Congress Has a Moral Responsibility to Provide Immediate Relief

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Across the country, families and friends are grieving the loss of the nearly 300,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19, including more than 10,000 this week alone. Hospitals are running critically short of intensive care beds. Millions of families are struggling to put food on their plates and pay their bills as unemployment insurance will run out on December 26th. Meanwhile, action in Congress to pass another relief bill remains stalled, despite the introduction of a bipartisan relief package which includes critically needed unemployment insurance, moratorium on evictions and utility shutoffs, and funding for state, local, and Tribal governments having been introduced.

In response, Sierra Club Legislative Director, Melinda Pierce, issued the following statement: 

“Across the country, our friends, our families, and our communities are suffering under the dual burden of this pandemic and the economic disaster it has caused, yet Mitch McConnell and Congressional Republicans are focused on illegally subverting the will of the people. Right now, people aren’t merely concerned that they’ll be celebrating the holidays quarantined at home; they’re concerned that they may not be able to have a roof over their heads and food on their table at all. 

“Congress has a moral responsibility to provide immediate relief to families and workers suffering from the devastating effects of this pandemic, and it’s past time they act. As case counts and deaths skyrocket to unimaginable levels, the country is in dire need of a comprehensive relief package that directs resources to city, state, and Tribal governments, and provides economic support to working families.

“We are continuing to experience immeasurable loss that could have been prevented had Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell prioritized the people over their own power-obsessed interests. We cannot wait another day. Congress must pass the bipartisan relief package before them today rather than prolong the needless suffering of American families.”