President

joe

Biden will not veto a Republican-led measure to end the national COVID-19 emergency despite expressing strong objections to it earlier this year, putting the bill on an easy path to passing to become law.

It’s the second time in the new Congress that the Biden administration has signaled opposition to a Republican measure, with most Democrats in Congress voting against it, only for its position to be softened and the legislation eventually passed into law.

Just weeks ago, Biden stunned many fellow Democrats when he refused to veto a Republican-led bill to introduce a new criminal code for the District of Columbia, which he and others in the president’s party opposed. were, allowing the GOP’s crackdown on local government crime to become law.

Republicans celebrated the turn of events as a sign of their newfound influence in divided Washington, while Democrats quietly complained that the Biden administration had changed its mind.

But the White House stood its ground and the Senate gave the final approval, 68-23, sending the bill to Biden’s desk.

Opinion: The COVID ’emergency’ is coming to an end. This is who will get hurt the most

A White House official said that as House Republicans prepared to vote on the bill early this year, it would have lifted the national emergency declaration for the pandemic in February.

But now it’s much closer to the White House’s own plan to wind down the COVID-19 national emergency by May 11.

The president still strongly opposes the legislation, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the situation. But if this bill gets on Biden’s desk, he will sign it, the official said.

Ahead of the vote, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), one of the bills’ main sponsors, said he hoped the rumors are true that the president will finally sign this legislation into law.

The legislation is a simple one-line measure that says the state of national emergency declared on March 13, 2020 is hereby ended.

COVID-19 is fading. But ending the health emergency can leave us vulnerable

It comes from one of the more conservative Republicans in the House, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, drawing on Republican-led opposition to mask mandates, lockdowns and other precautions put in place to curb the spread of the virus during the pandemic. . It was one of the first bills the new House GOP brought forward at the beginning of the year.

The government warned at the time that the proposal would cause chaos. More than 197 House Democrats voted against.

An abrupt end to the states of emergency would create widespread chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system for states, hospitals and doctor’s offices, and especially for tens of millions of Americans, the government said in a formal board statement. policy.

What happens to COVID vaccines and medicines approved for emergency use when the health emergency ends?

In the days leading up to the House vote, the Biden administration announced its own plan to wind down the state of emergency on May 11, three years after the virus outbreak.

The government’s announcement meant that the federal response to the coronavirus would be treated more like an endemic public health threat that could be managed by normal agency authorities, rather than a pandemic status.

AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.