House Republicans Seek to End COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

The COVID-19 political battles are set to return to the House this week.  Republicans plan to bring several bills to the floor to declare the pandemic over and advance the message that it is time for the emergency spending to end and for federal workers to return to the office. The Biden Administration has responded by announcing it will end the COVID public health emergency on May 11. The House plans to vote this week on:

  • H.J.Res.7, which would terminate the March 2020 presidential declaration of national emergency.    
  • Pandemic is Over Act (H.R.382), which would terminate the January 2020 public health emergency declaration – a bill that, if enacted into law, would have significant impacts on spending for numerous programs.   
  • Freedom for Health Care Workers Act (H.R.497), which would eliminate the CMS vaccine mandate for healthcare providers.    
  • SHOW UP Act (H.R.139), which would require Executive agencies submit a study to Congress on the impacts of expanded telework and remote work by agency employees during the pandemic and agency plans for future use of telework and remote work.    

House Republicans want to make clear they believe the pandemic is over, COVID is now endemic, and American life should return to full normalcy. This has been their view for some time, and, with their new majority, Republicans want to act on that position.  Republicans want to highlight how much federal spending has increased because of the pandemic – and this is an area to look towards to restrain federal spending. Equally important, however, they wanted to get out in front of the Biden Administration’s anticipated determination to end the public health emergency.  The White House responded with a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) opposing the legislation and announcing the President would end the public health emergency on May 11, not immediately as the bill would require:

“First, an abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system — for states, for hospitals and doctors’ offices, and, most importantly, for tens of millions of Americans. … Second, the end of the public health emergency will end the Title 42 policy at the border. While the Administration has attempted to terminate the Title 42 policy and continues to support an orderly lifting of those restrictions, Title 42 remains in place because of orders issued by the Supreme Court and a district court in Louisiana. Enactment of H.R. 382 would lift Title 42 immediately, and result in a substantial additional inflow of migrants at the Southwest border.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise responded to the Biden Administration announcement with: “Last Friday: House GOP announced we'll vote to end Biden's outdated COVID national emergency & public health emergency. Today: Biden suddenly announced he'll end those emergencies himself. He knew Dems were on the wrong side of this. He should end them NOW. Not wait until May.”  The politics of COVID continues to divide the political parties…

 

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