This resolution expresses support for a National Day of Mourning for the lives lost as a result of COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019).
Essential Pay for Essential Workers Act This bill requires employers to pay essential health care employees a premium amount in addition to their regular rate of pay during an emergency period. It also allows employers a payroll tax credit for the payment of such enhanced wages to essential employees.
USPS Fairness Act This bill repeals the requirement that the U.S. Postal Service annually prepay future retirement health benefits.
Coronavirus Unemployment Benefits Tax Relief Act This bill excludes from gross income, for income tax purposes, up to $10,200 of unemployment compensation received by an individual in a taxable year beginning in 2020.
Anti-Racism in Public Health Act of 2021 This bill establishes within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) a National Center on Antiracism and Health and a law enforcement violence prevention program. Among other activities, the new center must declare racism a public health crisis, collect and analyze data, and administer research and grant programs to address racism and its impact on health and well-being. Additionally, the bill specifically directs the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, in coordination with the Department of Justice and other relevant stakeholders, to carry out the law enforcement violence prevention program by conducting research and supporting other activities pertaining to law enforcement violence and public health.
Quality Care for Nursing Home Residents and Workers During COVID-19 and Beyond Act This bill modifies several requirements for Medicare skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and Medicaid nursing facilities (NFs) to address the public health emergency relating to COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) and the overall standard and administration of care in such facilities. Specifically, during the public health emergency, SNFs and NFs must comply with specified quality of care, worker safety, and transparency requirements, subject to civil penalties. Requirements include (1) testing residents and employees for COVID-19 weekly or before shifts, respectively, and reporting any lack of available testing kits on a daily basis; (2) providing at least two weeks of paid sick leave to each employee; and (3) reporting the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, including demographic information, on a daily basis. The bill also establishes general requirements for SNFs and NFs with respect to minimum staffing levels and protections for whistleblowers and residents, subject to civil penalties, as well as training requirements for nurses. It also requires specific consent procedures in relation to the administration of certain psychotropic drugs and prohibits the use of pre-dispute arbitration agreements in such facilities.
Emergency Water is a Human Right Act This bill creates a grant program, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, to provide funds to states and Indian tribes to assist low-income households that pay a high proportion of household income for drinking water and wastewater services. Further, any entity receiving financial assistance under this grant program must ensure that no home energy service or public water system service is or remains disconnected or interrupted during the COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) public health emergency.
Climate Smart Ports Act This bill requires the Environmental Protection Agency to establish a grant program for purchasing or installing equipment and technology to reduce pollution at ports. Specifically, the grants must be used for equipment or technology that produces zero exhaust emissions of certain pollutants and greenhouse gases or captures 100% of the exhaust emissions produced by an ocean-going vessel at berth.
Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act of 2021 This bill establishes an interagency Environmental Justice Mapping Committee that must create a tool to identify environmental justice communities. Environmental justice communities are communities with significant representation of communities of color, low-income communities, or tribal and indigenous communities that experience, or are at risk of experiencing, higher or more adverse human health or environmental effects, as compared to other communities. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must establish an environmental justice data repository to maintain the data collected by the committee. The EPA must make the repository available to regional, state, local, and tribal governments.
Energy Resilient Communities Act This bill requires the Department of Energy to establish a program that awards grants to make critical energy infrastructure more resilient to climate change hazards, such as grants for developing clean energy microgrids that support critical community infrastructure or customers of electric utilities with special energy needs due to medical conditions.
