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President Joe Biden will announce on Tuesday a new eviction moratorium to replace the one that expired, targeting counties with elevated rates of coronavirus infections to save renters.

White House aides and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials were working out details. The proposal could include a new freeze that would remain in place for up to 60 days and would cover about 90 percent of renters in the country, The New York Times reported. 

The CDC will announce the extension, which will go until October 3. 

'The CDC will have something to announce to you in the next hour or two,' Biden said at the White House on Tuesday. 

The White House had pushed the issue to Congress and the states after deciding a June Supreme Court ruling prevented additional executive action.

But Biden said Tuesday he had spoken to several constitutional scholars and will see if the new announcement will 'pass constitutional muster' but noted that pending litigation will 'probably give some additional time' for rental assistance funds to flow.

'I asked the CDC to go back and consider other options that may be available,' Biden said. 

The Supreme Court would likely have to issue a new ruling on any new orders out of the CDC. But that would buy Democrats on Capitol Hill some time.  

The announcement came as the feud among Democrats over what to do about the eviction moratorium escalated on Tuesday when Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to bring back Congress to vote on the matter.

Pelosi ruled out that option despite President Biden calling on Congress to extend the moratorium and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling her fellow lawmakers 'cowards' for refusing to vote on the issue.

President Joe Biden will announce on Tuesday a new eviction moratorium to replace the one that expired

On a call with House Democrats Tuesday, where Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin spoke with lawmakers, Pelosi made her stance clear.

She said the House should not come back from its recess and that lawmakers should focus on urging the Biden administration to extend the moratorium unilaterally, The Washington Post reported. 

Ocasio-Cortez told Politico her fellow Democratic House members are 'cowards' who needed to come back into town and 'put their names next to a 'yes' or 'no' vote, or the White House needs to do a damn thing about [eviction moratoriums]. … At the end of the day, the emergency is here. And so we need to exercise all avenues.' 

Other liberal lawmakers have joined in on the pressure campaign on the White House. Democratic Rep. Cori Bush has lead a sleep out on the front steps of the Capitol building to protest the matter. 

Bush praised the decision and credited the protest. 

'On Friday night, I came to the Capitol with my chair. I refused to accept that Congress could leave for vacation while 11 million people faced eviction. For 5 days, we've been out here, demanding that our government acts to save lives. Today, our movement moved mountains,' she wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

Any legislation passed in the House would likely fail in the Senate. Democrats would need 10 Republicans to vote with them and GOP lawmakers oppose extending the moratorium.  

President Biden on Monday pleaded with landlords to hold off evictions for the next 30 days as his administration sought ways to extend a moratorium after Congress failed to do so and the White House conceded they have no legal grounds to act.

'You can be sure of one thing, whatever is in the power of this president to do to prevent evictions he is committed to doing,' American Rescue Plan Coordinator Gene Sperling said Monday at the daily press briefing. 'This is a president who really understands the heartbreak of eviction.'

In a lengthy statement on the crisis, which will see thousands lose their homes as rent becomes due at the first of the month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted the president asked his administration to come up with executive action to extend the moratorium.

But, she conceded, they were unable to do so.

'CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and her team have been unable to find legal authority for a new, targeted eviction moratorium. Our team is redoubling efforts to identify all available legal authorities to provide necessary protections,' she said.

The federal eviction moratorium was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in November. A June ruling by the Supreme Court led administration officials to concede the agency could not do so again. 

In Monday's statement, Biden called on states and localities to extend or put in place evictions moratoria for at the least the next two months and for landlords to give a 30-day break. He directed federal agencies to extend all the moratorium they were allowed to do.

The administration also called on states to speed up issuing housing funds allocated through the American Rescue Plan. 

Distribution of rental assistance that Congress allocated in December and March has been painfully slow. The $47 billion Emergency Rental Assistance program has, to date, disbursed only $3 billion. 

The White House defended its actions.

President Biden 'has double, triple, quadruple check. He has asked the CDC to look at whether you could even do targeted eviction moratorium that just went to the counties that have higher [COVID] rates, and they, as well, have been unable to find the legal authority for even new targeted eviction moratoriums,' Sperling said.

Rep. Cori Bush, second from left, has led a protest on front steps of Capitol for four days

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez protests the expiration of the eviction moratorium on the front steps of the Capitol

Speaker Nancy Pelosi ruled out bringing back Congress to do something about the eviction moratorium and pushed the Biden administration to use its executive power

Pelosi said she welcomed the news from the White House.

'The Administration's statement that they will be taking action to find legal authority by the CDC or other authorities to extend the moratorium is welcome. For the good of families on the verge of eviction, my Democratic House colleagues and I are hopeful that this initiative to extend the moratorium will be successful as soon as possible,' she said in a statement on Monday. 

Anger is growing among Democrats as the administration and leadership struggle to find a solution to the eviction crisis.   

Democratic Rep. Cori Bush led a protest on the Capitol steps for the fourth night in a row to protest the lack of action on the issue.

'Since Friday - when some colleagues chose early vacation over voting to prevent evictions - we've been at the Capitol. It's an eviction emergency. Our people need an eviction moratorium. Now,' Bush wrote on Twitter early Monday morning after spending her third night sleeping outside. 

Ocasio-Cortez joined Bush and the others on steps to protest the lack of help for those facing eviction. 

Bush also met with Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday.

'I just had a conversation with @VP Kamala Harris. I needed her to look me in my eyes and I wanted to look in hers when I asked for help to prevent our people from being evicted. Madam Vice President, let's work together to get this done. We need a federal eviction moratorium,' she tweeted.

Harris was on Capitol Hill in case she was needed to break any tie votes in the Senate. 

Activists have been sleeping on the Capitol steps to protest the eviction moratorium lapsing

Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York (center) and Cori Bush of Missouri (right) are among those protesting

More than 15 million people live in households that owe as much as $20 billion to their landlords, according to the Aspen Institute. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey. 

The speaker is putting the onus back on President Joe Biden's administration after the House failed to pass an extension. Biden asked Congress to extend the moratorium after officials decided the Supreme Court's June ruling meant the CDC couldn't unilaterally extend it.

'The purpose of the extension is to provide more time to expedite the distribution of the $46.5 billion that was allocated by Congress and that has long been transferred by the Administration to the states and localities,' Pelosi said in a letter to Democrats on Monday.

She noted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin would brief Democrats on the issue during a call on Tuesday. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday again pressed the White House to extend the eviction moratorium after lawmakers failed to act

Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri has slept on the Capitol stairs three nights in a row

Some Democrats expressed frustration that Biden asked Congress to extend the moratorium two days before it was set to expire - even though the Supreme Court ruling had come down a month before in June.

Sperling just down played that.

'The wording in the Supreme Court opinion was fairly, you know, clear that they said the CDC did not, could not grant such extension, without quote, clear and specific congressional authorization,' he said.

On Friday, House Republicans blocked passing an extension by unanimous consent. Democrats, who hold a three-seat majority in the House, didn't have the votes in their own caucus to pass it either.

Now administration officials are putting it on the states to distribute aid from COVID relief passed earlier this year more quickly and completely.

'We just need the states and localities to move quickly and effectively,' Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on Fox News Sunday.