Action Alert: Please Urge Lawmakers to Provide Additional Funding for Airports And Airport Partners in Next Relief Package

As we reported earlier this week, Senate Republicans have drafted a "skinny" coronavirus relief package that includes funding for the U.S. Postal Service and proposes to extend unemployment benefits.  But a draft circulating this week excludes funding for airports and emergency appropriations for a long list of initiatives in the HEALS Act.  
 
What's Included in the "Skinny"
 
In some ways, the draft "skinny" relief bill is a pared-back and modified version of the HEALS Act, a $1 trillion coronavirus relief package that Senate Republicans unveiled just a few weeks ago.  For instance, the slimmed down bill retains liability protection for businesses and health care providers -- a top priority for Republicans.
 
The draft also proposes $300 in weekly federal unemployment benefits, and it would extend the Paycheck Protection Program.  Unlike the HEALS Act, the "skinny" includes $10 billion for the Postal Service.  House Democrats are planning to vote tomorrow on a bill that would provide $25 billion for the Postal Service to ensure that it is prepared for mail-in voting during the upcoming elections.
 
What Didn't Make It In
 
Unlike the HEALS Act, the draft "skinny" does not contain emergency funding for DOT and numerous other federal agencies. The HEALS Act contained $13.4 billion for Transportation, HUD, and Related Agencies including $10 billion for airports and $75 million for the Essential Air Service program.  But none of those emergency funding items made it into the "skinny" relief package.

The draft relief package also does not contain $208 million for TSA for enhanced cleaning and technology to reduce physical contact with travelers or $1.6 billion to cover CBP fee shortfalls that funds 40 percent of the agency's officers.  Both items are included in the HEALS Act.
 
Overall, the HEALS Act proposed $306 billion in emergency spending. When he released the appropriations section of the bill almost a month ago, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) said the package would "aid American families and businesses suffering from the COVID-19 global pandemic." 
 
The slimmed down relief package that was circulating this week includes funding for some - but not all - of the items in the Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies category. For instance, it includes $29 billion to develop COVID-19 related vaccines and therapeutics and $16 billion for testing and contact tracing.
 
But the "skinny" excludes funding and general provisions in the other 11 appropriations accounts including almost $30 billion for defense or more than $20 billion for famers and ranchers. The following is a list of emergency funding in the HEALS Act that is not contained in the "skinny" relief package.

• Agriculture: $20.5 billion.
• Commerce, Justice, State and Related Agencies:  $4.7 billion.
• Defense:  $29.4 billion. 
• Energy and Water Development:  $307.3 million. 
• Financial Services and General Government:  $2.5 billion.
• Homeland Security:  $3 billion.
• Interior, Environment and Related Agencies:  $1.6 billion.
• Legislative Branch:  $78 million.
• Military Construction:  General provisions.  No new funding.
• State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs:  $4.3 billion.
• Transportation, HUD and Related Agencies:  $13.4 billion.

What's Next
 
It is unclear if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will actually attempt to move the "skinny" relief package or use the measure for negotiations and to counter Hose Democrats on Postal Service funding.  One thing is certain: Republicans and Democrats are still far apart on what on how much to spend on the next coronavirus relief package and what the measure should include.
 
Democrats initially prosed approximately $3.5 trillion in spending - far more than the $1 trillion that Republicans initially proposed let alone the slimmed down relief package.  Democrats had offered to split the difference at $2 trillion.  But that doesn't seem acceptable to Republicans so the stalemate continues.
 
Request
 
In light of Senate Republicans floating a "skinny" relief package this week without funding for airports, we need to remind lawmakers again how critical it is that the next coronavirus relief package include funding for airports and airport partners.
 
Please contact your Senators and Representative as soon as possible and ask them again to ensure that the next coronavirus relief package includes at least $10 billion to help airports deal with the coronavirus.  Please ask them to also provide an additional $3.5 billion to help concessionaires and other airport partners, too.