Congress will vote as soon as Wednesday on approximately $8 billion in federal funding to address the coronavirus outbreak, party leaders said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he expects a bipartisan funding deal will be unveiled Tuesday.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said House lawmakers would vote “as early as tomorrow,” on the measure and would then send it to the Senate, which is expected to quickly clear the bill for President Trump’s signature.
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Schumer said the bill would include “between $7 billion and $8 billion” for the effort to combat the spread of the virus, which has already claimed a half-dozen lives in the United States and has infected tens of thousands worldwide.
The measure would far exceed the initial $2.5 billion requested by the Trump administration, which would have utilized unspent funds from other accounts. It would likely fall a little short of the $8.5 billion Senate Democrats proposed last week.
Trump said last week he would sign any coronavirus funding agreement reached by Congress.
Lawmakers said Tuesday the measure will include money to reimburse local governments for their efforts to contain the virus and will ensure that a coronavirus vaccine, which isn’t likely to be available for more than a year, is available to everyone.
Schumer criticized the Trump administration’s response to the virus as “slow and loose with the facts” and accused Trump of blaming “everyone but himself” for the spread of the virus.
Republicans have accused Democrats of using the coronavirus as a political weapon against Trump, who they said acted quickly stop the spread.
“Fortunately, in America, we’ve been preparing ahead of time,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, said Tuesday. “We don’t have the cases like China and others.”
McCarthy said Democrats are slowing down the coronavirus spending bill by trying to insert major policy legislation into the fast-moving measure.
McCarthy said “a number” of Democrats want the funding bill to include a major prescription drug overhaul measure that passed the House without any GOP support last year and stands little chance of Senate consideration.
“This agreement should have been taken care of last week,” McCarthy said of the coronavirus funding bill.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat, said a funding deal is close.
“We are working on it,” Lowey said Tuesday. “We want to make sure we have this bill on the floor and passed before we go home” this week, she said.
Vice President Mike Pence will separately brief Senate Democrats and Republicans about the federal efforts to battle the coronavirus at their weekly policy luncheons Tuesday.
