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Updates to Federal and New York State Responses to COVID-19 – March 25, 2020

Update March 25th, 2020

The Senate unanimously passed a $2 trillion dollar stimulus package at 11:30pm Wednesday night. The bill still needs to be passed by the House of Representatives and sent to the President for signature. House Members are not in Washington so it is expected to be passed by unanimous consent on Thursday, but please be aware, if a single House Member goes to the floor and objects to passage then they will need to recall all the Members and have a vote, which we anticipate would push passage to Saturday or Sunday most likely. Again, we are not anticipating this but want you to be aware.

Ramifications
The bill is over 800 pages and will have an impact across health care, small business, education and many other areas.  It is going to take days, if not weeks, to fully understand the impact in every area it addresses.

Please use the information below as a guide for what we hope will be accomplished by the end of the week but again, anything in this package can change, both policy wise and dollar amounts.

Federal Update

  • As of March 25th, the U.S. Senate has reached a deal on Phase 3 of the Corvid Recovery package, the CARES ACT, as of about 1AM this morning totaling approximately $2 Trillion in spending.
  • Senate staff have just released bill language today to mirror the policy agreed to by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the lead negotiator for the White House, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
  • There will be questions as to whether the House will pass the bill by unanimous consent (ideally because no Members will have to return to Washington), but that would depend on not one of the 435 Members objecting.
  • The most current plan is for the Senate to vote today, then the House, with the President to sign at the end of the week.
  • Our team is scouring the bill language and summary reports we’ve gathered for clients in specific issue areas such as healthcare, employment, telemedicine, education, IT, and other key constituencies. As soon as we complete our review, our team will update you directly.
  • Envision has been working closely with clients to understand the SBA all its newly legislated funding and support programs. Please contact our team directly to learn more.
  • Our team has also understood that this will not be the only Covid-19 recovery legislation, with a possible transportation and infrastructure specific bill in the future.

Please see the most updated section-by-section summary of the Senate bill (subject to change) here.

New York State Update

  • On Friday March 20th, Governor Cuomo added to Executive order declaring that effecting March 22nd at 8:00 pm, 100% of non-essential employees in New York State must stay home. Only those deemed essential by regulations released by ESDC are allowed to stay operational.
  • In addition, the Governor suspended all mortgage payments, residential and commercial evictions, ATM fees, overdraft fees, State debt collections, and waived all interest and late payment fees for State Sales tax collections.
  • All courts in the State are closed until April 19th including criminal court, civil court, and traffic court.
  • The Department of Motor Vehicles is closed until further notice and all registrations and license renewals are suspended without penalty.
  • All beauty salons, barbershops, tattoo parlors and nail salons are to close until further notice.
  • The State is looking to fund any manufacturer that will change their production to start making medical masks, gowns, and medical supplies in addition to buying the products at a premium.
  • There is a major push to provide hospitals with all necessary PPE products and ventilators.
  • The State with FEMA are building mobile hospitals across downstate New York to add hospital beds at different sites including the Javits center.
  • New York City is going to be on a restricted quarantine by closing certain streets to traffic, restricting use of playgrounds and parks and not allowing any contact sports such as basketball.
  • All medical personnel whether retired or still in school are urged and may soon be required to go back to work in the hospitals or in the new pop up hospitals.

Here are links to the 4 newest Executive Orders out since the last report.