Biden says 'no time to waste' on COVID relief bill

Veteran diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield was sworn in Wednesday morning as Biden's U.N. ambassador. Thomas-Greenfield, known for her "gumbo diplomacy", is a Louisiana native and child of the segregated South.

After being sworn in, Thomas-Greenfield tweeted saying she was "honored" to hold the post.

"Diplomacy is back. Multilateralism is back," Thomas-Greenfield said in the tweet. "America is back."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked during a press briefing Wednesday whether the postponement of Senate hearings for Biden's pick to manage the Office of Management and Budget was a setback and Psaki said she wouldn't "put it in those terms."

Psaki emphasized that the administration is still "fighting" for Tanden's nomination and remains committed to getting Biden's pick confirmed. When asked whether Tanden had offered to withdraw her nomination, Psaki said that is "not the stage" the administration is in.

"The stage we’re in is working to continue to fight for her nomination. And, as you know, it’s a numbers game, right? It's a matter of getting one Republican to support her nomination," Psaki said. "We're continuing to do that outreach, answer questions they have, and continue to reiterate her qualifications."

National Economic Council Deputy Director Sameera Fazili and National Security Council Senior Director of International Economics and Competitiveness Peter Harrell joined a White House press briefing to discuss the executive order Biden will sign Wednesday afternoon that will commence an investigation and deliver recommendations to fix supply chain vulnerabilities revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Make no mistake, we are not simply planning to order up reports. We are going to be taking actions to close gaps as we identify them..." Harrell said.

The executive order will mandate a 100-day review of critical product supply chains in the U.S. focused on those for computer chips, large capacity batteries, active pharmaceutical ingredients and critical minerals and strategic materials, including rare earth minerals.

Fazili argued the investigation could be good for the U.S. economy.

"There are opportunities for small business development to help diversify supplier networks and alleviate the risk of too-big-to-fail companies in the supply chains for critical goods," Fazili said. "There are opportunities to improve worker readiness and training so they have the skills needed to ramp up research, production, or distribution of a critical good."

One hundred and sixty chief executive officers sent an open letter to congressional leadership Wednesday, urging lawmakers to pass "immediate and large-scale federal legislation to address the health and economic crises brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic" on a bipartisan basis.

The letter asks Congress to "to authorize a stimulus and relief package along the lines of the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed American Rescue Plan," perhaps leaving some room for negotiation on what the final package will look like. But the letter makes clear that major business CEOs, including the heads of Morgan Stanley, Visa, United Airlines, BlackRock, Comcast and Google are pushing for relief on the scale of Biden's plan.

"The American Rescue Plan provides a framework for coordinated public-private efforts to overcome COVID-19 and to move forward with a new era of inclusive growth. The country’s business community is prepared to work with you to achieve these critical objectives," the letter says. 

Just Tuesday, though, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, one of the few Senate Republicans who has shown willingness to buck his party, criticized the $1.9 trillion bill in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

"The $1.9 trillion bill is a clunker. It would waste hundreds of billions of dollars, do nothing meaningful to get kids back to school, and enact policies that work against job creation. The Congressional Budget Office’s recent analysis of the plan found that more than a third of the proposed funding—$700 billion—wouldn’t be spent until 2022 or later, undermining the administration’s claim that the massive price tag is justified for urgent pandemic-related needs," Romney wrote. 

Whether the pressure from big business will sway any Republicans in the Senate remains to be seen, but Wednesday morning's messaging from GOP lawmakers is pretty clear: They have no intentions of budging.

-ABC News' Sarah Kolinovsky