Newsletters

Today, I am in Washington, DC to vote on the Heroes Act and new procedures to make remote voting and hearings possible in the House. Yesterday, I pressed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) yet again for information on the Administration’s inability to prevent the now deadly spread of coronavirus in detention centers housing detainees. Despite the Oversight Committee's repeated attempts to secure information, ICE has failed to fully respond to our requests.

Today, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis holds our first briefing with a bipartisan group of key experts on the requirements for safely reopening our nation during the coronavirus pandemic. I am very proud that so many priorities of the Committee on Oversight and Reform were included in the Heroes Act introduced by House Democrats yesterday, including funding for the Postal Service, reforms and oversight provisions for the 2020 Census, and provisions to protect the independence of Inspectors General. I will be joining with my New York Delegation colleagues to introduce Governor Cuomo's proposed Americans First Law to help prevent coporate bailouts following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, I sent a letter to President Trump asking him to fulfill his commitment to New York State by authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to cover the full costs of our emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic. New York is the worst-hit state in the nation and we cannot afford further delays in receiving the federal funding we need and has been promised to combat this public health crisis.

Yesterday, in our first official action since being established by the House of Representatives, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, reached out to large, public corporations to demand that they immediately return taxpayer funds that Congress intended for small businesses struggling to survive during the coronavirus crisis. Also on Friday, I hosted a video briefing with retired Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré, who was appointed by President George W. Bush to lead a unified taskforce in response to Hurricane Katrina, on lessons from Katrina that could improve the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis.