Coronavirus in the US: Live Updates

Final approval of an agreement to replenish a loan program for small businesses will not occur until at least Thursday, as negotiators struggled through the night Monday to resolve the final details of what is likely to be nearly $500 billion in aid for small businesses, hospitals and testing.

With the Senate scheduled to convene a procedural session Tuesday afternoon, lawmakers were racing to reach agreement on what was intended to be an interim package to shore up a $2 trillion stimulus package signed into law last month. While the administration had asked for $250 billion for a loan program to help distressed small businesses, Democrats pursued additional aid for hospitals, testing and state and local governments.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said he was confident that the Senate would be able to approve a bipartisan agreement during the Tuesday afternoon procedural session, saying “there’s still a few more i’s to dot and t’s to cross, but we have a deal.”

Mr. Schumer, speaking on CNN, said that he, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, spoke well after midnight to reach agreement on outstanding issues. As of Tuesday morning, multiple aides said there was not yet agreement on a final text that could be voted on the Senate floor, but progress had been made in discussions.

But Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, notified lawmakers late Monday that even if an agreement is reached in time for the Senate to pass the measure on Tuesday, the earliest the House will take action is Thursday morning — a day later than House leadership had hoped. House Republicans are expected to force a recorded vote, meaning lawmakers will have to return to Washington in order to send the measure to the president’s desk.

Funding for the small business loan program, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, has lapsed during the impasse, leaving millions of small businesses in limbo without federal assistance.

Negotiators are still working to reach agreement on a Democratic demand to include a provision that would require the establishment of a national testing strategy. Republicans are wary of placing the onus of such a strategy on the administration, and want states to decide their own strategies.