After months of wrangling, Congress finally passed a much-anticipated $900 billion dollar COVID relief bill. It includes a new round of direct stimulus payments, unemployment benefits, and funding assistance for businesses. Guam delegate Michael San Nicolas laid out the details of the new package in a news conference from Washington.

Congressman San Nicolas says one of the more contentious issues was the direct payments to taxpayers. Congress settled on a stimulus amount of $600 for individual filers and $1,200 for married couples filing jointly - that's half of what was paid out in the CARES Act.

San Nicolas said, "That was the number that everyone was able to come to terms with that would could agree on to move this forward, the new administration is absolutely open to reconsidering everything that has to do with COVID relief."

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) will also be extended, and the additional payments known as FPUC will be reinstated, although the amounts will be reduced from $600 a week to $300. "So this is going to cover us all the way up until the first quarter of the New Year. It extends eligible weeks claimed from 39 weeks to 50 weeks, so if you've exhausted your 39 weeks, you're going to be extended all the way up to a 50 week claiming window," explained the delegate.

The bill also includes money for rental assistance. The territories were able to carve out specific allotments, and Guam will get some $75 million. "This is a very, very significant breakthrough because it's going to be able to allow eligible households to receive up to twelve months of assistance and that goes back over the course of the pandemic," he said. "So if you have accumulated any rental deficits to your landlords, this $75 million will allow you to close out those deficits."

The local housing agency will have to act fast though, as the eviction moratorium was extended only until January 31, 2021. Meanwhile, there's also help for small businesses. A second round of the paycheck protection program, designed to help companies keep employees employed, was approved. The terms and conditions will be the same as the CARES Act.

"SBA will forgive loans if all employee retention criteria are met, the funds are used for eligible expenses, PPP loans have an interest rate of 1% and loans issued prior to June 5 have a maturity of two years, loans issued after June 5 have a maturity of five years," he said.

What the bill didn't address was more direct aid to local governments. Although San Nicolas says for those that still have CARES Act money, the deadline to spend it was extended from the end of this year to the end of 2021.

Separately, San Nicolas also confirmed that a provision was included to allow Compact of Free Association migrants back into the Medicaid program for the first time since 1996. He says it will save the locally-funded Medically Indigent Program millions.