Agreement on $470B 'phase 3.5' coronavirus stimulus package now imminent, sources say

Sign up here.Negotiators from the House, Senate and White House are close to finalizing an accord on the so-called “phase 3.5” response to the coronavirus pandemic and hope to have an agreement late Monday or Tuesday, Fox News is told.The response will include $310 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offers grants to small businesses struggling to make payroll, sources tell Fox News. And, some Republicans are signaling they may be reluctant to tackle other measures related to coronavirus, considering the staggering price tag of the measures already in the queue.Fox News is told that calculus could change if lawmakers believe they now need to respond to the oil market cratering to a historic low.The stimulus proposal currently under consideration would not include money for state and local governments “nor the Kennedy Center,” said one source. Hoyer’s office also indicated they could take a “roll call vote.” On Monday afternoon, Hoyer told Democrats that they are hoping to vote Wednesday, but that it could slip to Thursday.Fox News is told that the “appetite for a roll call vote is higher” than the vote taken in late March on the phase 3 coronavirus bill, totaling $2.2 trillion.It’s possible the House Rules Committee may have to meet Wednesday or later in the week to prep the House to handle the measure sent over from the Senate. One source told Fox News, however, that the House would be lucky to get 280 members there.Democrats object to a measure pushed by the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; reaction and analysis on 'Outnumbered.'Fox News is told a big question is if the House could vote on other items. So, as one senior House Democratic aid said to Fox, such a deadline “tends to focus the mind.”Regardless, a plan for remote or proxy voting would likely have to go to the Rules Committee before the House floor.EXCLUSIVE: LEAD NIH CORONAVIRUS RESEARCHER ENGAGED WITH THEORY THAT PANDEMIC IS BLACK 'GENOCIDE,' SLAMMED FAUCIMeanwhile, oil futures plunged below zero for the first time on Monday as demand for energy collapses amid the coronavirus pandemic and traders sought to avoid owning crude with nowhere to store it.