Friends,

A few weeks ago, I asked you what you thought I should fight for in Congress' next coronavirus aid bill. On Friday I voted in favor of that relief package – the Heroes Act – and it goes a long way toward addressing your top priorities. I don’t support every single line in this bill, but I believe it was another important step in Congress’ coronavirus response. I look forward to negotiating with the Senate to enact this bill into law to keep our police, firefighters and EMS workers on the job, provide hazard pay to them and other essential workers, improve the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to support the real small businesses that have been upended, and provide another round of stimulus checks for struggling Americans.

About those stimulus checks, which was among the top responses in the survey I previously asked you to take: if enacted, the Heroes Act would provide a second round of enhanced payments of $1,200 per family member and up to $6,000 per household.

This bill would strengthen and improve the PPP to ensure relief gets to real small businesses, and provide $10 billion more for Economic Injury Disaster Loans that can be used flexibly.

It would provide another $75 billion for testing, contact tracing and providing coronavirus treatment, because understanding how far this virus has spread is the key to bringing it under control and safely reopening our economy.

It includes key parts of my Coronavirus Frontline Workers Fair Pay Act to provide a hazard pay boost to essential workers. And, the bill would strengthen worker safety protections and provide robust resources to northeastern Pennsylvania’s counties and local governments.