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This year March Madness meant something very different on Capitol Hill: instead of thinking about basketball brackets, staff and lawmakers worked intensely to finish its third emergency supplemental/economic stimulus bill to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Friday, March 27, the President signed into law H.R. 748, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Included in the CARES Act were several provisions that stand to benefit PAA members or PAA as an organization. Here is a summary of those provisions.

COVID-19 Research Dollars

National Institutes of Health

Provides $945 million to support expanded research into our understanding of the prevalence, transmission and natural history of COVID-19, and for novel approaches for diagnosis of the disease and prevention and other countermeasures. This infusion of funding brings total NIH funding for COVID-19 to $1.78 billion.

• The $945 million is spread out over five Institutes and includes $30 million for the Office of the Director of NIH, which is being allocated to the Common Fund, intended for research into emerging, high priority trans-NIH research activities. PAA is urging NIH to provide the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research with a portion of these funds.

Centers for Disease Control

• CDC is receiving $4.3 billion, including $1.5 billion for states and localities to assist with public health activities, including testing, PPE (personal protective equipment), laboratory testing, surveillance, etc.
• The law also includes $500 million for public health data surveillance and analytics infrastructure modernization. PAA will be monitoring implementation of this provision to determine its potential benefit for the National Center for Health Statistics.

National Science Foundation

• The law includes $75 for NSF to disseminate as RAPID grants to support non-medical, non-clinical care research into the COVID-19 crisis. The RAPID grants were launched earlier in March with the expectation that Congress would provide this funding. For more information, please read the relevant NSF Dear Colleague

Other COVID-19 Related Relief for Nonprofits and Institutions of Higher Education

Small Business Administration

• SBA will receive $562 billion for direct loans to entities negatively impacted by COVID-19 to help maintain operations (rent, utilities, etc.); loans to entities that provide employment from March 1 to June 30 are eligible to have those loans forgiven.
• SBA will make refundable payroll tax credits of up to $5,000 for each employee available to eligible employers that have seen at least 50% reduction in revenue in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the first quarter of 2019, among other qualifying conditions.

Department of Education

• The law appropriates $14.25 billion in funding to institutions of higher education to directly support students facing urgent needs related to coronavirus, and to support institutions as they cope with the immediate effects of coronavirus and school closures. In addition, the law provides targeted formula funding to institutions of higher education, as well as funding for minority serving institutions and HBCUs.
• The law created a $3 billion flexible formula funding grant program to be allocated by states based on the needs of their elementary and secondary schools and their institutions of higher education.

What is Not in the CARES Act

Although the CARES Act tackled many aspects of the COVID-19 crisis, it stopped short of addressing some critical issues that are having a severe negative impact on scientific societies and other nonprofit organizations. Most urgently, organizations that that were forced to cancel major conferences and other large meetings have incurred substantial losses in revenue on which they depend.

• PAA sent a letter urging Congress to include in the next (fourth) COVID-19 Economic Stimulus bill, $25 billion in emergency aid for associations that face major financial loss due to event cancellations as a result of COVID-19.
• The letter also called for additional funding to support population research related to COVID 19 through the National Institute on Aging and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Congress is expected to consider the fourth COVID relief package in late April.