Congress faces uphill battle to approve standalone COVID funding bill


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The House Rules Committee has approved a stand-alone COVID relief bill, but the bill faces an uphill battle as it moves through Congress. The recently passed onmibus spending bill was intended to include about $15 billion in COVID funding but was pulled after pushback from some Members about how it would be funded.

The COVID portion of the omnibus bill was funded with leftover money from the American Rescue Plan, something Republicans pushed for. But some Democrats refused to support that funding mechanism after learning that might take money already allocated to their states.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) clarified only half of the standalone bill will be funded from leftover money from previous COVID relief. That could create a problem in the Senate, where a bill needs 60 votes to open cloture. Some Democrats have said they won’t support a COVID funding bill that won’t pass the Senate, according to Punchbowl News.

Following the State of the Union address, the White House requested $22 billion in additional COVID funding.

“Testing capacity…will decline this month,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “In April, free testing and treatments for tens of millions of Americans without health insurance will end. In May, America’s supply of monoclonal antibodies will run out.”

Emma Stoltzfus (Video Editor) contributed to this report.
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