COVID relief bill efforts intensify
Nevada delegation stresses dire necessity of help for region
WASHINGTON — House and Senate lawmakers will vote this week on a temporary spending bill to keep the government open as Nevada representatives and senators push for relief in a final legislative package to address the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Public pressure is building for lawmakers to approve some relief by next week and the end of the 116th Congress.
“Because of the inaction of this chamber, most Nevadans who are hurting don’t have that reassurance that there will be immediate, swift relief for them because they don’t know when federal help will come,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-nev., said in a blistering Senate floor speech Tuesday.
Cortez Masto said that because of the economic devastation and lack of federal help, “what had been a thriving hospitality industry in Nevada, many of the jobs aren’t there right now, and too many workers can’t pay their bills.”
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Las Vegas-henderson ranks 51st among the nation’s largest cities for unemployment, with a rate of 13.8 percent.
About 175,000 Nevadans continue to claim unemployment insurance.
“Las Vegas is suffering from the highest unemployment rate of any metro area in the country,” said Rep. Dina Titus, D-nev., who chairs the Congressional Travel and Tourism Caucus.
Titus said that without a relief package, “the situation is worsening by the day.”
She filed legislation last month that would require the Labor Department to include hospitality in its apprenticeship program, a measure that fellow Nevada Democrat Rep. Steven Horsford backed.
Horsford said travel and tourism jobs account for 30 percent of employment in Southern Nevada.
Las Vegas has seen a visitor decline of 57 percent since August 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Eviction wave coming
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eviction moratorium expires on Jan. 1, “Nevada is bracing for 250,000 to 400,000 possible evictions,” Cortez Masto said.
“That’s more than 20 times the national number of evictions in 2019,” she noted.
And that’s not the only pandemic problem in the state. Hospitals and medical centers say there is a shortage of blood because of the number of coronavirus infections.
“There’s always a need for
#blood donations, but there are critical shortages right now due to #COVID19,” Clark County’s government wrote on its Twitter account. “It’s safe to donate and our employees are answering the call to give today.”
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of lawmakers that includes Rep. Susie Lee, D-nev., and Rep. Mark Amodei, R-nev., has helped craft the legislative measure designed to pass in this hyperpartisan Congress and get the signature of President Donald Trump, a lame duck who will be out of the White House on Jan. 20.
Lee said that thanks to the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which consists of members from both parties, there is momentum to get a relief bill “across the finish line.”
“Every day we wait adds that much more weight onto the back of every American,” Lee said. “Let’s capitalize on this momentum.”
Timeline for relief
Lawmakers hope to pass a temporary spending bill this week, which would give them until next week to finalize a deal with details on what the final relief bill would contain. Whether it will contain stimulus checks is uncertain.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT., and several other senators are urging leaders to include a $1,200 stimulus check in the package, a proposal that Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell has dismissed.
Unemployment assistance and other programs for the unemployed must be included in any relief legislation moving forward, said Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-nev.
“We are still in the middle of an unemployment crisis,” Rosen said.