Evergreen Reporter

Gov. Jay Inslee is urging Congress to pass and sign a new COVID-19 relief package into law as soon as possible. 

“Americans will face irreparable harm if small businesses, families, workers, and state and local governments are forced to confront the coming months without immediate federal action,” Inslee wrote in a Nov. 19 letter to congressional leaders, as reported on the Washington Governor website. “Only Congress can provide the size and scale of relief needed in the moment.”

Inslee is calling on Congress to negotiate on a package that would include renewing and extending pandemic unemployment benefits, providing additional aid to governments, renewing the Paycheck Protection Program, expanding testing and contact tracing for the coronavirus, housing and rental assistance, and providing taxpayers and their dependents with another round of direct economic impact payments.

“As the first state in the nation hit by COVID-19, Washington state has aggressively confronted the virus from the beginning of the pandemic, taking difficult but necessary measures to save lives,” Inslee wrote in the letter. “The federal government now has a responsibility to act as well.”