They are important for the country, they have been languishing for six weeks. Oversight is beginning already. Senator alexander is going to have dr. Fauci and others before his committee next week, related to the coronavirus epidemic that we are all working our way through. We will continue to discuss with the administration a way forward. Many people are asking for additional legislation. Conference for our by saying, we are not ruling that out, but if i could pause here do a good job of evaluating will we have already done. It was encouraging yesterday that the secretary of the treasury issued a guidance that provides some flexibility on the state and local front, where we 150 million. You. Ank he covered well what the senate is doing. To the past several iterations ofrelief, done a lot coronavirus legislation. Much of which is now being implemented. I think part of our job is to make sure it gets implemented in the right way. A lot of our committees will be conducting oversight hearings and inspecting aspects of the health care and economic aspect. That is critical work for the senate to be involved with. As the leader mentioned, the Important Role the senate has constitutionally of advising consent when it comes to executive branch nominees. There are critical ones in National Security roles that we need to confirm here. Those will occupy a good part of the senate time. It is important, based on what is already done and the fact that we have flooded the zone with trillions of dollars in assistance, that we look at what is working and what is not. And get a good evaluation, assessment, push the pause button. There is going to be a lot of interest among democrats about new spending programs, much of which they have already delimited delineated. It is important to take a pause, look at what is working and what is not working and make sure we are getting a good maximum return on the taxpayer investment and at the programs we have already authorized and funded are having the desired effect. Those are things were going to be working on in the days and weeks ahead. I would also say that one of the issues that is personal for many of us in the midwest is the issue of securing the wood supply chain. We had a number of packing plants that have closed up. It is critical that we work in a way that provides safety for workers, but in a way that allows these critical chains, Critical Links and our Food Supply Chain to get up and working. Im going to be supporting our producers, our farmers and ranchers of south dakota and produce strike the balance that is important for people who go shopping, that the critical Food Supplies are there. I yield to senator brasso. The senate is here working. The house has decided to stay at home. We think there is important work to be done. There are 30 million americans out of work right now. The senate has an obligation, a responsibility to be here. Would you listen to nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, you will see they are almost trying to exploit the situation. You look at their list of demands, it reads like a ransom note. They have held hostage momandpop Small Businesses by blocking the paycheck protection plan, the refunding of that for over a week. What republicans want to do is get moms and dads back to work. They want to get momandpop Small Businesses to be able to stay viable so they can open again, as states are beginning to reopen. To me, any additional funding needs to be targeted, temporary, and focusing on the men and women in this country and getting them back to work. There is no place at all, in my opinion, for a blank check or bailout for the things they the democrats are talking about. Both the fight for the economy and the fight against the virus, time matters. What we have tried to do in the cares act and the followup of the cares act is to create incentives to speed up everything we can speed up. Whether it is the shark tank, the idea that we put in our bill with senator alexander and senator shelby very involved in that coming up with the idea to, people bring concepts as far along as they can get them, on diagnostics and other things. Then, the shark tank will try to figure out the handful that are more likely to work than not. As much as wed could the idea to get it into production. Warphite house, with their speed on vaccine bringing the same concept and i said at the lunch today to our members that with this concept, if some of the things we advance into production, underwritten by the federal government dont fail, we are not trying hard enough. That the whole idea is to try to buy time, to move forward a couple of steps beyond what you would normally be and because you would do that, you would have a vaccine, and easy to take and responded to test 30 to 60 days sooner than if you had done this to traditional way. If we do that on all of these fronts, on testing, on therapeutics, on a, hopefully in all three cases, we will get we want to get quicker than we would otherwise get there and believe me, whatever we invest in that will be worth it if we are successful in buying that time in the fight against the virus and for the economy. 99 of iowas businesses are Small Businesses. As a member of the Small Business committee, the project Action Program was very very important to me. I worked quite heavily on that program, and we have seen Great Success in iowa. The first round of funding that was available, we saw over 30,000 loans for Small Businesses in iowa approved at 7. 8 billion 7. 3 billion. The second round of funding, which was delayed by the democrats for almost one week, we have seen islands take advantage of that program to the tune of 20,000 loans. We have seen Great Success with that program. We are very glad to have it in place. I have heard from a number of those Small Businesses that are still out there supporting their employees program. One of those is Grace United Methodist Church in glenwood, iowa. Because of that program, they have been able to keep their employees paid. They have their mortgage interest with that loan. I have also from other organizations like Iowa Behavioral Health association. They have been able to keep their Staff Members on board, to keep their doors open and to make sure they are supporting iowans who really need Mental Health support. Overall, it has been a very Successful Program for iowa. I would also stress that as we move forward, we need to continue to support those Small Business activities in our recovery. I am proud to say that as iowans, were going to pull through this. I would just encourage everyone to remember, we do have folks out there that do need folks checking in on that. Whether they have Mental Health concerns, or they are an elderly neighbor, we need folks to remember please rejected them and check on them during this tough time. Overall, we are going to get through this, we just need to stay safe and stay strong. Over the last six weeks, i have had the opportunity to connect to roughly 22,000 hoosiers. This is an anxious time. This is a time when people want their Public Officials to be accessible. We have listened. We have done a lot of listening, a lot of information sharing. I have heard consistently that the Paycheck Protection Program was the right program at the right time. I know we will have important conversations in coming days and weeks about our next steps in washington. In the state of indiana, this program has worked. Receivedhoosiers have roughly 10 billion in Paycheck Protection Program loans. And will enormously benefit is enormously benefiting rank and file hoosier warriors and their employers. Disproportionately smaller employers. Let me give you an example of some of these. Troyer products is a manufacturing enterprise located in elkhart. They were able to keep 21 employees on their team. First, they provide Mental Health counseling and other services to at risk individuals, they received a loan. A medical device distributor and fall 90 o saw sales when elective procedures were ppp hold good pdp helped them keep all of their employees. A Financial Firm in indianapolis with 80 employees went forward with their plans to hire eight College Graduates thanks to assurance that they had with ppp. A Lutheran Church received a loan that allow them to keep their church staff and make sure their important childcare staff was attended to and taking care of. Lastly, a business in noblesville that employs eight people changed hands on february 15. That was the cutoff date you will recall for the program. They were denied a loan. They got in touch with our office and we worked with the Small Business administration and we were able to help them resolve the issue to ensure their employees got paid and were made whole. The bottom line is, this program has worked. Onm proud of my colleagues the Small Business committee that have worked with me and others to develop this program. I am proud we got it done expeditiously and took care of our Front Line Health Care workers. We will continue to be responsive to the needs of hoosiers and all americans and very thoughtful as we consider potentially spending more resources here until we get to the other side of this virus. Based on the information you have seen so far, where did the Novel Coronavirus originate . Wasnt in a lab . Know, otherhink we than it was in china. I think the lack of chinese transparency is the real story. Exacerbated the , and made distribution around the world dramatically more likely. There isesident says tremendous evidence that it originated in a chinese lab. We know that it originated in china and her lack of transparency certainly contributed to it spreading around the world at work speed. Clearlyese system the rest not warning of the world what was happening. There is a question, the president has said that he sees the payroll tax cut as a redline for him in the next round of negotiation. Do you see it that way as well . We have had a lot of discussions about suggestions from the a administration and the democrats. I can safely say from our team, if therelican senate, is any red line, it is on litigation. The litigation epidemic has already begun. As of the end of last week, one report had it at 771 lawsuits had already been filed. This is great impact our ability to get back to work. We are working on a narrowly protection toity target healthcare workers and others who have been on the front line and healthcare workers. Something brandnew that people were unclear with how to deal with. It will not protect someone from gross negligence, but narrowly crafted, to keep us from having an epidemic of lawsuits, which has already begun, which will dramatically slow our efforts to get back to normal. We know we have to get the economy up and running and the baby steps are being taken in various states around the country already. Do,hat should congress assuming the paycheck protection money runs out . You urged taking a bit of a pause. Does that mean there would be no money in the ppp for some time . We are monitoring the developments on a daily basis on all fronts. For those who have been anxious to do additional state and local treasury guidance, it has already provided some flexibility for the money we have sent out to state governments. A senator was reminding us at lunch that the fed is setting up a new facility related to state and local government. We have a brandnew program. A trillionughly to dollars. We want to we spent roughly 2. 8 trillion. We want to measure its effectiveness. I am not ruling anything in or out except to say if there is another bill that has in the senate, it will include liability protections. The house leadership is indicating they will move forward with their own bill as soon as next week. The speaker is talking about funding in the trillion dollar range. Would you rule out the Senate Taking up another bill of the size of the cares act . Is that not going to be possible . You all know i am pretty good at staying on message. Were going to look at this on a daily basis and react to the needs that need to be met. And look at mistakes we have made in the previous legislation and think about correcting them. I dont think there is a particular sentiment among Senate Republicans for a vast new rescue package for state and local, before we figure out exactly how the previous money we have allocated for state and locals are. The weight you pass a law, it has to pass the bill, signed by the senate, signed by the president. Were going to keep talking to each other. If itcide to act when and is appropriate to act again. You said mistakes need to be corrected. Which mistakes . You said they mistakes from the previous bill need to be corrected first prayed which mistakes were you referring to . Every day, we are looking at adjustments. The treasury is trying to make adjustments on their own. Some may require legislative activity. We have heard from a lot of the governors who would like to add more flexibility to use the money we have already sent them. We are looking at that. Big not going to make any addictions about what is happening here in the future. We may act again. Because wet will be are taking a measured response first to what we have already done. Then, we will see if we need to do a lot more. Thanks a lot. Now to phoenix where President Trump isc