Transcripts For CSPAN FEMA Administrator Gaynor Testifies On Coronavirus Response 20240712

We are following the attending physicians guidance on wearing face coverings at all times while not under recognition and the chair will only recognize those who are following the guidance. Today, the committee on Homeland Security is meeting for part two of our hearing to examine the National Response to the worsening coronavirus pandemic. Two weeks ago, the Committee Heard from state and local officials about how the Trump Administrations failure to respond to the pandemic has harmed their communities and our nation. We invited fema administrator peter gaynor to that hearing but he declined to attend based on white house guidance prohibiting administration witnesses from appearing before congress remotely. Guidance is that intended to undermine congressional oversight of the administration. The committee will move forward with his work today. Thecommittee also invited department of health and Human Services to participate in this hearing. Hhs refused to send a witness even though the Committee Schedule this hearing to accommodate the administrations request. That refusal is yet another example of the Trump Administrations shirking of its responsibility to answer congress and the American People on the response to covid19. Pleasedng said, we are that administrator gainer is here to respond to members questions about the pandemic, which is now claimed lives of over 140,000 americans. The number of u. S. Coronavirus cases continues to surge with 60,000 new cases just yesterday. The country also recorded more than 1000 coronavirus deaths in a single day yesterday. That was the first time in july. Nations around the world like canada, australia, japan, korea, and many in europe have managed to bring their outbreaks under control through coordinated responses, consistent messaging, and messieurs such as face covering, testing, and contact tracing. Here at home, the Trump Administrations response to the coronavirus has been an abject failure and the American People have suffered the consequences. The president s incompetence and co incoherent planned to respond to the pandemic has cost lives. Korea reported the same day as the United States. We have suffered 470 times the number of deaths they have. In many ways, we are no more prepared now to adjust the pandemic today than we were at its outset. We still have a shortage of medical supplies and equipment like masks, gowns, and gloves. Wait times for covid19 test are climbing. Most alarmingly, there is an urgent demand for icu beds in states where the virus is spinning out of control. Doctors and nurses in the greatest country on earth should not have to plead for the essentials that they need to save lives and protect their own. Just yesterday, months into the pandemic, after repeated calls for face coverings from doctors and scientists in his own administration, the president finally called on americans to wear a mask. We are hoping that this is an indication that President Trump may, at long last, be willing to experts advice of the on responding to the pandemic. We need real leadership at the federal level. Administrator gainer and his agency have a Herculean Task ahead in many ways, made all the more difficult by the president himself. Today, our hearing is not about blaming china for the Trump Administrations failure to take care of its own people. Frankly, we dont have time for such ridiculous attempts to distract from the crisis at hand. Instead, i hope to hear from administrator gainer about where we currently stand in how the administration can improve its response to the Public Health emergency. The American People are counting on us. I think it ministry to gainer and my colleagues for participating in this hearing today. The chernow recognizes the Ranking Member, the gentleman from alabama, for an Opening Statement. Thank you mister chairman. I am glad we are finally meeting in person. Our experiment with virtual hearings did not go all that well, it was marred by technical issues that cause prolonged delays on both sides of the aisle. Going forward, i hope we will continue to have these inperson hearings. Doing so improves our productivity and still takes participation by administration witnesses like mr. Gaynor. I understand your frustration with the administrations restrictions on appearing in virtual hearings, thats why i appreciate you working with fema to facilitate the inperson testimony today. As i said before, our hearts go out to those who have lost their loved ones to covid19 and those who are currently undergoing treatment. Covid19 is an unprecedented Global Pandemic that requires an unprecedented response. Unfortunately, the administrations response effort was undermined from the start as china hid the disease from the world. The Chinese Communist party hoarded lifesaving medical supplies while they encouraged foreign travel, seeding the virus across the globe. Facing an extraordinary Public Health crisis in chinas deadly coverup, the Trump Administration has responded with a whole of government response. Since march, fema has helped lead the response effort. The agency has coordinated the delivery of over 20 billion ppe to medical personnel, Emergency Responders and critical workers. It administered 56 major disaster declarations covering every state and territory. And obligated over 145 billion to support federal, state and local response. While those efforts should be commended, more hard work is ahead. A number of positive cases continue to rise and hospitals in some areas are reaching capacity. Demands for ppe and response funding from fema will continue to grow. I am interested in hearing from the administrator about what our states need, where the bottlenecks exist in supply chain and whether our domestic manufacturing capacity for ppe and supplies insufficient. As Hurricane Season heats up, i am also interested to hear femas plan to deal with the covid crisis well managing response to Major National disasters. Our country has faced outbreaks of serious disease in the past and in each case, we have marched our collective resources and ingenuity to overcome the crisis. Im confident that will be the case with covid19. Thank you mister chairman, i yield back. Other members of the committee are reminded that on the Committee Rules Opening Statement, it may be submitted for the record. As you know, most of our Committee Room is too small and that is why we are meeting here in our own Services Committee to accommodate the full committee. I thank them for allowing us to use their Committee Room. Members are also reminded that the committee will operate according to the guidelines laid out by myself and the Ranking Member and our july 8 meeting. I welcome our witness. We have with us here today the honorable peter gaynor, fema administrator. Administrative gaynor was confirmed by the senate january 14, 2020. Prior to his current role, he served as acting administrator for 10 months and was previously confirmed to serve as phoenix deputy administrator in october, 2018. He previously served as the director of rhode island Emergency Management agency. Before his Emergency Management career, administrator gaynor served in the United States marine corps for 26 years. Without objection, the witnesses full statement will be inserted in the record. As i now ask administrative gaynor to summarize his statement for five minutes. Good morning. Chairman thompson, Ranking Member rodgers and distinguished members of the committee. My name is pete gaynor, and i am fema administrator. On behalf of the men and women of fema, i would like to begin by offering my condolences to the loved ones of 142,000 americans who have lost their lives to covid19. One life lost his one life to many. Our hearts go out to all of those who have been affected by the pandemic. This has been up a trying time for our country. As the fema administrator, it has been my honor to work alongside the dedicated professionals of fema. Today, i want to acknowledge that workforce and our many partners for our commitment to the nation during this response. This response continues to be one that is locally executed, state managed and federally supported. President trump made the unprecedented decision to declare a national, nationwide emergency on march 13. Since that time, the entire team has worked tirelessly to make a positive impact and many have risked their own health and safety to do so. For the first time in american history, we have a major disaster declaration in every state, territory, in addition to columbia. Today, femas response for 114 active disasters and 97 emergencies. The magnitude of this pandemic has required us to reexamine our past practices and to keep up the risk to our staff as low as possible. All the while refusing to fail in meeting our mission. Covid19 has been a Global Crisis with most countries competing for the exact same medical supplies. Every government across the nation has been competing for the same resources, such as personal Protection Equipment, ppe. To further complicate matters, most ppe is made in asia, where the virus significantly slowed manufacturing and u. S. Law is limited authorities. During more Common National disasters, fema typically manages an abundance of resources for disasters that are andted in Geographic Scope impact. In responding to covid19, fema has met a more difficult task of managing the lack of critical medical supplies and equipment, rather than managing resources, we are managing shortages. We have worked tirelessly to find medical supplies across the globe and rapidly move them to america. We quickly prioritize resources to ensure that the highest risk of covid19 cases and deaths would not be in danger of running out of supplies and lifesaving equipment. Using the hhs Strategic National stockpile early on, it became clear that the scope and scale of this pandemic went far beyond what the stockpile was designed for. It could not be relied upon as the single solution for pandemic supplies in the United States. To address these widespread shortages, the supply chains civilization task force was Stabilization Task force was quickly assembled by fema and its federal parts. In less than 10 days, we established the gate bridge to purchase critical supplies, already owned by the largest medical distributors, with the goal of providing temporary relief until the supply chains could be stabilized. Our goal was to supplement. This cut International Shipments from 37 days by sea, to one day by air. From march 29 to july 1, we have completed over 249 flights, carrying supplies to the American Public. In addition to extraditing supplies to the United States, the federal response has focused on stabilizing lives of americans in many impactful ways. Since march 13, we provided over a . 4 billion in obligations to states for covid19 related activities, with the first one 1 billion obligating in just 11 days. Another 1. 7 billion dollars has been allocated in support to our National Guard troops, as well as the deployment of up 5300 medical professionals who have provided critical medical support in most hospitals under stress. To further bolster the medical infrastructure of our country, fema through mission assignments, u. S. Army corps of engineers, constructed care facilities and deployed 41 federal medical stations. As part of the blueprint, fema has delivered more than 41 million swabs and 32 Million Units of medium. While we continue to respond to covid19, we want to make sure that we are using all our available assets and resources to address these critical shortfalls. To do so, the federal government utilized the defense production act to increase the amount of medical equipment manufactured domestically to ensure our nations future preparedness is not overly reliant on foreign producers. This increase in domestic manufacturing will also allow fema to prepare for hurricane preparations and other National Disasters. As part of this pivot, fema recently released a Planning Guidance for 2020 Hurricane Season to help local officials best prepare for common disasters in a pandemic. The operational guidance is scalable, flexible and functions as it all has. Regardless of the challenges, fema will continue to be the bedrock of our nation to remain constant. To protect the American People before, during and after disasters. In the framework by which we accomplished this, it remains unchanged. Responses are most effective when they are locally executed, state managed and federally supported. The nation is counting on us to accomplish our mission and we do so in accordance with our core values of compassion, fairness, integrity and respect. This unprecedented response to covid19 pandemic will continue to require a whole of american effort and fema looks forward to coordinating closely with congress as we Work Together to create better lives for American People. I want to thank the committee for authorizing the resources necessary to meet the historic requirements and for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to the questions from the committee today. Thank you. I thank the witness for his testimony. I remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the witness. I will now recognize myself for questions. Mr. Gaynor, can you talk to us about why a lot of members in congress are still hearing from hospitals that they are short on ppe . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. I cannot talk to specific hospitals, but i will talk generally where we are with the pandemic. Just for context, this is a Global Pandemic. I said in my Opening Statement that every country that has covid19 disease in their country to include every governor, mayor, tribal chief in the United States, they are looking for the same exact ppe. We do not make it here in the United States. We make very little, virtually no rubber gloves in the u. S. , as an example. We are in competition still for ppe around the globe. The place we are in today is much better than we were 60 days ago, although we are not going to buy our way out of this with just money. We will have to improve the Industrial Base to make these critical items in the u. S. , so that we are not at the whim of our global competitors. We have talked to every single state director, Emergency Management director in the country and got a feel for what they have in stock in states. Its actually pretty positive. 60, 90, 120 days, states have stockpiles today. Now, they may be shortages, micro shortages across the country based on covid19 cases, increased hospitalizations and those hospitals are those frontline workers that have a shortage and they should work with local Emergency Management directors, local Public Health director and identify those to the state and obviously to us, so we can fulfill those requests. So, your testimony is that all hospital has to do to get the requisite requirement for ppe is talk to their local emergency manager . Mr. Gaynor theres many different ways to do it, thats one way. The commercial, medical grade ppe distribution is very healthy today. So if they cannot get it via their normal supply chain, the six big medical Distribution Companies in the country, if they cannot get it there, we can help. We have insights. My point is mr. Gaynor to help those hospitals or who else may have a shortage. My point is, its still a problem and, can you provide any written direction to the committee as to how you suggest they can share with their constituents how they can get access to more ppe if required . Mr. Gaynor yes sir, i want to be clear. We have a ways to go in making sure we have enough ppe. This is not as simple as just throwing in a light switch and we magically make more. We still have many months to go before we start making enough on the u. S. Supply and demand. As cases grow in the sun belt, demand goes up. If there is a hospital or a tribe or a county, city that needs ppe, contact their local emergency manager to go to the state, and obviously to us, so we can fulfill that and address that, by either a federal supply, or commercial supply. Im glad to hear that because it is still part of what most members here in their district. Moving forward, last week our nation topped 75,000 new cases of covid19 in a single day for the first time. We have 4 of the worlds population, about a quarter of all deaths in the world from covid19. Clearly, our National Response to the pandemic has been woefully inadequate. When we were, when we held part one of this hearing on july 8, the governor of illinois, mayor of tupelo, and the Public Health of texas all said that inconsistent messaging is severely hurting our ability to respond to this crisis. Does it help femas response effort when the president says things about the coronavirus that are not accurate, such as he did sunday when he claimed that the coronavirus is going to disappear . My role in the administration is to make sure that i focus on leading federal operational coordination. Making sure that all the things we need to overcome covid19, whether it is rising cases, hospitalizations and needed staff, ppe, pharmaceuticals, beds, my role is to make sure that every requests from every governor, mayor, tribal chief is filled to the best of our ability based on what we have. That is my role in fighting covid19. Thank you. But consistent messaging from all the experts say its important if we are going to get through this and over this. Let me ask you this. Has fema ever been directed by anyone at the white house to procure supplies from any source . Mr. Gaynor no, sir. What i want to put on the screen is a contract that, between fema and a contractor that fema provided us upon request. The procurement of an 95 model rp88018. And rp88020 respirators are directed by the white house. Directed by the white house. You all provided that to us. What i want you to do, if you cant explain it now, because part of the conversation we have been hearing is that agents that have been directed to do certain things and use certain contractors. I provided you with documents that you provided us. I just want you to go back and check your people to make sure that you are not saying something that is not true from anyones perspective. Mr. Gaynor i am absolutely confident on what i just said about not receiving directions from the white house. It is absolutely 100 true. That document that we provide it is really an administrative know by one of our contract offices where we got many different inputs from where we can find supplies from covid19. I received at the high point, 50 emails a day from people trying to offer me ppe with where we can buy it, all pushed into the system. I received phone calls from mayors, i received phone calls from governors about a local producer that had ppe. I received information from the Vice President and the task force where people would call up hospitals and say i know of a ppe provider and look into this, so that is a reflection of just where we got all sorts of information from everyone. I got calls from senators and congressman saying i have a person that produces ppe. Can you put that into the Contract Exchange . That is a reflection of just that. Thousands and thousands of unsolicited requests from many different people around the country, trying to be very helpful and it comes from all different directions. The gap between somebody offering a supplier, whether its true or whether and the gap between us contracting, and i said it before, is as wide as the grand canyon. Mr. Gaynor i understand, i want you to look at it, that particular information and after you have, get back to us and say, it was exactly what i said. Mr. Gaynor sir, ive looked at it. Ill tell you right now. Its exactly what i said it is. I yield back. Chair recognizes the Ranking Member. Thank you Mister Gaynor for being here. As you know, Hurricane Season began june 1 and the chairman and i represent states around the gulf coast in the Hurricane Season is a big deal for us. Are you capable of maintaining hurricane response and the covid19 response simultaneously . Mr. Gaynor we are, sir and ive stated publicly before i dont think fema has been more ready than we are today. Weve not only dealt with covid19 response, ongoing response, we have dealt with flooding in michigan. We have dealt with earthquakes in puerto rico. We dealt with tornadoes. And we are completely ready for the Hurricane Season. Early on, if you are tasked by the president to provide oregon or begin the lead for federal operation coordination, we knew we were going to be in Hurricane Season and so we drafted a plan called covid19 pandemic operation guidance for the 2020 season. This was done and issued on may 20. We did this in 21 days. We took Lessons Learned up to that time about how to integrate a response to covid19 and a Hurricane Season. We could actually use this for any hazard, so whether it is wildfires, flooding the Lessons Learned in this apply to all hazards across the country. We want to make sure that jurisdictions look at their existing plans about evacuation and sheltering and apply the lessons that youre going to need to apply that we learned in covid19. You will need more time, we will need more space, youre going to need to do more cleaning. All of those things, i was a local emergency manager in a city and a state emergency manager, youre going to go through all those plans, whether it is a hurricane, a tornado or a wildfire, weve provided some Planning Guidance across the nation which that not only the federal governors ready but our partners. It is a team effort. It all has to Work Together and of course we need our citizens to be ready for disasters also so, it is an all of community effort. Do you find those local partners being willing to participate in a cooperative manner with you . Mr. Gaynor i missed the word, sir. Do you find those local governments are cooperatives partners . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. We just came back from a road trip to the gulf coast last week. I spent a specific amount of time in baton rouge, louisiana, new orleans, gulfport, mobile , alabama, and check on local and state preparedness for the Hurricane Season and how we are doing on covid19. Many if not all of the managers i talked to, including governors, have taken these got into consideration and are making and have made preparations for Hurricane Season, to make sure that theyre completely ready, not only for a hurricane, but a hurricane on top of covid19. You know, the chair was talking about ppe and some of the shortages that we have experienced. You know, we know that china has been a source, a primary source of production in ppe and i think id like to see our country move away from that in the future but , my understanding from your response is you feel like we now , have found alternative sources that are sufficient for this, this kind of equipment, Going Forward. Is that accurate . Mr. Gaynor we, like i said, we are in a much better place than we were coming out of march and april. However, we are not out of the woods completely with ppe. Again, the majority of ppe is made offshore. China, malaysia, vietnam. And so one of our efforts early on with the supply chain control Stabilization Force was to accelerate that ppe to the United States, take preservation methods or measures to preserve ppe that we had, and to increase industrialization in the United States through use of the ppe. Dpa. Those things happening continue to happen. We are producing n95 masks in the u. S. You can produce other items, and through our partnership the federal government, d. O. D. , the l. A. , and many other partners, we are working towards that but it is not a light switch, it is more of a real staff and we have some distance to travel. Thank you. I yield back, mister chairman. The chair now recognizes other members for questions. I recognize members in order of seniority, alternating between majority and minority. Members joining the hearing via web access are reminded unmute themselves when recognized for questions and to mute themselves once they have finished speaking and to the extent practical to leave their cameras on so they may be visible to the chair. The chair now recognizes gentlelady from texas, miss jacksonlee, for five minutes. Chairman, i thank you very much for this hearing and i thank the Ranking Member for his presence here. We are at such a catastrophic crisis in this nation that however we are able to come together, mister chairman, im appreciative very much. Virtual and or in person. Americans are dying. They are dying, i dont know how many times i need to say this, they are dying. And our hearts are broken, 144,000, and the number is growing. Administrator, i do want to thank the hardworking fema employees and contractors and others. Thank you for your embedded commitment. You are a man that deals with crisis and that is your work and i think it is your passion. I would appreciate it if you give me yes or no answers because my time is limited. I come from an epicenter and i am dealing with my colleagues across the state. Congressman gonzales has indicated, if you can help them in Hidalgo County and they are short of oxygen, you can contact judge cortez and dr. Melindas. They have no oxygen, people are dying. My colleague, please contact the judge. They would like another super testing site, they have no morgues or crematoriums, people are dying. 500600 people a week are dying. In my own district of harris county, the numbers now are extreme. People are dying and it is crucial that we know that texas has almost 5000 dead. It has 58,000 cases in harris county, in houston, theyre 83,000 cases just in the last 24 hours, 784 dead. My question to you is that when the National Declaration was declared of an emergency, did you get handed a Strategic Plan for the nation dealing with testing and dealing with masks . I just need yes or no, did you get a plan handed to you from the white house . From the very first day . Yes. Mr. Gaynor no, but we had an existing let me. Mr. Gaynor i know. It deserves more than a yes or no answer. We had a plan was update in 2018 called the pandemic Crisis Action plan. That plan was updated on march 1 to work into what were seeing with covid. And i thank you very much. Mr. Gaynor so we had a plan, yes maam. You had a plan march 1. We discovered covid19 on october 2019. I dont want the hold that to you but that was testimony this committee. Mr. Gaynor the plan was written updated in 2018. Thank you. But that plan you did not get when you are handed the responsibility of supervising covid19. Despite concerns from local officials that the lack of federal testing support could cause further spread of the virus in late june, the Trump Administration confirmed it would no longer provide funding for 13 sites including sites in states like texas, which are experiencing rises in confirmed cases. Only two sites in testing have been extended until the end of july. Medical experts say the testing is diagnostic. Two questions. I am requesting that the National Guard be continued past august 31 or at least until august 31 to continue our testing sites. And then i want to understand, in your plan, did you give states the urgency of the need for stayathome orders . And as you well know, there was a White House Task force report that was hidden and kept from states in terms of members or local authorities, my local mayor did not have. And in that report, moving out to that report, indicated that certain counties were hotspots and that we should rewind back on our opening. Did fema get that report . Was there a reason why that report was kept . Should we now be rewinding in these hotspots because of that report . Mr. Gaynor yes, maam, so let me try to answer what i think all of your questions are, first on the Community Based testing sites. When we first started Community Based testing sites, we call them 1. 0, there were 41 of those across the country. Run and funded by the federal government, to really get testing started in the local community and that has morphed into version 3. 0. There are more so than 700 testing sites across the country. Most of those now accessible in places like walmart, walgreens, cvs stores, krogers, where anyone can walk in and get a test. To the original federal testing sites, it was not an issue about stopping funding, it was really about an issue of passing control and running the administration of those testing sites to states. Still running today, i think the last four in your district, i know you and i have had conversations about keeping those running because they are important to your community. We have adapted since the beginning and i think that is why we have been successful. We adapt as we go. Weve learned new things. I think testing sites, its really a testament to how we adapt to the testing need. On the National Guard extension, i think we have already had two extensions. We need another one. Mr. Gaynor the most current extension runs out on august 21, that extension is up for consideration. We spoke about, it i spoke about it with the president , Vice President and Coronavirus Task force. Theres not a week that goes by that i do not have a conversation with the governor about extending it. That will be, i believe the administration. We talked about all of that. I think in time, you will learn, we will learn, what the decision is on that. I have confidence that the National Guard continues to provide critical support to governors across the country at the high point, 40,000 guards, men and women across the country provided all sorts of support. You know the kinds of things that they do in your community, those are the kinds of things that we need as we battle covid19. The last one i believe was the stayathome orders. The federal government does not issue orders to governors, states rights. I think what we provided to governors and mayors and tribal chiefs is guidance. Here is the best cdc guidance. I have learned a lot in my role on Coronavirus Task force. I was talking to dr. Fauci the other day. Theres fundamentals that we all have to do. Wear our mask, socially distant, stay away from large crowds, dont go into bars and good hygiene. If we do those four things, we can continue to crush covid19. Again, we want to make sure that every state is different, every locality is different, locally executed, state managing federally supported. My role is to support those state governors and those local elected leaders if they have a resource deficit. The gentleladys time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana for five minutes. I thank the chairman for holding this meeting and the Ranking Member and i thank our witness for joining us today. The supply has been brought up several times by my colleagues on sides of the aisle. Become one thing that is very apparent during this pandemic is that the united on overseas,nce foreign countries, most notably china where this virus originated, to provide important medical supplies, ppe, etc. Is veryargue many of it apparent. We have to change it. As much as been done by the president S Administration to bring manufacturing work back to the United States, i think we need to take a deep look at our supply chains and bring back the capability to produce domestic products of strategic importance such as medical supplies or food security. I would argue we are not just talking about china, we have to consider transit across the pacific. We cant quickly or efficiently bring supply chains back to the United States without making the determination to do so. We have to have the courage and the will in congress to make those moves and, from the executive branch, we need action come as we have seen our President TrumpS Administration to bring manufacturing back to the United States, and end our reliance on overseas nations for medical supplies and focusing on sources that exist. Anything that can be produced regionally should be a top priority of congress. Administrator gaynor, do you agree with the premise of what i just stated regarding shifting to regional supply chains . That would include not just manufacturing in the United States proper, but using our reliable partners in the western hemisphere, especially mexico and canada through the new usmca agreement. Would you agree with that assessment . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. I think just in a more general a nationalis is security issue, ppe. We have seen how critical that is to protecting lives and minimizing suffering. So we are on a path to increased u. S. Production in the u. S. The recent cares act provided a billion dollars under title three to bring some of these resources back to the u. S. Kits,estments in reagents, n95 and ppe, prioritized pharmaceuticals, vaccine Delivery Systems and supply development are all initiatives that are underway in partnership with our dod comrades and the Defense Logistics Agency. Yes, sir. Thank you for that thorough response. Obviously we are still in the middle of this thing and those strategic steps that we need to be ready for future pandemics, that becomes increasingly clear as we continue the progress through this current challenge. My question now to you is, are agencies right now looking at what regional assets are available in north and south america, especially our usmca partners, to supplement and eventually replace our dependence on medical supplies and other strategic products that are currently being produced in china and elsewhere . Are you identifying strategic, capable locations and facilities with our reliable western hemisphere trading partners to replace the threat we have now . They can just turn the valve off, or we could have some sort of challenge that would restrict us from crossing the pacific. Are you identifying these assets now in the western hemisphere . Mr. Gaynor i cannot speak to any specifics, because its not in my current role and responsibility, but i know generally just because the conversation is going on in the administration, the supply Chain Task Force and other places that we are looking to maximize onshore production of ppe and any other safe and resilient partner we can. Again, i would have to defer to the Defense Logistics Agency or dod about how far they have gotten on some of those initiatives. You are part of the administration that has taken historic actions in response to this pandemic. That means you are in the room. Although this may not be the specific role that you play, according to your job description, do you have a sense from the executive that we are looking beyond the scope that we have been restricted to by previouS Administrations . Let us not focus on the Obama Administration or the bush administration. This reliance on foreign production of important and strategic products has happened over the course of decades. President trump inherited that. It has been changed greatly now in response to this current threat. Would you generally agree with that . Answer that question, and i yield. Mr. Gaynor yes sir. I think generally we are looking under every rock, turning over every way we can bring more production to the u. S. , have better partners with more reliant streams of ppe or other medical supplies critical to the health and safety of the United States. Gentlemens time has expired. Thank you for your appearance today. I yield. Thank you very much. Chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana for five minutes. Gaynor, let me ask does fema have any role in procuring testing . Mr. Gaynor yes sir. The fema role is to provide just to step back, the administration provided a testing blueprint to governors so they could build a Testing Initiative project regime based on the needs of their unique states. Our role has been to supply the materials so they can conduct their tests. The two things that we have been doing since may is providing swabs and transport media to states. In my Opening Statement, we have shipped 42 million swabs and about 32 million what are you shipping test gets but are you shipping test kits . Mr. Gaynor no. Fema is not shipping test kits. They come from the commercial sector. In retrospect, would it have been a wise decision to take the test offered by the World Health Organization when this pandemic first started . Mr. Gaynor i would defer. I have many great partners. The short answer is we could use more tests right now . We have done 50 million tests. Thats not my question. Can we use more tests right now . Mr. Gaynor i think we have enough testing platforms in the u. S. Lets start over. Now as theing right fema administrator that the u. S. Has enough tests . Mr. Gaynor Testing Capacity is really the challenge of maximizing that capacity. I will go to another subject. We want students back in school, correct . Mr. Gaynor yes sir. The president has declared a disaster. Through public assistance, which is run by fema, are you all going to include reimbursement for protective measures for School Districts, such as masks for children . Mr. Gaynor yes sir. We have been looking at our authorities under the stafford act, what we can buy under the emergency protective measures. I think one of the things that the administration wants to be thoughtful about is, through many supplementals, like the cares act, through the stafford act, how can you best maximize those Funding Resources . I think when you look at the funding that has been provided by congress to schools, its pretty significant. I think there is enough money out there that governors and mayors can use that money to do those things that you talked about before they come to fema. It does not have to fit into our authority. Thats not true. I mean, i am from new orleans, i am familiar with project worksheets, im familiar with public assistance, im familiar with all of those things. Protective measures always fall within the stafford act and fema when you are talking about public assistance. Its fine to say, well, we think they have money in other places, but normally, protective measures such as thermometers, shields and all of those things would and should be. We have the administration saying go back to school, but we are not providing the School Districts or others with the funding. Now the heroes act that provides so much funding for Public Schools is wasting away in the senate. Now, we are not going to approve public assistance eligibility for masks. Is that what im hearing . Mr. Gaynor what im saying is that there are 17 different funding streams in supplementals that are specifically aimed at schools and public education. I am not talking about 17, im talking about you. I am talking about fema and public assistance eligibility. Mr. Gaynor i will go back. What is most effective . I am just asking if you have made a decision. Mr. Gaynor there are other alternatives so you have not made a decision. So fema is not going to provide eligibility for masks . That is what i am hearing. If that is the case, say no and we can move on. Mr. Gaynor what i have learned in this business is never say never. We are looking at other authorities that have other money put into this lets move on to one last thing. Ability to pays half of things . I have a letter from a Sanitation Company whose guys are on the back of the trucks, increased costs for the cities and dumping. Would cities be able to apply for eligibility under public assistance to pay increased costs for dumping and sanitation and hazard pay for sanitation workers . Mr. Gaynor i would have to go back and look at the rules. I couldnt tell you whether it is eligible or ineligible. I will followup with that specific item. Thank you and i yield back. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from arizona for five minutes. First, i want to say i think it is mildly amusing that after your Opening Statement you bashed the president and then at the end of the statement, you said this is not about bashing the administration or trump. I do not think any of us really believe that. But, in any case, the next thing i want to say is that in my district, my staff checks on a weekly basis with all of our hospitals and Congressional District data in arizona and they all told me they have enough ppe. Also, i want to address the things about the schools. We voted for relief for the schools. We gave billions of dollars to the schools to deal with coronavirus. In fact, 850 million went to arizona alone, and that was to tablets,masks, whatever they needed for coronavirus. Next, i want to thank you, mr. Administrator for having a regional people get on fema Conference Calls with me, because early on in arizona, everyone was worried about having enough masks, enough ventilators, everything, and your regional people would get on Conference Calls with me, the hospitals in my district, the Arizona Department of Emergency Management and the Arizona Department of Health Services and they would directly answer questions to the hospitals. So i thought it was very helpful and please pass on to them that i think they did a good job. Also, i want to address about giving money to states and cities for this. We have given billions of dollars to states and cities to deal with coronavirus, certainly what was mentioned by mr. Richmond could be used for that. My next question, mr. Gaynor, is about Nursing Homes. I have read that i am just going to read it. Fema has shipped deliveries of medical supplies to Nursing Homes to 53 states and territories. Fema coordinated two shipments totaling a 14 day supply of personal protective equipment to all 15,400 medicaid and medicare certified Nursing Homes. I also want to say that i join dr. Ben carson, who personally came to arizona to one of the nursing home facilities in my district, so i appreciate that the administration did that. Tell me, Nursing Homes, usually that term is not used in the industry. Does that mean skilled Nursing Homes or does that include assisted living homes, or what does that include . Mr. Gaynor the 15,400 are the 15,400 registered Nursing Homes with cms, medicare, medicaid. So i am not sure there may be different categories in that and administrator the to get the details on that. Thank you. Mr. Administrator, the last one, i know youve done a lot of work, fema has, with the Navajo Nation in arizona and in other states. Can you expand on what fema has done or is doing with the Navajo Nation in arizona . Mr. Gaynor thank you for recognizing my region. You have one of the finest regional administrators assigned to you out there. I would like to give him a shout out. We have been working with the Navajo Nation from the beginning. We have provided almost 85 Million Dollars in funding together, about 5 million for fema and about 80 million from other sources. We provided ventilators, we provided surge capacity, we provided medical staff, both dod and hhs, and Logistics Support to make sure that community can respond to covid19. We continue to be out there. We will stand strong with them until we put covid19 in the rearview mirror. I want to say thank you to you and your staff and i yield back. Chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey for five minutes. Chairman and mr. Ranking member. It is an honor and privilege to be here. I would just like to start out with responding to the gentlelady from arizonas comments. Is to no ones pleasure to have to bash the administration, but i see that that is not necessary in arizona. We have to be mindful that we are here as oversight obligation duties t of our just like in the Obama Administration, if there was need for criticism and bashing, we did it. I dont think any administration should be above it. We are just glad to hear that there are states that are getting support, great support from thiS Administration, new jersey, and based on the comments from the gentlelady from texas and the gentleman from louisiana, our states have been lacking. So i guess we are not in favor with the administration. I guess who your friends are is how this is going to work during this pandemic. Mr. Administrator, with reference to going back to school, do you feel that we have the capacity right now to keep students, teachers, bus drivers, administrators, anyone involved in the school day, safe at this point . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. Again, no two states are equal. No two cities are equal, nor counties or tribes, and so there is lots of guidance provided by cdc and others about what does a safe environment look like. I think governors have to assess their risk about going back to school. Some states, in new england, for example, are in pretty good shape. Other states in the sun belt see a rise in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. They will have to assess that risk and make the best decision for their constituents. I think what the administration has done is provide guidelines so we enable and empower governors and mayors to make really good decisions for their constituents. I hear thek message you are sending out, but it is not necessarily the same message that comes out of the white house. What can we do to coordinate the message so people across the nation can be getting the same message and the same guidelines . You say one thing and then the white house comes out with totally the opposite. I mean, i know you dont have very much control of that, but dont you think if there was a coherent, solid message from everyone across the board, that we would be in a better position . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. I think from my position on the white house Coronavirus Task force, i meet most every day with the Task Force Members who include the Vice President about a number of Different Things, including messaging, messaging on ppe, what are the facts and what is the narrative . We are very thoughtful about not just creating a narrative and finding the facts. We are trying to find the facts and create a narrative based on those facts, and what i just stated about going back to school is what i assumed from being in the presence of the task force, whether it is dr. Others, ir. Birx or think the message we are all sending is the same. And one last question. With the rise in cases in texas and other states, why would fema be closing testing sites, as you see an increase in the need for those sites . It doesnt make sense to me that , as a state is escalating, you are pulling out. At did it in new jersey buting a leveling off time, you left new jersey. They are going through in houston and in other communities, how do you justify closing sites . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir, and so again, facts and narrative. The facts are when we first started testing United States back in march, we had 41 sites, 41 federally run sites. In some cases, we closed sites because they were not needed anymore. In some cases, we moved sites because where we were testing was not the place to be testing at, so we moved them. In most cases we transferred responsibility of testing sites from the federal government to the states so they could run their own Testing Programs. Again, locally executed, state managed, federally supported. Today, we have 750, more than 750 test sites across the country. So it is not a single point in time. Weve been flexible and adaptive and innovative as we move along. Testing will probably change over the next weeks and months to Something Different, more appropriate based on what we are seeing with cases and hospitalizations. This is not a static problem, this is a dynamic problem and i think testing is reflected in that. Thank you. I yield back. Chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania for five minutes. Thank you chairman thompson and Ranking Member rodgers. Thank you for being here today and for sharing your insights on Emergency Response to covid19. Truly a Novel Coronavirus introduced from china to the world and here then in america. This virus has challenged us on many different levels. Thank you and your team for ramping up what has been an incredible response. In face of the ongoing needs of personal protective equipment, which you outlined for us, such as masks, gowns, gloves, do you agree that bringing protection home to america, and by that, i mean bringing the production of the masks, the gowns, and the gloves home, will allow us to better respond and replenish supplies . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. I said it before, it is a National Security issue. This is my own point of view that ppe, lifesaving equipment, is just as important as building an aircraft carrier. We need to have that capacity here in the United States. We cannot rely on peer competitors to manage our destiny. We need to take hold of it and we need to bring it back to america and build those things that are important to the nation. Administrator gaynor, in face of so many of these ppe supplies coming from china, would you again agree that bringing these production lines onshore to america would allow us not to be beholden to the Chinese Communist party . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. I think my previous statement stands. It is in our best interest. Do you feel that the defense production act has allowed fema to better perform your duties . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. We have used the dpa 14 times. We continue to use it for a variety of challenges that we see. Again, it is not as easy as flipping the switch and moving from making toasters one day to making vents the next day. There is thoughtful consideration about using dpa. One of our initial beliefs was we wanted to do no harm to the system, make sure we understood if we did this, what are going to be the unforeseen consequences . We used it deliberately, precisely to make sure that we got what we needed at the right amount of time. I think the production of ventilators is an excellent example of how the administration used dpa to save lives and minimize suffering. You addressed National Security and safety. Do you feel that bringing safely home the production of medicines, both prescription and over the counter medicines, vaccine production, and therapeutics, personal Protection Equipment that we have discussed, are all necessary components for an effective National Security and safety of all of our citizens . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. And i want to thank congress for billion to the department of defense to do all those things. How to become more resilient by bringing some of those things back home. Thank, you administrator gaynor, for being here today to addressing our questions and for working hard as we fight this Novel Coronavirus. Again, thank, you and i yield the remainder of my time. Thank you. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from new york for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. When we held part one of this hearing, Governor Pritzker of illinois noted that project airbridge, quoting him, was an utter and complete failure in his state of illinois. I think this was in part because project airbridge in the medical supply companies that you at fema have partnered with on this project are moving supplies from overseas to existing customers instead of distributing those supplies by need. It is my understanding that project airbridge has operated 249 flights. What percentage of the National Need for ppe was supplied by the airbridge project . Mr. Gaynor thank you for giving the opportunity to once again clarify. I think the governor of illinois is misinformed about the purpose of airbridge, and if hes calling it a failure, i will just say that we shipped to his state of illinois 1 million face shields, 841 million gloves, 60 million gowns, nearly 12 million n95 masks and nearly 45 million masks. So if it was a failure, then i guess thats a failure. Mr. Gaynor, if i can interrupt you there for a second. Im asking specifically about air bridge. I do not know if you saw there was a recent report back in may from the Washington Post that reported overall that project air bridge flights had distributed 760,000 n95 masks, which is far fewer than the 85 million and 95 masks procured through the federal relief effort. I want the numbers that you use, specific to the air bridge project, not other conventional federal relief efforts. Mr. Gaynor you brought up Governor Pritzker, so i want to set the record about what is fact and what is an uninformed narrative. Effort to was our accelerate ppe from the globe to the u. S. We partnered with the six biggest commercial medical grade distributors in the country. Companies like mckesson and cardinal and others, to partner with them to bring this ppe to the United States. Typically, it takes 37 days to put ppe on a container ship and l. A. And wenghai to did this in one day with an air bridge flight. Rep. Rice let me stop you there. I understand it sped up the time it took to get here. If it is not going where it needs to go, for instance, Nursing Homes dont have previous relationships necessarily with medical supply companies, and it is my understanding that once the ppe got here, it was basically left up to the medical distributors to decide where it was going to go. There was a requirement that it go in order to justify the subsidized, the cost of the flight, it had to go to states with the most need but that is not how it happened because they prioritized people with whom they had prior relationships. If it is not going where it needed to go, something is wrong. Mr. Gaynor i want to be respectful but that is not how it worked. Our agreement, our written legal agreement with the big six manufacturers and distributors was 50 of all the ppe that we moved via air bridge to include what commercial distributors brought in on their own, 50 percent of that was directed to hotspots. Those hotspots were prioritized birx witha, hhs, dr. Her daily data to make sure we were aiming lifesaving ppe to the places that need it the most. The commercial companies did not , could not pick and choose where they sent it. A certain percentage, yes, they could use a certain percentage to share with customers but for the majority of that ppe, they directed it because we prioritized it, to where it was needed the most. We did that every 96 hours to make sure we understood where those places that needed it the most and directed those distributors to do it. One of the great things about air bridge and our supply chain control tower, we can see down to exactly, into all the six commercial distributors, what is on the shelf, what was ordered, what zip code and hospital it went to. We supplied that data every week, we still do it, to governors to show all the ppe, whether it is donated, there is air bridge or whether it is government, it all goes to these exact places. Governors have complete transparency on the use and distribution of ppe, whether it is air bridge or through commercial side. Rep. Rice i think it is important to note, because this was raised before, i dont know if you answered this or it was a question posed to you about how President Trump inherited the stockpile. The fact is he sat on the stockpile. He should have been aware it was not sufficient, for three years. He cant blame anyone other than his own administration for not heeding the warnings that a pandemic was coming and not making sure that we had the supplies we needed of ppe well before march of this year, which is why project air bridge even had to be conceived. Thank you for your testimony today and mr. Chairman, i yield back. Chair recognizes the gentleman from north carolina, mr. Bishop, for five minutes. Gaynor, you mr. Have been in Emergency Management for a long time. Is the morale of the American People important has asked us fully to successfully responding to the pandemic . Mr. Gaynor is the morale important . I believe so, yes sir. Rep. Bishop do appeals to panic and recrimination advance your mission or make it more difficult . Mr. Gaynor panic doesnt help in any disaster, sir, whether it is hurricane or whether it is covid19 response. Rep. Bishop if repeals appeals to panic are fed by misinformation and distortions, that is doubly so . Mr. Gaynor it makes the job harder. Not only are you trying to deliver solutions to those most in need, you are trying to fight a narrative that sometimes is untrue. Rep. Bishop simplistic chris criticisms, do those help you or retarded the effort were making . Mr. Gaynor i would have to hear the how simple interpretation of what we are talking about is, but i think data, solid facts based on , that is what we do at fema, data driven decisions based on what we know, and im not saying we know everything but within our limits of notion knowing, we make data driven decisions and it is our goal to make sure truth ands, drive the the narrative. Rep. Bishop you testified in response to mr. Richardson, mr. Richmans question that we have adequate testing and i think, im not sure i am recapitulating your statement perfectly but we need to maximize the utilization of it i think, Something Like that. If you recall what i am talking about, would you address that and elaborate . Mr. Gaynor early on, when the testing, before the testing blueprint was published, because i was member of the white house Coronavirus Task force, we wanted to make sure we knew of all where all the testing platforms are in the u. S. , from doctors offices to universities to colleges to veterinarians, who had a platform that could do testing. Through a lot of hard work by a lot of talented people, we identified all of the testing platforms around the country, and gave those to governors. Our goal is to enable governors to devise a Testing Program that fit their state and their needs. Not every state is equal. Cases arent equal. Hospitalizations arent equal. I see you use and ventilators arent equal. Each state had its own unique demands on testing. Now, it has changed. We focus on new england and new york and new jersey a couple months ago and now we are looking at the sunbelt. I am not going to say that testing is not stressed in those , in the sunbelt because it is, to we provide resources states to make sure they have , and i thinkthat it was announced a couple days ago that the administration is purchasing testing machines for every single nursing home in the country, 15,400 testing machines to make sure we take care of our most vulnerable. So again, this is a dynamic situation. We adapt as we go. We learn as we go. Orwe had a shortfall mistake, we corrected. Emergency management and crisis and this historic covid19 response, no one has done this before. We learn as we go. I have 20,000 dedicated employees that work hard every day. There are 40 other agencies that are in support of fema and hhs as we battle covid. Tens of thousands of dedicated employees out there doing the best thing and if we fall little short, we will pick up, we will adjust and make it better the next iteration. That is how it works. Emergency rent management is not a perfect game. There will be mistakes made, but we learn from them and we adapt and overcome and we will be successful. Rep. Bishop in testimony earlier, Governor Pritzker insisted the administration used the defense production act, it would have been magic and we could have resolved all the proud all of the problems. Is that true or false . Mr. Gaynor i believe it is false. Let me give you an example. I talked about doing no harm. If you remember, there was a large demand, there still is today, but a large demand for n95 masks. When you ask the producers to make more, we did it. Whether they make them in the u. S. Or china or somewhere else, they did it area the material for n95 masks is the same material for grounds, so the result of making more masks is you dont have enough material for gowns. You have to be thoughtful about how you run the levers on industry. It is not simple, we will turn a switch and tomorrow it is n95 masks. We want to be thoughtful about it and we want to make sure we do no harm to a system that in some cases, when it is medical grade ppe, it is under stress. We use the dpa deliberately. We use it precisely, and we have Great Success stories, like ventilators, to show for it. Rep. Bishop time has expired. Thank you very much. Your testimony to this committee is that we use the defense production act in a timely manner. Im not sure i used the word timely. I said we use the defense production act when we understood when and how to use it. Again, what i said before, do no harm. So just to radically use it from day one, you dont know what the consequences are downstream. The conversation im saying mr. Gaynor if you do this, this other thing will suffer, those conversations were going on with the administration, with the task force, with fema and hhs and dod to understand if you do that, you may get negative results on this. So when we understood that we will use dpa for the best result, we executed. So your testimony is that when the defense production act was used, it was used in a timely manner . Mr. Gaynor those are your words, mr. Chairman. I just explained im asking you, in the execution of the defense production act, was it used in a timely manner . Mr. Gaynor from my point of view we used it when we understood the entire environment about the pros and cons of executing the dpa, whether it was title i, title iii, title vii, we wanted to understand that. Rep. Thompson did you do all of that . Mr. Gaynor my answer stands. Rep. Thompson ok. The chair recognizes the gentleman from california. Rep. Correa thank you for holding this hearing. Failing in our response to covid19. Let me if i can talk a little bit about main street in my district, where today, almost on an everyday basis, i begin to hear the names of the individuals that i know that are dying. I live in a hotspot, santa ana, anaheim, california. In the world,lace disneyland, has been closed. Lots of unemployment, lots of people suffering, lots of people dying. Mr. Gaynor, thank you for being here today. You mentioned you are part of the Covid Task Force . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. Rep. Correa would you say we are still learning about covid19, we dont have enough data . Mr. Gaynor we are learning. I think one of the members mentioned it is a novel disease. So we are still learning. Can we agree on some basic things like social distancing works, face masks work . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. Rep. Correa i am hoping we have a National Message that tells people that these basic things, the little that we know, face masks work. The confusion in my district, folks dying, the Horror Stories i hear of people out there with no face masks at social events is terrible. You mentioned do no harm. You mentioned watch out for unforeseen consequences. And you also mentioned that we are still importing almost all of our ppe. You are on the Planning Task force for covid19. Can you tell me, when can we expect to be functionally supplied in this country . Why didnt we manufacture for our own nations defense, ppe him a enough ppe . My wife is a doctor. She came home two weeks ago and said, guess what happened last night . Somebody stole my protective equipment. She delivers babies. She is around positive covid19 patients on a daily basis. Havecan we, sir, expect to america manufacture ppe for our population . When can we be there, sir . Mr. Gaynor let me go back i want to help you. Rep. Correa it is yes or no. Do they help, yes or no . To ynor i would like rep. Correa i only have two minutes. Mr. Gaynor wearing a mask, the message i think we all want is, the masks really dont protect me. The mask, me wearing the mask protect you. Rep. Correa does wearing a mask help in the covid environment . Mr. Gaynor yes. Rep. Correa social distancing works . Mr. Gaynor yes. Hygiene, staying out of crowded places. Rep. Correa as a representative, my constituents, i want to know. You are on the Planning Commission for covid19. When can we expect to have enough manufacturing of covid19 protection gear in this country . Mr. Gaynor i cant give you a date. It is not a light switch rep. Correa can you speculate . Mr. Gaynor i want to answer your question. We have been working on increasing Industrial Production of ppe for months now. It is happening. Rep. Correa i will reclaim my time. Thislook at postcovid19, is like post9 11. We are never going to go back to being the way we were before. We may have covid 20 ahead of us. Im hoping covid19 teaches us that lesson that we forgot, that we should have learned from ebola and zika. We are asleep at the wheel. This isnt blaming anybody but im trying to figure out, you are in the hierarchy at the top levels of planning for the next pandemic. Folks around the world have figured out a new way to hit us and heaven help us if somebody drops a dirty biological, a viral bomb on our country. We are not ready and that is what you are telling me right now, mr. Gaynor. You dont know when we will have yougaynor i am not telling that rep. Correa if china decides not to export ppe, where are we going to be . Please. Sir, inor first of all, said in response to a member that fema has never been more than ready. I have said repeatedly, this is not just about throwing a bunch of money at ppe and having it all tomorrow where we wanted, when we wanted in the u. S. It takes time. Rep. Correa im reclaiming my time. You aynor i want to ask question rep. Correa i look forward to getting an answer your question. I am out of time. I just want to say this. I do believe that covid19 is about as attuned to this new environment in society. We need to plan for these attacks by Mother Nature or the bad guys in the future. You are in fema, and i hope and pray to god that you are moving ahead to plan to protect this great country. Mr. Gaynor covid19 is not an attack, it is a new disease we have never seen before. Rep. Correa it is Mother Nature. Mr. Gaynor it is not zika and ebola. That is apples and oranges. Tens of thousands of dedicated rep. Correa i look forward to hearing your mr. Gaynor we will overcome it. I cant give you a date but i can guarantee we will have enough ppe made in america for the next crisis. When do you guarantee to have ppe ready . Mr. Gaynor i said i couldnt give you a date, but i have no doubt i have no doubt of the power of the american resolve. No doubt whatsoever. Rep. Thompson the chair recognizes the gentlelady from new mexico. Turner a small thank you for being here today, for all of your work in trying to spread the step of covid19. In preparation for this hearing we heard perspectives from the gao, from a former fema administrator and state officials. Something i repeatedly heard was that because the administration wasnt able to provide a National Strategy to procure medical supplies, states were less on the left on their own to buy the supplies, and that pitted states against each other. I appreciate you recognizing that, the same challenge when it comes to states having to compete to purchase. The problem for new mexico, these bidding wars, the states are forced into, give rural states like new mexico a disadvantage. You testified that your role is to help governments if they have a deficit. You testified you support a National Strategy for increasing Domestic Production of ppe and medical equipment and i deeply appreciate that. Do you also believe the administration should implement a National Procurement strategy to address this National Emergency and make it easier for states to get ppe and medical supplies . Mr. Gaynor yes maam. , we work weck were in global competition for ppe. 150 more countries, every governor, mayor, tribal chief, looking for the same exact thing, global competition. Where it was made was china, where manufacturing was ramped down because they were dealing with covid19 themselves. So we have a ways to go to make sure that we met that we have a reliable Industrial Base that can make ppe in america, not just while we respond to covid. This is the trick. We need to do that and we need to support those industries for the for the long haul. Not just for a couple years. We need to support them so they can stay in business and be competitive and we can get ppe when we want. So we have to do that. We have to rep. Torres small i have other questions, i want to also make sure i get task those. I appreciate you recognizing the National Strategy for procurement as well as getting more producers domestically. I am focused on what we do moving forward. I appreciate your comment that Emergency Management isnt about perfection, it is about getting better. Moving forward, having that National Procurement strategy as we see increasing cases again be very helpful to Rural Communities like the ones i represent. Tolso wanted to shift nonfederal cost share for tribes. I appreciate you recognizing the work fema has done in spearheading the work fema has done to support tribes. New mexico is home to several tribes and pueblos and they have been disproportionately affected by covid19. As of may, American Indians composed 57 of covid19 cases although American Indians only account for 9 of the state population area new mexico is not alone. In wyoming, American Indians account for 30 of the cases despite being 2 of the population and in arizona, the numbers are 11 compared to 4 of the population. Thank you so much for your actions on serving tribal governments. Many tribal governments requested a waiver of femas 25 nonfederal cost share. Are you aware of those requests . I certainly understand that. Given the disproportionate impact on native american and sovereign governments, have you recommended an increase in the current reimbursement level for tribal Pandemic Response efforts . Mr. Gaynor we have not although we have had conversations with the administration omb. One of the things that we are trying to be concerned about is the other funding that is out there. I mentioned it before, i forget what the topic was but i think it was schools, there is lots of funding out there that in this case a tribe could use that has more leverage rep. Torres small i want to reclaim my time. For the american sovereign governments there was an incredible delay in getting the money that was out there from the cares act. There was an incredible delay in getting the money for previous funding streams from the compromise in the earlier legislation. Now, they are being pushed spend that money very quickly before the end of this year. So there isnt money out there elsewhere. I hope you will reconsider reducing that share. Mr. Gaynor it is under consideration. The president had the final authority to approve it, whether it is something less than 75, 25 but we are in active conversations with both the administration about how we ask to keep that. We are still in response, and when does, if you are familiar with how a disaster works, there is the beginning and the end of an incident. Those considerations have to be taken into consideration so there is not an end date to this. We want be thoughtful and meaningful about how we get to an answer. Rep. Torres small i yield my time. Rep. Thompson the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. Rep. J. Rose i want to talk about a comment you made earlier where you noted lab capacity is at sufficient levels. Mi correctly phrasing what you said . Think nationally, there is capacity. I think based on where a certain jurisdiction is nation, ifacross the you take into account lab equipment, the availability of reagents, as a nation we have enough infrastructure to test. It is just a matter of where the testing is happening, correct . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. The doctor is the testing expert. Rep. Rose based on that preposition, across the nation, what does our capacity allow for us to test . Mr. Gaynor i would have to defer rep. Rose but you mr. Gaynor we are testing it hundred thousand per day. Rep. Rose i would argue we need much more on a daily basis. So the numbers are great, especially when you say 50 million, that looks like, while, that is not enough. That is not enough. You need to test 20 Million People a day in this country. When you come before us and say that the capacity is enough, but when i ask you what the capacity allows for us to test, and you say i dont know, it is difficult to continue the conversation. Because i want to talk to you about, if the capacity is enough, how do we divert tests from one part of the country to another . I want to talk about swabs and the fact that we dont have enough swabs and they are glorified qtips and this is the greatest country in the world and why dont we have enough swabs . My hope is that you can take our questions seriously. If you tell us we have enough infrastructure in this country, enough Laboratory Equipment and enough reagents, i want to know how much would that let us test . Mr. Gaynor again, i am not inter in charge of testing. I would defer the details of testing numbers of platforms and all of that to the doctor. Generally, there is Testing Capacity, it is stressed in locations that have increasing cases and hospitalizations. There is no doubt about it. We have been chipping, there is not a shortage of swabs. There is not a shortage of media. Rep. Rose so what is the problem . If what you are saying is that we only have particular hotspots in this country where there is not enough testing, whereas in other places there is more than enough swabs and infrastructure, what is the problem . What arent we doing well enough as a country . Mr. Gaynor like i said in the beginning, we learn as we go and we started out with 41 testing sites and now we have 250. As the disease moves from an epicenter like new york and new jersey to now, where it is different across the sun belt, in virtually every county, it is different. We will adapt as we go. One of the ways we are adapting thehs and dr. And doctor, another initiative is to purchase Rapid Testing for 15,400 certified rep. Rose those are good things mr. Gaynor we learn and adapt rep. Rose but you can see from our perspective how difficult it is to get a specific answer. What should our goal be as a country . How many tests should we be doing every day . Mr. Gaynor im not a medical doctor. I would defer to the medical doctor on those things. Our goal is to save lives and minimize suffering. That is our goal. Rep. Rose you are telling me at your disposal, you dont have a National Target for testing . Mr. Gaynor im saying i am not in charge of national testing. The doctor from hhs is. Toefully, you can get him explain in detail about the testing strategy. I know what our role at fema is about supplying material like swabs and media to governors to run their very unique testing rep. Rose you are saying we have enough swabs . Mr. Gaynor yes. We shipped 42 million swabs in less than three months and we shipped 32 million media in three months. We can do more than that. Rep. Rose how many more can you do . Mr. Gaynor it depends on the demand. How many more can we do . Millions more. Rep. Rose 100 million . Do you have a number . What is our capacity for swab production right now . Mr. Gaynor i would have to defer to hhs who runs the Testing Program. Rep. Rose so for all the testing issues, go to hhs . Is that the point you are making . Mr. Gaynor other than what role is to, their shipping swabs and medias to states so governors can run Testing Programs. Rep. Rose i asked how many swabs we can ship. Mr. Gaynor i know how many we have shipped. Rep. Rose how many could we . That is a basic number. Mr. Gaynor i would have to go to the supply rep. Rose it is an acceptable response for you to say you will get back to us. What i am not ok with is the hot potato. Im trying to ask you mr. Gaynor it is a matter of, that is not my role, testing. It is hhss role. Im telling you the way it is. Rep. Rose i understand my time is up, but to review the conversation, you said hhs rep. Thompson the question is answered. Hold on. Mr. Gaynor mr. Chairman, this is the third member of the democratic majority that has exceeded by some distance their time and questioning and persisting in asking questions after their time has expired. Not only has the witness rep. Thompson i have been very tolerant with every person who asks questions and i plan to continue. The gentleman from new york mr. Gaynor mr. Bishop, thank you for your diligence. Rep. Thompson let me indicate for the record, mr. Rose, we invited hhs to be a part of this Committee Hearing so we wouldnt have the absence of information for testimony. The chair recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. Carico. To start byi want saying thank you. This has been a once in a century pandemic that has hit this country, and there has been mistakes made, there is no question. Before we start pointing fingers i want to say thank you because we have done so much to try to get it right. It is not easy, and there are mistakes. There is no question about it. I can tell you some bright spots. In my district, a plastics manufacturer shut down the factory in one of six locations and is converting it to a test manufacturing facility. By the end of the month he will be producing one million tests per month. That is happening all over the country. We are responding to something that, and i credit what you are saying, it is a moving target. Things are changing quickly. Up until recently we thought once you tested positive for covid, you have the antibodies, you are ok. Now we find out the antibodies might not be lasting. We couldnt foresee that. There have been mistakes, clearly fema made mistakes, everybody has. Clearly, we have. The bottom line is, i want to say thank you to the men and women on the front lines, like my son who is running a Testing Center for the National Guard, who put his life on the line every day, his kids life on the line every day, and the fema people trying to do the right thing on the front lines. Thank you to everyone in the United States, everybody, who has done their job and is trying to fight this awful pandemic. I know nurses who have given up their jobs and careers and walked into Nursing Homes that have 150 positive patients and volunteered to go in there. There are many Great American stories out there. I would like to pause for a second and emphasis emphasize those Great Stories because that is what makes america great. Can we get better . No question about it. Lets keep it balanced. I want to take a step back, and im sorry i got here late, i dont know if this has been answered but can you give me the status of the air bridge . Is it still going on . Are there flights coming in . What is going on with that . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. To go back and thank you for saying there is success but i would like to say there are many more successes than there are mistakes or shortfalls. I want to be on the record. Rep. Katko i know there are oversights and i commend my colleague from new york for probing, but the bottom line is, lets keep it balanced. We have done a tremendous job under unbelievable circumstances. No one could have foreseen what has happened here. All the frontline workers, thank you. Mr. Gaynor thank you, sir. Air bridge concluded with 240 nine flights around the first of july. Froming back supplies china and other places in the United States. This was again, air bridge is away to speed a way to speed and accelerate those Critical Resources to frontline workers , protect minimize lives and minimize suffering. Air bridge has been sunsetted and that time we ran air bridge has allowed manufacturing overseas to catch up, to get greater quantities on shipping , thatner ships, so that typical mode of transportation precovid on container ships is now more intact and frequent and has allowed commercial producers to distribute more ppe across the country. Rep. Katko Going Forward, i want to ask you, what do you think we should be concentrating on to assist you in doing your job . What are some of the things that havent been done yet the we could consider in the next package . Mr. Gaynor i want to thank congress, specifically for funding the Disaster Relief fund. Fundhas allowed fema to staffing, alternate care sites come all those kinds of things that governors and mayors need. So i thank you for fully funding that. Femank the challenge for right now, especially with the outbreak in the sunbelt, is making sure we have adequate staffing. I took a tour of the gulf coast last week and the demand for ppe , we didnt hear that. The demand for ventilators, we didnt hear that. The demand for alternate care sites or beds, we havent heard that yet but the demand is really for medical professionals in hospitals to kind of backfill those kinds of needs from 50 of all the cases now are florida, texas, california, and arizona. That is our focus, and so getting volunteers from other parts of the country to go down and help would be helpful to us to increase bandwidth. Medical doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, they are in high demand and low density. You have to be careful about where you get them from. In some cases, you would say, activate the National Guard or activate the reserves, but those doctors that are in the reserves are doctors and hospitals today. So there is a delicate balance we are trying to maintain, but right now, our concern is making sure we have enough medical professionals in those four states to deal with rising cases and hospitalizations. Rep. Katko you mentioned Disaster Relief. Last time i heard, it was a while ago, i know it is wellfunded. At least 75 million. Where are we at with the funding . Mr. Gaynor congress appropriated about 45 billion in extra, which is in the beginning of the response, so about 80 billion. We spent about 80 billion that has been obligated, but there is more to come. And again, expenditures lag because rep. Katko and that has to be used in case there is a hurricane. Mr. Gaynor correct. It is for Natural Disaster response, whether it is a hurricane or a tornado or flooding, it is for covid, and it funds recovery across the country. As far back as katrina, that fund is used for that. Rep. Katko thank you. I yield back. Rep. Thompson let the record reflect you were one minute, 30 seconds over. Rep. Katko one minute, 29 seconds. , on now. Callthompson i did not time. Rep. Katko thank you. Rep. Thompson we try to make this work. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from illinois. Rep. Underwood mr. Gaynor, thank you for testifying on the administrations response to the pandemic. As a former Senior Advisor at hhs i know a successful response to a global Health Crisis of requires a scale whole government response with clearly defined leadership. I would like to get a better understanding of how thiS Administration approaches that. Yes or no, is it your understanding that fema as of with leadingged the operational coordination for the federal interagency response to this pandemic . Mr. Gaynor yes, maam. We are leading the coordination for the response. Rep. Underwood with fema leading the federal response, you report directly to the president on coronavirus matters . Mr. Gaynor can you say that again . Rep. Underwood with fema leading the response, do you report directly to the president for coronavirus matters . Mr. Gaynor yes, maam. Both the president and the Coronavirus Task force and the Vice President. Rep. Underwood according to your testimony, fema has been, quote, coordinating the whole of government response. For the pandemic since march 19. Let me be clear. Fema employees have worked incredibly hard in the four months since, but the truth is that fema wasnt designed for this type of crisis. A pandemic that impacts every state simultaneously and lasts a year or longer is very different than a localized disaster like a hurricane. In the four months that you have led the response, have you asked the president for Additional Resources or support that you have not received . Mr. Gaynor i disagree, we are not designed that we are not designed for the pandemic. Fema is designed exactly for this, which is interagency coordination. No matter if it is a hurricane or covid19, that is what we do. We problem solve and we act and we deliver solutions to those most in need. I disagree with your premise that this is not what we were designed for. The second part of your question, again, i have trouble hearing what you are saying. Rep. Underwood in the four months since you have led the response, have you asked the president for any Additional Resources or support that you have not received . Mr. Gaynor from the beginning, and again i want to make sure that fact arrived the narrative, the president and Vice President and the Coronavirus Task force were clear with me that anything i needed him a whether it was a federal agency that typically didnt respond, whether it is money or staffing, whatever i needed was at my disposal as we battle covid19. That was made clear explicitly by the president and the Coronavirus Task force when he declared National Disaster on the 13th of march. Rep. Underwood ok. Did you ask for anything that you have not received . Again, i have great partners on the task force. On testing, dr. Hahn from fda, dr. Birx who leads the data rep. Underwood we are familiar with the task force. Have you asked for something you have not received . Mr. Gaynor no, maam. I have gotten everything i have needed from the administration. Rep. Underwood the coronavirus has been in this country for at least six months and we still have ppe shortages. I have a hard time with you saying you have received everything you have asked for. I shouldnt still be hearing about nurses reusing single use masks. Yet, they have gone on strike this month because they dont have the basic supplies they need to do their jobs. Yet, in your testimony, sir, you write that fema is, quote, returning to steady state. As defines steady state normal operations. You also write that femas role in the Coronavirus Response are moving to other agencies, and femas Coronavirus Task being downgraded. With fema shedding responsibilities and moving back to normal operations, who in the federal government is taking over leadership of this ongoing crisis . Who is in charge of getting the testing where it needs to be and who is in charge of making sure teachers knowing backtoschool have ppe . Mr. Gaynor there was a lot in that question, maam. First of all, the president is in charge of the Coronavirus Response through the Vice President on the Coronavirus Task force, through the many members including myself. We execute those priorities and those decisions. Thenot sure where steadystate came from. That may be a little dated. Rep. Underwood that came from your testimony, sir. Mr. Gaynor it is a dynamic situation. It changes from daytoday. I have many great partners to include hhs. It is correct some of the functions have transferred back to hhs because it is more appropriate, because it is medical. Andy on, again, we adapted as we become more confident, we have better systems, better data, we understand the problem more. Some of those functions have shifted back to hhs, but let me be clear, fema is still in the operational lead for operational coordination. Hip with my to the hhs brothers and sisters, and we still meet every day on making sure we can deliver the resources to the nation, especially those that are mode most at risk and under stress for covid19 cases at hospitalizations. Rep. Underwood i have to tell you, mr. Gaynors testimony seems to directly contradict his written testimony he submitted. At the end of page eight, beginning of page nine he talks about fema returning to the steadystate normal operations and now he says they remain in charge of the operational response. I tried in my five minutes to get a direct answer to this straightforward question and like mr. Rose, seem to be getting a little bit of a loop, circular response. We are seeing a most 60,000 cases per day, healthcare workers dont have the ppe they need and no part of our federal government can be in normal operations at this time. We need an aggressive, coordinated response to contain the pandemic and reopen safely and it has been lacking from thiS Administration. I yield back. Mr. Gaynor to follow up on rep. Thompson mr. Gaynor. Making a comment, not asking a question. The chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. Crenshaw, for five minutes. Rep. Crenshaw thank you. Thank you for being here and being so patient and, in the face of what are disingenuous criticisms and accusations. A lot of good, reasonable questions but also, a lot of the opposite. I would like to think this hearing is about learning lessons and constructive criticism. It should be. We could ask goodfaith questions about how to improve our response, taking into account the imperfect results of our inevitable in the face of the pandemic. It shouldnt be about unfalsifiable claims. The critics could never be wrong, no matter how many air bridge flights were flown, you can always claim it wasnt enough. Perhaps it wasnt. If we are going to do constructive criticism, the critics should point to pivotal decisions where everybody said do this, and instead you did something else. I have never heard that criticism, interesting that we havent. When it comes to these problems of nurses or doctors not having ppe in their hospitals, these are concerning claims. I believe we are lucky in the houston area, we rarely hear that, if ever. Do they have a direct line to fema . Is that how this works . Lets talk about the proper lesson learned. Are they ordering directly from fema . If they dont get it, do they call your hotline and request ppe . Is that not how would works . Mr. Gaynor great question. Im going to start the premise that to be successful in an emergency, it has to be locally executed, stagemanaged and federally supported. I spent eight years as a local emergency manager and four years as a state director and now i lead the federal Emergency Management agency in this response. There was a system that we use at fema for Natural Disasters and it is the same system that we decided to use from the beginning of this, a system the people were familiar with from the local level, mayors and governors, travel chiefs, if you needed something from fema, we had a system designed to address that. I have 10 regions across the west as American Samoa and as far east as the u. S. Virgin islands, and 10 very talented regional administrators that are the tip of the spear for fema making sure we address. Very need we get from states rep. Crenshaw just trying to quicken this mr. Gaynor a hospital can contact their local government and it will get through the pipeline. Rep. Crenshaw that is typically how it works, understood. To Nursing Homes, there was the priority of delivering ppe to Nursing Homes, more than 29,000 packages of supplies in 53 states and territories. We saw the vulnerabilities in Nursing Homes. In hindsight, is there anything more fema could have done to stop governors in new york, michigan, colorado from putting infected patients back in confined nursing home facilities . Sir. Aynor yes, im not a medical doctor so i will leave the medical considerations about what to do with patients or those who have an md at the end of their name. What we do at fema rep. Crenshaw i dont know what is so funny about that. People died because of that decision. Mr. Gaynor what we do at fema, whether it is covid19 or a hurricane, we support elected leaders. Whether you are a governor or a mayor and you have a disaster, we fully enable you to execute what you need to do in your specific state or locality. Supported, noty federally managed, not federally executed. The system only works when all those things Work Together and of course, when citizens are prepared also. So we enable governors through a variety of different systems to include funding, materials, technical assistance, to address those needs either constituents. Rep. Crenshaw talk to me about project air bridge. Is it a success or failure . What can be done better . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. It was an absolute success. And again, it was about speed, it was about, at the direction every president , go find piece of ppe around the globe and bring it to the United States. Pretty Simple Mission order, right . Go do that. Air bridge allowed us to do it. It is one of the things we typically do at fema. We have a pretty vast logistics arm. We have used planes and boats before to transport materials to disaster sites, and this allowed buildo we could again, that base and get more produced confidentfind more producers we could rely on, and get that specific ppe to wear was needed most, the frontline workers come in nurses, doctors, caregivers, cnas in Nursing Homes where it mattered the most. It was about ultimately, saving lives and minimizing suffering. That was ultimately what it was all about. Rep. Crenshaw i yield back. Thompson the chair recognizes the gentlelady from michigan, ms. Slatkin. Rep. Slotkin thank you for being here and thanks to you and your workforce for the unprecedented challenge we have ahead of us that we have been dealing with and we still have ahead of us. I am glad to see there is wide bipartisan agreement that the idea that we were buying, we were over a barrel with the Chinese Government and asian suppliers on ppe, the fact that i am negotiating for a . 78 mask with a chinese middleman in rural china means the chickens have come home to roost on manufacturing. As the state that does the most manufacturing of just about any of them, we have been talking about this long before this crisis. Certainly, because of gm and ford and what they did to invest in ventilators, we know personally how hard it was to get the administration to use the dpa. Im glad they are using it now, but we should be, we should acknowledge that it took longer than it should. If my colleagues are interested in doing something you are not in this to make sure you are not in the situation again, there is a bipartisan bill, strict strengthening americas National Stockpile act, so we dont just use the dpa, but incentivize American Companies to want to make the supplies for you. Im glad we are in strong agreement on that. Let me ask you about testing. On march 20,fed us april 17, may 8, and again today, that, and each time i believe you said we have the supplies we need for everyone who needs a test. As someone from michigan, where we went through a really strong march and april, that was where our wave was and watching my peers go through this, is it your testimony that since march 20, everybody who has needed a test has gotten access to a test unless there was a local implementation problem . Again, i would defer to testing specifics and details, to the admiral. Governors, to enable whitmer, to run her Testing Program for her state. Rep. Slotkin is it your testimony that you got her all the reagents and swabs she needed for every test that was required by the state of michigan . Mr. Gaynor i cant say 100 , but i can say, i can give you details about exactly what we delivered to each state, swabs and media, and if there was so each, just a step back, through admirals your walk through the admiral, engaging with every single state governor about testing and their goals, designed what their testing percentage and goal needed to be by state, then with supplies, swabs and media, applied that number to their program. If a governor exceeded their goal, then we had enough slack in the supply chain to give in this case, Governor Whitmer more. I had to go back and look at the record, did she meet or exceed her goals . Rep. Slotkin it does feel like especially as we look at other parts of the country having the same problems we had early on, that we are just, it feels like passing the buck and we cant just learn from our experience. There is no way that you can still say, as you did on march 20, that we had all the materials we needed to test everyone that we needed to test. Then in april, in may, now today we dont have to answer that, it is hard to think ahead to another wave. That is my next question. My next question is for the state of michigan. We are watching our peers have the same problems in texas and alabama and arizona that we went through. Im asking this as a planner. Are you currently planning for a second wave in the states that got hit hardest the first round . Are you talking about chicago, detroit rep. Slotkin new york, new jersey, pennsylvania. Mr. Gaynor there is constant planning and strategizing about what the next 30, 60, 90 days look like. That is what we do. Right now, we are looking at, again, what is closest to us in front of us and that is those four states rep. Slotkin wave one. Mr. Gaynor wave 1. 5. We thought we would have a low betweenaugust a lull july and august and that didnt happen. We are dealing with what is in front of us. Rep. Slotkin explained to the public that what happened to us with the shortages on ppe isnt going to happen again in the second wave for places like michigan. Mr. Gaynor time makes ppe better. We recently completed, with the supply Chain Task Force, we went out to every single state, talked to them oneonone about how much ppe do you have on hand, and i will speak in general terms, not every state is equal but for the most part, the majority of states have 60, 90, 1 hundred 20 days of ppe stockpiled in their state where. That is a really good sign. Im not saying that is the ultimate solution, we still have to work on making sure we have enough for the National Stockpile, that is a whole another initiative. We need to ramp up production so we need so we can have bigger numbers. There are lots of factors, but i think we are in a better position today and we were on march 20 when it comes to ppe. Every day, we get a little healthier. We have done all these initiatives along the way, so i have confidence that we will have enough ppe for today and if there is a second wave in the fall. Rep. Slotkin thank you, mr. Chairman. Rep. Thompson thank you. The chair recognizes the gentleman from missouri, mr. Cleaver, for five minutes. Rep. Cleaver thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, administrator. I appreciate your presence and so forth. I think it is good and i know your job is hard. But in april, fema published a new civil rights bulletin entitled ensuring civil rights during the covid19 response. Bulletin went on to emphasize femas legal and moral covid19n to deliver pandemic relief and Disaster Assistance to communities irrespective of race, color, religion, national origin, and so forth. Of youre welcome bulletin, covid19 disparities remain. Im not saying you are doing anything deliberately, i dont even want almost suggest that because i think that would be irresponsible for me, but what i want you to address as best you can, please, is do you think enough of is doing the right things that would reduce the disparity between the people of color who are disproportionately affected by the pandemic . What else could you do . Is there something you should be addressing to the public or those who are out fighting this deadly disease . Mr. Gaynor yes, sir. Thanks for the question. I have been an emergency manager for a few years now, about 13 years at every level of government. All i have learned is that the challenges a community chases before faces before a disaster, whether it is poverty, homelessness, unemployment, the disaster, and you can use covid19 as the disaster, makes it all worse. It lays bare where the gaps are. I think that is where we are in some of those communities. I understand there has been longstanding inequities in health care access, service, and outcomes, but let me tell you what fema is doing to try to offset some of these, some of this disparity. Again, thank you for mentioning the equal rights bulletin. It is the first time we have ever issued one of these for a disaster and i think it will probably be a standard fare. Rep. Cleaver i appreciate that, sir. Mr. Gaynor 56 major disasters on one day, march 13, so we have never been here before. But we focused on things that are in our authority and things we can demand from states, food, help with food. We have a program where we can use the stafford act money to provide feeding, in a lot of innovative ways. I will use a couple examples. In california, using meals on wheels to deliver food to those that cant get out of their home who are covid positive. We have never done cant get ouf their homes or are covid positive. We want to be innovative. Things like housing. Homelessness in california. Getting them off the street and place if theyn a are sheltering. To drive down the curve on covid. Testing sites, 750 or so Community Testing sites, 70 of those testing sites are in socially horrible communities. That is deliberate, thats not by accident. I give great credit for my partners at hhs for driving that. E continue to do those things just like everything else, we can do better and we look for the opportunity to do so. My final question is personal but its not because i think there are millions of people that would ask you the same question. Who is fivendson years old. A granddaughter who is seven. Almost seven. I got to tell you, administrator, i am scared to schoolor them to go to in a few weeks. Yes, sir. the mitigationse fundamentals that work no matter if its a school or if its here , testifying to congress, its all the things that matter. These mitigation fundamentals work no matter where you are. We have seen that across the country. First is wearing a mask. Drive the transmission down by wearing a mask and having somebody that supposed to wear a mask. You wear your mask not for yourself but yourself, but to protect the person across from you. Next is hygiene and handwashing. Very simple things. Every time i walk by a alcohol pump, whether i need to wash my hands or not, i do it today because its good habit. Dont wear rubber gloves, it does not help. It goes against transmission. Dont wear rubber gloves, keep your hands clean and social distancing. Stayaway 6 00 p. M. We are doing it today. And dont go into bars or crowded places, like overcrowded n my grandson is five. Mr. Gaynor if the American Public can do all those things we will crush the covid wave. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chair recognizes gentleman from texas for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thanks a witness for appearing today. Mr. Administrator, you are a former military person, is this correct . Lt. Col. . Leaving chain of command . Respective . Its one of our core values. Mr. Administrator, our come back to this i will come back to this at the end of my questions. Mr. Administrator, please accept statementheartfelt with no desire to demean you in any way. Thatou indicated earlier we will overcome it and you are talking about the virus. We will overcome it. Administrator, at what cost . Thats the question. At what cost . Harris county, texas, including to the intelligence that i have of two days ago, 37,095 confirmed cases. 545 deaths. July 20, 2020, as it relates to the country i love, the United States of america, 3. 9 million cases, 143,000 deaths. At what cost . News article, texas tribune. July 19, 2020. 85 babies under one year old have tested positive for coronavirus. And this is since midmarch. That a goes on to say baby younger than six months old died. At what cost . At what cost . Hasave a president who talked about injecting persons with disinfectants, who has indicated the virus will simply , a president who wont wear the mask that you just said we ought to wear. I respect you. And i believe you are sincere. But when the president of the United States of america wont wear the mask that you and i know will protect people and save lives, you have to ask, at what cost . No reflection on you, lieutenant col. , i respect you. I appreciate what youve done for your country. But the question is, at what cost . How many lives . How many more . What is wrong with this man . Masksd i know that protect people, and its just yesterday that he seems to have come around. Now back to the chain of command. I expect you to do what you are doing, to be quite candid with you. You are a marine. Once a marine, always a marine. You have to do what you do. This is how the country functions. So i appreciate you. But i just want you to know that the cost is too high. Its tooh from high for minorities. Its too high in houston, texas where i have a community known as sunnyside, one of the hot spots. Minorities are the people who drive the trucks, they pick up the trash, they bad the groceries. Im talking about latinx, im talking about africanamericans, the cost is too high. This is why i came to the hearing. I want to thank the chairman for having me here. And i appreciate what you said because i agree with you, we will overcome it. But the question is at what cost . And its a rhetorical question that you need not answer my dear brother. I hope youre not offended by me saying my gear brother. Human. Only one race, and we are related, but at what cost youd need not answer. I yield act the cost of my time. Backe general men yields his time. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from new york for five minutes. I think you very much, mr. Chairman, and administrator gaynor. I am pleased that you have joined us today. However, i am not pleased by the administrations deadly mismanagement of this. Hundreds of thousands of americans have died. Countless more businesses have because of the federal governments failure to address this crisis with the appropriate amount of urgency. And to this day, that urgency has not risen to the level of risen to meet the level of distress and destruction that this pandemic is wreaking across this nation. Id like to turn to the strategic stockpile. The Strategic National stockpile is the nations supply of lifesaving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for the use in a Public Health emergency. Throughout the pandemic, leadership of the stockpile has moved back and forth among cdc, hhs and fema. In march, control of the stockpile was shifted from hhs to fema. In late june, control diverted back to hhs. Couldinistrator gaynor, you please describe why control of the stockpile has shifted multiple times, and how does fema continue to support the Strategic National stockpile . Mr. Gaynor yes, maam. Thats the question. Just to be clear, again. Fema was never, to the best of ,y knowledge in recent history i think you are correct, ownership had been between cdc and asper. It now resides under the control of asper. Assistant secretary for preparedness to response under secretary as ar azar and hhs. So you dont know why they keep shifting the control of the stockpile between agencies . Mr. Gaynor i dont. I would defer that question to the secretary. At a White House Press conference on april 2, jared kushner, speaking about the Strategic National stockpile said, the notion of the federal around the notion of the federal stockpile was, its supposed to be our stockpile, its not supposed to be the states stockpile that they didnt that they then use. Against the purpose of the stockpile on the website. Shortly thereafter the text on the website changed to better fit mr. Kushners remarks. Administrator gaynor, what is your understanding of the purpose of the Strategic National stockpile . Mr. Gaynor again, not being an expert in the history of it, but from my general understanding of stockpilee, that we used today, and we are building the next version of the stockpile, as it existed for covid19, it was not designed for a pandemic of this scale. It was designed for an anthrax small couplevery cities in a very small couple cities in the United States. My question is, what is the purpose . Not what is its usage. Mr. Gaynor the traditional purpose, or what it was designed for was for a biological attack in the city. The stockpile may Different Things including from singles and ppe. It really was and is designed to buy time, get that stuff out the door to where its needed the most until you can ramp up up imports. R ramp again, im not talking about covid19. Its generally an anthrax scenario. And then get it through the normal channels. But again, not designed for covid19. It cannot be used as a Single Source for all things, ppe. Thats one of the reasons we designed the air bridge. For your response. Thank you for your response administrator. On april 27, as the virus spread to more than 900,000 individuals killingnited states, more than 54,000 americans, dr. Pulmonologist a died of competitions related to covid19. Dr. Mahoney worked for more than at the suny downstate medical center. An underfunded publicly financed hospital that serves my district in brooklyn, new york. Dr. Mahoney was set to retire, then the pandemic struck. Ran into the fire, continuing to care for patients battling covid19. Like other hospitals that serve economically disadvantaged communities, the the hospital were dr. Mahoney worked do not have enough ppe as a virus spread. This occurred back in april. It distresses me to see my colleague going through the same. Xact trauma here we are three month later going into the fourth month. Dr. Gaynor, the failure of the administration to provide ppe to hospitals, to Nursing Homes, particularly those ad and economically disadvantaged community, counts amongst its of manynces the log dedicated frontline workers. What specific steps his fema taking, if any, to ensure that frontline workers receive the supplies they need to fight the ongoing pandemic . Mr. Gaynor yes, maam. Have been built with a primary goal to stabilize and minimize to save lives and minimize suffering. One life lost is one life to many. Its an indiscriminate disease, it knows no borders and knows no boundaries. It does not care what you look like or where youre from. Just to go back on making sure protectenough ppe to our frontline workers, that has been the goal from the beginning. To go back on further statements about a global competition, not just in the u. S. , but across the globe when everyone is looking for the same exact item, like an n95 mask, we were not managing an abundance of resources. Ofwere managing the lack resources and making hard decisions about priorities about where did these very limited resources go to do the best to save lives. Those decisions were made at the highest level within fema. My partners on the unified , we haveroup at fema agonized over all those decisions about where did events go, where does ppe go, no small task. Hard decisions to make, but our goal was to make sure that we had ppe where was needed the most. That remains our goal today. We are in a much better place today with ppe and we were in march and april. Mr. Chairman, i know that my time has expired, but this has been an abysmal failure. For anyone to try to justify the lack of urgency and the lack of continued preparation for this pandemic and across this nation, and to justify it by saying that we are managing the best way we can, this is unexpected, we know what we are dealing with now, and thiS Administration continues to fail the american costs of lives and livelihood. I yield back. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from nevada. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Administrator gaynor, i represent las vegas and we have a mask requirement and we closed and reopened gradually, but now we are seeing a spike in cases. I want to ask you about that. I think you are probably aware that the state of nevada made a title 32 extension request. We sent that in on july the ninth. We will continue to use our nevada National Guard for the mitigation activities. They have done a great job and we need to continue that. I have a letter from the governor and an Additional Support letter from the entire delegation asking for this extension. I would like to enter these into the record. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you very much. Right now, our use of the National Guard is to and in august. I wonder if you have any idea when we will hear from you and when we will know if thats going to be able to be continued, what the status of that request is. Mr. Gaynor thank you for the question. I cannot say i have seen that exact letter from nevada, but we will make sure we have that. Asked for ans have extension past august 21. We have been discussing that at the in ministration, dod and fema. Hopefully we make a decision here shortly because i think we all know how valuable the National Guard has been in helping governors across the country do many things, heroic. Hings as a valuable asset, we want to make sure we appropriately adjudicate all those requests. Hopefully shortly we will have a decision from the administration. I hope its a positive one, because they have been very helpful and we would like to see them continue to do that as these cases increase. It goes back to the issue of kids. Tests we have a getting mixed responses from thiS Administration. First we were told they would be provided by the federal government. I think the cdc, coordinated by you through june the 30th. Then july the first, we got word and i think mr. Rose referred to this a little bit, no, not to worry and that you would be continuing them through the end of the year until january 1. We really need these test kits. I wondered if you could give me any specifics . Will they be continued . Can we count on that . Or do we need to provide our own test kits . To gaynor i would defer different machines with different requirements. Generically, fema is providing swabs andpplies, media to governors. The specific ask about a kind of kit. I will engage a jjs hhs about if there is a shortage we need to correct or adjust. Its not cut off now because we are in july that we will continue to have this . Mr. Gaynor yes maam. Production is greater than it was 90 days ago. For one more general question, yesterday i joined some of my colleagues, the chairman on this committee and the chairman on the Transportation Infrastructure Committee and i have asked you about this before, but i will ask you again to see if the situation has changed, we are very concerned about the number of vacancies at the top level in fema, especially as we tried to deal with and coordinate and figure out and take charge of whats going on with the pandemic. On top of that, now we are into Hurricane Season. It looks like this is going to be a very vicious season. What is happening with these different positions . Are you feeling them, can you not find people . Are you covering it by yourself . Can you give us an idea . Mr. Gaynor in general, a couple of different categories of vacancies. Generally, vacancies across fema, we has hired, in the past six months, actually from fiscal october until now, we have hired 22 more people than ever before. We have on board and more people in the past several months and we have done historically, which is a great sign. We have done that while responding to covid19. Through virtual on boarding and telework, its been quite amazing. Ses. Ies on career as of today there is only one about one inn ses five of those. One vacancy just came up a couple days ago. Selectedeither have a individual or they are in the process of selecting individuals. We have never been in the spot before. We virtually had no career vacancies. We are pretty proud of that. And then the last is politicals. I think we have lost some politicals. Dan who ran resilience resigned early january, as did jeff. Igher who ran operations we continue to fill political spots. We continue to fill career spots. And,ntinue to do hiring again, the pool of talent that i have at fema is quite breathtaking. I have no lack of comments about our ability to rest perform, respond to covid19 or a hurricane or anything in front of us. We have never been more ready as an agency, and that is a belief i take with me having worked through covid19 response over the past 140 days or so. Sue you feel like you have enough of a Senior Leadership team to make some of these key decisions that we have been asking about through the course of his hearing . Mr. Gaynor we have been making decisions and whether there was a vacancy with designed to have deputies. Again, i will put up any one of my politicals of careers against anyone else when it comes to talent, dedication and enthusiasm for the mission. They have been outperforming even my expectations. I think obviously we need a couple more politicals and we will work on that. , think as an agency as a whole we are in a really good spot. Gaynor, i know you are a professional. I think you are doing a good job. In so many agencies we see people appointed who come to the agency that they have tried to get rid of when they were in congress, where they come to the agency from an industry that they are supposed to regulate. When you talk about having politicals, i hope you will look for experts and know how to handle this problem and you will make some policy decisions based on science and good Crisis Management and not just on somebody with a friend or a connection or has a business interest with mr. Kushner. Could not maam, i speak more highly of the politicals i work with today. Talented Emergency Managers. Never worked with a greater bunch, whether they are here now , no better men and women i have worked with here at fema fema when it comes to politicals. I yield back. The chair recognizes gentlelady from new jersey. Thank you, mr. Chairman and for your mr. Gaynor testimony today and for the hard work that you all are doing. I want to share some information that i have. We have talked about the fact that we are at this place and we are doing the best we can trying to catch up with things as we move. But the understanding i have is that, we have an indication that we have a problem as far back as november of 2019. Even though the president refused to deal with any of this information, we knew that this was coming and we knew that he was given this information, even in his daily briefings as early as january. I want to take note of the fact independentere Research Studies done, one by columbia university, and one by another organization that said, had we implemented social distancing guidelines as far back as march 1, we would have possibly decreased the death rate from covid between 80 and 90 . It is not like we do not have earlier information upon which to act. I know that my colleagues on the other side have asked you questions like, are the appeals to recriminations, is that in any way having an impact on how our citizens are reacting to the space in which they live right now . What about the confusions that may have been shared between what the experts are saying and what the administration is saying . Might question is how about the compliments and the lying that have been shared between the head of theand the task force, the Vice President of the United States. You all said that you make your decisions based on facts and data. Your data driven decisions. I want to ask you a couple of responses to things that the president of the United States has said. You tell me whether or not they are or are not true. On may the president said coronavirus will go away without a vaccine. Was that true . Something about a vaccine, i do not hear your whole question. On may 8 the president said the coronavirus, will go away without a vaccine. Is that a yes or no . , i gaynor again, maam think the administration is working hard to say. T need you im not asking you to defend the administration with its incompetence, i want you to answer my question, yes or no or i dont know . I think this question deserves more than a yes or no answer. I dont really care what you think it deserves, this is my time that i am reclaiming and i need you to say yes, no or i dont know. Mr. Gaynor yes, maam. What i would like to say is that the Administration Work hard to identify are we going to acknowledge the fact that it needs a vaccine . Moving forward. I reclaim my time from you. I reclaim my time. On june the 17th, President Trump said the coronavirus is dying out. Is the coronavirus dying out right now . Yes or no . Mr. Gaynor if you look across the country, the epicenter in march and april was is it dying out was my question . It was in new york, new jersey, detroit, chicago, los angeles, washington state. Seeing spikes all over currently in the west and south. Is the answer to that question yes or no . Why is it so difficult to say what you are seeing . Yes or no . Because again, i think your question deserves an answer that you should know let me just ask you this question. Mr. Gaynor im just here trying to share the facts i know. Question aboutne what the president of the United States said. A coronavirusants test can get a test. Is that true . Can anybody that wants a coronavirus test get one right now . Mr. Gaynor in my own experience, i was on the gulf coast. Is that a yes or no . You are the head of this outreach of the states and the community. You know the answer to the question. And china give you a real life example. If you are going to refuseo answer my question this is almost a futile interaction between you and me. One more question. You can say whatever you want to say with the time i have left. 8 weresident said on june want to continue blanket lockdowns to and from the states. Where from amber or ashes, or where we may have flames, we will stomp them out. We understand this now. We will stomp them out powerfully. Have we stomped out these embers or ashes of the coronavirus . Acrosssure you can see the nation there are hotspots. Texas,like florida, louisiana, arizona, california that have flared up. If you look back to march and april, new york, new jersey, connecticut, rhode island. Those states have it under control. This is a dynamic situation that changes from day to day. Mitigation works. Thank you. This requires leadership. No question about it. We are doing well in a new jersey because my governor saw it spiking up a tiny bit and delayed the opening of certain businesses. So we definitely need leadership. Something we have not had from the president of the u. S. Back. Airman, i will yield when i listen to where you are, what we have had to deal with, how this country in general, how this leadership has responded to the pandemic and failing to keep our hundreds of thousands, even millions of citizens safe or alive, i dont believe youre ready for both the coronavirus that will take place during the Hurricane Season and the states in which we will have these devastating seasons. I want to say you need to ask for what you need. You need to understand what you need. You need to be bold enough to ask for it and let us know whether or not you are getting it. With that, i yield back. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from california for five minutes. For holding this important hearing. When did fema when did you get involved with fema . Was it roughly around the end of january . When did fema get involved with the virus response . When were you brought in to help fema with the Coronavirus Response. We had been partnering with hhs early february. You have answered my question, i appreciate that. I have a series of questions. I would like to fully answer. We were on hhs on 10 february. 30 fema experts and logistics, planning, coordination. I want to reclaim my time. She signed with your answer. Thank you. February 10. Thank you. My question is about march. In march, the u. S. Government found 1. 5 million n95 masks sitting in a warehouse in indiana. The department of Homeland Security had to decide what to do with these masks. Did you play any role at all on where these masks would go . Im not familiar with this story. March, Homeland Security had 1. 5n95 respirator masks. They had to decide where they would go. They did not send them to hospitals and frontline workers across the country. At the end of the day, they sent other placescbp, instead of hospitals and frontline workers that needed it. I was hoping to hear that you at fema would have advocated to have access to those masks and have them go to our hardhit hospitals. That ld say she has it finished. She she hasnt finished asking her question. Im going to move on to femas help with california on housing. Thankof all, i want to fema for working with california on providing housing and those who needed shelter during covid19. Fema has committed to reimburse of temporary housing of the public assisting Program Category b. One of the problems is fema is waiting way too long to let the state know whether the program will be funded, so they cant plan for the next month. Is there anything they can do to speed up the process in letting the state know whether the funding will continue so they dont get left with a large bill and not having the assistance to fema . Yes, maam. I dont know the specifics, but we have obligated 1. 1 billion to california. Im not sure where the holdup is on getting the money out the door from the state. We have run programs on reimbursement. You have to spend money before you get money from the federal government. Will beocality issue, i happy to connect with you and your staff on that item. I will follow up. There are instances where local governments have been waiting for years to receive fema reimbursement. I will follow up. States need to be able to plan on when fema is going to continue the partnership. Conventional Disaster Response strategies, such as congregants sheltering and recovery and supply Distribution Efforts require reexamination during the pandemic. How is fema working to prepare sheltering guidance with the need for individuals to socially achieve to have social distancing . In the beginning of my testimony, i shared with everyone that fema created the covid19 pandemic operational guide for the Hurricane Season. It had the title hurricane on the cover. It can apply to any National Disaster or incident. It applied to all of it. More space for sheltering. Having been a local mercy manager for almost seven years, and a state director, the responsibility for managing sheltering is on the local official, the local mayor owns that responsibility. I go back to how the system of mercy management works. State managed and fairly supported. Assistancetechnical to states and locals if they need extra planning. The guidance is out there. Best practices from agencies including the cdc on how to traditional sheltering challenges to covid19 response. Those resources are out there. An exercise program where locals can test their plans to make sure the assumptions they have made for dealing with covid19 for sheltering or evacuation holds up when put to use. Thats how the program works. Your attempt in answering questions. It has been frustrating in your inability to answer specifics or answer directly. Wereve seen you and fema involved in february. The number of deaths were not high at that time. Because of the Trump Administrations failure and the failure across the board on lack of leadership has led to 130 5000 americans being dead. That is not just a flareup in certain parts. With that, i yield back. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from florida for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for being with us today. I also want to begin by thanking you and the men and women who work with you for the work that you do every day to get us through some very tough times. But i have to say this has been pretty exhausting for me. As a first responder, i have worked on the field with fema on many occasions. To listen to my colleagues on the others of the aisle, i would think it would be one of the areas we can get our act together. To hear my colleagues focus more on defending the inaction of our president than on the 141 plus thousand americans who have lost their lives to covid19. I was also pleased to hear them say that facts matter. Facts based on data are important. We know that the president is the biggest offender in that are. ThiS Administration is always looking for a villain to blame. Havecas response could been better had china allowed us to have a better response. Countries,at other somehow other countries were able to find their way to being better able to control the virus and save more lives despite chinas action. How would you explain that . Im not sure i understand the question. What i can tell you from my point of view is my job in the the federaling coordination for operations is that the full weight of the nation with the departments, the things they bring to the table, we maximize those. Time and time again, preventing loss of life and suffering. You said earlier to protect the lives of the American People, the health and safety of the American People. Thats what you said. How do you do that . Not what your job is, but how you protect the health and safety of the American People. In many different ways. As we do you do that respond to covid19 . . How do you as the fema administrator protect the health and lives of the American People . Is thefirst example initiative to create more ventilators in the u. S. When we first took over operation coordination to create more ventilators im telling you the success of the story 16,000 ventilators. What is number two . By september, we will have 110 ventilators in the stockpile. You said eight times more you said it was a global competition for personal protective equipment. Yet we have seen bidding wars between states, the federal government, and other countries. I disagree with that premise. Since this is a global competition, isnt that the reason we would need a federal response, as opposed to allowing states to basically fight for themselves or fend for themselves . Again, having been a state director, i would do the same you worked at the local, state, and federal level. To use my experience, one of my goals is to get as much ppe as i could, even if i didnt need it. Just to have enough, because i wasnt sure what would happen next. My role, at the direction of the president since you made the decision to leave it to local jurisdictions, has fema taken the initiative to look at best through any states doing it better than others . Maybe give guidelines to states who were struggling . We have. Maybe you missed it earlier, but we have engaged with everything will state when it comes to ppe. Practicesked at best some states doing better than others and providing guidelines. Absolutely. Finally, i am from florida. You know the situation in florida. 9000 y we added over 9400 new covid19 cases. Based on your many years of Emergency Management experience at the local, state, and federal level, i heard a conversation about people panicking when the president uses fear every day to keep my colleagues on the others of the aisle from doing their jobs and others. What message would you send to florida when we look at those numbers and what going on . I go back to the fundamentals. Masks work. Wear it for the person across from you. Keep your hands clean. Every time you walk by an alcohol dispenser, clean your hands. Rubber gloves make your hands worse. Stay out of bars, crowded restaurants, and use social distancing. Administrator if you look at the nations overall response to covid19, what grade would you give i dont do grades. Historians and after action reports can grade me. But you feel you have done a good job and in the nation have done a good job . The hardworking career men and women we know they work hard. Until thecelebrate numbers went down. Do you believe i am talking about the hard work everyone has done. Chairman, i yield back. Recognizes for admission to the record the gentlelady of texas. Thank you for your kindness and indulgence and making mention of tony rajan robinson of region six, his Emergency Management state situation report shows the increasing number infected. 13 states report coronavirus testing issues and echoes early troubles as texas unanimous consent, Texas Medical Center talks about the lack of beds in icu and staffing. Citymergency management of of houston begging for the extension of the National Guard and more testing in the state of texas in houston. More covid19 testing creates more cases. We did the math. Of course, the final documents, covid19 cases due to increased prevalence. This is on the website in texas. It tells people they have to pay. That discourages people. I ask unanimous consent for that to be in the record. Thank you for your indulgence. We are fighting to save lives. Without objection. Chair recognizes the gentleman from mississippi for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Aynor, i want to thank you and the mended women who serve under you. You do a very difficult job in unprecedented times. We are currently under 114 concurrent major disaster declarations. One for every state in the union, five territories. You also talk about the seminole taco of florida and the district of columbia. I know the home state of mississippi, there have been five declarations since january of this year. We have a pending declaration we on. Working on approval you had the chance to visit mississippi last week to meet with our governor and First Responders and discuss the unique challenges we are facing. One of the challenges is an upcoming Hurricane Season that all of the states along the gulf coast are concerned about. Those challenges in the middle of the covid19 pandemic. Could you take a few moments to share with this committee some of the things that you shared with the governor about those challenges and what fema is doing to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead . It was a great visit in mississippi. We got to travel with the governor around the state. Mostly across the gulf. We visited Fire Departments to talk about grants and preparedness. A really fantastic day. I thank him for his hospitality, along with the Emergency Management director. One of the things we wanted to check on is how states have adapted their existing plans. Things like evacuation, sheltering, using the guidance we provided back in may and how they adapted. We want to take a Temperature Check to see how its going. Yearyear is going to be a like we havent had before. When it comes to simple things like ordering and evacuation, it will take more time. If you need transportation, it will take double transportation. If you go to a shelter, it it will take double or triple the shelter space. How have local states and counties adapted to that . It is a challenge. Im completely impressed by the effort mississippi Emergency Management has done and the dedication of the governor to make sure it is a priority. It is always a moving target. You always have to do more and the clock is running against you. I encourage the Emergency Managers across the country to prepare now. You dont know what the next thing is to hit you. Whether its a hurricane, flooding, or a fire, use this time to prepare to respond wall source into covid19. Thats the message. Guidance is available online. We put it out in may and made a big announcement. Encouraging states and locals to embrace or respond to a traditional disaster while responding to covid19. One specific question as it relates to covid19. On page five of your written testimony, there are two paragraphs titled managing worldwide critical sources shortages. You said in your written ceremony from the outset, a key element of femas response had been managing shortfalls of medical supplies. You go on and give a list of the supplies and say we have been further challenged as most of the manufacturing for ppe occurs in asia. I know the wall street journal recently reported that prior to the covid19 outbreak, china exported more respirators, surgical masks, attractive gloves, and garments from the rest of the world combined. How big of a challenge has it been in the fact that many of the items we are in need of today are not manufactured in our country . That china has, if not the exclusive manufacturers, the large majority of medical supplies, critical drugs, and things we need. How big of a challenge has that been . Does Congress Need to focus our attention Going Forward on enticing those manufacturers to return to the u. S. So they are produced here . Yes, sir. That we haveusly to look at the shortages we had. I look at ppe as a National Security issue. Maybe today is a pandemic. Maybe tomorrow it is Something Different that requires n95. That we rely on another power to provide to us. When the time comes, maybe they will be unwilling to do that. We have to take a look at a host of different items that are produced overseas and connect them to our National Security. There are a lot of efforts going on across our government, dod and Defense Logistics Agency partners helping us bring manufacturing back to the u. S. Or entice u. S. Manufacturers to expand their product line or change their product line. The cares act provided 1 billion for a lot of these initiatives. Thats only a start. We need to think long term. What we do historically, we put a lot of money into it, it lasts a couple of years, and maybe that business struggles to survive because the u. S. Made mask is two dollars, and the chinese mask is . 70. You know how the American Public is about wanting it cheap and fast. Maybe thats where it goes. We want to support our Industrial Base in the u. S. To make sure we can do this in the long term and take a look at how the items are important to u. S. National security. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. The chair yields back. Close the, before we hearing, i have sent numerous letters to you around this topic. Adjourn, i need your commitment that all outstanding correspondence to you relative to this pandemic and any other issues by this committee will be answered. You have my commitment. I think we talked previously about it. Unprecedented request of information from many different people, members of congress. We are working through all of them. Some of the challenges, and im not trying to give an excuse, but some of the information you and other embers are looking for reside in other agencies. Trying to get that information cleared and up to you takes time. We are trying to balance our response and the things we need to do. But i commit we will answer all letters fully. Within can you give us . I think there is a backlog. Im trying to answer the oldest ones first. As we work through that pile, we will get to answering. We are answering letters every day. It may not seem like that, but we get them out the door. Unprecedented request of information. 300 more letters from members of congress. We want to answer those thoroughly. Requests come from other agencies. Its a backandforth. Committees that would have priority for your response that i hope you would give it. Some of the responses are several months old. That information you have just say you are trying to get the rest, i think we just did that. It may have been incomplete, but we were trying to get what we knew and out the door. Im glad you mentioned it. We just got a letter from you monday. It had no documents that we requested. Think you would need to either talk to your team and say we need to do better, because we are trying to do oversight. In that role, we cant do it without the information. We are just trying to get the information. Issue is 140,000 americans have died. That is a godawful number. I think we are positioned for that number to go higher. Members have come to the committee and said it appears we can do more to mitigate so much of what is going on. Wearing a mask, social distancing that we are practicing today. It is the clear, coherent, and consistent message that we need to get from everybody. From the white house to that reservists that work in the field for fema. When we dont get that clear, consistent message, we have a problem. I thank you for your service. Deaths is nothing any of us can be proud of. We have to address it. I thank you for your testimony. The members of the committee may have additional questions for you. We ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Without objection, the committee record shall be kept open for 10 days. Hearing no further business, the committee stands adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] cspans washington journal, every day we are taking your calls on the air on the news of the day and we will discuss policy issues that impact you. Coming up thursday morning, we will discuss the Coronavirus Relief bill with two members of congress, Ohio Republican congressman bill johnson, who is a member of the house budget and Energy Commerce committees and also with your democratic congressman adriana, member of the Small Business community. Watch washington journal at 7 00 eastern thursday morning and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. Thursday on the cspan networks, the house returns at 9 00 a. M. For general speeches, at 10 00 a. M. For legislative business with work on a spending package for fiscal year 2021 that includes the state department, agriculture, interior, and environment, and military construction and veteran affairs spending. That is on cspan. At 9 30 a. M. , the Senate Continues work on the defense programs bill. At 10 15 am on cspan3, a House Education Committee holds a hearing on ways to safely reopen schools. The house ways and Means Committee considers the impact of covid19 on trade, manufacturing, and the National Supply chain. President trump spoke about efforts to combat Violent Crime in u. S. Cities. The president announced federal Law Enforcement would be sent to cities including chicago and albuquerque, new mexico. At the event, attorney general william barr, acting Homeland Security secretary chad