Rep. Richmond Statement on Passage of the HEROES Act

Press Release

Today, Congressman Cedric Richmond (LA-02) issued the following statement on the latest coronavirus relief package, H.R. 6800, the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES Act):

"I came back to Washington today to vote on our most robust coronavirus stimulus relief package yet," said Rep. Richmond. "This bill does more to cover our essential workers, including hazard pay for our essential frontline workers, coverage of student loan debt, and further protections for renters and homeowners.

"As we continue to weather through this difficult time, this bill would provide our state and communities with crucial funding. Under this bill, school districts across the state would receive over $900 million and our public colleges would receive over $450 million. This funding would keep teachers employed and students engaged. Our state, parish, and city governments, which have been devastated financially by this crisis, would also receive funding so they could keep our public services going.

"Under this bill, the State would get $4 billion and local governments across the state would receive over $3 billion this year in relief funding. Parishes would receive funding directly and cities would receive their own funding directly. Across the parishes of the 2nd District, this bill would provide:

Ascension Parish - $47 million

Assumption Parish - $8 million

East Baton Rouge Parish - $164.9 million

Iberville Parish - $12 million

Jefferson Parish - $162 million

Orleans Parish - $724 million

St. Charles Parish - $19.9 million

St. James Parish - $7.9 million

St. John the Baptist Parish - $16 million

West Baton Rouge Parish - $9.9 million

"This funding would let our local governments keep first responders employed and public services running when they are needed most. Additionally, our state would get over $56 million to help put on safe and secure elections this fall.

"This bill also takes other important steps to make government work better and to protect more people during this crisis. It would improve the Paycheck Protection Program to make it work better for our small businesses, particularly those in the restaurant industry. I fought to ensure inclusion of important protections for the health and safety of the staff and those incarcerated in jails and prisons across the country. This bill provides $75 billion for improving testing and tracing, funding to save the U.S. Postal Service, and serious steps towards addressing the racial disparities we are seeing with COVID-19, which include better data collection nationwide. We have also allocated $50 million in environmental justice grants to investigate the link between pollution and coronavirus."

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