Press Releases

Washington, D.C. – As more than 1.4 million Texans have filed for unemployment insurance amid the deepening economic crisis, and Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) struggles to handle the influx, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, led all congressional Texas Democrats in urging Governor Abbott to help Texans experiencing ongoing delays in continuing their unemployment benefits by temporarily waiving the current biweekly recertification requirement. By relieving both unemployed Texans and the TWC of this requirement, Abbott could help far more people access needed aid faster.

Austin, Texas – U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, responded to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requiring its employees who are answering phones, processing mail, and other “mission-critical work” to end telework and resume on-site duties in Austin, as soon as tomorrow, Sunday, without assuring that they will be provided personal protective equipment (PPE):

Washington, DC – Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) unveiled bicameral legislation today to repeal a massive tax giveaway for a small group of wealthy taxpayers that Republicans included in the coronavirus relief bill. The legislation would do away with provisions in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates will reduce government revenue by $160 billion over ten years, and that would overwhelmingly benefit wealthy taxpayers like hedge fund managers and real estate speculators.

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Doggett (D-TX), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, Representative Susan Wild (D-PA), member of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and Representative Cheri Bustos (D-IL), member of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced legislation to require a special enrollment period for COVID-19.

Washington, D.C. – This morning, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, and U.S. Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL), member of the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, led over one hundred fifty members of Congress in sounding the alarm about the importance of maintaining a law to ensure that states do not kick people off Medicaid amid this devastating pandemic. The maintenance of effort (MOE) provisions included in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act protect vulnerable families from having their Medicaid coverage stripped during this crisis by states seeking to reduce access to care. Some Republicans have made repealing MOE a top priority in the next relief package.

Washington, DC – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) are pressing the Trump administration to explain tax provisions in the recent COVID-19 relief bill that cost roughly $195 billion and have no connection to combatting the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout. According to reports, beneficiaries of the tax giveaways may include President Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and “real estate investors in President Trump’s inner circle.”

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, joined by Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Chair of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, pressed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for information regarding the precautions they have taken to assure the accuracy of COVID-19 tests, as well as for manufacturers’ data provided to the FDA on false positives and false negatives in administered tests thus far.

Washington, D.C. – Today, amid broadening economic hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, announces over $8 million in federal funding for housing support in Central Texas and over $110 million for public transportation in this crisis.