Lawmakers have reached a bipartisan deal to offer $10 billion in additional Covid-19 funding.
The number is less than half of what the White House originally requested, but some Republicans were prepared to offer nothing as they claimed previous Covid funding had been squandered or still had yet to be spent.
While past Covid-19 relief bills, such as the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, have been saddled with funding for struggling families and businesses, the new deal would be narrowly tailored to public health efforts to fight the virus.
The package would enable the federal government to purchase more therapeutics, tests, vaccines and other supplies, but would not allow for international aid, according to the Washington Post.
Senate Republicans including Mitt Romney, Utah, Richard Burr, N.C. and Roy Blunt, Mo., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., were working with Democrats after the pandemic funding was pulled from the 2022 budget bill. Lead negotiators on the Democratic side were Sens. Chris Coons, Del., Chuck Schumer, N.Y., and Patty Murray, Wash. The new deal could clear the upper chamber as soon as this week.
President Biden had originally asked Congress for another $22.5 billion in funding to fight Covid-19, warning that the government would soon run out of its stockpile of therapeutics and would not have the capacity to offer a second booster dose of the vaccine to everyone.
The White House originally asked Congress to include $22.5 billion in funding to fight the ongoing pandemic, but that number was slashed to $15.6 billion after negotiations between Republicans and Democrats
Senate Republicans including Mitt Romney, Utah, Richard Burr, N.C. and Roy Blunt, Mo., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., were working with Democrats after the pandemic funding was pulled from the 2022 budget bill
Lawmakers included $15.6 billion in the fiscal year 2022 budget legislation, but it was yanked at the last second after progressives protested the pay-fors of the funding – repurposing about $7 billion in leftover state and local Covid relief. The original Covid relief included about $10 billion for fighting the pandemic at home and $5 billion for abroad.
Moderate Republicans who could be swayed to vote for further aid insisted it was paid for, and demanded a full accounting of where other aid money has gone so far.
The new deal set to be announced Monday is paid for by repurposing aid from previous Covid-19 bills, but does not dig into state assistance.
Biden officials have warned that offering money to fight the pandemic abroad is essential for preventing the development and spread of new variants. The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) was running a program to administer vaccines abroad, but warned that it will be forced to pause the initiative without further funding.
Coons had pushed negotiators to include money for the global response, and Romney had said earlier that the bill would include about $1 billion in global aid. The international funding was cut after negotiators could not find agreement on how to pay for it.
Both chambers only have less than a week to send the bill to Biden’s desk before a two-week recess on April 9, but some Democrats in the House have threatened to vote against it without the global aid.
‘I don’t understand why we as a country would make this mistake. My constituents do not want another variant to shut down their lives,’ Rep. Tom Malinowski, told the Washington Post. ‘My constituents are already suffering higher prices because of covid-related economic disruptions, half a world away, in countries that are not adequately vaccinated.’
Coronavirus cases are on the rise throughout some of Europe, Hong Kong and China and Biden officials are preparing for a potential surge here at home this spring. In the U.S., cases and deaths remain lower than they’ve been since last summer. An average of 27,088 are testing positive for the virus each day and an average of 649 are dying.
