Common use of Aid to Impacted Industries Clause in Contracts

Aid to Impacted Industries. Sections 602(c)(1)(A) and 603(c)(1)(A) recognize that certain industries, such as tourism, travel, and hospitality, were disproportionately and negatively impacted by the COVID–19 public health emergency. Aid provided to tourism, travel, and hospitality industries should respond to the pandemic on those and similarly impacted industries. For example, aid may include assistance to implement COVID–19 mitigation and infection prevention measures to enable safe resumption of tourism, travel, and hospitality services, for example, improvements to ventilation, physical barriers or partitions, signage to facilitate social distancing, provision of masks or personal protective equipment, or consultation with infection prevention professionals to develop safe reopening plans. Aid may be considered responsive to the negative economic impacts of the pandemic if it supports businesses, attractions, business districts, and Tribal development districts operating prior to the pandemic and affected by required closures and other efforts to contain the pandemic. For example, a recipient may provide aid to support safe reopening of businesses in the tourism, travel, and hospitality industries and to business districts that were closed during the COVID–19 public health emergency, as well as aid for a planned expansion or upgrade of tourism, travel, and hospitality facilities delayed due to the pandemic. When considering providing aid to industries other than tourism, travel, and hospitality, recipients should consider the extent of the economic impact as compared to tourism, travel, and hospitality, the industries enumerated in the statute. For example, on net, the leisure and hospitality industry has experienced an approximately 24 percent decline in revenue and approximately 17 percent decline in employment nationwide due to the COVID–19 public health emergency.89 Recipients should also consider whether impacts were due to the COVID–19 pandemic, as opposed to longer-term economic or industrial trends unrelated to the pandemic. To facilitate transparency and accountability, the interim final rule requires that State, local, and Tribal governments publicly report assistance provided to private-sector businesses under this eligible use, including tourism, travel, hospitality, and other impacted industries, and its connection to negative economic impacts of the pandemic. Recipients also should maintain records to support their assessment of how businesses or business districts receiving assistance were affected by the negative economic impacts of the pandemic and how the aid provided responds to these impacts. As discussed above, economic disparities that existed prior to the COVID–19 public health emergency amplified the impact of the pandemic among low-income and minority groups. These families were more likely to face housing, food, and financial insecurity; are over-represented among low-wage workers; and many have seen their livelihoods deteriorate further during the pandemic and economic contraction. In recognition of the disproportionate negative economic impacts on certain communities and populations, the interim final rule identifies services and programs that will be presumed to be responding to the negative economic impacts of the COVID–19 public health emergency when provided in these communities. Specifically, Treasury will presume that certain types of services, outlined below, are eligible uses when provided in a QCT, to families and individuals living in QCTs, or when these services are provided by Tribal governments.90 Recipients may also provide these services to other populations, households, or geographic areas disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. In identifying these disproportionately impacted communities, recipients should be able to support their determination that the pandemic resulted in disproportionate public health or economic outcomes to the specific populations, households, or geographic areas to be served. The interim final rule identifies a non- exclusive list of uses that address the disproportionate negative economic effects of the COVID–19 public health emergency, including: Æ Building Stronger Communities negative economic impacts of the 89 From February 2020 to April 2021, through Investments in Housing and Neighborhoods. The economic impacts 87 See Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, An Uphill Battle: COVID–19’s Outsized Toll on Minority-Owned Firms (Oct. 8, 2020), https:// xxx.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx/xxxxxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx/ publications/community-development-briefs/db- 20201008-misera-report.aspx (discussing the impact of COVID–19 on minority owned businesses).