor state and local government combined. how about the supplement nutrition program? the government has refused over and over again, categorically refused to ?k snap by -- increase snap by the percentage that our side has argued for. i know it's a little easy in

washington to talk about hunger and food insecurity as some kind of distant issue because those of us who serve in this chamber are not food insecure. we don't have to suffer the pain of hunger that so many families are suffering. many who suffered food insecurity long before the pandemic but many others, even middle-class families or people trying to get to the middle class suffering from food insecurity because of the virus and the economic downturn. families we know are literally choosing between the food that they need for their families or paying the mortgage. choosing between the food they need, groceries versus paying for their kids' medications. last issue in this part of my remarks, mr. president, on medicaid. we know that the senate did the right thing in the family first legislation way back in early march when it increased the matching dollars for medicaid by

6.2%. those matching dollars are vital for states to be able to pay for medicaid and to be able to balance their budgets. i believe in the house bill, the heroes act passed ten weeks ago would set forth another increase of a higher amount, 14% for those matching dollars. i think that makes a lot of sense, especially when people are losing their jobs every day. we just read a story in "the new york times" last week, i think it was, more than five million people in the country have lost their health insurance because they lost their job or for other reasons. so a lot of those folks that are out of luck when it comes to health care itself are turning to medicaid. so we should increase the matching rate to 14%. now, the republican proposal has no additional dollars for medicaid. i guess we should not be surprised because the white house budget proposals the last several years and i think

supported in large measure by the republican majority here in the senate has not only wanted to increase dollars for medica medicaid, in fact the white house has proposed cuts of several hundred billion dollars to medicaid over a ten-year time frame several years in a row. and republicans in the senate have said very little against that if anything against those kinds of proposals. mr. president, let me just move to a separate set of remarks, and i'd ask consent to place these remarks in a separate part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: just some remarks about the united states representative john lewis who's -- whose casket just left in a hearse from the grounds of the capitol this morning and it was moving to see the number of people who would stand in line for a long period of time in 97 or 99-degree heat to pass by his casket.

john lewis -- there's so much we could say about him. difficult to summarize or encapsulate or not repeat ourselves but i think in so many ways john lewis was courage personified. very, very few americans other than those who served in combat itself or in other instances could say that they have put themselves on the line like he did. his courage in the face of hatred, in the face of brutal beatings, and otherwise. john lewis helped the united states in its ongoing work to form a more perfect union. and there's so much more we could say about that. he was beaten on multiple occasions for standing up for civil rights and of course the right to vote itself. and he did all of this, all of this by practicing nonviolence. i don't know how he did that. i really don't.

i'd like to be able to think that i could do that in the face of beatings, but i don't think i could. i really doubt that i could and most people could. but he practiced nonviolence and thereby had a huge impact on the american people and american law. served 33 years here in the united states house of representatives, also served on the atlanta city council. when president obama was bestowing the medal of freedom on john lewis, he said, quote, he said that john lewis was, quote, the conscience of the united states congress. so well said. i think at a time like this we're summoned by his enduring example. we're summoned by his heroic example to pass the voting rights bill, h.r. 4 which has been basically sitting here since december when they passed it. that's the best way to demonstrate our gratitude for

john lewis' contributions. so the fight against injustice must continue. we can't just say what a great man he was, what a great leader he was. we have to continue to be inspired by and act against injustice, whether it's in housing or food insecurity or education or employment or health care or otherwise. martin luther king said one time, until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. john lewis' life was in furtherance of that goal, to bring about a world where justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. i think john lewis was a patriot in the broadest sense of the word, and we know from america the beautiful that wonderful line in america the beautiful, o beautiful for patriot dream that

sees beyond the years, that the dream of a patriot when they're fighting on a battlefield is not just about the fight they're in. the dream of a patriot is about, of course, what happens after, that their sacrifice brings about a better world, a more secure country in the context of a war or battle. john lewis also had the dream of a patriot, the dream of a better life for americans, the dream of equal protection under the law, the dream of voting rights being protected. so in the largest sense of the word, john lewis was a patriot. mr. president, i'm also done. i know i might be over town and i -- time and i know we have a colleague waiting. let me very briefly to ask unanimous consent for a second time to have these remarks placed in a separate part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: i'll be brief and apologize for going a little long. we know there's been a lot of

debate about what happened when we had reports in the new york times and other reports in june about the in-- u.s. intelligence community learning that russian intelligence had offered payments as high as $100,000 transferred through a middleman to kill united states service members in afghanistan. i know that we don't have time to get into all the details of that today, but we know that the president has, i think on the record, not said anything about this until maybe yesterday in an interview, and in my judgment he did not address and did not respond appropriately to that -- to those reports. i was hoping what the president would say in the interview that i saw on television this morning, i guess it was yesterday, in that he would have said long before that -- and that he would have said long

before that is that we're going to investigate this and we're going to make a determination about the conclusion that we would reach -- that he would reach as president and that he would directly on front vladimir putin and challenge him on this. but he had a recent phone call with him and all the reporting indicates and even the president indicates that he did not challenge vladimir putin. that is beyond disturbing, i i think it's not -- and i think it's not in furtherance of our national security interest. in the interest of time and i won't say more because i know we're in overtime, but mr. president, i would -- i have one consent and then i'm done. i'm sorry. on behalf of senator durbin, i ask unanimous consent that the yale excerpt be -- excerpt be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection.

ms. black: i think it's interesting to hear my colleague talk about china and covid and our response. i think many of us looked at ninth and felt that was -- 2019 and felt that was a significant year for u.s.-china relations. it marked the 40th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations between washington and beijing and we also finalized a phase one trade deal. ms. blackburn: and this led to many of us being opt mystic. remember -- optimistic. remember that 2019 marked the anniversary chairman chao, and the 30th anniversary of the massacre at tiananmen square.

when you start asking questions about that history and how it has informed the decisions of current chinese leadership, the capitalist facade that has been so carefully constructed by the propaganda in beijing starts to peel away and starts to crack. after decades of espionage, military aggression, and horrific political violence inflicted on their own people, many here in washington have grown -- grown numb to chinese hostility. they kind of expect and accept that they will act. that is the only explanation of the shack that rippled through this town when we discovered that the communist chinese

government muses r -- muzzled the doctors and journalists who tried to warn the rest of the world about the growing threat from the novel coronavirus. our relationship with china has reached a tipping point. we will never be able to go back to what had been that cautious optimism that we had in 2019. fortunately, it looks like both my colleagues here in washington and many of our allies are allowing themselves to process the threat posed by beijing's standard operating procedures. the u.k. has banned the use of equipment from chinese giant huawei from their rollout and france has implemented policies that restrict the use of huawei's products. these decisions are giving some hope to the people that i'm

talking to back in tennessee every single day. they are happy to see that allies are following in our footsteps. this is a good thing. it's an opportunity for us to role model how you work to unravel a relationship with an aggressor. and they would also want me to tell you that they appreciate the senate's growing bipartisan support for legislation like my sam c act which will secure our pharmaceutical supply chains from chinese interference and senator mcsally's civil justice for victims of covid act which will allow americans harmed by this pandemic to sue the chinese communist party officials in u.s. court. but, mr. president, we all know that there's no single-shot bill

we can use to decouple from china and put control back in the hands of american businesses, educators, institutions, and innovators. we have to begin to unravel these ties with china. now, there are a lot of people in this town who think that this is impossible and they will say, oh, that is ill-advised. you do not want to try to unravel from china. i think they are wrong and i think that we can and we must do this. but lip service is not going to cut it. over the past few months, we've talked at length about what needs to be done but with few exceptions we are lied on specifics. so last wednesday i published a white paper laying out the current state of affairs between the u.s. and china and talked

about what got us to this position, and then i have 120 specific policy recommendations that congress can use as a basis for future legislation, whether it's trade or agriculture or telecommunications or 5g or our military complex. and i'd like to use my remaining time to lay out a few of these relations as a place to start. by now most americans are at least familiar with the term belton road initiative. this is an investment program that the chinese have used to buy their way. they have bout their way into the -- bought their way into the good graces of governments in asia, africa, and europe. this trillions of dollars of investment buys inroads and

influence across countries of every economic background and in organizations like the united nations. and while we cannot and should not compete dollar for dollar, we should partner with our allies to prevent struggling governments from falling into this debt diplomacy or these debt traps. we must also secure our supply chains across every sector of our economy and bring critical manufacturing and technologies back to the united states. i mentioned the sam-c act which incentivize companies to bring their manufacturing operations back to the u.s. and fund partnerships between pharmaceutical companies and universities so they can train the workforce we need in order to pull this manufacturing out

of china and bring it back to communities right here. we should not hesitate in moving forward on this legislation. and once we invest in this new technology and infrastructure, we're going to have to invest in securing it by securing our -- emerging 5g networks. to that end we need to make more spectrum available for the commercial wireless sector to ensure our continued leadership in 5g and other emerging technologies. if we fail to do so, we risk ceding ground to china and the standard-setting bodies that are going to define 5g internationally. we won't be able to stop china alone. we must look toward those

international organizations as well as allies and partners in the indo-pacific to help us deter chinese aggression and foster stable economic growth. this includes providing support for hong kong and taiwan and promoting universal human rights standards, both in china and across the globe. we will also increase defense investment in the region through a newly created pacific deterrence initiative. but most importantly, we must accept the fact that at its core, china is not a normal country. it does not behave like a normal country. when she -- president xi rose in the communist party, many

assumed he would act as a reformer and turn away from the. mr. the -- from the maoist thought, but he did not. we cannot wait for this problem to go away. last week beijing escalated tensions by ordering americans to vacate our only consulate in western china, distancing its abuses from american diplomatic personnel. you know what? it's not going to stop with this. they are accelerating their agretion. we have -- aggression. we have to become more independent of china. we are too dependent on them at this point. it is time for the united states to deny this era of chinese impunity and change the way we're doing business.

it's time to re-establish rules to guide the global economy to encourage our allies to join us and to hold beijing accountable. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. cotton: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22 if cloture is invoked on the kan nomination, the confirmation vote occur at 1:30 p.m. thursday, july 30, i further ask that the cloture vote on the kaplan vote occur at 5:30 time and all postcloture time be considered expired and the senate immediately moat on thinks nomination -- vote on the nomination. and i ask that the mcferran nomination and that all postcloture time be considered expired. finally i ask that if any of these nominations are confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be

immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. so ordered. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a close debate on the nomination of derek kan, of california, to be deputy director of the office of management and budget, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by mandatory consent, the quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate for derek kan, of california, to be deputy directorror of the office of management and budget shall shall brought to a close? vote:

vote:

vote: vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: does any senator wish to change their vote? on this vote, the yeas are 76, the nays are 22. the motion is agreed to.

ms. klobuchar: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i rise today to address the impact that the coronavirus pandemic is having on rural america. we know that it affects every year of this country. we have seen in urban areas of our country, people who are in crowded housing, people who work every day in our urban hospitals what this has meant to them. we have seen in the suburban areas with small businesses, with moms trying to figure out how to handle the summer with their kids. but the rural areas, sometimes they don't get as much attention. you know in your home state of oklahoma, you understand this. there are a lot of rural areas in our country that have suffered as well. they have suffered not only because of spikes with the virus like we're seeing recently, but also because of the economic

implication, an economy, a farm economy that was already in trouble because of the price of commodities, because of world trade barriers, because of weather events, you name it, it has affected rural areas in a big, big way. according to several recent reports, as of july 14, one-third of all rural counties are now considered red zones, places that in the last week of testing at 100 or more new cases per 100,000 people. between june 13 and july 12, the number of new cases in rural counties increased by 150%. that is why we must take immediate action to provide critical support that rural areas need, areas that may not have easy access to hospitals, may have smaller hospitals. that's why that issue of funding for state and local governments as long as we make sure that the rural areas are able to share in this funding as well is so

important. the rural hospitals, the equipment, all of this. and that is beyond what we all know already, and that is the food supply change, our nutrition program. we certainly don't want a situation where you can't get homegrown american food, just as we have learned with the supply chains of medical equipment you can't always get the swabs that you need for so many of our testing and the like. so i just want to make clear, people sometimes see rural areas, they are all out there doing fine. all these idyllic pictures, i don't think they get the struggles, the fact that world poverty for kids is often higher than it is in urban areas. this is before the payment. to me the pandemic has put a big magnifying glass on some of these disparities we knew already existed. it's a more senior population in rural areas so you have people

trying to keep themselves safe, isolated in seniors' homes or smaller assisted living where they are very, very isolated, even more so than they might be where they have their family nearby that can at least visit them through a window. that's even harder. so all of these -- really, these challenges conspire to make this a topic that we must discuss. the operation of public hospitals, long-term care facilities, and first responder services during a public health crisis requires a significant mobilization of resources, and this relief package that i am pleased we are debating now i'd like to see more movement, but at least the negotiations are ongoing, must include the funding for rural area hospitals as well as state and local governments. local governments in rural areas are facing both falling revenues and increased emergency expenses. they have a smaller margin that

they operate on, threatening their ability to provide essential public services and their ability to continue paying teachers and first responders. the public health crisis is putting incredible pressure on our public health system and many rural hospitals and health systems already have limited i.c.u. beds and resources. the disproportionately low number of health care providers across rural america has been brought into sharp focus by this crisis. we already knew stories of hospitals that were once delivering babies that lose one doctor, one doctor, ob/gyn, and then they can no longer deliver babies and the family has to go miles and miles and hours and hours just to have the delivery of a baby in a safe situation. that's why we need to do much. it's the funding. it is a bill that senator grassley and i have actually to allow some of these smaller hospitals. this is prepandemic, to exist in different circumstances like

emergency room circumstances so they don't entirely close down. it is why i have led the reauthorization of the conrad 30 program which has brought over 15,000 immigrant doctors to fill the gaps. we also know there are issues of personnel in these hospitals, nurses and doctors. this is a program that allows for immigrant students who have gotten a degree in an american medical school to be able to serve out their residence in america in underserved areas, which means sometimes urban areas that don't have enough personnel but lots of times means rural area. that's why, in fact, the initial author of this bill is senator conrad of north dakota because of the problem they had. and i continue as i travel through the country in the last year to hear about all of the problems we have in our v.a. hospitals and the like where they want to have these physicians who are trained in

america with degrees in america to allow them to stay and not have to go back to their home country when, in fact, they want to stay in america. helping rural hospitals also means ensuring they have vital equipment like medical supplies like veteran laters. that's why i've urged the administration to deliver supplies from the strategic national stockpile and to protect consumers' access to medical and hygiene products. it also means delivering additional resources for tracing and contract tracing, like the $75 billion that the house passed in the heroes act and it means expanding telehealth services, which my bill with senators casey would do. i recently had the experience of my own dad at age 92 with coronavirus. he ended up at age 92 surviving it with just having lost 10 pounds and a very poor appetite

but came out of it as strong as he went into it. but i didn't know that was going to happen, and i will never forget that moment of our family standing outside the window because, of course, we couldn't go in, standing out there in masks while he's in his room -- or a room that they'd given him because he got coronavirus, and he is -- and they put the telephone on so that he could hear us on speakerphone. but he could not figure out what was going on. he doesn't really understand with his disease why we're wearing the masks and we can't even hold his hand downed know if that's the last time you're going to see your loved one. it is a turned out, it had a happy ending for him. he's doing fine but not for everyone else who lives in his home. that's why these services where maybe he could see us on a big tv instead of on the little iphone would make such a big

difference, not just to people in his situation who are in a small assistive living in need of services but with people who are there because they wanted to have a living situation where they could hang out with their friends and play bridge and the like. we're going to have to think of those facilities and the access that we can give, not only with doctors but also for them to be able to see their families. this means broadband. that's why i introduced the accessible internet for all, legislation led by representative jim clyburn of south carolina. i was honored that he asked me to carry this bill in the senate. it would invest $100 billion to build high-speed broadband infrastructure in underserved areas, underserved areas, a lot of times, as you knows, from his home state of south carolina includes a lot of rural areas, rural farmers, in his case so many african american communities that are underserved

by broadband. and it would make a big difference all over the country. senator kramer of north dakota and i introduced the keeping critical connections act, which again is another way of focusing on low-income and on rural areas to help our small broadband providers who, in my experience, have tended to really put their money where their mouth is and actually build out in that's areas so that people can get high-speed broadband p our bill now has 34 cosponsors, half deaths half republicans -- half democrats, half republicans. and i keep working to ensure that students in low-income communities are connected. i don't want to hear another story like i heard of the high school student who had to take her biology exam in the liquor parking lot in town because she didn't have high-speed internet access or the doctor can see the x-rays at his rural hospitals but if he wants to do work from home, he has to go to the mcdonald's parking lot to be

able to view these x-rays. iceland can do this. they have volcanoes. they are covered at times in ash. and they are able to get high-speed internet to every person in their country. we should be able to do the same. farmers -- i spent the morning on a number of school system calls with farmers in minnesota. our soybeans and farmers and others. and i have to say that they are in hard times right now, and they're in hard times because, as i said before this pandemic we were having problems. our food supply chain has been hit from the farmers who grow our food, fuel, and fiber to the workers in the processing plants, of which i have many in my time. i was just in worthington, minnesota, home of the one of the biggest food-processing plants hit hard by the coronavirus. they have put in place some better safety measures and are now operating. the truck drivers who deliver to

export terminals and the families who may be struggling to put food on the table due to sudden unemployment. when many businesses started shutting down in march, commodity prices tumbled giving lower demand for food and fuel. at the beginning of the pandemic, dairy producers estimated that milk prices would dop by $2.85 billion in 2020. hog producers and cattle producers saw the value of their livestock drop and the future price pour corn and soybeans fell 10% to 15% per bushel. these losses occurred as farmers were still recovering from weather conditions that delayed or prevented harvests last year. many farmers were barely breaking even it was and they began this spring planting season behind, and then they confronted the pandemic. in march, we passed the cares act. it was not perfect. we all know that. but it provided $23.5 billion in

disaster assistance for farmers and livestock producer impacted by the pandemic. the department of agriculture yesterday finally began making payments in june -- i'm sorry, in june they began making payments and as of yesterday they have processed over $.5 billion in payments to more than 473,000 producers, but there's still money that's been unspent. that's $14 billion, in addition to fund being from the next package. it must reach producers of all size. this has been particularly hard in my state waiting for that help. the house has already taken action to provide additional direct assistance for farmers and dairy and livestock. i met with representative collin peterson who heads up the house ag committee this weekend when we were both here, we went through the work that he had done. and i'm very hopeful that we can do something similar in our bill here. while farmers and livestock producers need emergency relief, we also must recognize that the pandemic has placed a

significant strain on workers and consumers. we cannot slow the spread of the coronavirus when tests can take as long as 12 days to provide results. a friend back in minnesota just a week ago or so got a test. he felt sick, didn't want to get his family infected, spent six days in the basement not being able to see his family and the it took that long to find the result. then theys found out he didn't have it. those stories are just as similar, of course much more fortunate, but have aer to people who wait when they are sick and they need to know if they are sick. not everyone has a basement to stay in. so the point of this is is these delays in testing are very, very difficult on our economy. that's why in may i joined senator debbie stabenow, the ranking member of the agriculture committee, and my democratic colleagues on the senate agriculture committee in introducing the food supply protection act. the bill would provide support

for food banks to upgrade their infrastructure to handle additional demand, strengthen food partnerships, prevent food waste, and protect workers through grants -- and here i get to what i was talking about -- for protective equipment, test kits and cleaning supplies. also last week i joined senator jerry moran of kansas in introducing if the requiring assistance to meat produce processors for upgrading their plants. the closure of meatpacking plants highlights the need to provide consumers with more choices and farmers are more flexibility when marketing their livestock. our bill would help small- and medium-sized meatpackers make improvements to their facilities so they can meet the standards necessary for federal inspections. this will allow them to make sales across state lines and increase market opportunities. these two important pieces of legislation -- the stabenow bill i mentioned and the one that

senator moran and i just introduced -- should be included in the next relief package. another critical component to the rural economy is our nation's biofuel industry. in the first quarter of 20, biofuel processing plants purchased an estimated 1.3 billion bushels of corn and supported over 350,000 jobs. many of them are based of course in rural communities. in fact, a lot of our farmers own the plants. in fact, a lot of the our local people depend on these plants for one of the major businesses in their small towns. even before the pandemic, the misuse of small refinery exemptions had led many biofuel plants to shut down. i will never forget visit ago biodiesel plant in iowa that had been shut down and there was one worker left. his job was to maintain the plant.

he took me on a tour of the empty plant and then pulled out a coat rack that contained the uniforms of the people, his friends, that used to work there, and embroidered on the uniforms were the names of the people, with names like bob, joe, salvador. he said, i kept these uniforms. i keep them pressed on this coat rack because i hope they'll come back and work here. that was before the pandemic. and that is what we've seen because of some policies by this administration that claimed that they wanted to help the midwest but instead granted wholesale a bunch of exemptions not just to the refineries -- it's in there for a good reason, to help struggling refineries. but they literally granted those exemptions to exxonmobil, to chevron to dozens and dozens and dozens of companies. that is before the pandemic. that is why senator grassley and i have taken this on in a big way. these losses -- and this is,

again, pre-pandemic -- have resulted in over 100 biofuel processing plants nationwide idling production or closing altogether. it's a combine of pre-pandemic and during the pandemic. that's why in may i introduced legislation with senator grassley to support biofuel producers during the pandemic. our bill involves reimbursement of -- for their feedstock or commodity purchases through the first quarter of this year. and it's also why i led a letter with 19 senators urging the earp to deny 52 petitions for waivers that would enable more billion-dollar oil companies to receive small refinery exemptions. the approval of these retroactive exemptions at this moment would only worsen the unprecedented economic challenges facing a the biofuels industry. competition is good in america. that is why we have the renewable fuels standard because it is a nascent, new fuel and

they had to really get into that market in a big way against big oil, that gets many more subsidies than the biofuels do. this is not a time to go backwards and shut down every biofuel plant in america. and that is where this stressing -- this administration is head fundamental it keeps up these practices. there is much more we must do to help our rural community. i would note one of the emerging issues that i heard about a lot in my state is these child care deserts. that is that rural families are seeing unavailable child care. and this is, again, pre-pandemic. it was a big problem. where you'd have so many people who wanted to work but were unable to get child care to be able to do that work. and that is not just in my state. it's all over the country. and that's why senator sullivan and i introduced the child care workforce and facilities act,

which would address the national shortage of affordable, quality child care in these rural areas to help them expand their child care workforces. right now the economy is slowly but surely starting to reopen. and we know for families that have been at home and the parents are still working, this has become harder and harder for moms and dads to figure out what they're going to do about child care. so this should be a time where we step back and think, okay, how are we going to deal with this, not just with the threat from the pandemic today, today, but the today after tomorrow. and i mean that as a metaphor for next year. how are we going to make this work for rural areas? and i've gone through everything that we need to do. the health care, making sure it is available in rural areas, broadband, making sure there's something we can do, that that is available; the child care desert, the ag economy; and i will say that there is a big argument for rural america right

now. as we've seen the people are able with the right connections to work from home, and we need new ideas and new start-ups. and it's actually less expensive to start new companies in the rural part of this country where the cost of living is low. we know that there are farmers that want to keep farming their small plot of land in places like south carolina and oklahoma and minnesota. but if we just allow rampant consolidation in the ag industry and the tech industry, where there is a hearing going on as i speak right now over in the house that maybe a few more people are watching, but the point of is it this -- we have to also take on consolidation during this pandemic and looking at our laws next year and i'm not going to wait for a budge of judges to make decisions when they've been going against the antitrust laws for years. one loss after another. it is so -- it so crisis out for a change in our -- it so cries

out for a thing in our antitrust laws. i'll end with one story involving that. i was at a small cafe a few years ago and a woman was there with her farmer husband and her brother-in-law, and she turned to me and she said, i just sawen on tv. i go, was it about russia and elections? the presiding officer and i were doing a the love work at the time nationally -- were doing a lot of work at the time nationally on protecting our elections from foreign from having our own energy

supply which can be buried. it's about having our own technology and developing the next new idea and the next new iphone. we're not going to be able to do that if we shut out a big swatch of our company. that's not going to work. we want to encourage the development in rural america. that's what i think we need to do. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

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mr. leahy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, 75 days ago, actually 75 days ago today the democratic-led house passed the heroes act. the heroes act was a comprehensive and i think a very bold bill. it addressed the very real needs facing this country as we struggle to contain the coronavirus. during the 75 days since that passed, we democrats have pressed the republican

leadership to take up the heroes act in the senate, and for 75 days we've been told no. the point was simple, bring it up and vote for it or vote against it. amend it if you want, but let's have some real action. and for those 75 days we've watched the virus spread. we saw the death toll rise as president trump stood by denying the severity of the crisis, attacking the science, assuring the american public the virus would just go away on its own. and for 75 days we watched as critical deadlines bore down on us for programs that offered a lifeline to the american people, including the expiration of federal unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions.

and this week on monday, after 73 days of waiting, senate republicans finally unveiled their proposal to address the coronavirus pandemic. and even as some republicans have said, they're disjointed and in disarray. one must ask what's been done all this time. instead of one bill, it's a collection of eight different pieces of legislation introduced by eight different members. instead of a cohesive package to address the needs of the american people and to get the virus under control, the proposal has prioritized corporations over people. they put business interests ahead of science. it's really unclear if the white house has blessed this package. it's even less clear if it will get the support of a majority of republicans in this body.

but the one thing that's clear, the priorities are completely misplaced. my friends on the other side of the aisle seem to think they can fix our nation's problems by simply forcing a real opening of the economy, forcing people back to the workplace, sending our children back to school as if the virus isn't still spreading like wildfire. their approach won't work, and even worse will make us less safe. everybody here wants to get the economy back on track. we all want schools to reopen. we all want to return to the workplace. but the only way to accomplish this is to contaib the virus, slow the -- is to contain the virus, slow the spread. that's the only thing that will give people the confidence to emerge from their homes and reengage in society and our economy. now to do that, there are certain things we have to do.

we have to have quick and efficient testing and contact tracing. we need a vaccine, but then we'll have to have a way to mass produce and get that vaccine once we have it to the people. we need to support unemployed americans until we get through this crisis. we need to keep people from being evicted and losing their homes. we need to create safe working environments and safe learning environments for our children. and when children must learn from home with parents working from home, we need to make investments in infrastructure they need to be successful. the republican bill fails on all these points. it has insufficient funding for testing and contact tracing. it has insufficient funding for mass vaccine campaign once we have a vaccine. it underfunds education

programs. it uses the moneys they stick to force school districts to open even if the locality and public health agencies decide it's not safe. this provides much, fails to provide much-needed investment in broadband and internet access for rural areas to allow for distance learning where it's needed. as one teacher said to me, you force us to open, what happens? a week after we come in two children have covid and two teachers. the school closes down for a period of time. let's be realistic. there's no increase for snap benefits even though more people are going hungry every day in america. there's no new funding for state and local governments who are laying off teachers, health care workers and first responders as their revenues dry up.

the republican proposal inexplicably cuts federal unemployment benefits to millions of workers. they insist this is to incentivize people to go back to work. where are they going to work? where are the jobs? people want to work but jobs are hard to come by. all this does is to make people more destitute, put more people at work, not being able to put food on the table or pay their rent. that doesn't get our economy back on track. i want to show you why this is a nonstarter. let me share a few stories from vermonters who have written or called into my office. i've been around vermont this past weekend. one man wrote to me because he's concerned he'll be evicted from his home in the next few days. he's been out of work since march unable to survive because of the federal unemployment benefits in the cares act which this bill callously strips away.

his wife is taking classes at the local community college and hopes one day to get a better job. but in just a few short days they could face eviction because they can't afford to make their $750 reins payment. -- rent payment. so instead of inching ever closer to achieving the american dream, that dream is being taken away through no fault of their own. homelessness is now a possibility for them. he writes, i hope that you and your fellow senators can find a solution as soon as possible because we're all affected by what happens in partisan capital. and he's right. whatever happens here affects his family and all other families. and what are the solutions being proposed? unemployment benefits slashed, no rental assistance, the expiration of the eviction moratorium. when was the last time anyone in this room struggled to make rent? who are we to tell this man he does not deserve continued help

from his government in the middle of a pandemic? another voter contacted me over the fate of her 98-year-old mother. since march her mother and the other residents of the nursing home to be confined to their rooms, unable to participate in activities and join for dinner. the nursing home staff lack the necessary protective equipment and testing capability. she is not being able to even hug her own mother since the pandemic started. she writes, we can't just have a single state or single country response to this pandemic. we must all work together to take action to support the most july members of our society. i couldn't agree more with this woman. we into he had to work together, we need to protect the most vulnerable, but the republican proposal doesn't do that. across our country children are

going hungry because their parents are out of work. the cost of food is on the rise. the republican proposal does nothing for snap, nothing for child nutrition. but there are $1 billion for the -- multibillion-dollar giveaways to the defense industry. the republicans say they want five years of immunity for large corporations where they won't be sued if they force their workers back to work and they get sick. but they have no money in there for the protection of those workers. protect the owners of the company who probably don't even come in the company. we'll protect them but not the would,in the -- but not the workers in the company. they take money to replace money that the white house basically took away to build a wall that mexico is supposed to pay. and then when i saw this in the

proposal, here was $1.7 billion for an f.b.i. building that is going to be built either in virginia or maryland. $1.billion to take the -- $1.7 billion to take the aging building and prop it up. why? because if it was gone, somebody might build a hotel there that would be potential competition with donald trump's hotel across the street. put $1.7 billion of taxpayers' money in order to protect his hotel from any competition, but there is no money in it to ensure that people can safely vote in the our upcoming elections. what is going on? this is alice in wonderland.

the american people need congress to step this up. the republican proposal fails to do this. it leaves people behind and our country and economy more vulnerable. so let's stop playing partisan games and offer a solution that only one party can get behind. let's start bipartisan, bicameral negotiations on a bill that can be extent the president by the -- that can be sent to the president by the end of next week. make priorities that help us contain this virus. help us protect the vulnerable families like those i've seen the past several days in environment. -- in vermont. a bill it puts us on the right track to reopening our economy. frankly, the american people can't wait any longer. if vermonters who is call and

stop into my office, they're pleading for help. they can't wait any longer. to do nothing, to do nothing is an abdi indication of our sworn -- is an abdication of our sworn responsibility to serve our constituents. the bill offered by the republican majority is a disservice to thousands of americans who have died, to the millions of americans who have contracted this virus, the hundreds of millions of americans who are looking to the government to do something so they can have their country back. mr. president, i see other senators on the floor. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, lorna green was a talented and

the dynamic physician who served as the medical director of the emergency department at new york presbyterian allen hospital. she was from charlottesville, virginia, and very devoted to her family there. she attended cornell university and then the medical college of virginia. she was deeply religious, an avid skier, a volunteer with senior citizens, a salsa dancer and a musician. but mostly lorna green was a beloved, compassionate and deed manning doctor. a colleague said of her, quote, she had something that was a little bit different, and that was this optimism that her persistent effort will save lives. and dr. green suffered from something very common among health professionals -- the deep stress of dealing with patients day in and day out, helping

them, worrying about them, celebrating with them, praying for them, and mile-per-hour for them. -- and mourning for them. health care professionals routinely experience high levels of stress, as many of this 45% to 55% of this workforce suffers from burnout. physicians have the lie highest rate of death by suicide. 76 that was the case before covid-19. in the november 2019 dr. breen and three colleagues published a short article in the american journal of emergency medicine entitlemented "clinician burnout and his association with team-based care in the emergency department." the recall that she coauthored begins this way. recent work has noted the alarming prevalence of clinician

burnout among providers particularly among acute care physicians. burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion, cognitive weariness, which may lead to feelings of depersonalization. the article went on to describe how staffing models in this case the uof fixed working teams could mitigate the effects of stress on staff and also improve patient outcomes. within just a few months of the publication of this article, health care professionals like dr. breen already dealing with high stress levels faced a new foe, coronavirus. dr. breen's hospital was overrun by the virus in march and april, as were others in new york, as are others in this country. by late march, the allen, the small community hospital serving a low-income population in northern manhattan, was blitzed with an emergency department

clogged with nearly three times its normal number of patientsment dr. breen shared the sense of anxiety now understood by the whole country. quote, people i work with are so confused by all the mixed messages and the constantly changing instructions. and then dr. breen got the virus herself, coming down with fever and exhaustion on march 18 and quarantining in her new york city apartment, as she tried to recover. while she was trying to recover, she was texting her colleagues to see if they were okay. she was trying to help them find supplies that they could buy. to use at the hospital. finally she returned to work on april 1 and the situation in her emergency room, her hospital, her city was even grimmer. her sister jennifer breen faced what lorna faced. when she returned to the hospital, she was confronted by

an overwhelming, relentless number of incredibly sick patients. she and her colleagues worked 24/7 during the peak in new york with limited protective equipment, insufficient supplies, not enough beds, not enough help. many of her colleagues were out on medical furlough. she told me patients were dying in the waiting room and hallways. there was so much suffering, so much death. during the peak of the crisis in new york city, nearly a quarter of all patients admitted to the allen for covid-19 would die. dr. breen messaged her bible study group, i'm drowning right now. might be awol for a while. but she kept right on working. by mid-april, dr. breen reached out for help to deal with the stress she was feeling, talking to colleagues and family. she admitted that she had thought about hurting herself.

she told one friend, i couldn't help anyone. i couldn't do anything. i just wanted to help people, and i couldn't do anything. dr. breen was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 11 days and went home when she was discharged to be with her family in charlottesville to recover and on april 26, dr. breen died by suicide, leaving no note. dr. breen was a victim of coronavirus, even though her death is not counted among the 151,000 people who have succumbed to the virus. but she was also a victim of another condition that our -- a preventable condition that equity if ad our health care -- that affects our health care professionals. we place enormous demands on our healers. our society, including the medical profession itself, does not do enough to recognize the

real cost that the work inflicts upon the mental health of our caregivers. perhaps even our use of the term hero. meant as the highest praise, it communicates that our healers must be strong superheroes placed high on a pedestal by society thereby making it even more difficult for a care giver to admit vulnerability and simply asking for help. louise swisher, an emergency room physician in philadelphia, puts it this way, we don't want to be seen as a weakling. we don't want to be seen as incompetent or place an extra burden on our colleagues. it is almost like you're being kicked off the island. you don't belong anymore if you admit to needing help. it is still common practice for state medical boards and hospitals to ask doctors seeking licensing and credentialing whether they have ever been treated for depression or other mental illness. this heightens the barriers to

asking for help when we should be making it easier to do so. lorna's sister jennifer attests to this. when lorna became so overworked that she was unable to move, you know what she was worried about? her job. she was worried that she would lose her medical license or be ostracized bid her colleagues because she was suffering burnout due to her work on the front lines of the covid-19 crisis. she was afraid to get help. lorna's worries were not unusual. a 2019 survey of physicians by the american medical association showed that nearly 40% of surveyed physicians are wary about seeking mental health counseling. while another 12% indicate that they would only do so in secret. dr. breen's family is devastated by her passing. but they're honoring her by advocating for the cause of a

more humane profession, one in which mental health challenges with acknowledged, mental health resources are available, and the healer accessing these services are encouraged. i am proud to introduce the dr. lorna breen health care health services act together with my colleagues young and cassidy. the act aims to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout and other mental and behavioral health conditions among health care professionals, in particular the act would establish grants for training health care professionals, students and residents with strategies to improve their mental well-being and job satisfaction, identify and disseminate evidence-based best practices for combating burnout and suicide, establish a national education and awareness campaign, targeting health care professionals to encourage them to seek support and treatment for mental and behavioral health

concerns, create grants for employee education, peer support programming and mental health program in covid-19 hot spots and initiates a comprehensive study on mental health needs including the impact of covid-19 on our providers that can produce recommendations for all levels of government and the medical professions themselves. we introduce this bill mindful of the many priorities that are currently being discussed while we will negotiate our continuing response to the nation's coronavirus challenge. it's our hope that this bill might make it into the next covid-19 bill as a tribute to lorna breen and so many like her how should we honor the working sacrifice of a lorna breen? how do we honor those health care front-line workers that we

call heroes every day? how do we recognize the tremendous work they're doing and also the tremendous burden that they carry? let's pass this bill and show that we care about our healers and are committed to providing them the resources and the culture they need to keep healing. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor, and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

ms. ernst: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa is recognized. ms. ernst: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. ms. ernst: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. ernst: thank you, madam president. four years ago jill larson

opened up crayons to pencils early learning center? norwalk, iowa. the state of the art child care center offers full-day before and after school care and preschool-only programs for children from six weeks old to school age. they've even expanded to include a learning center and recreation center. it truly is topnotch. but when covid-19 hit, crayons to pencils enrollment dropped from 150 children to 32. and it was only through the paycheck protection program that this child care center was able to stay afloat and keep their workers paid. the larson's story, it's not unique. without the help of the paycheck

protection program, so many of our small businesses and child care programs across the country would have gone under. 99% of iowa's businesses are small businesses, and the paycheck protection program has been a critical lifeline for so many of them. i hear it time and time again on my 99-county tour, most recently on a main street tour in albia with some outstanding female small business owners. nearly 60,000 small businesses in iowa have received p.p.p. loans saving hundreds of thousands of jobs. but, folks, there are more funds left in the program and many of these folks need additional help. that's why we should allow our most distressed businesses to receive a second p.p.p. loan so

they can continue to keep workers paid and their doors open. the heals act would make that possible. now while the paycheck protection program helped keep the crayons to pencils day care center, keeping their employees paid, as folks are getting back to work, these critical facilities are facing new challenges. making up for losses from decreased enrollment, trying to expand to accommodate more kid kiddos do to school closures or acquiring critical medical supplies or p.p.e. to create a safe and clean environment for these families. just recently i held a telephone town hall and i was joined by iowa's director of health and human services kelly garcia where we heard the concerns of iowa parents and talked about

the solutions we're working on at the state and federal level when it comes to child care access and affordability. our working patients are anxious and concerned about what lies ahead. do they have to quit their job to stay at home with the kids? how much will child care cost? what happens if child care providers can't open back up? this is the reality for so many. and that's why i've made it a top priority to provide additional resources for our child care programs and our families. included in the heals act is my bill to create back to work child care grants which would give providers the resources they need to make it through this crisis. it would also help them access