Ross Gianfortune
This is GovExec Daily, where we bring you the federal stories that really matter.  It's March 17 , 2021 . I’m Ross Gianfortune

After months of negotiations and deliberations, the Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law last week. While the bill passed with no Republican votes in either the House or Senate, polling shows that a majority of Republican voters support the bill. The bill is massive, with money going out to businesses and local governments and Biden noted how much oversight will be needed in its implementation when he spoke on Monday. 

Joe Biden
I learned from my experience implementing the Recovery Act just how important it is to have someone who can manage all the moving parts with efficiency, speed, and integrity, and accountability.

Ross Gianfortune
Federal employees will be tasked with implementing the bill’s provisions while still working remotely and dealing with the stresses of the pandemic that everyone is dealing with. The vaccination rollout is moving along in the states, with some health officials distributing the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots better than others. 

Joining me after a short break will be Courtney Bublé. She and I will talk about the state of COVID-19 relief, the implementation of the American Rescue Plan and other coronavirus stories. 

Since the COVID 19 pandemic, state and local leaders have faced their greatest challenges to protect the health of residents while dealing with economic turmoil what lies ahead for states and cities and counties in a post pandemic world during the one year into the COVID crisis townhall, viewers will explore how state and local governments plan to move forward in a way that makes them more resilient and equitable. Visit route fifty.com slash events for more information. That's r o u t tfifty.com. Slash events. 

Last week, President Joe Biden signed the massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law. The bill marks the first major legislative action of Biden’s term and backs up his campaign’s emphasis on the pandemic over all else. 

The optimism of vaccines and the relief bill is tempered by the seven-day average of more than 1,300 daily deaths from the pandemic. COVID-19 is still with us and the government response is adjusting as such. Courtney Bublé writes the coronavirus roundup at GovExec and she joins me now to talk about the relief bill, the vaccine progress and other COVID-19 news.

Welcome to the show.

Courtney Bublé 
Thanks for having me.

Ross Gianfortune
The relief bill finally passed. It took a while. But what does it have in it to combat the pandemic directly? What did it have to deal with the economic side of the whole crisis?

Courtney Bublé
So there's $1.9 trillion relief package has so many provisions I'll just run through a few of them. For the pandemic specifically it has funding for vaccine distribution and education campaigns to boost confidence and taking the vaccine Coronavirus testing PBE for frontline workers, funding for community health centers that serve communities of color who have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. And it also has funding to reopen school safely so kids can get back to their normal routines. And on the more economic side, they're obviously their relief payments, which many people are very excited about. Emergency rental assistance, small business relief and expansion of child tax credits and much much more. Now for our audience specifically some things that might be of specific interest are the paid sick leave for federal employees, it's up to 15 weeks or 600 hours if they had Coronavirus. They have Coronavirus or have been exposed to it. And also codifies a provision for federal employees work on the frontlines. If they contract the virus during their official duties, they are eligible for workers compensation claims. And for federal contractors. This package extends the flexibilities inactive in the cares act almost a year ago for contractors who can't access their work sites if they can't tell work classified. So in order to keep them in a quote ready state and that ends and that goes until September 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Ross Gianfortune
This week, President Biden spoke about the plan. And he talked about oversight sort of referenced he is experienced during the Obama administration with oversight of the relief plans, then, and he also introduced a new czar of implementation. What does this gentleman do? And what is the oversight going to entail?

Courtney Bublé
Sure, so I'll first start by saying Gene Sperling is the implementations are he is an to time head of the National Economic Council. And he served in other, you know, various positions in the government. So he will oversee the implementation, which is similar to what President Biden did when he was vice president in 2009, overseeing the Recovery Act. And during his address on Monday, I didn't really stress the importance of oversight. As you know, this is a historic amount of money the government has been spending over the past year and he really provide a stark contrast to what we saw under President Trump. And while he didn't say Trump administration or President Trump specifically, he referenced that Trump didn't want oversight necessarily when they enacted the cares act. Last March, he issued a signing statement objecting to some of the specific oversight provisions. And then he removed the inspector general who is performing the duties of Pentagon inspector general at the time, who was going to be overseeing the pandemic Oversight Committee. So by removing him as acting, Pentagon it he couldn't serve in this position. All this to say that Biden is saying, I want oversight, I want compliance and I want accountability. Because you know, it's so much money and we really needed to go where it needs to go in order to get out of this pandemic and recession. shouldn't just resume life again.

Ross Gianfortune
Yeah, but we had a show. It's kind of a couple of weeks ago now about some of the changes in the triple P implementation and how much fraud that law enforcement through the SBA and the Justice Department found their way. There's understandable reasons to get the money out as quickly as possible and get the relief to businesses or municipalities or people or individuals. But you don't want it to go to the wrong place. I think that's that's everyone can agree on that waste, fraud and abuse is bad. I'll sort of change gears a little talk about vaccine progress as avid listeners of this show. Now I have I am halfway to my vaccine. Goal, I guess I had one shot. What does the country look like? What is the percentage of Americans what is the executive branch doing regarding the vaccine?

Courtney Bublé
During his first prime time address last Thursday, President Biden directed all states tribes and territories to make all adults eligible for vaccines by May 1. So this is regardless of pre existing conditions, ages, locations, etc. And earlier this month, he announced that the country will have enough doses for all adults by the end of May, and that's ahead of schedule, what they initially said. So as of Tuesday afternoon, recording this podcast 21.7% of the US population has received at least one dose and 11.8% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC data. Now it should be noted that to the vaccines, Pfizer and modernos, they require two doses. However, Johnson and Johnson only requires one

Ross Gianfortune
We’re talking about vaccines. Part of that is health agencies. Were a year into the pandemic. But where are we on health agency leadership, CDC chief Michelle kolinsky has been out there a lot. She's done a fair amount of press. But what are we looking at regarding health and human services CDC sort of parent agency, and I guess, more importantly, FDA,

Courtney Bublé
so we still don't have a nominee for the FDA yet. And this is despite many calls for many different groups to appointments, specifically, former FDA commissioners who have served under various administrations, they've been strongly encouraging the president to nominate someone. As for FDA, about two weeks ago, the Senate Finance Committee held a vote on Xavier cara, but they were split. They're tied along party lines. So they had to do the Senate has to do an extra procedural process in order to move forward in this confirmation. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had to file a discharge petition to get him his nomination out of committee without having a report from the committee in order to bring this in for which the Senate approved last week. Now we're waiting on the final vote. And as you said that the new CDC director has been very vocal and you know, out there and talking about the pandemic. She's been at all of the COVID briefings by the administration, and that's very different than what we saw with Dr. Robert Redfield under Trump.

Ross Gianfortune
Yeah, certainly the communication strategy on these fronts are different. Speaking of confirmed people and the confirmation process, we do have a confirmed HUD Secretary, as well as the confirmed Interior Secretary and Marcia Fudge and Deb Haaland, what have they said about the pandemic and their agency's roles in fighting the pandemic.

Courtney Bublé
So a few days after getting sworn in, Fudge told staff and a video message that in regards to the pandemic and its resulting housing crisis, quote, the work ahead of us will test us but I know we're up to the test. And she said that agency employees so they can forget about the other things that they do. You know, obviously, the pandemic is very consuming, but they do a lot of other important work that has to be done. And she said that she will always prioritize the health and safety of employees and contractors. And that HUDs, quote, HUDs response to the COVID pandemic, both internally and externally will continue to be driven by data and science, we will continue to require the correct and consistent wearing of masks, physical distancing, and physical distancing within all HUD buildings. And she also stressed the importance of communication on that as well. And for Deb Haaland, she was recently confirmed she is the first Native American to leave a cabinet agency. And this is pretty significant, not only for the, you know, the historical context, but also Native Americans. And they have been particularly hit particularly hard by the pandemic. So now that she's at the agency, she's going to make this you know, 4% of her priorities and make sure that they're not lost in the guidance, the testing the vaccine.

Ross Gianfortune
It's sort of interesting to see anecdotally, the people that I know in Indian country and how different things are, so we'll end on this. So as we started, a relief bill passed, it was signed into law chapter Going out, all these things are happening implementation is going to be overseen by, by Gene Sperling. But what is Congress doing otherwise? I mean, are they just wiping their hands and saying, Alright, we're done? Or what do you think Congress's role is going forward? And what have members of Congress sort of brought up going forward?

Courtney Bublé
I think their work is certainly not done. I think oversight is going to be a main focus now, making sure the money is going where it needs to go along with Gao G's and other watchdog groups, they'll be continuing to hold hearings on various aspects of the government's response to the pandemic and how to prepare for future ones. And also, as the Senate is taking up Biden's nominees, you know, they're just continuously asking about how officials nominee for all positions are going to handle the pandemic in their respective agencies in the recession, because it's not just the health agencies that are are working on this. It's everybody. Yeah, and and we'll just have to see what other you know, legislation comes up to, you know, address gaps that have been highlighted over the past year. Also, I've been waiting to see if the Congress will use the Congressional Review Act to undo any of Trumps regulatory actions that could have been impacted at all, by the pandemic, or before the pandemic or the recession. We've yet to see that. And that window is slowly or quickly closing. So I'm interested to see if anything happens on that friend. Yeah. So there are a lot of things there's probably more that I didn't mention. But yeah, there's a lot of work ahead.

Ross Gianfortune
Congress’ is ever full. And, you know, hopefully they can be some someone's have proactive going forward, because this pandemic, as I mentioned, up top as I turn over, even even for those of us who are on the road to vet full vaccination, it's, we make a smaller percentage, we're going to get back to normal. I think that's the main thing that Biden has talked about a lot, and it's sort of it'll happen piecemeal, and so much as depending on where you live, or whatever, but in the meantime, we will obviously keep an eye on it and coordination. You will certainly be here with us to talk about it. And such thanks for being on the show today. 

Courtney Bublé
Thanks. 

Ross Gianfortune
Thanks for listening to GovExec Daily. Our show was produced by Adam Butler and hosted by me, Ross Gianfortune. We want to thank Courtney Bublé for joining the program. Our music is the song “Signals” by Catfish Dancing. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can email us any feedback at podcast @ govexec.com or hit us on Twitter @ Govexec.  
 
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