Newsletters

This update, as always, will continue to focus on news updates and important information related to the COVID-19 crisis, but I would be remiss to not address the movement for Black lives that is currently sweeping our nation. I am deeply inspired by the people all across our country who are protesting and marching to condemn police violence, demand justice, and declare unequivocally that Black Lives Matter. As a Member of Congress, I know that we must put actions behind our words that decry police brutality, racial profiling, and the excessive use of force. This page on my website has a growing list of the various legislative proposals I am supporting to do just that. Tomorrow evening at 6pm, I will holding a telephone townhall with special guests Dr. Michael Niederman, pulmonologist at Weill Cornell; Congressman Bobby Scott, Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor; and Nicole Miglior of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives and Democracy NYC. You can sign up to participate here.

For years, FDA’s discriminatory restrictions have prevented people from safely donating their blood and perpetuated harmful stigma against gay and bisexual men across the United States. The coronavirus crisis brought into focus the dangers of this shortsighted policy. On Monday, I joined with my colleagues to introduce a resolution underscoring the need for policies governing blood and blood product donation that are grounded in science and based on individual risk assessments so all those who can safely donate are able to do so.

On Tuesday, I joined with various stakeholders to introduce H.R. 7011, the Pandemic Risk Insurance Act of 2020 (PRIA). Millions of small businesses, nonprofits, mom-and-pop shops, retailers, and other businesses are being left out in cold and will never be able to financially recover from the coronavirus crisis because their business interruption insurance excludes pandemics. We cannot allow this to happen again. Also on Tuesday, I hosted a briefing for members of the Committee on Oversight and Reform with Christi A. Grimm, the Principal Deputy Inspector General (IG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), on her office’s ongoing oversight of HHS’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. And today, I joined with other committee chairs in sending a letter to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo seeking information about President Donald Trump’s decision to spend U.S. taxpayer funds to purchase ventilators from Russian President Vladimir Putin that are not only unsafe for use in the United States, but were manufactured by a subsidiary of a Russian company currently under U.S. sanctions.

On Thursday, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis heard directly from essential workers and their loved ones during a briefing on the crisis's effect on frontline heroes. Yesterday, I joined with other House Committees to ask the President about recent reports that the Administration is providing critical, life-saving ventilators to Russia when they are urgently needed here in the United States to combat the coronavirus crisis and save American lives.