Senate Democrats plan to prioritize a bill containing more COVID-19 relief, including additional $1,400 payments to many Americans and money to accelerate vaccine deployment, as their “first order of legislative business” when they assume control of the chamber, the New York Times reported. The priorities, which Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the incoming majority leader, outlined in a letter to colleagues on Tuesday, echo many of the policies that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has signaled he will officially unveil on Thursday. The president-elect has said repeatedly in recent days that he will push Congress to pass an additional pandemic relief bill meant to boost the flagging economic recovery and to accelerate efforts to deploy vaccine doses. In a call with Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday, Biden stressed the need for “immediate economic relief for families and small businesses, funding for COVID-19 response, including vaccinations, testing, school reopening, and state and local frontline workers,” according to a readout from the Biden transition team. Schumer picked up on those themes in his letter. “The work of the 117th Congress will begin in the wake of a devastating attack, on the heels of a devastating year,” he wrote. Schumer said the immediate relief bill would contain the additional money, on top of $600 individual payments Congress approved last month, to fulfill the promise of $2,000 payments that Mr. Biden made to voters in Georgia’s runoff elections this month: “We will get that done.” He also said that it would contain money for vaccine distribution, schools, small businesses and assistance for state and local governments, which was left out of the last COVID-19 package in a dispute with Republicans. Schumer said senators would also prepare broader legislation to address climate change, infrastructure, manufacturing, immigration, criminal justice, inequality and elections.
