Lankford Votes to End COVID-19 Pandemic National Emergency

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today supported a Senate resolution to end the national emergency declaration for COVID-19. In March, Lankford supported the same Senate resolution to end the national emergency, but after a veto threat from President Biden, the House of Representatives never took up the measure. However, now that President Biden himself declared the COVID-19 pandemic over, it’s time for Congress to fulfill its responsibility to provide ongoing consideration of national emergencies and end them when appropriate. The resolution passed in a vote of 62 to 36.

“President Biden declared on national news that the COVID-19 pandemic was over in September. Congress should exercise our duty to end the corresponding national emergency,” said Lankford. “The separate Title 42 authority under the Department of Health and Human Services should remain in place until the Biden Administration puts a plan in place to deal with the massive influx of thousands of migrants daily coming across our southern border.”

In October, Lankford introduced a resolution to call for an end to President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal employees, service members, and contractors after he declared the pandemic over.

Lankford is leading the charge to push back on the Biden Administration’s plans to revoke temporary, pandemic-related Title 42 authority and to stop the ongoing chaos at the southern border amid Biden’s hypocrisy about COVID. After the highest year on record for illegal crossings, Lankford introduced the Public Health and Border Security Act to require all COVID-19 related national states of emergency to be lifted before Title 42 is officially terminated until a workable plan to replace it is put in place. Lankford offered an amendment to take $1 million out of the health care slush fund for FY2023 in the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” and use it to maintain Title 42 authority at our southern border. The amendment failed by a vote of 50-50. 

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