Booker Urges Senate Leadership to Prioritize State, Local Funding in Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Spending Package

State, local health departments “on the front lines,” Booker says

New Jersey officials estimate needing >$2M per month for basic preparedness, response

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) today urged Senate leadership to prioritize funding for state, local, territorial, and tribal health departments as they prepare an emergency supplemental spending package to combat the novel coronavirus.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Senators Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Booker said that this local funding must be enough to both reimburse local entities for the money they have already spent and help local entities with preparedness and response efforts going forward.

“State, local, territorial, and tribal health departments are on the front lines responding to the virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19,” Booker said in the letter. “Fulfilling these responsibilities is costly and time-intensive.  Some states have already spent more than $1 million on preparedness and response activities and others estimate that they will need much more. New Jersey officials, for example, estimate that the state will spend more than $2 million a month on basic preparedness and response efforts moving forward.”

The letter also criticized the Trump Administration’s $2.5 billion supplemental request submitted to Congress last week, calling it “woefully inadequate.”

“It lacked specific funding details for state, local, territorial, and tribal health departments, and it irresponsibly proposed to divert funds from other critical public health activities, including those to combat Ebola,” Booker said of the request.

Full text of the letter can be found here.

As cases of the coronavirus began to spike in January, Booker and fellow New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez successfully pushed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for heightened passenger screening at Newark Liberty International Airport along with other U.S. ports of entries.