American Food Workers Protection Act

American Food Workers Protection Act

This bill requires the Department of Agriculture to support state and local jurisdictions in providing (1) priority COVID-19 testing for essential critical food and agriculture workers; (2) priority access to personal protective equipment, sanitizers, face coverings, and other health-related or protective supplies necessary to safely perform essential critical infrastructure work; and (3) assurance that the federal agency responsible for the distribution of a vaccine for COVID-19 in the United States will prioritize essential critical food and agriculture workers for inoculation with the vaccine.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8482 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 8482

To require the Secretary of Agriculture to support the efforts of State 
  and local governments to provide for priority testing of essential 
critical food and agriculture workers with respect to COVID-19, and for 
                            other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 1, 2020

 Mr. Crawford (for himself, Mr. Kelly of Mississippi, and Mr. LaMalfa) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
                              Agriculture

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To require the Secretary of Agriculture to support the efforts of State 
  and local governments to provide for priority testing of essential 
critical food and agriculture workers with respect to COVID-19, and for 
                            other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``American Food Workers Protection 
Act''.

SEC. 2. IDENTIFICATION OF COVID-19 TESTING NEEDS OF CRITICAL FOOD AND 
              AGRICULTURE WORKERS.

    (a) In General.--The Secretary of Agriculture shall--
            (1) adopt, for use by the Department of Agriculture in 
        carrying out response efforts relating to, and operations 
        during, the COVID-19 pandemic, the categorization of food and 
        agriculture workers as ``essential critical infrastructure 
        workers'' identified in the Guidance on the Essential Critical 
        Infrastructure Workforce published by the Department of 
        Homeland Security on March 28, 2020 (or a subsequent version of 
        that guidance); and
            (2) coordinate with the Director of the Centers for Disease 
        Control and Prevention and the Administrator of the Federal 
        Emergency Management Agency to support efforts of State and 
        local governments to provide for--
                    (A) priority testing of essential critical 
                infrastructure workers (as such term is used in 
                paragraph (1)) with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic;
                    (B) priority access to personal protective 
                equipment, sanitizers, nonmedical-grade facial 
                coverings, and other health-related or protective 
                supplies necessary to safely perform essential critical 
                infrastructure work; and
                    (C) ensure that the Federal agency responsible for 
                the distribution of a vaccine for COVID-19 in the 
                United States prioritizes essential critical 
                infrastructure workers (as such term is used in 
                paragraph (1)) for inoculation with that vaccine.
    (b) Application.--Nothing in this section requires the provision of 
priority testing or priority access to personal protective equipment 
for essential critical infrastructure workers (as such term is used in 
subsection (a)(1)) to be prioritized over the provision of that testing 
or access to personal protective equipment for other individuals who 
are identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or any 
other relevant Federal, State, or local agency as having a higher 
priority for that testing or access to personal protective equipment, 
including--
            (1) patients;
            (2) healthcare workers; and
            (3) first responders.
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