Senate Democrats want $9 billion to fight COVID-19 overseas
WASHINGTON _ Senate Democrats are pushing a bill to authorize $9 billion in new emergency and regular appropriations funds to support international efforts to combat the coronavirus.
The legislation, unveiled Friday, is sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Bob Menendez of New Jersey and is co-sponsored by eight of his Democratic colleagues on the committee. A major focus of the policy bill is to force the Trump administration to cooperate with multilateral organizations in searching for and sharing an eventual vaccine.
Thus far, the Trump administration has been mostly at odds with the efforts of international institutions to coordinate global efforts to respond to the public health and economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected nearly 3.9 million people worldwide and killed 270,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard.
The Menendez legislation would require the Trump administration to take a more robust leadership response to the coronavirus at the U.N. Security Council, order the immediate resumption of U.S. funding to WHO and authorize roughly $2.8 billion in new and arrears payments to the United Nations and its agencies including WHO.
_CQ Roll Call
