WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took to the U.S. Senate floor on Wednesday to discuss the popularity of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, the need to support summer enrichment opportunities, speed up the pace of vaccinations by funding the Defense Production Act, and build up a global pandemic infrastructure to fortify our defenses against any future viruses. Murphy also laid out the urgent need for COVID-19 relief and urged his colleagues to support the budget resolution that the Senate will vote on later this week.

On the support for President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, Murphy said: “President Biden rightly talked about unifying the country around an agenda to build back this country better. And these polling numbers show that he's done that, because you don't get to 74% support for an initiative without a whole bunch of Democrats, Independents and Republicans supporting that measure. And so we hope, we want to get to a place where we have bipartisan support in the Senate.”

On the need to support summer enrichment opportunities, Murphy said: “So in this bill is over $100 billion for schools to support the safe reopening of schools. And what we do in this plan that the president is proposing is to allow for some of that money to be used for summer programming. I'm going to make a pitch to have a set aside, a portion of money dedicated to summer programming. But what we all agree on those of us who support this package is that the challenge ahead of us is not just how we keep schools open, and open those that have had their doors closed, but what we do to support kids for 12 months of the year, not just nine months of the year. This is going be a tough summer for a lot of kids and we have to have a specific focus, as this plan does, on meaningful summer programming for kids, programming that's emotionally healthy, that addresses some of this learning loss….[W]e've got to pass funding through Congress to make sure that every kid in this country, especially kids coming from limited means and backgrounds can get into quality summer programming. This summer, we have to make that promise to them.”

On the importance of expediting vaccinations and actually funding Biden’s Executive Order to federalize the medical supply chain, Murphy said: “[I]n this plan from President Biden is $10 billion to operationalize the Defense Production Act. Senator Baldwin and I have been working on this issue for the better part of a year. If you want to produce more vaccines, if you want to produce more testing equipment, more PPE, then you have to organize America's industrial base better than what's happening under the Trump administration. You have to go out and find every potential manufacturing partner who can help Pfizer and Moderna and Johnson and Johnson, and any vaccine maker that comes after them be able to make more and make it faster.”

On the global fight to build a pandemic response infrastructure, Murphy said: “This virus didn't start in the United States. But man, it moved quick, right from a wet market in China, to the west coast of the United States today, with 400,000 lives having been lost….China has a lot to answer for. But frankly, the whole world has to understand that we didn't allocate resources properly, the United States didn't allocate resources properly. We spent last year $740 billion on hardware for the Department of Defense and $12 billion in global public health. Nobody today living in the United States would tell you that that was the correct allocation. So inside President Biden's package is funding to start to rebuild the global pandemic prevention infrastructure.”

Murphy continued: “[E]ven if you drive [COVID-19] down in the United States, so long as there are outbreaks that exist on the other side of the world, we are still at risk. And there may come along a virus down the road that is even more contagious that spreads even faster than this one. And so shame on us if we don't at the same time, lock down this virus domestically and set up a system of defense internationally to make sure that we're ready for the next one.”

Murphy concluded: “We’ve got to meet the moment. We can't go small right now. The problems are too big. Senator Blumenthal and I spend lots of time at food banks in Connecticut. We have never, ever seen the desperate need that exists today in our state. Shame on us if we don't use the power that has been granted us to both take on this virus and deliver economic prosperity to people who have had it robbed from them through no fault of their own. I'd urge my colleagues support for the budget resolution.”

This week, Murphy and U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) introduced legislation to provide a $10 billion investment in rapidly expanding the domestic manufacturing for pandemic supplies. This funding will support President Biden’s executive action and his American Rescue Plan to fully utilize the DPA to accelerate manufacturing and delivery of medical equipment and supplies needed for our COVID-19 response. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Murphy and Baldwin have been calling for the full activation of the DPA to ramp up American production of testing supplies, PPE and medical equipment. Last year, they introduced the Medical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act, which would have required former President Trump to utilize all available authorities under the Defense Production Act to mobilize a federal response to the pandemic through an equitable and transparent process. Key parts of Murphy-Baldwin legislation were included in the House-passed HEROES Act, but the former Republican majority in the Senate obstructed their legislation and failed to take action on it.

After the GSA finally began the transition after Biden’s win, Murphy published an op-ed in NBC News shedding light on the supply chain issues and urging the Trump administration to share vaccine rollout plans with the incoming administration as soon as possible.

A full transcript of Murphy’s remarks can be found below:

“Thank you very much, Mr. President.

“I'm here today to speak in favor of the underlying resolution, urge my colleagues to support it. I will be very brief.

“I'd like to tackle three topics amongst many in this package. I'd like to talk a bit about the crisis that stands ahead of us with respect to summer learning and summer programming for kids all across this country. I’d like to talk a little bit about the importance of expediting the pace of vaccinations and then lastly about the global fight that lays ahead of us to make sure that we are building a pandemic response infrastructure around the world that makes sure this never, ever happens again.

“Before delving into those three topics, let me just say that we have an opportunity to pass programming to meet this moment that is wildly popular. There's a poll out yesterday that suggests that many of the most important programming in this package enjoy 70% support amongst the public. The relief checks, which will total $2,000, 600 from last year 1400 in this package, have 74% support amongst the American public. Only 13% of Americans oppose those checks. Increased federal funding for vaccinations, 69% favor that increased funding, 17% oppose. Those are difficult numbers to get on any major area of policy in the United States today, to have 74% in favor of anything is pretty impressive. But it speaks to the moment. It speaks to the expectations that Americans have. But it also speaks to the fact that there is a unity in the American public about what we need to do.

“President Biden rightly talked about unifying the country around an agenda to build back this country better. And these polling numbers show that he's done that, because you don't get to 74% support for an initiative without a whole bunch of Democrats, Independents and Republicans supporting that measure. And so we hope, we want to get to a place where we have bipartisan support in the Senate. But we know we have bipartisan support for this agenda out in the American public. These polling numbers and polling numbers to come will prove that. And the reason is that the crises we're trying to address, they don't really care what your politics are. And let me talk about these three distinct areas.

“First, I want to talk about what's happening in our schools, and others have done that in a far more articulate way. And so I want to drill down specifically on what's going to happen this summer. So schools are in crisis right now. I know that because I've got two kids in public school, in a big urban public school, they haven't been back in the classroom at all. They've continued to learn from home the entire time. But they have all the supports that they need around them: Two loving parents who were willing and able to help in any way that we can. Not every child has that. And so schools have been scrambling just to make sure that they are doing instruction right, that they are opening schools safely, that they are building support systems around students.

“But come this summer, you are going to have all sorts of kids that aren't going to have programming ready for them, aren't going to have a safe place to go, and are going to have tremendous amounts of learning loss. You're going to also have kids that are in need of a really healthy, safe place to be this summer. Some kids will need that deep academic experience, but other kids are just going to need some emotional growth, they're going to need something fun to do so that they get an ability to restart and be ready to re-enter what will hopefully be a much more normal looking classroom.

“So in this bill is over $100 billion for schools to support the safe reopening of schools. And what we do in this plan that the president is proposing is to allow for some of that money to be used for summer programming. I'm going to make a pitch to you know have a set aside, a portion of money dedicated to summer programming.

“But what we all agree on, those of us who support this package, the challenge ahead of us is not just how we keep schools open and open those that have had their doors closed, but what we do to support kids for Twelve months of the year, not just Nine months of the year. This is gonna be a tough summer for a lot of kids. And we have to have a specific focus, as this plan does, on meaningful summer programming for kids, programming that's emotionally healthy, that addresses some of this learning loss.

“In a typical year, middle class kids, kids with families that have some means, are five times as likely as those living in poverty to attend to summer camp, twice as likely to visit a museum or go to a performance. We can't allow for that disparity to be present this summer, not this summer. We've got to have funding in this bill, we've got to pass funding through Congress to make sure that every kid in this country, especially kids coming from limited means backgrounds, can get into quality summer programming. This summer, we have to make that promise to them.

“Second, let me talk about vaccines, and I know my colleague from Connecticut is going to talk about this as well. We did well, this past week, 1.3 million doses were administered, I say well because that's 20% more than we did the following week, but it's not good enough. And in this plan from President Biden is $10 billion to operationalize the Defense Production Act. 

“Senator Baldwin and I have been working on this issue for the better part of a year. If you want to produce more vaccines, if you want to produce more testing equipment, more PPE, then you have to organize America's industrial base better than what was happening under the Trump administration. You have to go out and find every potential manufacturing partner who can help Pfizer and Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and any vaccine maker that comes after them be able to make more and make it faster. 

“We are standing up capacity in Connecticut, we're doing well, number three nationally in terms of the percentage of shots that we get in people's arms, but we can do a lot more. And we just need that production to be ramped up. In this bill is specific money to operationalize the Defense Production Act so that we can make more vaccine. That's one of the most important parts of this bill. 

“And then finally, Mr. President, I wanted to talk about the global challenge that we have ahead of us. This virus didn't start in the United States. But man, it moved quick from a wet market in China to the west coast of the United States to today with 400,000 lives having been lost. And the question is, why? Why was this virus able to move so quickly? Why weren't we able to contain it? Why did we learn more about it earlier? Why wasn't the world ready for this moment? 

“Now China has a lot to answer for. But frankly, the whole world has to understand that we didn't allocate resources properly. The United States didn't allocate resources properly. We spent last year $740 billion on hardware for the Department of Defense and $12 billion on global public health. Nobody today living in the United States would tell you that that was the correct allocation.

“So inside President Biden's package is funding to start to rebuild the global pandemic prevention infrastructure. Now, I won't go into the details of how we do that today. But there are estimates suggesting that we're going to need over $20 billion globally in order to stand up greater capacities. That means more resources at a reformed WHO, that means more U.S. diplomats that are working in the public health space, that means doing partnerships with developing nations in which we put some money on the table in exchange for public health reforms so that they can strengthen their own systems of pandemic detection and prevention. 

“But even if you drive this thing down in the United States, so long as there are outbreaks that exist on the other side of the world, we are still at risk. And there may come along a virus down the road that is even more contagious that spreads even faster than this one. And so shame on us if we don't, at the same time, lock down this virus domestically and set up a system of defense internationally To make sure that we're ready for the next one.

“We can walk and chew gum at the same time, and President Biden's focus on rebuilding our alliances comes at the right time because we're not going to be able to do this by ourselves. We’ve got to meet the moment. We can't go small right now. The problems are too big. Senator Blumenthal and I spent lots of time at food banks in Connecticut. We have never, ever seen the desperate need that exists today in our state. 

“Shame on us if we don't use the power that has been granted us to both take on this virus and deliver economic prosperity to people who have had it robbed from them through no fault of their own. I'd urge my colleagues support for the budget resolution.

“I yield the floor”

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