**The House passed a previous version of this legislation last month**
**Rep. Kuster spoke on the House floor yesterday calling for swift passage of the bill**

Washington, D.C. — Today, Representative Annie Kuster (NH-02) voted in favor of the American Rescue Plan Act, a comprehensive relief package aimed at lifting up struggling American businesses and families, supporting frontline health care workers and first responders, providing key relief to state and local governments, and addressing the public health and economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There is no greater public health or economic priority than putting an end to this pandemic and getting crucial relief to those who need it most,” said Rep. Kuster. “Today we are making critical investments in our nation to ensure no one is left behind as we recover and rebuild. As we continue working to ramp-up vaccination efforts in New Hampshire and across the country, hardworking families, small businesses, health care workers, and first responders are hurting because of the COVID-19 public health and economic crisis, and support cannot come soon enough.”

“The American Rescue Plan Act meets the demands of this crisis and will provide critical resources for our Granite State communities to build back from this pandemic,” Rep. Kuster continued. “The proactive and transformational plan includes funding to re-open schools safely to get students back into classrooms, extend key relief to small businesses to keep employees on staff, and ensure our frontline workers and first responders have the supplies they need to safely do their jobs and protect our communities. Additionally, this bill authorizes funding to bolster vaccine manufacturing and distribution nationwide to ensure that the United States is able to mass-produce and administer COVID-19 vaccines to all Americans as quickly as possible. There’s a lot of work to be done to recover and rebuild, and this forward-looking legislation provides the resources needed to build back better so no one is left behind.”

The American Rescue Plan will:

• Get Vaccines in Arms: The plan will mount a national vaccination program that includes setting up community vaccination sites nationwide. It will also take measures to combat the virus, including scaling up testing and tracing, addressing shortages of personal protective equipment and other critical supplies, investing in high-quality treatments, and addressing health care disparities.  
• Put Children Safely Back in School: The plan will make a nearly $130 billion investment in school re-opening and making up for lost learning.
• Put Money in People’s Pockets: The plan finishes the job on the President’s promise to provide $2,000 in direct assistance to households across America with checks of $1,400 per person, following the $600 down payment enacted in December.
• Combat Hunger and Childhood Poverty: The bill will also provide direct housing and nutrition assistance for 40 million Americans, expand access to safe and reliable child care and affordable health care, extend unemployment insurance so that 18 million American workers can pay their bills and support 27 million children with an expanded Child Tax Credit and more than 17 million low-wage childless workers through an improved Earned Income Tax Credit.
• Put People Back in Jobs: The plan will provide crucial support for the hardest-hit small businesses, especially those owned by entrepreneurs from racial and ethnic backgrounds that have experienced systemic discrimination, with EIDL grants, expanded PPP eligibility and more. The plan also provides crucial resources to protect the jobs of first responders, frontline public health workers, teachers, transit workers and other essential workers that all Americans depend on.
• Support Local Towns and First Responders: The bill provides $350 billion for new Coronavirus Relief Funds for states, localities, the U.S. Territories, and the Tribal Governments, including to help keep critical workers on the job. These workers include frontline health care workers, police, firefighters, transit workers, teachers, EMS, and other vital workers who help keep us safe. Since the pandemic began, 1.4 million of these types of workers have lost their jobs, due to the tight budgets caused by the high expenses and reduced revenues created by the pandemic.

Provisions spearheaded by Kuster to bolster and quicken our nationwide vaccine rollout are included in the American Rescue Plan Act. The Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act would improve and expand real-time communication between state and federal governments, as well as public and private health care providers, to ensure vaccines are being administered effectively and efficiently across all states and territories. This year, Kuster also introduced the Coronavirus Vaccine and Therapeutic Development Act to ensure that the United States will be able to mass-produce and administer COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics quickly and efficiently. Funding modeled after both of these bills is included in the American Rescue Plan Act. Funding for the Emergency Support for Substance Use Disorders Act, legislation to create emergency grants during the COVID-19 crisis for states and community-based organizations that serve individuals with substance use disorder (SUD), is also included in the American Rescue Plan Act. On Tuesday, Rep. Kuster spoke on the House Floor urging passage of the comprehensive relief bill.

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