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Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut, and I rise today as well to urge my colleagues to vote against this dangerous resolution, which would pull the rug out from under our COVID response efforts at a really critical moment.

We are fighting an unprecedented pandemic, and we all know just how painful this fight has been. Everyone remembers the way it upended our economy as small businesses shuttered, workers got sent home; the way it upended our healthcare system as emergency rooms filled and supplies dwindled and healthcare professionals started working really long hours in dangerous conditions; the way it upended our lives when schools and childcare providers were forced to close to keep people safe.

We all know people who have been infected by this deadly virus. We all know people who are still fighting the effects of long COVID, which we are still trying to work to understand. And we all know people who have been killed by this virus.

We have lost family members, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, grandparents. We have all lost dear friends. We have lost beloved community members and frontline workers who keep our communities functioning. We have lost teachers and principals, doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters. We have lost time with each other that we cannot get back.

This virus left no American and no part of America alone. COVID has now killed over 785,000 people in this country, more Americans than any war we have ever fought. And despite what Republicans seem to believe, given the fact we are voting on a resolution to undermine a cornerstone policy of our pandemic response and despite the hard-fought and very real progress we have made, this crisis is not over.

We are still averaging over 100,000 new cases a day. We still have over 50,000 people hospitalized with COVID. We are still, right now, seeing, on average, well over 1,000 deaths a day, overwhelmingly among people who are not vaccinated.

And we are still on high alert for new variants. We saw with Delta how a new, more dangerous, more contagious variant of COVID-19 could set back all the progress we fought so hard to make, and we are at this very moment learning more about the Omicron variant and what sort of threat it might pose.

So how on Earth does it make sense right now to undercut one of the strongest tools that we have to get people vaccinated and stop this virus? In what world is that a good idea?

We all know the damage this virus does to our communities. We should be doing everything we can to stop it. We should be using every tool to protect our country, our economy, and our families.

And we know vaccines are one of the best tools we have to do that. It has been almost a year now since the first vaccine was authorized. After months of hoping--remember that?--that news meant we finally had a safe, effective vaccine to protect people from this virus, and we have made a lot of progress since then when it comes to making the most of vaccines and getting them to people across the country.

Vaccines are now authorized, as we know, for everyone ages 5 and up. Booster shots are now available to make sure people continue to stay protected amid concerns over these new variants. And around 60 percent of all eligible people in our Nation are fully vaccinated.

But we still have a ways to go to vaccinate our country and to vaccinate the world if we are going to end this pandemic. That should be our No. 1 priority.

But this resolution that our friends across the aisle are offering tonight would move us in the opposite direction. It will take away one of the strongest means we have to encourage people to get vaccinated, save lives, end this pandemic, and keep our economic recovery on track.

Immunization requirements in this country are not new. They go back as far in our history as General George Washington, who required his troops to get vaccinated against smallpox. They have been critical in the fight of diseases like polio and measles and mumps and rubella, just to name a few.

And the reason we no longer have to worry about diseases like smallpox and polio in this country is because vaccines work.

Nor are workplace safety standards a new thing. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a long track record of setting and enforcing safety standards that simply prevent workers from getting sick or injured on the job.

OSHA not only has the authority to protect workers with safety standards; it has been doing this for 50 years. The law that established OSHA even gave it authority to respond to emergencies by issuing an emergency temporary standard, or ETS, when there is a grave danger to workers.

And it makes all the sense in the world for them to use that power to protect workers from COVID because the painful reality is that COVID-19 has killed a lot of workers. We have lost hundreds of meatpacking workers and grocery store workers to this virus. We lost over 3,600 healthcare workers to COVID in 1 year. And over 10,000 agricultural workers have been killed by COVID.

This is exactly the kind of threat OSHA should be protecting people against. It is exactly the kind of grave danger Congress gave OSHA the authority to issue an ETS to respond to. And OSHA has rightfully used that authority to put forward an emergency temporary standard on COVID- 19 that is simple, it is flexible, and it is lifesaving.

Republicans seem to not be hearing this part, so I want to be especially clear about it. This requires employers with 100 or more employees to make sure workers either--either--get vaccinated or get a COVID test once a week before they go in to the workplace--either vaccinated or tested once a week.

It also provides, by the way, paid time for workers to get vaccinated, removing a key barrier to vaccinations. It is a strong tool for getting our Nation vaccinated. And despite how my Republican colleagues talk about it, letting employers have the flexibility to offer a testing option means they don't have to ask workers to leave their job if they choose not to get vaccinated.

This step for getting people vaccinated or requiring testing is overwhelmingly popular with American people. A poll actually taken shortly after President Biden announced this step found that 6 in 10 Americans supported requiring businesses of 100 or more to have employees vaccinated or tested regularly; and 7 in 10 supported making sure people have paid time off to get vaccinated.

Of course, that should be no surprise. After all, no one wants to go to work worried that they might come home to their family with a deadly virus, worried that they might get their own kids sick, which is why getting more people vaccinated could help our country get back to work.

We all know people want to work where they feel safe. We all want to work where we feel safe. And economists predict that vaccination policies could lead to millions of Americans reentering the workforce.

Let's get something straight: the big threat to our workforce and to our economy is the virus. It is the virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and shuttered businesses. It is not the safety standard that will keep workers safe and businesses open.

In fact, this type of safety standard is also supported by businesses across the country. Many businesses have already implemented policies like the standard Republicans are trying to overturn. And you know what has happened time after time?

United Airlines, 99 percent of its 67,000-person workforce has complied overwhelmingly by getting vaccinated. Tyson Foods went from having less than half of its 120,000 workers vaccinated to now over 96 percent. MGM Resorts has 98 percent of its workers vaccinated. Walmart says an overwhelming majority of employees have gotten vaccinated. A Connecticut manufacturer with 250 workers recently announced 100- percent vaccination rate. And that list goes on and on.

In one place after another, we are seeing over 90 percent of workers comply with this requirement--some through testing, and the overwhelming majority through vaccination.

The big picture here is that this rule, which Republicans keep attacking, is saving lives. OSHA estimates it will help protect 84 million workers and prevent thousands of deaths and over 250,000 hospitalizations from COVID-19, and yet here we are--Republicans pushing to scrap it entirely, undermining the progress, and putting America lives and livelihoods in danger.

This pandemic has done a lot of damage. It wrecked our economy. It shut down our schools and our businesses. It forced people to postpone weddings and graduations and funerals. It devastated our Nation's mental health. It killed over three-quarters of a million people.

It is not over. We have come a long way. This pandemic sent unemployment as high as 14.8 percent. Today, it is back down to 4.2 percent--the lowest it has been since the start of the pandemic.

Schools have reopened and brought students safely back to classrooms. Businesses are hiring. People are getting vaccinated, getting back to work, getting back to plans that have been put off by this pandemic, and getting back to seeing their friends and families. But they do not want to go backwards. The American people do not want to go backwards. And that is exactly where the Republicans' misinformation on commonsense policies like this will take us: backwards.

We know the path forward to finally end this involves getting everyone vaccinated. We should all be working towards that goal, not against it. Families are counting on us to lead our Nation through this crisis, not back into it.

After all we have lost and all the hard work we have done to rebuild, we must not throw our economy and our communities and Americans' lives into jeopardy by sabotaging our pandemic response. When you are fighting a fire, you don't stop in the middle of it and turn off the water. That is exactly what this resolution will do.

It takes away one of the most important tools we have given OSHA to protect workers, in the middle of a pandemic when we need it most, and jeopardize all of the hard work Americans have done to get us out of this.

So I am here tonight to urge my colleagues to vote no--no to more lost lives, no to a longer pandemic, and to join me in defending a commonsense tool that will help put this incredibly difficult chapter of American life behind us.

I yield floor.

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