Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for managing this important legislation on the floor of the House. I also commend him for the work that he did in the previous legislation that we have had.

As has been acknowledged, this is the fourth bipartisan bill that we have brought to the floor to address the coronavirus pandemic, and this is a very important piece of legislation.

So we come to the floor with such heartache, with such sorrow for those who have lost their lives and for their loved ones, for those who are suffering from the virus assault now, and for those who are in doubt about their economic situation. It is about the lives and the livelihood of the American people; that is what this is about.

Nearly 900,000 Americans have been diagnosed and are sick. Nearly 50,000 have tragically died. Oh, my goodness. We have to be prayerful, prayerful about this assault again on the lives and livelihoods of the American people.

Countless hospitals and healthcare systems remain swamped with cases, and far too many frontline workers still do not have the personal protective equipment that they need.

And just this morning, we learned that more than 4 million workers filed for unemployment last week, with more than 26 million having lost their jobs during this pandemic so far.

So, as we work to protect the American people, we have to make decisions. We recognize that the key to opening up our economy, the key to opening that door, the threshold we must cross, is a scientific one: testing, testing, testing, testing; contact tracing; isolation; of course, treatment; and, best of all, prevention. But the key is scientific, and we must make our decision in that way.

So here we are, and I say this in terms of the overarching. The American people have told us, when we did our earlier bill, they do not want any taxpayer dollars going to enriching shareholders, dividends, bonuses, CEO pay, all of that. They want their taxpayer dollars to keep people in their jobs.

The oversight of that is exactly what we passed, we will pass--we passed by voice vote earlier, we will vote on later. That is very important. It is very important to the American people to have confidence, as they make their sacrifices, that their taxpayer dollars that they pay are not being squandered.

Our colleagues have said: Why do we need oversight? We have all these committees that do oversight--and I hope they will--but they have other work to do as well.

And as the Republicans have put forth select committees themselves-- Benghazi; trying to destroy Planned Parenthood, which did not have any urgency for the American people--this has an urgency to the American people.

We need a select committee whose focus, whose purpose is to address the challenge that the coronavirus places on us. That is one.

Two, the American people want their checks. They want their checks, and that is what we are doing with the PPP and the direct payments and other initiatives that are there, and we need to do more.

And third, and we haven't done enough in this regard, they want our heroes, our healthcare providers, our police and fire, our first responders, our emergency services folks, our transit people, everyone, our food service folks, they want everyone to have the equipment that they need to do their jobs.

Our healthcare workers are on the front line, as are the others. Emergency services, police, and fire, some of them are the first people to respond to a 911 call. They are in the line of defense, and they do not have the PPE, the personal protective equipment, that they need, and we owe them.

We are not worthy of thanking them, thanking them, praising them, unless we support them, and that is not being done sufficiently. That is what we have to do in the next bill--I call it the Heroes Act--when we will come together to support our heroes.

Unfortunately, there was not enough interest in this bill right here on the part of others to join us in supporting our heroes, our healthcare workers, our police and fire, emergency services, in the form of supporting State and local government.

When you hear State and local, it might sound bureaucratic, but it isn't. Those are the people who meet the needs of the American people and are on the front line of fighting this virus.

So, when we finish this--and I am pleased to hear the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Neal, talk about the fact that we are already preparing for that. We have been for a while, because we just didn't really know that this interim bill would come up. But when it did, again, we had to meet the needs of the American people.

I am so proud that all of the bills we are passing, as has been acknowledged, have been done in a bipartisan way, and the next bill will be as well.

But let me just correct the Record, because the distinguished gentleman from Texas said we held up this bill, and I want to correct that Record because nothing could be further from the truth, and perhaps he isn't aware, but let me inform.

Two weeks ago, the distinguished Secretary of the Treasury called me and said: I need a quarter of a trillion in 48 hours.

Oh, really? Well, I don't know about that. Let's see what we can do. Let's see. Why do you need that?

That was April 7. The next day, on April 8, Democrats came together, House and Senate Democrats, and made a proposal that went beyond the $250 billion for the PPP, a program that we helped shape and that we fully support, supporting our small businesses, the entrepreneurship of America, the optimism of America, the creators of jobs and wealth and community in our country. So we are there with that.

But we saw some evidence that everything wasn't being done as we had hoped, and so we proposed, 1 day later, that we would have additional funding for small businesses, a $60 billion set-aside for the smallest of small businesses: women, minority-owned businesses, rural America, veterans, Native American communities, and the rest, who were not, shall we say, as bankable as some others, the underbanked, $60 billion.

Another $60 billion, we said, for all of our small businesses: $50 billion of it for the EIDL, the disaster assistance loans, put $50 billion there. That $50 billion is leveraged to over $300 billion in lending, easier lending for some than PPP because it is just a loan; it is not about the bank deciding. And then the other $10 billion--we wanted 15, we got 10 for the grants.

So there we got 60 and 60, 120, and then another $100 billion for the hospitals. That was on April 8, $100 billion for the hospitals, divided: hospitals, 75; testing, $25 billion.

The Senate Republicans went to the floor the next day, on April 9, which was the 24 hours from the request of the quarter of a trillion dollars. Mitch McConnell went to the floor and said: This is it, 250, not one penny more. This is what it is.

The Senate Democrats objected, offered an amendment that includes what we are voting on today. Mitch McConnell said: Absolutely not. That was it.

So for 1 week, he kept saying: I am going to bring it up again on Monday. I am going to bring it up on Thursday. For 1 week there was that delay.

Finally, that was Thursday of last week, there was interest in negotiation. And what we have on the floor today is the result of not time that we delayed the legislation, but the time that the Republicans refused to accept the fact that we needed $100 billion for our hospitals and our testing, that we needed more money for those who do not have sophisticated banking relationships, where we can have community development financial institutions reach into communities where they know the businesses, the neighborhood, the community, the people, the customers, the clients.

So we should be very, very proud of the work that was done by Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez of the Small Business Committee and Chairwoman Maxine Waters, chair of the Financial Services Committee, banks, small business coming with an idea that was rejected out of hand by the leader of the Senate: Don't even bring that around. It is only this; that is it, or else you don't support small business.

So when I hear, during the previous debate on the other bill and then this distinguished ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, whom I respect, and he knows that, say we delayed this, no, you delayed this because--now, this isn't about assignment. This is about taking responsibility.

Without the discussion over this past weekend which resulted in the Senate passing the bill unanimously, Mitch McConnell, who wasn't going to do one more penny, unanimously passing the bill, and then saying it has all this additional help that we initiated, that he initiated. He resisted it, but he initiated it.

So I think it is really important for people to understand what this fight is about. It is not about trickle-down. We were successful in turning the CARES Act from a corporate-oriented, trickle-down bill to a workers-first, bubble-up bill, and we were proud of that and that it passed and was signed by the President.

Once again, they just had the 250. We fully support that. We helped create that. But that isn't the end of the day for what else we needed to do.

And while I understand that they are resistant to helping those at the lower end of the scale, I can't understand why they resisted $100 billion for the hospitals and the testing, because that was central to meeting the needs, the health needs of the American people. I want more, of course. I want more than that.

So now we go to the next bill. I call it the Heroes Act. We fully support that. We helped create that. But that isn't the end of the day for what else we needed to do.

And while I understand that they are resistant to helping those at the lower end of the scale, I can't understand why they resisted $100 billion for the hospitals and the testing, because that was centra

Unfortunately, they do not want to put the heroes into this bill today as fully as they should by supporting State and local.

And what does the distinguished leader on the Senate side, Mr. McConnell, say? I am not doing any more bills. I think the States should go bankrupt.

Oh, really? And not pay the healthcare workers and public hospitals, the first responders and the rest? Oh, really? What made you think that was a good idea? It is just more notion mongering to get attention, I guess.

And so I came to this floor fully happy in terms of our bipartisanship, totally sad about what it is in terms of the lives of America's families and the uncertainty they face and the illness that some are suffering and the loss of life that many others, tens of thousands, have suffered.

But to hear them say we held up this bill, when they are doing today, with great pride, exactly what the Senate Democrats asked them to do on April 9. So I just wanted to set the record straight on that.

Again, I want to thank Maxine Waters and Nydia Velazquez and I want to thank Frank Pallone for the great work that he did and the staff of all of those committees.

We are voting on the floor today with a strong agreement that sets a path that we had in the CARES Act, the issues that were addressed in the CARES Act. Of course, we had State and local in the CARES Act; they wouldn't go there here.

So what we are doing is we are helping small businesses. We are strengthening the Paycheck Protection Program. It is $310 billion, including that critical $60 billion reserved for underserved rural, urban, and Tribal communities.

By supporting small businesses that cannot access the PPP, we secured $50 billion for emergency assistance lending. That will be leveraged into over $300 billion in disaster assistance loans and $10 billion more for grants to small businesses.

For hospitals, providers, and health workers: We secured $75 billion for health providers, which are losing revenue every day, and for physicians and health workers who are risking their lives because they don't have PPE.

In one of the New York hospitals, I heard a nurse say on TV that when she went to meet the needs of the patients, she was given not the regular gown and mask and gloves and the rest. She was given a New York Yankees rain poncho. Others were wearing garbage bags. Some of them said they were wearing medical waste on their faces because they could not change the mask, and they would go to maybe four patients instead of the one and discard.

So again, we thank them, we honor them, we revere them. But we have no right to do that unless we support them with what they need. They are risking their lives to save other lives, and now they may lose their jobs unless we do our Heroes Act, which I look forward to doing.

For testing: We secured $25 billion for testing, which is key, central, to reopening our economy and resuming our lives.

The administration has also agreed--and this is very positive--to a national testing strategy that will increase domestic testing capacity and address disparities, including across race, ethnicity, and geographic regions.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned, the administration was not ready to include funding for our heroes, our healthcare, fire, EMS, and other essential workers, for the postal system, which is essential to us now in getting information and materials where they need to be. And that is why CARES 2 must be about our Heroes Act, focusing on support for healthcare and essential workers. And I can't say it enough.

And then with that overarching concern for them, OSHA, so they have safety in the workplace, family and medical leave, so that they can meet the needs of their families, COBRA for those who have lost their jobs. And we need full funding for COBRA, and I hope the administration will be receptive to that. Pension, additional UI, and more indirect payments and more.

So let us be clear, the health and safety of our country will be endangered if we cannot pay the heroes who sacrifice to keep us safe. They are being fired as we speak. Mr. Schumer was referencing hospitals in his State where people were let go from public hospitals. But that is not unusual. Our teachers, the custodians of our children, are being let go. We have to face that, and we have to do it very soon and next.

And it is unacceptable that Leader McConnell thinks that no further legislation is needed. That is what he said: No further legislation is needed. And he thinks our heroic workers can wait and our States who hire them should go bankrupt.

As CARES 2 protects the lives and livelihoods of the American people, it must also protect the life of the American democracy: safeguarding the integrity of our elections and supporting voting by mail.

So, again, it is the lives of the people, the livelihood of the people, the life of our democracy.

Again, our prayers are with those who are suffering. His Holiness, Pope Francis--and I quote him all the time--he said weeks ago, his world prayer, that God would enlighten those who have responsibility to take responsibility for those in their care.

Let us hope that we can all be prayerful, take responsibility, do the job for the American people. We have an extraordinary opportunity to do that.

But we must do so in a way that keeps them safe, as we want to open our economy and do so--again, science, science, science, and science. Let us show the same courage and strength and move with great urgency to provide the support that they need, that they provide to others.

And, again, we have our differences, there is no question. I heard the gentleman speak out against the $600 for people who are unemployed. I think that we have to do whatever we can to recognize that public policy has a role here, that governance carries with it responsibility and opportunity and results and progress for the American people and that science and governance are the answers to meeting the healthcare needs and meeting the needs of our economy as we go forward.

So I thank our colleagues for their leadership, Maxine Waters, Nydia Velazquez, Frank Pallone, our distinguished chair of the Ways and Means Committee, for his work, and so many people.

Again, right now, as we speak, the Agriculture Committee is meeting. And as some of our colleagues have said, we can't do SNAP? They turned down SNAP, food stamps, at a time when America is hungry?

We have our differences, but we are coming together on this particular bill, and I am proud of that. It is bipartisan, it is urgent, and let us get on with it so that we can get on to supporting our heroes in a way that is worthy of their sacrifice.

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