Alaska’s Rep. Mary Peltola joined Democrats in voting against a bill that would end the national Covid emergency declaration.
House Joint Resolution 7 passed 229 to 197 on Feb. 1, with some Democrats voting with Republicans to end the emergency immediately. Peltola, however, voted with The Squad, as well as Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, and other hardliners. Eleven Democrats voted to end the emergency.
The joint resolution, which is not likely to be considered by the Democrat-controlled Senate, would terminate the national emergency concerning Covid-19 declared by President Donald Trump on March 13, 2020, which has been renewed every 90 days subsequently by Trump, and by Biden. The country has been under the public health emergency declaration for nearly three years.
Earlier, Peltola had voted against allowing health care workers the freedom to choose whether to get a Covid vaccination and boosters.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has declared he will continue the emergency until May 11, because he says that ending it earlier would be too abrupt for hospitals and health care providers.
The joint resolution is not complicated. In fact, it’s just one sentence: “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, pursuant to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622), the national emergency declared by the finding of the President on March 13, 2020, in Proclamation 9994 (85 Fed. Reg. 15337) is hereby terminated.”
According to a summary by Kaiser Family Foundation, the Covid health emergency declaration gives the government flexibility to waive or modify requirements in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP programs, as well as private health insurance regulations. The president can quickly allow authorization of medical countermeasures to provide limited immunity to providers who administer services, such as vaccinations.
In addition, all of the legislation that provided massive amounts of funding during the emergency are tied into the emergency declaration, such as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act , the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (CAA). Those flexibilities expire when the emergencies are expired, although most of the money associated with these spending bills has already been spent by the recipients.
The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were marked by several emergency declarations made by the federal government, under several broad authorities, each of which has different requirements related to expiration, Kaiser wrote.
More information from KFF is at this link.
