US House approves bill to end COVID-19 national emergency immediately

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The Republican-led US House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bipartisan resolution to end the COVID-19 national emergency immediately, rather than wait for the Biden administration’s expiration date of May 11.

First declared by former President Trump on March 13, 2020, the COVID-19 national emergency granted billions of dollars to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help state and local agencies fight the pandemic.

Tuesday’s resolution was approved by a 229-197 vote, with the support of 11 Democrats, Yahoo News reports. The measure provides for the termination of the national emergency as soon as the legislation is enacted.

While the national emergency was originally set to end on March 1, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requested it be delayed by around two months in order to avoid “wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system — for states, for hospitals and doctors’ offices, and, most importantly, for tens of millions of Americans.”

Nevertheless, House Republicans determined the measure should end sooner. “At this point, there’s no longer a need for the declaration to utilize extraordinary authorities provided under the [National Emergencies Act] and it seems that the White House agrees with this too, but thinks we need to wait until May 11. That logic and math just doesn’t seem right to me,” Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) said in a statement on the House floor.

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