High hopes for legislation to funnel more pandemic aid to restaurants and other hard-hit businesses crashed into the Senate’s slow-moving legislative reality Tuesday when one of that chamber’s top negotiators said the effort was being put on ice until after the April recess.
While the House plans to vote this week on a $55 billion aid package, the Senate isn’t ready to take it up, Small Business Chairman Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., said Tuesday. He’s been working on a similar, $48 billion proposal with Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and there’s been some effort to reconcile differences with the House bill to try to expedite passage in both chambers.
While there was some initial talk of attaching restaurant aid to the COVID-19 supplemental funding bill, that plan was scrapped and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said a vote on the restaurant bill “would not be this week,” Cardin said. Instead, negotiators are aiming for a separate package that could move after the two-week recess.
