Yesterday, the Senate passed an additional COVID-19 relief package which included nearly $484 billion in funding for small businesses, their workers, and the public health. Importantly, this package will restart the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—a forgivable loan program for our country’s small businesses offered through the Small Business Administration (SBA). Before the PPP funding ran out last week, 21,257 Utah employers had been approved for nearly $3.7 billion in relief—allowing them to keep paying workers and avoid massive layoffs.

This additional relief package is critical to ensuring workers keep receiving paychecks, and it affirms that our farmers and ranchers will qualify for these loans. Businesses will receive additional help through increased funding for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program. The bill also delivers funds for our hospitals and healthcare providers, supports the valuable research that the CDC and the NIH are conducting to respond to this pandemic, and sends money to states for expanded COVID-19 testing—including dedicated funds for increased testing capacity for tribes and tribal organizations.

All across Utah and our nation, families, workers, and business owners are facing extraordinary challenges as a result of COVID-19. I encourage my colleagues in the House to swiftly pass this legislation and get it to the President’s desk for signature.

I also want to recognize the impressive leadership of Governor Herbert and state officials who have been working around the clock. Because of their efforts, and the partnerships they’ve forged with Utah community and business leaders, our state is better positioned when it comes to testing ability and unemployment rates. Our pioneering heritage is a big part of what makes Utah a model—a model of what can happen when we work together as a community to tackle the obstacles that come our way.

I want to end by recognizing all of the people who are working to maintain essential services—the delivery drivers, grocery store employees, restaurant workers, farmers, and more. Your efforts to help our communities are not unnoticed. Particular thanks to our health care workers caring for the sick.

Stay safe,

Senator Romney participated in a Silicon Slopes Town Hall to provide an update on Congress's efforts to restart PPP loan funding. He also spoke about the relief needed to safeguard Utah, and our country's, agricultural industry.





COVID-19 has left Utah's dairy farmers with excess product and few, if any, ways to get products into the hands of consumers. Senator Romney joined colleagues in urging the USDA to assist the dairy industry so a stable food supply is available at reasonable prices now and in the future. He spoke more about these relief efforts with KSL's Lee Lonsberry.





With the COVID-19 pandemic, the budgets of rural counties have been decimated. The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS) and the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) programs fund roads, schools, law enforcement, and essential county services, such as public health programs, in these rural counties. Senator Romney joined a bipartisan group of colleagues in calling for the Senate to finally provide much-needed financial certainty for rural communities to ensure long-term funding needed for essential services.



Full story by David Wells here.



Senator Romney participated in a Q&A with a group of AP Government students from Herriman High School during one of their virtual classroom sessions. He fielded questions about his responsibilities as a U.S. Senator, the federal government's response to COVID-19, and his top priorities.