[author: Shelley Castle]

Your guide to the latest Hill developments, news narratives, and media headlines provided by the Hogan Lovells Government Relations and Public Affairs team.

In Washington

• On the next coronavirus relief package, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNN that “the negotiations for the next package would probably be after July 4th weekend.” This comes after a better-than-expected jobs report on Friday, which could take the pressure off the GOP to pass another big bill. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) defended the GOP’s decision to hold off on another relief package until they saw whether the last effort was working, but didn’t dismiss the need for additional aid. He said the two areas that Republicans want to address are liability protections for employers who reopen businesses and tax incentives to encourage live events and concerts to resume.
• The Federal Reserve is about to launch a US$600 billion Main Street lending program to save U.S. businesses and tens of millions of jobs threatened by the coronavirus crisis. Wall Street is far from confident the Fed can pull it off and failure could have consequences for the U.S. economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has labeled the small-and-medium-sized companies eligible for the loans the U.S. ‘s “jobs machine,” because they employ some 68 million Americans. Widespread bankruptcies among these firms would be a clear setback for the pandemic recovery.
• Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Reform Committee sent a letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Peter Gaynor, expressing concern that the agency “may not have the staff and other essential tools to successfully respond to multiple natural disasters during the ongoing coronavirus crisis.” Democrats asked for a remote video hearing on FEMA’s plans on topics including how it will maintain social distancing if there is a need for mass evacuations and temporary shelters and how it plans to keep staff healthy.
• In April, Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) sent a letter to the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration administering the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to reconsider regulatory language that excluded gaming companies from the program’s small business aid, which extended forgivable loans to help cover payroll and overhead costs amid the pandemic. Treasury and SBA updated the program’s eligibility guidelines to include businesses with fewer than 500 employees that derive more than half of their income from gaming, a major win for the casino industry, and for the Nevada economy. The Daily Beast reports that Full House Resorts, a casino developer led by chief executive Daniel Lee, Rep. Lee’s husband also took advantage of the change to the PPP program.
• Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on an HHS podcast this weekend that the White House Coronavirus Task Force has yet to see a relationship between states’ reopening efforts and growing COVID-19 cases. He added, “I do worry about the protests and the lack of masks” and that the federal government’s “Operation Warp Speed” to create a vaccine can become a pathway to “expediting medical product development” for other diseases.

In the News

• The US government’s current supply of remdesivir, the only drug known to work against COVID-19, will run out at the end of the month, according to Dr. Robert Kadlec with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The government’s last shipment of the drug will go out the week of 29 June. Gilead Sciences, the company that makes the drug, is ramping up to make more, but it’s unclear how much will be available this summer.
• New York Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to lower expectations for a swift return to business-as-usual after the first phase of reopening starts on Monday. The second phase could begin in two weeks if all the state-mandated health and safety metrics remain on track.
• A coronavirus outbreak in Winooski, Vermont has infected 62 people, including 24 children, according to Vermont health officials. While the state is experiencing an overall uptick in cases, the rate still remains relatively low.
• Several small businesses are tapping into state-run programs that pay re-hired workers a prorated portion of jobless benefits to offset reduced hours and supplement the wages they receive. Work-sharing is expanding rapidly in the U.S. as it helps stores avoid layoffs and begin rehiring some of the millions pushed into unemployment by the pandemic.
• After months of being shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic, the doors at federal courthouses around the nation are slowly starting to swing open with the convening of socially distanced grand juries.
• Washington state insurance commissioner, Mike Kreidler, this week issued an emergency order banning labs for billing insured patients for doctor-ordered COVID-19 diagnostic tests. That followed moves in Tennessee, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Georgia to cap costs or more narrowly define what insurers should pay for as the number of tests processed daily surges to 465,000 as of June 4.
• Sunday marked the most COVID-19 cases reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) in a single day according to its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. During a press conference Monday, he said “Yesterday, more than 136,000 cases were reported — the most in a single day so far. Almost 75% of yesterday’s cases come from 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia.”
• New Zealand health officials said Monday the last known infected person had recovered from COVID-19, making this the first time since late February that there have been no active cases. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, “we are confident we have eliminated the transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now, but elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort.”