RISER Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I am on the floor this afternoon to encourage us in the U.S. Senate to address at least some of the needs related to the consequences of COVID-19.

There is a deadline that is fast approaching. This problem was created in the statute by legislation that was passed, the CARES Act. I have introduced legislation called the RISER Act to offer a solution to the issue I am about to describe.

As COVID-19 has swept across the country, businesses and community institutions have been forced to adapt to the virus, fundamentally changing the way in which they operate. More people are working from home today than ever before, while others are being asked to dedicate increased resources for public health precautions and support management. Virtual education and healthcare have also expanded greatly as communities are forced to conduct ordinary functions from afar to prevent the spread of the disease.

Adapting to the realities of this newly virtual economy is costly. To aid in this transition, as part of the CARES Act, Congress established the Coronavirus Relief Fund, or CRF. It is a multibillion-dollar fund for State and local governments to disburse, covering a variety of expenses that have arisen due to COVID-19. Expenses that can be paid from the CRF funds include providing small businesses and other organizations with grants to reimburse them for costs associated with handling coronavirus.

This funding was partly intended to address immediate, unforeseen costs absorbed by our public emergency officials and healthcare providers. Kansas counties' health departments have increasingly relied on this funding to ensure they are able to meet the needs of their community now and into the future as this pandemic stretches on.

Many States, including my own of Kansas, have also established forward-looking programs to distribute grants for economic development projects that respond to COVID-19, such as telemedicine, tele-education projects, and projects that would improve broadband infrastructure in rural and underserved areas. These communities already face a sharp divide in terms of broadband availability, and this pandemic has highlighted that. Unfortunately, for all the work we have accomplished in spreading the use of broadband, the availability of broadband, increasing its connectivity, there are still plenty of areas that need to be improved for access to quality internet services.

As more broadband-intensive work like video conferencing and virtual appointments now takes place at a much higher rate, the urgency to improve these services increases. Rural communities stand to lose the most without these types of projects.

Many of the projects require long lead times to wisely plan, appropriate, and expend Federal funding. However--and here is the problem--the CARES Act mandates that CRF funds be spent by the end of this year, now just a little more than a month away. This is absolutely not enough time for preparation-intensive projects to be carefully planned and executed. The current deadline puts several long-term economic development plans at risk of losing funding if they are not completed by December 31, and it also prevents new, meaningful proposals from being considered in the first place.

Many Kansans--from our county health departments to our universities, to our schools, to our cities and counties, to mayors and county commissioners whom I have visited with--have urged us to extend this looming deadline. We need to have a longer period of time so that the Federal dollars are not spent--I always try to avoid using the phrase ``Federal dollars.'' They are really taxpayer dollars or borrowed money that has to be paid back by taxpayers. It is a silly proposition that we would require the money to be spent when what it will mean is we will spend money less effectively and less efficiently than we otherwise would in the absence of this near-term deadline.

That is why Senator Roberts and I have introduced the Remove Impediments for a Successful Economic Recovery Act, or RISER. This bill would extend that deadline for State and local governments by 2 years for a set of currently eligible expenditures that meet criteria for qualified economic development plans.

This bill would allow funds for critical projects that require additional attention and time for a more thoughtful investment to be spent more effectively without cutting short a strategic investment that Congress made back in March to support our communities that need it the most.

I believe that State and local governments know what is best for their communities, including where and when to spend these Federal dollars.

Extending the relief for CRF payments dedicated to, particularly, job creation projects will allow Kansas and other States to strategically target areas of need over a longer period of time, making more certain that our taxpayer dollars are making the greatest impact to help our people recover from this pandemic. This will better ensure that the areas in need identified by States and localities have a stable source of investment that will aid in the ongoing economic recovery.

That said, I remain engaged with the Treasury and Senate Finance Committee to improve the RISER Act to ensure the availability of bipartisan support. This is a bill I want to pass, not a bill I just want to introduce.

While this thoughtful discussion with Treasury and the Finance Committee continues, I recognize that Congress must urgently act to extend the deadline in the meantime.

While I have a particular bill that does things that I think are hugely important in this arena, I also recognize that we don't have the time to wait. Often throughout these few days that I have been home, away from Washington, DC, I have been asked: How is your legislation coming? The answer is: There is broad bipartisan support. Most Senators--most Republican Senators and most Democratic Senators--are supportive of this measure, but the issue is: Will we be able to extend the deadline in time for our local units of government to know that they have an additional amount of time, or, in the absence of that, will we allow them or require them to spend money in ways less effective or efficient than they otherwise would?

I know that there are other pieces of legislation introduced by a few of my colleagues that would offer what we would call a clean extension of the CRF deadline, and I urge my Senate colleagues to support the immediate enactment of these legislative proposals to provide flexibility in fostering meaningful investments in our home States.

Around here, too often, it seems that if we can't do everything to solve a problem, we do nothing to solve a problem. I have never understood that attitude or approach. The things that we can agree on-- and this is one, I think, on which we can, this extension of the deadline--we ought not wait for a larger package that continues to be negotiated between the White House and Speaker Pelosi or between Republican and Democratic leadership in the Senate or the Republican leadership with the Democratic leadership in the House.

Whatever the negotiations ongoing today to get us to a point in which we are addressing what we generally call phase 4, another effort to improve the opportunities for us to provide relief to our constituents due to the pandemic--whatever all those machinations are--they will not happen quickly enough, and they certainly will not happen quickly enough to make certain that our local officials and their citizens know that they no longer would need to spend the money that we have provided them in the next 5 or 6 weeks.

By including the coronavirus relief fund in the CARES Act, Congress extended a hand to States, local governments, and areas in need across the country that are looking to adapt to the new realities of the ongoing pandemic. In the absence of an extension of the deadline, money will be misspent and will certainly not be spent in the most effective and valuable way.

I urge my colleagues not only to support the legislation that I have introduced, the RISER Act, but to work with others--all of us--to come to a point in which we are capable this week--if it doesn't get done this week, it probably means very little in an extension--to this week pass an extension beyond December 31 for the use of those CARES dollars in States across the Nation.

I urge my colleagues to join my legislation. I urge my colleagues to join to ensure that the hand we offered under the CARES Act won't be withdrawn way too soon. I am thankful for the opportunity to address my colleagues in the Senate.

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