Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 378, S. 3051.

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be withdrawn; that the Barrasso substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; and that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I have 7 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, at 9:45 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. Committee on Environment and Public Works The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a business meeting and executive session on nominations. Select Committee on Intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, at 1:30 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing. Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining The Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing. Subcommittee on Intellectual Property The Subcommittee on Intellectual Property of the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, 2020, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:45 a.m., Thursday, September 17; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and morning business be closed; finally, following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Valderrama nomination under the previous order.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, thank you. I am on the floor today to talk about the coronavirus pandemic and what we can and should do here in the U.S. Senate and in Congress as a whole to actually address the ongoing problem. We are not out of the woods yet. We still have a healthcare crisis and, of course, an economic crisis that is a consequence of that. We have done some good bipartisan work over the past 6 months. In fact, not many people realize that we have actually passed five or six bills with strong bipartisan majorities. The one people know about most is the biggest one, the CARES Act. I think it got 97 votes here on the floor of the Senate--97 to nothing. We have in the past been able to figure out a way to come together as Republicans and Democrats and as Americans to be able to address this crisis. We need to do it again because we still do have a crisis. We still do have unacceptably high levels of people getting infected, hospitalized, being in the ICU, fatalities, and, of course, our economy is not where any of us would like to see it although it has improved significantly, in part because of the legislation we passed here. I am convinced that we would be at over 10 percent unemployment still if not for the legislation we passed here. Instead, we are beginning to come down--8.4 percent last month. That is faster than anybody thought it could. Still, of course, it is unacceptably high. So more help is needed, and we can't let the upcoming election and the politics around that keep us from getting together and continuing to do the work that we have to do. We haven't been able, in the last 5 or 6 weeks, to do that. Instead, we have been working kind of on opposite sides of the aisle on our own projects. Today we voted on a bill that had a majority of the U.S. Senators supporting it. That is not how you pass something around here; there has to be a supermajority--60 votes. But a majority of the Senators in this Chamber just voted for legislation that has strong bipartisan appeal I would think because, as we will talk about in a second, almost every element is supported by the Democrats, Republicans, and, most importantly, by the American people. What we have done is we have kind of fallen into camps. So the Democrats passed a bill in the House called the Heroes Act. It is a $3.5 trillion bill. Remember, we have already spent about $3.5 trillion, making this the largest deficit in the history of our country and making our debt now, for the first time since World War II, the size of our entire economy. That concerns all of us, and it should. I hope it concerns all of us because our fiscal situation going forward for our kids and grandkids is something we should be concerned about too. Anyway, the $3.5 trillion bill is a grab bag, to be honest. Some of it is related to COVID-19, but some of it is not. As an example, there is a provision in there that I hope would be a nonstarter that changes our tax laws and repeals the State and local tax deduction cap that was put in place just recently. This gives a huge break to wealthy Americans. In fact, 40 percent of this benefit, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, goes to the top 1 percent of wage earners. What does that have to do with the coronavirus? It will help millionaires on both coasts a lot, but it really does not affect the crisis that we are in. They also want to use this $3.5 trillion package as a way to make changes in our immigration policy. Now, that is pretty controversial stuff as it stands, and that is going to make, of course, that bill hard to pass because of the immigration policy. People have strong views on it. It has no place in a COVID-19 bill. One that also concerns those of us who are concerned about the election coming up is it puts Federal mandates in place on the States that are unprecedented with regard to their election system. Now, that is something we have always left to the province of the States, but, instead, it puts mandates in place on the electoral system. That is not, again, something that is going to help us in terms of the coronavirus. So my hope is that those House Democrats who passed that bill can now see what we passed over here. This is a targeted bill that focuses on the coronavirus. It is less than $500 billion, which used to be a lot of money around here, but as compared to the $3.5 trillion. So it is obviously a lot less money, but it is also more targeted and more focused. Again, I think so much of it is policy that can be supported by both sides of the aisle. It will really help to continue the efforts we started here to help address the healthcare crisis but also help with regard to the weak economic performance as a result of people being isolated from the economy. I heard someone this week say we have a K-shaped recovery. What does that mean? Well, think of the letter ``K.'' A lot of people say you want to have a V-shaped recovery, where you go down steeply through a recession and you come back up just as steeply. That is where I think a lot of America is. In other words, a lot of families and a lot of businesses have seen a pretty rapid recovery here in the past few months, but there are others who have not. So the top part of the K is true for a lot of people and a lot of businesses--think of the businesses that provide food, the grocery stores; the businesses that are involved in construction, businesses like Home Depot or Lowe's that provide building products. They are doing well. They are at the top of the K. They are in the V. But there are others that are in the bottom. That would include travel and hospitality. It would certainly include the airlines and bus companies. They are having a tough time. Many of our smaller retail businesses--certainly our bars, movie theaters, and bowling alleys-- they are having a tough time. So there is a bottom end to that. This is an uneven recovery, and we have to acknowledge that. Therefore, to my colleagues on my side of the aisle who might say, you know, we have done enough; the recovery is on; everything is good, unfortunately, that is not true. I wish it were. I wish we had turned the corner on the economy and also begun to turn the corner on the virus. We can't say that yet. We have made progress. No question about it. I think we are on the right track, but we are in a K-shaped recovery, I believe. By the way, it is the same thing with individuals. Think about it. If you own your own home, the value of your home has probably gone up. You are probably in pretty good shape, particularly if you are trying to sell your home right now. It is a good time to sell, I guess. If you invest it in the stock market, which a lot of the people who own their homes are, it has been darn good. The market increase has been substantial. I was on a program this morning where they were talking about how the Nasdaq was back up again, and the tech stocks, if you are in the tech world, are doing great. But let's say you don't own your own home. Let's say you are a renter. Your rent is likely to start going up if it hasn't already, and then, you are not invested in the markets, so you are not taking advantage of that, and yet your job is at risk and may be gone. So, again, K-shaped isn't it. Some people are doing quite well, and others are still having a rough time and need help to be able to deal with the issue of the coronavirus and the economic fallout from that. By the way, this K-shaped recovery, I believe, has increased inequality in terms of our income in this country, and income inequality was something we were making progress on. In February, we had the 19th straight month of wages increasing over 3 percent in this country just in February, not long ago. And, by the way, most of that increase was among lower and middle-income workers. Now, that was positive. That was where we wanted to head as a country. That is why so many of us pushed for tax reform and regulatory relief thinking that would get this economy moving and help those workers who are in the lower and middle-income bracket the most, and, guess what, it did. That has changed now so we have to, here in Congress, in my view, continue to help, continue to do things that will help with the healthcare crisis and with regard to the underlying economic situation that is affected by it. One thing that I think was very positive about today is that we were able to pass legislation that has many, many bipartisan elements to it. I think the vote we just had--again, where a majority of Senators in this Chamber voted for a targeted COVID-19 approach--I think this gives us a chance to reset, a chance to get back to the bargaining table, and a chance to say: OK. Now the Republicans have put forward a proposal that has a lot of very reasonable provisions in it. The Presiding Officer here today was part of that. He put provisions into the bill that has to do with our schools. It is widely popular. There are other provisions in there that I think there is very little disagreement on. Let me highlight a few of them One is on the healthcare response, particularly on our testing capacity. Republicans and Democrats alike know that testing is critical. We need it. In Ohio, we are looking for more funding for testing because we know that is how you stop the spread of the disease--testing, contact tracing, getting to the hotspots and trying to contain it. That way people will feel more comfortable returning to work, returning to shop, and returning to school. This is something that is in this legislation, $16 billion alone for testing. The legislation that was voted on this afternoon in this Chamber was voted positively by a majority of the Senators. Just last week, in Ohio, I visited The Health Collaborative, which is a multiagency coalition approach to dealing with COVID-19. It includes hospitals, county commissioners, health commissioners, and even nursing homes. They are utilizing the $19 million they have received through the CARES Act to fund and design and execute a testing strategy for people in the Southwest Ohio area. I am really pleased to see them take the funding and using it in this way because now more and more people are getting the opportunity to be tested, and, by the way, they are doing it on a no-needs basis. There is no need to pay for this testing with your insurance. If you don't have it, everybody is welcome to get a test. These kinds of initiatives are a big help, and I am glad that in this legislation we voted on this afternoon, we added another $45 billion in total to HHS to go toward testing and vaccine development to get this vaccine as quickly as possible, and distribution of the vaccine, helping on the antiviral medications. This ``Shark Tank'' concept that the Presiding Officer and others are involved in is brilliant because it sort of tells the private sector: Look, we are going to provide you the basic funding to go out there and compete to come up with a safe way to develop a vaccine or antiviral therapy, and that has encouraged competition in it, and in unprecedented speed, we are developing these alternatives--thank goodness--and we need them. Hopefully, by the end of this year, we will have them. Second, I think we agree that Congress should double down on any COVID-19 policies in previous legislations that have worked well, and, one, of course, is what is called the Paycheck Protection Program. That is in this legislation we voted on today too. Back on August 8, it ended. So if you are a small business out there and you have not already taken advantage of the PPP program that many of your peers have and you have seen them be able to keep their doors open because of it, you are out of luck right now because the program is not accepting new applicants. So we need to extend that program. I think everybody agrees with that. I don't know a Senator in this Chamber who doesn't have an experience back home of a small business saying: I couldn't have stayed open without this. I visited three or four businesses just in the past few weeks in Ohio, and all of them had the same story. Different timing, different businesses, some in construction, some in the restaurant business, some in manufacturing, but what they all tell me is they needed that influx badly. It provided them a low interest loan--1 percent. They converted it into a grant, effectively, because the loan was forgiven if they used it for their salaries or for their utilities or for their mortgage or rent. They would have had to close their doors and let a lot of people go. They were able to hang on. For some of these businesses, like the manufacturer I visited, thank goodness, because they would have let go 30 percent of their workforce. They didn't have to do that. They kept everybody on. Now they are going great guns. They are looking for people. By the way, they are having a tough time hiring people. They are looking for people. That is a good sign that you have businesses out there trying to pull people into the workforce. That is in this legislation. My hope is that we are going to see Republicans and Democrats agree on this. I think they do agree. Reinstating the PPP for the foreseeable future so that more small businesses can take advantage of this smart loan program is a smart thing to do. It is more targeted, and it does require you to show a loss of revenue. That is OK. That is good. We want this to be targeted and focused. We don't want to waste money. Third, the bill reflects that Members on both sides of the aisle recognize that Congress should give additional support to our schools. I mentioned this earlier, but $105 billion in this bill goes to education--about $70 billion to K-12, our primary and secondary schools and high schools, and that is needed right now. We are trying to reopen around the country, and many of these schools are telling me: Rob, I have got additional costs. I have got these Plexiglass shields I have to put up. I have to reconfigure the classroom. I have to hire more teachers because I want smaller classrooms so that if someone gets sick, it will be infecting a smaller group. There is funding that is needed for remote learning. So this is good for us to provide funding for these schools because that will enable them to reopen and reopen safely and stay open. That is in this legislation. There is also funding in here for colleges and universities. I think there is about $30 billion for that. Again, it is the same thing I am hearing back home from our colleges and universities, some of which are having a tough time staying open. They do need more help, more testing, more PPE, personal protective gear, so this is important too. Again, that is all in this legislation. Interestingly, I mentioned the Heroes Act earlier, the $3.5 trillion bill that the House Democrats passed not too long ago as kind of their alternative, that had funding for schools also. Guess what. This bill that was passed--well, not passed but voted on by a majority of Senators today in the U.S. Senate--actually has slightly more money than the Heroes Act has for education. What is the big issue here? Why can't we get together and figure this out? There are so many opportunities here. Finally, I would just say that one thing that this bill does and one reason it is called a targeted bill is it repurposes funding that we have already appropriated here in the first four or five bills but that has not been used and is not likely to be needed. So isn't that smart? I mean, as taxpayers, don't you want to be sure that we are not just throwing money at this problem if is not needed? The Treasury Department, in particular, has been helpful in working with us, saying they have a bunch of money that they could use for a loan program that they haven't had much takeup on because, frankly, the commercial lending is going pretty well right now. People are able get the money from their bank. They don't need to come to Treasury or the Fed as much as we thought they might, so there is money left over. We are talking hundreds of billions of dollars. So that should certainly be used to offset the cost of any new program. I think that is just a commonsense idea. I can't imagine anybody in this Chamber, if they think through this, would be against us repurposing the funds we have already appropriated toward new uses that are more targeted. That is in this legislation too. I think those things all have bipartisan appeal, and it seems to me, again, this is a reset. Let's face it, the Democrats have been saying over the past several weeks: Well, fine, we have got our bill we passed, the Heroes Act. What have you guys put out showing that at least a majority of the Senate and pretty much every Republican can support? Now we have done that. So we have our stake in the ground, and they have their stake in the ground. There is a lot of overlap. I just talked about four areas where there is considerable overlap, but there are many others as well. We should be able to figure this out on behalf of the American people. We have a campaign ongoing for President, for Senators, and for Members of Congress. We have to look out for the interests of the American people here. We can do both. We can campaign and also be working on our legislation that is absolutely needed right now for the healthcare and economic future of our country. By the way, only about one-third of the Senate is up for reelection, so for two-thirds of us, we don't even have an election to worry about, and yet it seems like this place has become way too political too quickly. Let's focus on taking this bill that was voted on today where the majority of Senators supported it and figure out ways to work with Democrats to come up with a new approach that enables us to continue the effort to help with regard to this K-shaped recovery and to help with regard to the ongoing healthcare crisis we are facing. I want to mention, if I could, three or four other things I would love to see in the final bill that did not make it into the so-called targeted bill. I understand why they didn't, and, in part, because we weren't looking to put a lot of tax provisions in there because it is not a tax vehicle, but I do think there are other things that have broad bipartisan support that we ought to include. First, I think we would all agree it is important that the taxpayer- funded research that is supported by this legislation, research into antiviral medications and research into vaccines, is protected from other countries, in particular, China coming into our country and taking that research. This is taxpayer-funded research, and we know, from what the FBI has told us and what the Department of Justice has told us, that this is currently at risk. It is currently at risk. With that in mind, we need to include legislation that safeguards our American innovation. This was actually in the legislation that was introduced by Senator McConnell a few weeks ago called the Heals legislation, and the legislation that I am talking about is called the Safeguarding American Innovation Act. It stops this kind of theft of research and innovation at our research institutions, our colleges and our universities. That is one where Republicans and Democrats have come together. It is a bipartisan bill. It is the result of a committee process. It is the result of an investigation that took over a year. It is the result of a lot of hearings and a lot of work. It is solid legislation to encourage us to be able to protect the research we are doing, including on the coronavirus. Second, for a while now, there has been a bipartisan consensus that a smart coronavirus response should include tax incentives to help our economy to not just open and reopen but to do so safely and effectively. Small business owners I have spoken to during this pandemic, especially in recent weeks, have told me they are eager to reopen, but they want to do it in a safe manner. And we want them to do in a safe manner. Let's provide some incentives for that. One example of how that process can be helped along is an expanded tax credit for new hiring called the work opportunity tax credit. It is already out there. It is legislation that passed years ago. It helps, let's say, veterans, returning citizens, who are looking for a second chance. It gives them the chance to get a job because the employer gets a tax credit for a while, and then almost always that person ends up getting a job. Let's include the COVID-19 unemployed in that--people who have lost their jobs because of COVID-19. That makes all the sense in the world to get people back to work. There is also something that is in law now based on the CARES legislation called the employee retention tax credit. I think this is very important. Companies that couldn't access the PPP because they didn't qualify or didn't want to will have access to this program kind of as an alternative. It gives companies a tax credit against their payroll taxes--the employer side of the payroll taxes--if they keep people on or bring people on. Again, this makes all the sense in the world right now to encourage more hiring to ensure we can get this economy moving again and do so safely. Speaking of safety, I have also introduced a new tax credit that was part of the HEALS legislation that was introduced a few weeks ago. It is called the healthy workplaces tax credit, which helps businesses pay for this protective equipment, like the plexiglass shields and like the PPE that they now need, which is expensive. Just the gowns and the masks and the gloves--those expenses add up, particularly for businesses that are having a tough time because of the weakening economy out there. These credits will help them not just reopen again but reopen safely. I think getting these kinds of tax credits into the coronavirus legislation would be very smart. Again, these should be bipartisan efforts. Third, while I am pleased we are revitalizing the successful PPP program, I think there are steps to improve it that we ought to take up in whatever our final package is. For example, one oversight in the original PPP legislation is that people who have been convicted of a felony going back 5 years are not able to accept a PPP loan. One day, I get a call from a guy back home. Troy Parker is his name. Troy said: I can't get a PPP loan. I am a guy who had a financial issue, a financial fraud issue. I had a felony conviction. I got out of incarceration, and I started my own business. I took my second chance. He said: I did everything that you are always talking about, Portman, which is that you want to encourage people to take that second chance. You want to give them that opportunity to get the training to be able to do that. Then he went out and hired a bunch of other second-chance folks, and he started a cleaning business. It is quite successful. But obviously, with coronavirus, a lot of the offices he cleaned and others said: We can't have you come in. He lost his businesses. He was about to shut his doors. He couldn't get a PPP loan. Why? Because within the last 5 years, he had a felony conviction. That is not what we should be doing here. We shouldn't be penalizing people who have turned their lives around and have done all the right things and are hiring other second-chance individuals. We should be helping them to stay on their feet and to continue to do what they are doing for themselves, the community, and the workforce. So we worked with the Treasury Department, and to their credit, we got them to put forward a temporary solution, which was a change in the rule so that Troy could get his PPP loan and others like him around the country. We now need to make that permanent. That is an example of something we should do--totally bipartisan. I worked with colleagues on the other side of the aisle on this issue, and I will continue to because this is one where, again, Republicans and Democrats alike, as Americans, would want this to be part of the legislation. Fourth, while I am glad this bill reflects the bipartisan support for educational funding, I had hoped it would also reflect that Republicans and Democrats alike have come out for additional support and flexibility for State and local governments. Ohio has been particularly hard hit here because our cities in Ohio, unlike your city--wherever you are in America, probably--can use income taxes as a revenue source. I think 90 percent of cities can't do that, but in Ohio, we can, and we do. Obviously, income taxes went down with this coronavirus, and the economy fell short, so they suddenly find themselves with less revenue coming in and then additional expenses: fire, police, EMS, coronavirus expenses for public health. It has been tough for a lot of our cities in Ohio, so I have been pushing for not just more funding on a targeted basis, showing need, but also more flexibility to be able to use the funding for closing that revenue gap, which is caused by the weak economy, which is caused by the coronavirus. So it is related. Certainly, we ought to be able to do that on a bipartisan basis. That is what a lot of Democrats have said they would like to do. I am not the only Republican who wants to work with Democrats on that. We could get that into a final bill, and that would help all of our cities. Let's move forward on this. Finally, I think all of us agree that we need to have better access to telehealth. Telehealth medicine has been one of the few silver linings in this dark cloud. A lot more of my constituents are using telehealth. One way they are using it is for behavioral health, mental health services, and another is for addiction services, but also, just generally, telehealth has been something that has been very helpful. A lot of people say that in the last few months, we have gone 5 years ahead of where we would have been in terms of telehealth. I think the same is true with regard to teleworking and with regard to telelearning. But with regard to telehealth, based on a poll I recently saw--a survey by Morning Consult--one in every four adults--25 percent--has used telehealth recently during the pandemic. It has been a lifeline for so many people, particularly for some people who are fighting addiction and can't get in-person care to help their recovery or people who have mental health challenges and are able to access telehealth to help them. I have worked with the Trump administration to expand telehealth and delivery options, which in some instances has, for instance, allowed addiction specialists to reach new patients they hadn't been able to reach before. There have been some positives here, but these reforms are only temporary. We need to make these permanent as well. We don't want to lose ground on this issue, so Senator Whitehouse, on the other side of the aisle, and I have introduced legislation called the TREATS Act. We want that to be part of the final legislation as well. We have an opportunity to help with telehealth by expanding broadband access as well so that more Americans can access these services from home. This also relates, of course, to education when schools are telling us they are going to go to partly in-person classrooms, partly remote, and some altogether remote. If you live in a rural area of America, you may not have access to broadband, and you are at a disadvantage. Also, in a lot of our urban school districts, there may be the infrastructure for broadband, but it is not in the home. We need to help more in terms of broadband. I am the Senate sponsor of a bipartisan, bicameral bill called the Rural Broadband Acceleration Act, which basically speeds up the FCC's distribution they were going to make anyway of $20 billion in rural digital funds to go toward the building of broadband networks. This will help spread high-speed internet over more than 400,000 miles of internet fiber cables, bringing about 3 million new households online immediately if we can get this done. By the way, it employs thousands of workers as well. I think it is a great investment in infrastructure that is needed right now. So people talking about infrastructure--this is one we could do right now that helps with regard to telehealth, telemedicine, telelearning, and teleworking. The Nation will be looking to Congress in the coming weeks to work together to make sure that we can improve our response to the coronavirus and to help get this economy through a tough time. Now more than ever, we cannot revert to the norm, which is partisanship these days. We cannot do that with regard to this issue. Using this new targeted bill as a base--the one that, again, got a majority of Senators in this Chamber to vote on today--and voting on some of the areas of agreement I have outlined today, we need to come up with an appropriate and effective bill that responds to the challenge. I am going to continue to work with Republicans and Democrats alike to insist we put the partisanship aside and work on behalf of our constituents to take the necessary steps to get us through this unprecedented healthcare crisis and to get us on the other side of the economic crisis. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work together to do the same. Thank you. I yield back.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I think we are all a little frustrated right now because the negotiations on the next COVID-19 package seem to be at a standstill. If you talk to the negotiators and you even read the press accounts, which are pretty open, what they say is that they are deadlocked. One of the main reasons they are deadlocked is over this issue of unemployment insurance. Now, recall, back in the CARES Act, there was an extension of a Federal supplement to unemployment insurance. So we put in place a $600 Federal benefit on top of the State benefits. At the time, there were concerns about whether that would lead to people on unemployment insurance getting more money than they would at work, and there was actually an amendment here on the Senate floor regarding that. Although it did not pass, I think pretty much every Republican supported it with that concern. In fact, that is what has happened. If you look at what has happened over the past couple of months, as the $600 has been put in place, it clearly has often led to people making more on unemployment insurance than they can make at work. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office, which is a nonpartisan group here in the U.S. Congress that analyzes some of these economic issues, has said that if someone is on unemployment insurance today, they are likely to be making substantially more than someone who is not on unemployment insurance. In other words, people are making more not to work than to work. CBO says: ``Roughly five of every six recipients would receive benefits that exceeded the weekly amounts they could expect to earn from work during those months'' if you were to extend this until the end of the year. In other words, they are saying that 80 percent of UI recipients would make more on unemployment insurance than they would have at their old jobs--meaning that if you followed where the Democratic negotiators are in keeping $600 in place until the end of the year, there would be an unprecedented disincentive to go to work in this country. I think that is widely acknowledged. The University of Chicago has a study that isn't quite 80 percent; it says 68 percent, though. I don't think anybody disputes the fact that most people on unemployment insurance are making more than they would if they were at work. When I talk to my Democratic colleagues about that, they are hearing the same thing I am hearing from small business owners--by the way, from nonprofits, from employers of all sizes and all stripes--saying that it is tough to get people to come back to work when they can make more on unemployment insurance by not working. I think a lot of my Democratic colleagues agree. It is good to get people back to work--get back to work safely, yes, and we ought to be sure that the employers are following the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and others. But it is good to get people back to work because then they are reconnected with their healthcare, if they have it, with their retirement savings, and with training. That connection to work is a positive thing, providing people with dignity and self- respect. It comes with work, so we should all be for that. Yet when you see what is happening in this negotiation, this is being stalled because Democrats are being intransigent. They are saying stubbornly: We are going to stick to $600. Today, there was a press conference with Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Leader Schumer, and that is exactly what they said. Here is the quote: ``We have said that we are going to have $600.'' This is necessary. I know that that is not where the rank and file are here in this Chamber because I have talked to a number of my Democratic colleagues about this. They realize that the $600--even those who thought it might have been necessary at the time, and I voted for the package at a time when we had unemployment that was such a shock and so high, and people were in such need of immediate cash. But also I have heard, again, from so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, that the $600 is something they are hearing about more and more back home from the employers who say: We can't get people back to work. So the $600 is something that there needs to be some flexibility on to come up with a smarter way to ensure that people can continue to get a Federal supplement because we do continue to have relatively high unemployment in this country. In my own State of Ohio, there is almost 11 percent unemployment. But let's not have it be so much that people are incentivized not to work. That doesn't help anybody. There are ``Help Wanted'' signs all over my State. I was at a Ford plant recently, where they have 25 percent absenteeism, which they attribute to this issue. I have been at a lot of small businesses, which is where probably most of my colleagues are hearing a lot of concerns about the fact that they can't get people who used to work for them to come back, and they certainly can't hire the new people they need, even though they are reopening safely and doing everything they are supposed to do in terms of the guidelines. They are having a tough time getting back to work. There is an auto plant in Ohio where the white-collar workers are now working on the assembly line because they can't get enough workers who would normally have those jobs to work on the assembly line. So this is a problem right now, and I think everybody acknowledges it except the Democratic negotiators in this negotiation. Now, I don't think we are actually as far apart as the media accounts would suggest because there are lots of ideas out there. One idea, by the way, makes a lot of sense to me, and I am going to offer this in a moment as a resolution for the Senate to take up. I think this is the ultimate common sense--let's keep $600 in place for now while we negotiate something. Let's have an extension for another week on the unemployment insurance at 600 bucks just so we can negotiate something. What you don't want is people to fall off the cliff, and that is starting to happen now. The $600 expired last Friday. So 6 days ago it expired, and 6 days ago, 7 days ago, Martha McSally, a Senator from Arizona, came to this floor and offered this same unanimous consent request, saying: Let's just have 600 for another week. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, objected--instead, offering the $3.5 trillion package from the House. But he didn't respond to why we wouldn't at least give the negotiators a week to come up with something. So I am going to offer that same thing today because I do think it is not fair to have a cliff. I don't think there should be a cliff. I think people should be able to have some level--but not at $600 because that is now understood by everybody to mean that you are disincentivizing work. Americans are a generous people. Back in 2008 and 2009, when we had the great recession, we also did this. By the way, we did $25 a week then. So for Democrats who say this is unprecedented, well, we had 10 percent unemployment back then--very high unemployment--and we did $25. I think we should do a lot more than that now but not so much that people are making more by not working than by working. There are a lot of ideas out there. Again, my ideas--ideas of individual Members--may not be what this body chooses to use, and that is fine. We are not all going to get our way, but we should be able to come up with a compromise here. My idea is to have a return-to-work bonus, so that you are getting the 600 bucks, but you can take some of that money back with you when you go back to work. That would create an incentive to get people back to work and connect people to those businesses as we talked about and the importance of doing that. But there are other ideas as well. There is a plan that was put out recently by two Obama administration veterans, former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and economic adviser Jason Furman. They joined with a former H.W. Bush economist Glenn Hubbard to put out a proposal from of the Aspen Institute, hardly a conservative group, that proposes that the unemployment system--not at $600 but to continue at a cap of $400 and have it be determined based unemployment level for the State. The way unemployment works in the States is the States have a benefit, and this Federal benefit is on top of it. Most States provide on average about 50 percent of benefits; $600 is over 100 percent. It is over 130 percent, in fact. So this solution--again, from two Obama administration economists--is that you have $400 as a cap, when unemployment in those States is above 15 percent and zero Federal supplement when the State is at 7 percent or less. It phases out entirely. That is one bipartisan solution that is out there. Instead of insisting on $600, I would hope at least there is a discussion of those kinds of proposals. Senator Romney has a proposal out there that takes the amount from $500 per week in August to $400 to an 80-percent wage replacement phasing out altogether by year-end. Senator McConnell put his proposal out for a $200 amount over a 2-month period as a transition and then goes to a percent of wages. His percent of wages is 70 percent of wages. Again, there is no State that is that high. The States are 40 percent, 50 percent, 60 percent, in that range. So there are ideas out there, and yet the Democrats keep coming back again and again to this notion of: We want it all or nothing. I will state to my colleague from Oregon who is here on the floor, and I am glad he is--he did a very good job for Democrats negotiating this proposal. I told him about it at the time. I know he took pride on it, and he should have. But we also need now to figure out where we go, going forward. None of us should want people to be disincentivized from going to work. We should not have a situation like we have now where, again, you have the leaders on the Democratic side, Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Leader Schumer, saying, ``Today, we have said that we are going to have $600. This is necessary.'' We have to be able to show some flexibility here to be able to break this impasse, to be able to provide for people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and need some help, but not continue to have this policy in place that doesn't work for our economy, for small businesses, and for workers themselves. Let's get the politics out of this. Let's do something that makes sense to be able to move forward on this broader crisis, and I think if we can fix the unemployment insurance issue, we are likely to get there

Mr. PORTMAN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. PORTMAN. I thank my colleague from Alaska. Reclaiming my time, I think he has made a good point. We are not talking about a negotiation here. We are talking about a weeklong extension of the existing $600 per week, so we could enable people to have some certainty and predictability on lives. I have heard from folks back home on unemployment asking: What are you doing? Why can't you come to an agreement? We talked about why. The Democrats don't seem interested about moving off their proposal, and they said it again today. Maybe they think this is good politics--maybe they think this is something worth hurting these people who are looking, to see if I am going to get my unemployment or not. I had a tele-townhall last night with a woman whose husband works in the hospitality business, and he has lost his job, and everybody else in that business has told him: Sorry, we are not open for business. He does need the help. She didn't insist on $600, but she said: Give us some certainty that something will go forward. So that is what this is about. This is just to say give us a week at $600, the full amount, in order to negotiate something that makes more sense for the economy, for small businesses, and for workers. This Martha McSally motion which was offered earlier this week and last week, we are going to offer today. It is a unanimous consent. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the bill at the desk; I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. PORTMAN. I was hoping after all that there wouldn't be an objection because I can't believe that my friend from Oregon believes that it is not a good idea to do an extension. All we are talking about is an extension for a week of the $600, the full amount, even though, again, all the data out there shows that amount is not practical for our economy, for workers, or for businesses. He made a valiant effort trying to explain why he is not for that, but I know that people who are watching just think it is common sense. Let's continue to discuss, but let's be sure we have, as my colleague from Alaska said, good-faith negotiations. That is not good faith, to say $600 or nothing. And that is exactly what the negotiators have said. To my colleague from Oregon, I wish they would authorize you to negotiate. I think you and I could actually work out something, and I think you probably do too. But they have not authorized us, and the Democratic negotiators have said $600 or nothing This notion that the 1-week extension just doesn't work--absolutely it works. Are you telling me that the State unemployment offices would not provide the $600? Of course they would. There would be a lapse, of course. There would be a week or two, they say. But that $600 would be in people's pockets. By the way, there is a lapse right now, so people who lost their unemployment last Friday in some States, including Ohio, continue to get it because there is a lapse in the payment. So, yes, people would get the money. Of course they would get it. And they would be able to plan on it and have some certainty. Frankly, if it hadn't been blocked last week when Senator McSally stood right over here and offered it, it would be even sooner that people would get it. I say it is 1 to 2 weeks, so for some people, they would be getting it right now. It is absolutely essential for us to figure out how to find a way forward here. It is not, to me, an option for us to do nothing. We can't allow this cliff to continue. But in the meantime, all we are saying is, let's just have a little time to work it out, and hopefully the Democrats will get off of their $600 and realize that is not a path forward because it doesn't work. You are right. When we put the $600 in place, our thought was that would be about average. In other words, it would be the average wage replacement, so that you would have half the people making a little more and half the people making a little less. That is not how it worked out. Again, the Congressional Budget Office--nonpartisan CBO--says that more than 80 percent of the UI recipients are going to make more on unemployment than they would at their old jobs, if you follow the Democratic proposal. In Chicago, 68 percent, but that is not what we intended. Certainly, we should be able to adjust here, and we should be able to get to yes. My deep concern is that the negotiators are so intransigent on the Democratic side that we will end up hurting the very people Democrats are talking about helping. Let's come up with a sensible solution. I think there is a path here, and it is to negotiate in good faith. I think an Executive order isn't necessary if we do our work. I think inaction by not negotiating in good faith is the worst possible outcome. I yield to my colleague from Alaska.

Mr. PORTMAN. I yield back.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am here on the floor today to talk about some positive news and some positive news that happened just today. It is not about the coronavirus. It is not about politics. It is not about Hurricane Isaias. It has to do with some urgent and historic help for our national parks, something that is really important to all of us. We all love our parks. Today President Trump signed into law the landmark Great American Outdoors Act, landmark, bipartisan legislation that will protect and conserve our public lands. I am happy to see this effort finally cross the finish line because the natural beauty and rich history of America is something that we must preserve for future generations. A big part of the new law is bipartisan legislation that is called the Restore Our Parks Act that I have worked on for more than 3 years with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Senator Mark Warner from Virginia was my partner in this, as well as Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Senator Angus King of Maine. Our legislation involves urgent stewardship of our national parks, which is something that I have spent more than a dozen years working on. I guess I shouldn't admit that. Sometimes things take a long time around here. But going back to my days as Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush, I started focusing on this issue of the backlog of maintenance projects at our national parks. It is alarming. It has been growing. It now adds up to over $12 billion, far more than the parks could ever afford to take care of based on the annual budgets we provide them from Congress. By the way, the annual budget from Congress for all operations and all maintenance is less than $3 billion. Yet there is a $12 billion maintenance backlog. When Teddy Roosevelt started the national parks, he wanted to preserve some of the most beautiful, pristine lands in America. He wanted to be sure they were going to be there for public use. It was a good decision. We now have 84 million acres of parkland all around the country. Some are those beautiful, pristine places like Yosemite and Yellowstone and the Tetons with spectacular, beautiful vistas, but others preserve our history. We have historical parks around the country. We have battlefields that we have preserved around the country to tell the story of our country, good and bad. We have Presidents' homes that have been preserved to be able to help, again, tell the story of America. Recently, I was at one of our national park sites in Ohio, and it is the home of an individual who was the first Black colonel in the United States Army. He was also the first Black superintendent of a national park. The home is also a site on the Underground Railroad, so it is a place where people can go and see where escaping slaves were harbored and understand more of the history, not just of slavery but also of the cooperation and the seeking for freedom that came out of the Underground Railroad. This is the Charles Young home near Xenia, OH. So our national parks are really important for so many reasons. Yet, during the past couple of decades, we haven't taken care of them as we should, and this backlog has built up. People appreciate our parks. During the past decade or so, we have had an increase of about 58 million in the number of visitors to our national parks. More are coming every year. Why? It is a relatively inexpensive vacation. They are beautiful. People from all over the world know about our national parks, and it is one of the things they love about America. The problem is that, when these people visit the parks nowadays, they are going to find that, over the years, we haven't kept up with these maintenance needs so the water systems, the roads, the bridges, the bathrooms, the visitor centers, some of the trails--many of these are now in bad shape. Some are closed, actually. When you go to a national park, you may find that a facility is closed because of a lack of funding for the deferred maintenance. We just haven't had the funding to do the capital improvements they need so that they can stay functional. Just the other week, I saw that firsthand at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Northeast Ohio. It is a great park. It is the 13th most visited national park in America. It kind of runs between Cleveland and Akron, OH. It suffered from these deferred maintenance problems for years. I saw a crumbling trail. I saw trails that were falling into the Cuyahoga River and couldn't be used. I saw rusting historic train tracks that run through the park. It is a tourist railroad that runs through. Train tracks are an expensive thing to replace. Again, it has to be done. I saw a bridge that was really unsafe to be on and has to be restored. It is a historic bridge. We want to preserve it, but the costs are just too high given the annual budget for that park. Their maintenance backlog at that park alone is $50 million, yet their annual budget is about $11 million, which goes to the rangers and the programs and the maintenance and operations but is not enough money to take care of these big problems. In a way, by not fixing these problems, we are also increasing the cost. Think about it. These costs compound year after year. In your own house, you might think about what happens if you don't fix the leak in the roof. What happens is the drywall begins to have problems. You might have mold. The floors begin to get wet and wood floors begin to buckle. You have additional costs that, if you had just fixed that roof, you wouldn't have. Well, that is where we are with the parks. If we take the time and the effort to make the fixes now, we will save money over time for taxpayers because we will not have the compounding costs. Every day, it gets worse and worse. Now, finally, we have come up with a way to deal with it. Congress has asked our parks, over the last few years, to give us their deferred maintenance projects with specificity: What are your priority projects? What are the top priorities? We have asked them to lay it out in detail. It has been very helpful because we now know we have over $12 billion in maintenance needs but about $6.5 billion of that is high-priority projects--the projects most in need of immediate attention. We know what they are. They are shovel-ready. They have been vetted. We are proposing a source of funding to be able to deal with that because, again, the annual appropriations process does not come near enough to matching what we need to have done. The highest priority needs at the parks is about $6.5 billion. In this legislation--now law of the land--royalty income is taken from onshore and offshore oil and gas, and some of that royalty is directed toward this use. The next 5 years, enough of that funding will be there to deal with the $6.5 billion, half of the maintenance backlog. We would like to do better, but, frankly, this is historic. Never have we had so much funding go to the parks, never have we been able to deal with these backlogs that have built up over years. It is really a debt unpaid. That is how I look at it. It is something we should have been doing all along. We weren't. The costs have now snowballed, and now we need to deal with it. It is not so much a new responsibility as it is stewardship we never did in the first place. It is a debt unpaid. Second, again, it is going to save us money over time--assuming we want the parks to be working, we want the trails to be open, we want the visitors centers to be welcoming--all of which, of course, we do want and we must have. The bill is not just important for our parks but also our economy, too, because these projects are infrastructure projects. We have talked a lot about that here on how to get more jobs into our economy right now. With the impact of coronavirus on our economy, we need more opportunities out there. Infrastructure is one. These are infrastructure jobs--over 100,000 new jobs in this legislation alone. Again, these projects are shovel-ready. They are vetted. They are ones that Congress--thanks to our asking the Park Service for the information--knows what jobs are out there and what projects need to be done. It is a long-term investment too. As of 2019, visitor spending in communities near our parks resulted in $41.7 billion of benefit to the Nation's economy and supported 340,000 jobs. It is new jobs in terms of construction, but it is also ensuring the parks continue to be able to be attracting these visitors, which adds such a big economic boost to our economy. I am proud that Congress has come together as Republicans and Democrats in a nonpartisan way to support this important initiative, and I am thankful for the President and his support. He showed bold leadership by saying: You know what, we are going do this. Other Presidents have talked about it. In the last three or four administrations, we have talked about it. Again, I have been working on it for a dozen years. Now we have actually been able to do it. I also want to thank the Director of Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, for his help; the Secretary of the Interior, David Bernhard; and other members of the President's team, including Ivanka Trump, who has always been strongly supportive of our national parks. This is about responsible stewardship. These repairs were a debt unpaid. We are finally addressing them before the cost increase. Our parks have stood tall for more than a century now as the embodiment of American history and our shared commitment to preserving some of our most magnificent lands. Thanks to Restore Our Parks Act, we will now ensure that those parks stand tall for centuries to come.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I also want to talk this afternoon a little about the Heroes legislation, the HEALS legislation, and some of the commonalities I see between the two. On the floor of the Senate this week, there has been some discussion about the need for us to come together in a bipartisan way to put together a package to deal with the coronavirus. Some call it the COVID 5.0 package. It is really probably 8.0. We have done a lot of legislation already, but there are things that still need to be done and some urgent matters, including dealing with the expiration of the unemployment insurance. I am on the floor today to talk about how I see the opportunity for us to move ahead by looking at some of the commonalities between the Democratic support and the Republican support for different legislation. As we all know, the discussions over the past week have not moved forward as quickly as we would like. In fact, it is pretty discouraging. Despite the fact that many people thought the Heroes Act was really a messaging bill--POLITICO wrote a story, one of our news media sources up here--and said: ``a messaging bill that has no chance of becoming law.'' Others made the same comments. Why? Because it was a $3.5 trillion pricetag for legislation, which would make it by far the most expensive bill ever passed by either House of Congress. But also, at a time when we had $1.1 trillion leftover from the CARES package and States have only allocated an average of about 25 percent of their CARES Act funding, it seemed like pushing taxpayers to foot the bill for the costliest legislation in history maybe wasn't the right way to go. Also, it had virtually no support from Republicans. Also, this legislation included a lot of stuff that had nothing do with COVID-19. The sense was: Yes, it is an important messaging bill for Democrats-- that is out there--but that we needed to figure out a way now to come together as Republicans and Democrats. Leader McConnell also introduced legislation. That legislation is called the HEALS Act. It is time for us to figure out how to come together and figure out a solution going forward. Particularly with regard to some of these urgent matters like unemployment insurance, we are already past time. Unemployment insurance already expired last Friday. We have to move forward with that. We should not be playing politics with people's livelihoods and making this a political football. Last week, and again today, my colleague from Arizona, Senator McSally, introduced what I thought was a great commonsense idea: Let's extend the existing unemployment insurance, $600 per week Federal supplement, for another week while we continue these negotiations so that people are not going to see their unemployment insurance checks decrease substantially. They would lose all the Federal benefit unless we do that. They would still have the State benefit but lose the $600 per week Unfortunately, Senate Democrats said no, objected to this commonsense idea. I don't quite get that. I think we ought to keep the $600 in place while we negotiate for the next week, and we ought to be sure and put the interests of the American people first and come to a commonsense solution. Now isn't the time for games. It is the time to get it right. I also note that with regard to unemployment insurance, there are lots of ideas out there. For the last few months, I have been proposing the idea of a return-to-work bonus. Maybe that is not the best idea. Maybe people have better ideas. The notion there would be the $600, which is the current Federal benefit, allows people on unemployment insurance, in many cases, to have more income on unemployment than they would working. According to the studies that have been done, including by the University of Chicago, about 68 percent of the people on unemployment insurance are making more money on unemployment insurance than they were making at work. Most Americans, including most Members of this Chamber--Republicans and Democrats alike--think that is not right. You shouldn't make more not to work. Unemployment insurance is meant to give you a little help. In Ohio, it is about 50 percent, up to a certain cap, but it is not meant to replace your wages, plus--which is what is happening--on average, 134-percent increase in wages if you are on unemployment insurance. There must be a way for us to come together and to solve this problem. There are Democrats and Republicans alike who have talked about perhaps lowering that amount from $600. I heard one of my Democratic colleagues on the floor today--the Senator from Oregon--talk about maybe you can tie it to the unemployment in the State. Others of us, again, and I have talked about the return-to-work bonus. You could take some of that $600 with you and go back to work, which would deal with, on a voluntary basis, the need for people to go back to work because employers are looking for folks. Right now in Ohio, we have a lot of jobs open, a lot of manufacturing jobs, as an example. I was at a plant recently--a Ford plant--where they are looking for people. They have a 25-percent absenteeism rate right now. They attribute a lot of that to the fact that people can make more money on unemployment insurance, but they need the workers badly. There are Honda plants in Ohio--that is another one of our manufacturers--where the white-collar workers are going to work on the assembly lines because they can't get enough workers coming in. I hear it across the board. I have heard it from those who are involved with developmental disabilities trying to get their workforce back. I have heard it from people who are involved with the treatment for opioids, so the alcohol and drug addiction boards are trying to get their people to come back to work. I have heard it from our small businesses that are trying to figure out how to reopen and reopen safely but have a tough time getting people to come back to work. There is a need for us to figure this out. For the workers themselves, it is much better for them to be connected with their employer again, isn't it? After all, that is where they are likely to get their healthcare. If they have it, they are likely to get their retirement savings. They are likely to get the training there to be able to keep up with the times. It is good to have people at work. The dignity and self-respect you get from work is something that is of value. We should all want that. All of us in this Chamber should focus on this issue and say: OK. The $600 was put in place during a tough summer. Let's be honest. A lot of people had a really tough time, and some people are still having a tough time. There should still be, in my view, a Federal supplement, but it can't be paying people more not to work than to work. That makes no sense, as we are starting to open this economy and open it safely. We have to figure out a way forward here. There are some Democrats who have worked on this issue. Timothy Geithner is an example of one who was Secretary of Treasury under President Obama, who put forward, along with other Democrats and Republicans, a proposal that said: Let's lower the amount, and let's tie it to the unemployment. This is something that, in talking to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including some Democratic colleagues who have talked to me privately, that, you know, they get it; this is not working, and we need to fix it. Let's do that. It seems to me there is a lot of commonality there, and we should be able to figure out a way forward. Let me mention some of the other places where I see a lot of commonality. First, both Republicans and Democrats agree that it is absolutely essential that as people return to work they do so safely. In the legislation we talked about earlier, the HEALS package, which Senator McConnell introduced, there is a proposal that is called the Healthy Workplace Tax Credit Act. Basically, what it says is, if a business is willing to put in place safety measures like a Plexiglas shield or do testing or have the PPE--the gloves and the masks and, in some cases, the gowns that are needed to stay safe--they should be able to get a tax credit for that. It not only encourages more employment, but it encourages employers to open in a safe way. I spoke to a bunch of restaurants yesterday from Ohio. They called in to talk about the legislation. They love this because they have a lot of costs associated with making their places safe during the coronavirus pandemic. But this legislation, again, is stuck because we can't seem to get to a negotiation. That is one where Democrats and Republicans could come together. There is another one that I think makes a lot of sense. It is called the Work Opportunity Tax Credit Expansion. That also is in the HEALS legislation. This has always been a bipartisan issue--the work opportunity tax credit. We have said simply that just as you can get a tax credit to hire veterans or to hire second-chance individuals who have come out of the prison system, you should be able to hire people from unemployment insurance who have lost their job because of COVID-19 and get a tax credit. This is something that, again, Democrats and Republicans should be able to work on together. Finally, in the HEALS package, we also have legislation that has a lot of appeal to Republicans and Democrats that is an expansion of the employee retention tax credit from the bipartisan CARES Act. This is legislation that passed 96 to 0 around here. We say, let's make this employee retention tax credit work better. We expand the amount you can get in terms of tax credit, expand the amount of time that has to be covered. It makes it a much better package for small businesses to use to be able to attract employees and to retain the employees they have. Again, this is nonpartisan, I would say, and certainly one that can be bipartisan Historically, these tax provisions have had bipartisan support. I worked with my friend Ben Cardin in designing the employee retention credit in March, expanding the opportunity tax credit, which has always had bipartisan support, and the healthy workplace tax credit. Senator Sinema actually has a very similar bill. Second, there is agreement on both sides of the aisle, we have to support our schools and our businesses so our kids can get back into the classroom and our parents can get back to work. With regard to schools, there is supposedly a big partisan divide over this issue. When I see it, I see schools, money being practically identical in the HEALS package and the Heroes Act that passed the House of Representatives. In fact, House Democrats provided around $58 billion for K-12. The HEALS Act actually increases that to $70 billion. There is actually more money in the HEALS legislation. On the business front, both Democrats and Republicans have seen value in the Paycheck Protection Program we introduced in the CARES Act, which is why both bills seek to expand it. Albeit in somewhat different ways, but there is greater consensus here than one might think. We just need to sort out the details. My colleague from Louisiana is here with me tonight in the Chamber. He has talked a lot about the need for us to improve the way we provide funding to local governments, municipalities, and to provide more flexibility. I don't think there is much disagreement about that on either side of the aisle. There may be a disagreement the numbers, the amount of funding, but, again, the HEALS package has funding. The Democrats have more funding. But flexibility--that is one where I think there is a lot of bipartisan consensus. I know it is a popular right now to say that we are so far apart we can never get together, but as I look at this, when you actually look at the individual pieces of this, I see a lot of commonalities. The final one I want to mention is one where I would think all of us should be together. That is addressing the underlying health crisis we face. Both the HEALS package and the Heroes Act provide increased funding for research into vaccines and antiviral treatments for this disease. Both acts also recognize the importance of increasing funding for testing, which is critical in making sure we can safely and sustainably reopen. There are more points of commonality between the Republican and Democratic approaches that I could touch on, like providing another $1,200 in stimulus checks for all Americans who make less than $75,000 a year. That, I understand, is something that both Democrats and Republicans support. That would be a huge part of this new package. The House-passed Heroes Act has, again, a pricetag that is just too high--$3.5 trillion. I think most people would acknowledge that. I also know there is a big difference between that and the $1 trillion that was in the proposal from Senator McConnell--$1 trillion. That used to be a lot of money. Again, when you look at the actual details of this, when you look at what is actually in these two pieces of legislation, there is so much commonality. I think it is critical that we get this legislation right. We have time to do that. In the meantime, as Senator McSally has proposed, let's continue the $600 for the next week. Let's be sure that we can build on these commonalities we see between these two pieces of legislation. Retreating into partisan corners at this critical time doesn't benefit any of us. It certainly doesn't benefit the United States, and it doesn't benefit us as an institution. It certainly doesn't benefit the people I represent. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I have six requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, we have already had this debate once today when the Democratic leader chose to offer this motion knowing that, of course, it is not serious. What he is talking about here, just after having rejected a very commonsense proposal, which is a 1-week extension for the unemployment insurance--by the way, at $600, which is exactly what the Democrats say they want. They want to keep it at $600 even though, as we know from numerous studies, that means that, for many people--in fact, for 68 percent of the people on unemployment insurance, based on the University of Chicago study--they are making more on unemployment insurance than they can make at work. I think all of us here in this Chamber want to be sure that folks are taken care of. In fact, we just voted on legislation to provide the ability to be able to debate this very issue and other issues. But to say that people should be making substantially more for not working rather than working is something I think even a lot of my Democratic colleagues do not find acceptable. Instead, the minority leader, once again, is offering the Heroes Act, as he has done before. You will recall this is the House-passed legislation that was passed, actually, a while ago during different times. But it is $3.5 trillion. That is what the CBO says--$3.5 trillion. That makes it, of course, the most expensive piece of legislation ever passed by either body anytime in our history, by far. By the way, it has a number of provisions that have nothing to do with COVID-19. So here we are in the middle of this crisis. In many places it is getting worse, not better. We do need to act, but we need to be sure we are acting in an effective, targeted way and not putting things out there--a $3.5 trillion bill including many things that have nothing to do with COVID-19. It has immigration policy changes there. We can debate those separately. Immigration policy issues are very contentious and are tough things for us to resolve in any context, but certainly we shouldn't put it in a COVID-19 bill. It has unprecedented mandates on the States that say to the States: You have to do the elections the way Congress wants to do them. You have to do mail-in ballots the way we are saying you have to do them. You have to use the kinds of ideas that we say you have to use. This has always been in the province of the States. Again, a lot of my Democratic colleagues agree it should continue to be in the province of the States to make those kinds of detailed decisions on elections. It doubles the amount of money in the Heroes Act that goes to States as compared to even what the National Governors Association is asking for. Three and a half trillion dollars begins to add up when you do things like that. You give twice as much to the States as the States are even asking for. Of course, one of my favorites--and I know, again, the Senator from New York feels strongly about this from a tax policy point of view-- included in the COVID-19 bill is a very expensive change in tax policy that actually is a huge tax break for wealthy individuals; that is, repealing the SALT changes that were made. Over 50 percent of the benefit of this goes to the top 1 percent. That is based on the Tax Policy Center. Based on our own Joint Committee on Taxation, which is a nonpartisan group here in Congress, what they are trying to get through in their legislation, the Heroes Act--40 percent of that benefit or more, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, goes to those with income over $1 million. What is that doing in the COVID-19 bill? The Democratic leader talked about the need for more money for testing. I couldn't agree with him more. By the way, the proposal that was presented by Senator McConnell earlier this week has a lot more money for testing. It also has more money for antiviral medications, for vaccines, and for ensuring that workplaces can be safe. It has the same amount of money--maybe even a little bit more; the Senator from Tennessee can tell us--for our schools, to be able to reopen our schools safely. There is a lot of common ground here. I think we can find it. I really do. I know that today has not been an example of that. We are even rejecting here--a moment ago--a 7-day simple extension of 600 bucks per week. But when I look at it, I see the school money as being identical, and I see the tax provisions that we have to help encourage people to go back to work and encourage companies and nonprofits to put measures in place to make the workplace safe, like plexiglass shields or more hand sanitizers or PPE. These are all things we can agree on. Even on the issue of unemployment insurance--and I have talked to many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle about this--I think there is a way we can get there. I think Democrats realize that $600 per week does create this disincentive because it is, on average, 134 percent of what people were making in the private sector. We can come up with a way to deal with that. One is a return-to-work bonus, which is an idea that has a lot of bipartisan appeal. Let's put aside these games. Let's put aside these extreme positions. Let's figure out how we can come together. This evening was not a good example of that, having rejected the 7-day extension of $600 per week of unemployment insurance, but I think now we have this opportunity, with the legislation that was passed earlier today, to begin to have that debate. We can have the debate on unemployment insurance. We can have it on a whole range of issues--how we deal with schools, how we deal with the healthcare crisis we have, the underlying crisis. We can deal with all these issues in a way that enables us to find common ground, to create real solutions for the people we represent as we face this unprecedented pandemic. With that, I object.

Mr. PORTMAN. No

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am here on the floor to talk about some of the steps that Congress should take in response to the coronavirus pandemic. I am going to start with talking about the legislation that the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, introduced yesterday. One of the aspects of it that hasn't gotten much attention and that, I think, is very positive and a very effective way to get the economy moving in a safe way is with some tax legislation. These are tax credits and tax deductions that help to encourage the hiring of new workers but that also do so in a safe way. These are the kinds of things that make a lot of sense and that have a lot of bipartisan support and appeal, so I think it should be part of whatever final package we end up with. The goal of these tax incentives is to say that we want people to reenter the workforce but to do it in a safe and sustainable way. For example, in the McConnell proposal is legislation I have introduced, called the Healthy Workplaces Tax Credit Act. It is very simple. It says there will be a credit on the employer's side of payroll taxes against qualified employee protection expenses and workplace reconfiguration expenses to ensure employers can afford additional safety measures. As I travel around the State of Ohio, I see the Plexiglas dividers. You have probably seen those in offices where there are more open settings. You see it in a lot of retail places now. There is a cost to that, but there is also a cost to personal protective gear--the masks and the gowns and the gloves and the other things that people are needing in order to have a safe workplace. As I have been in some of the factories around Ohio, I have also seen that they have had to reconfigure the factory spaces in order to provide more social distancing. At one plant, in its floor plan, it had expanded the lunchroom in order to provide more social distancing, and that, of course, meant there was less space for manufacturing. These are costs, and these are the kinds of things that could be part of this credit. So my hope is, whether it is a thermometer check or whether it is more testing or whether it is PPE or whether it is more hand sanitizer, that we could encourage people to use these things by having a tax credit. It would provide an immediate stimulus to the economy as well, which is a good thing because many businesses would be operating at a loss and not have taxable income, but they would have payroll tax liability, and this is a credit to the payroll tax. It also applies, by the way, to nonprofits, as it should, and to the 501(c)(3)s. I was at one of the alcohol and drug addiction entities in one of our counties the week before last, and it had Plexiglas up. Frankly, it is hurting in terms of its budget right now, but it felt like it had to have a safe place for people to work. We want everybody to have a safe place. We want people to go back to work and to go back safely. I commend Senator McConnell for including that bill in the CARES 2.0 package that was released this week. This tax credit will support efforts to make the workplace safe and healthy and build consumer confidence in that all of the appropriate measures are being taken. It is important to get consumers back in the mix. Whether it is going back into a restaurant and feeling safe or going back to a retail establishment, if people feel safe, they are more likely to go back, and this economy can get going again. So I think it is something, again, both sides of the aisle should be able to support, and it will show we are doing everything we can to get people back to more normal lives. Second, with the unemployment rate still at about 11 percent, we need to encourage hiring and employee retention as this virus continues to affect our economy. In the McConnell proposal, we have a way to create this incentive that builds on legislation we have already passed in the form of the work opportunity tax credit. This is an existing law that gives employers an incentive to hire individuals who might not otherwise be able to get a job. Categories now include, as an example, our veterans. So, if you are a veteran and are having a tough time getting a job, you can go through the work opportunity tax credit, and the employer can get a credit for hiring you initially. By the way, almost everyone I talk to says these people end up being hired full time and being paid their full wages. In the meantime, they get a credit to bring them on during a first transition period, so it works. Another category, as an example, is the folks who have been let out of prison. Second chance individuals have a chance under the work opportunity tax credit, WOTC, to get a job. We have proposed adding a new category, which is qualified COVID-19 employees--those who are on unemployment insurance immediately prior to their hiring date. It increases the work opportunity tax credit amount for this new targeted group of individuals from 40 percent of the first $6,000 in qualified wages to 50 percent of the first $10,000 in qualified wages. Again, it encourages us to help get people off unemployment insurance and back to work. Let's say they work for a company that is not going back because of COVID-19. Let's say it is a movie theater or a bowling alley or, maybe, a bar. Those individuals would qualify. Third, I support a proposal in this McConnell draft that builds on what is called the employee retention tax credit. That is already in law. We put it in law in the first CARES Act. The credit was a good start, but it needs to be updated and expanded given the course of our economy since March and what has happened with the coronavirus. This credit applies to employers who have operations partially or fully suspended due to COVID-19 and any related government order saying that one has to shut down but has chosen to retain one's affected employees. It is a credit that increases from the CARES 1 from 50 to 65 percent per employee--from $10,000 under current law for the whole year and $10,000 per quarter. It also helps businesses that have had a 25- percent decline in revenues, not a 50-percent decline in revenues. It is for the group of companies that may not have qualified for a PPP credit or a PPP loan--they may not have gotten one--but is having a tough time keeping their workers. This would encourage them to keep those workers and to bring on new workers. Again, it is the kind of support that our workforce needs as the economy reopens and companies resume ramping up operations. It helps to bring people off the unemployment rolls. It is a pull into the workforce, and that is a good thing. These are commonsense proposals. What is more, historically, they have been policies that have had bipartisan support. I worked with my friend Senator Ben Cardin, on the other side, in designing the employee retention tax credit back in March, and expanding the work opportunity tax credit has always had bipartisan support. On the healthy workplace credit, Senator Sinema, of Arizona, has a similar bill that goes a little further, but it is very similar. I see no reason we can't take what we all agree on works and make it even better in this new package. Again, these tax incentives are the kind of bipartisan consensus- builders that we ought to be looking at right now to get into a new package, hopefully, by the end of this week. We have to ensure--I think all of us agree--the safe reopening of our economy, and these tax provisions do that

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I have 8 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. Committee on Environment and Public Works The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Finance The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Indian Affairs The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on the Judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. Committee on Veterans' Affairs The Committee on Veterans' Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing. Select Committee on Intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, at 2 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 479, S. 2638.

Mr. PORTMAN. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 489, S. 2381.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Thursday, July 30; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; finally, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Kan nomination under the previous order.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.