Deal on Fed removes obstacle to agreement on COVID relief

Top congressional lawmakers have cleared away the last major obstacle to agreement on a COVID-19 economic relief package costing nearly $1 trillion

Virus Outbreak Congress (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Top congressional lawmakers struck a late-night agreement on the last major obstacle to a COVID-19 economic relief package costing nearly $1 trillion, clearing the way for votes as early as Sunday.

A Democratic aide said in an email that an agreement had been reached late Saturday and that compromise language was being finalized to seal a deal to be unveiled on Sunday.

The breakthrough involved a fight over Federal Reserve emergency powers that was defused by an odd couple: the Senate’s top Democrat and a senior conservative Republican.

“We’re getting very close, very close," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said earlier Saturday as he spent much of the day going back and forth with GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Toomey had been pressing a provision to close down Fed lending facilities that Democrats and the White House said was too broadly worded and would have tied the hands of the incoming Biden administration.

The COVID-19 legislation has been held up after months of disfunction, posturing and bad faith, but talks turned serious in December as lawmakers on both sides finally faced the deadline of acting before exiting Washington for Christmas.