Coronavirus Federal Response Update From Congressman Andy Barr 

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Reopening the Economy

Since early April, the American people have made tremendous progress “flattening the curve” of the COVID-19 virus, even as nationwide testing has accelerated substantially in recent weeks due to the public-private partnership. This means that for most areas of the country, state and local officials should be reopening their economies consistent with the federal Guidelines for Opening Up America Again, a three-phased approach based on the advice of public health experts.

This is especially appropriate given that nearly 12 million COVID-19 tests have been performed in the United States (now at a rate of about 400,000 per day), Project Air Bridge, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and the private sector have coordinated the delivery of over 83 million N95 respirators, 133 million surgical masks, 10 million face shields, 23 million surgical gowns, 989 million gloves and 4 million testing swabs, and President Trump this week announced Operation Warp Speed, directing $10 billion from the CARES Act to cut down the vaccine timeline and accelerate development of breakthrough therapies. More than a dozen promising vaccine candidates have been identified from the more than 100 currently in development.

New cases per day in the U.S.

The number of confirmed cases is expected to rise as the virus spreads and more people are tested. Graphic source: (NBC News)

Testing has accelerated in recent weeks due to the public-private partnership. Graphic source: (American Enterprise Institute)

Graphic: New York Times

House Vote on Pelosi Spending Bill

Last Friday, I voted against legislation that narrowly passed the House of Representatives and that would add $3 trillion to our national debt. The legislative package had little debate or deliberation in the full legislative body and also contained measures that were totally unrelated to responding to COVID-19.

For example, the nearly 2,000-page bill would mandate nationwide mail-in ballots with same-day voter registration and would also impose a federal ban on state voter-ID requirements without any restrictions on ballot harvesting, which is the process where campaign workers or volunteers collect and submit absentee ballots for voters. The legislation would provide over $1 trillion in additional funding to state and local governments for unfunded liabilities that predate the pandemic, even though the majority of the $765 billion in federal funds to state and local governments from the CARES Act has not yet been spent, 32 states are withholding federal relief funding from most city and local governments, and the Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity Facility has just this week been made available. Moreover, the bill allocates taxpayer dollars to failing multi-employer pension plans without requiring any needed reforms to fix their pre-pandemic issues.

The legislation would also extend supplemental unemployment insurance and put businesses in direct competition with the government for workers through the spring of 2021, and it would re-write Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) policy to permanently disallow work requirements for able bodied, work-capable adults. It would also issue another round of Economic Impact Payments (EIP) but remove the requirement that recipients must have social security numbers, enabling illegal immigrants to receive payments.

Furthermore, the bill would mandate a blanket release for certain federal prisoners and alleged criminals and it would allow taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions through changes to the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation (COBRA), and restore the state and local tax deduction which advantages states like New York and California. Finally, the bill references “cannabis” more times (68) than “jobs” (52). You can see my full speech on the House floor calling out this fiscal recklessness by clicking here. 

China Task Force

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lied from the very beginning about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and their coverup enabled its spread, threatening us all. The totalitarian leadership in Beijing silenced whistleblowers who attempted to sound the alarm, they underreported their initial cases, they manipulated the World Health Organization (WHO) to spread lies about no human-to-human transmission, and they embarked on an elaborate scheme to hoard personal protective equipment and weaponize the global supply chain of medical and pharmaceutical products against the international community, including the United States. As a result, over 90,000 Americans have lost their lives, and the coronavirus-related shutdown could lead to the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression.

Recently, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced a special 15-member China Task Force to investigate the CCP for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and to make recommendations about key aspects of our long-term strategic competition with China. I am grateful to Leader McCarthy for appointing me to this important Task Force, and I forward to working with the Chairman of the panel, Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX), and my other colleagues to provide policy recommendations to hold China accountable, and bring to bear my experience on the Financial Services Committee with sanctions policy, international financial institutions, trade, export/import promotion and controls, and capital markets to confront this most consequential foreign policy challenge.

The Task Force met for the first time last week in Washington, where I received the first in a series of high level briefings. This week, Chairman McCaul announced the five pillars of the Task Force: military superiority and homeland security, advanced technology, economic strength, increasing our competitiveness, and the battle between democracy and authoritarianism. I have been appointed to serve as the Co-Chair of two of those pillars: the Economics and Energy subgroup to address United States competition with the CCP in international trade, the movement of capital, economic statecraft, and the energy industry, and the Competitiveness subgroup to form a proactive, offensive agenda to increase the competitiveness of the United States relative to the CCP. Last week, I discussed the China Task Force with Washington Watch, which can be heard here, and Fox News Radio, which you can listen to here.

Helping Distillers Produce Hand-Sanitizer

I am so proud of our distillers in Kentucky who stand ready to provide their skill and expertise to produce hand sanitizer, which is a simple but critical line of defense against this virus. Recently, I introduced H.R. 6737 to cut red tape and enable bourbon distillers in Kentucky and throughout the nation to produce sanitizer to aid in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. This bill, which is the House companion to legislation introduced by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), would eliminate during the pendency of the national emergency the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) requirement that alcohol in hand sanitizer be denatured. Simply put, it would allow distillers to mix alcohol directly with soap without first having to adulterate the alcohol—as the process of adding soap already makes the alcohol undrinkable. Through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, I was able to advocate for a change in the law to allow distillers to contribute their alcohol to make hand sanitizer without having to incur the burden of the federal excise tax. But because the FDA continues to stand in the way, I am introducing this legislation to permit our distilleries to manufacture undenatured alcohol, exempt from federal tax during this emergency, which would significantly increase our nationwide supply of hand sanitizer.

Appreciation

I continue to seek your feedback and ideas as Congress works on a bold agenda to guide America through the COVID-19 pandemic and engineer the great American comeback that is forthcoming. You can always reach out to my Lexington office (859) 219-1366 or my Washington office (202) 225-4706 with your input. Lastly, if you would like to stay informed on what is happening in Washington, D.C. and around the Sixth Congressional District, again, I encourage you to sign up to receive my e-newsletter by visiting https://barr.house.gov/newsletter-subscription. If you want to unsubscribe to my e-newsletter, you can do so by clicking here.