Congressman Peter DeFazio has spent his time in Congress working for Oregonians. As the dean of the Oregon House delegation, he has developed a reputation as an independent, passionate, and effective lawmaker.
In 2019, DeFazio was elected to the powerful position of Chair of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard, highways and transit, ports and water resources, railroads, aviation, and economic development. As Chair, and previously as Ranking Member, DeFazio has taken the lead role on several multi-billion-laws that have created jobs, improved transportation options, kept our ports open, ensured clean drinking water, and kept the airline industry accountable.
After more than six months, more than 200,000 deaths, and millions of jobs lost, we are still mired in a massive public health and economic crisis. We are living through one of the biggest challenges our nation has ever faced.
Throughout this crisis, Congressman DeFazio has worked tirelessly to get relief to working families, small businesses, our frontline workers, and to promote a strong, inclusive recovery. While Washington has been mired in gridlock in recent months over another COVID relief package, Rep. DeFazio has and will continue to work to break through the gridlock in order to provide robust relief to working families, small businesses, and frontline workers.
Congressman DeFazio knows the enormous strain COVID-19 has put on Oregon’s working families, which is why he helped to pass legislation to help provide these families with critical lifelines. These policies included:
Small businesses are the backbone of our communities. Recognizing the important role Main Street plays in Southwest Oregon’s economy, DeFazio has consistently supported efforts to get funding to small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
Rep. DeFazio supported multiple bills that provided more than $600 billion to the PPP and supports efforts to create a second round of funding, expand eligibility, streamline forgiveness, and ensure appropriate oversight to minimize abuse of the program by large corporations.
As Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Rep. DeFazio was a key negotiator and authored several critical provisions that were enacted, including:
Legislation that Rep. DeFazio supported also invested billions into COVID-19 research, development, containment, and procurement, including billions for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), $3.5 billion for development of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, and $16 billion for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) to ensure it can procure needed American made equipment and supplies to prevent supply chain shortages.
Rep. DeFazio also supported provisions that allocated $100 billion to hospitals and healthcare providers in order to cover unreimbursed health care-related expenses to COVID-19.
Millions of Americans are still unemployed. The earlier economic recovery is slowing – and COVID-19 infections and deaths are unfortunately climbing.
Since May, Rep. DeFazio and his colleagues in the House have passed additional relief bills, which contain a variety of essential relief measures to help Americans make ends meet as we work to end the crisis. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans have rejected every one of these bills.
On October 1, 2020, DeFazio voted for and the House passed another relief package, the updated version of the Heroes Act. This bill includes:
Rep. DeFazio knows that putting working people and families first is how we as a country can get back on our feet. He will continue to prioritize their needs as well as the needs of small business owners over the profits of giant corporations in order to build an economy that works for everyone – not just a wealthy few.