Activity and turmoil going on around us. Many of us are back in washington today. Were holding this committee virtually in compliance with the regulations for Remote Committee proceedings pursuant to House Resolution 965. This authority has allowed us to continue to do our work on behalf of the American People, while keeping our staff, families, and the Broader Community safe. We have all started to become familiar with navigating this technology, i do want to remind members of a few procedures. First, consistent with the regulations, the committee will keep microphones muted to limit background noise. Members are responsible for unmuting themselves when they seek recognition or when recognized for their five minutes. Members and witnesses must have their cameras on at all times. Weve got to keep track of you even if you step away from the proceedings. Please leave your camera on rather than logging out. Finally, as you know, we may have votes during todays hearing. It looks like theyr
At a joint hearing on the coronavirus and the procurement of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies. This rants an hour and a half. Joint hearing will come to order. Let me begin by thanking everyone for joining us today. I hope that my colleagues, our witnesses and viewers are staying healthy and safe. I want to thank chairman pain and Ranking Member king of the Emergency Preparedness response and recovery subcommittee, for coming together with Ranking Member crenshaw and i to hold this hearing. We are here to discuss federal and state efforts to picker critical supplies and response to the coronavirus pandemic. First, i want to acknowledge that the federal Emergency Management agency, fema, who is put in charge of the federal governments response was asked to testify today. While fema is not here today, i understand that and miss straighter gaynor plans to appear before the full Committee Later this month. Im pleased to hear this because it is vital that we Work Tog
Faced in over a century. The extent of the crisis cannot be overstated. Six months, over 3m people in the United States have been diagnosed with covid19 and more than 140,000 americans have died. Sadly these numbers will only continue to increase as new covid19 cases are searching all across the nation. I is possible. They also appreciate the chance to bring some ten i ten unseat e Trump Administrations work speed effort. This transparency will be crucial to secure the american Peoples Trust that the vaccine will be made available only once it is proven to be safe and effective. Congress has already taken actions to support these efforts. This spring, congress provided the Vaccine Development and manufacturing of birds and other medical countermeasures. Then two months ago the house passed the heroes act, the comprehensive legislation to strengthen the nations ability to fight the pandemic like altering the Strategic National stockpile and increase funding for Research Development and
Food stamps. They had 250,000. 60 billion, 250,000. I dont know how many people they think live in america, but that doesnt even begin. Theyre nickel and diming it. And when you talk about children and families who are in fear of eviction, this means a great deal to children to be insecure about their housing. Some of them will become homeless because the republicans are nickel and diming our children. These families are crying out for the 600. Theyre nickel and diming the Economic Security of childrens families. The list goes on and on. We are saying in our bill, children learning, parents earning. If we want parents to be able to go back to work, we need children to be going to school safely. And if they cant, and parents have to work, we want them to have child care in a significant way. Dont nickel and dime us, our children, on the child care issue, either. So again, if you look at it and how people are affected by this, the families of our heroes, as i said earlier, you know who t
Have learned during the crisis to better prepare for pandemic or other biological events of this scale in the future. Folks of todays hearing is the Strategic National stockpile. First established with a 51,000 appropriation in 1958, the sns was codified in 2002 and obtained its current name with an expanded mission in 2003. Over the years, management responsibility for the sns has changed between different agencies within hhs and dhs. In developing a plan for this committees oversight for the federal governments response to the coronavirus, the role of the Strategic National stockpile was an obvious area of interest, as is the vulnerability of our supply chain and theyre very interrelated. I assume that staff would be able to quickly obtain the list of items that should be held together with required and actual inventory levels of each item. Once again, i learned it is dangerous to assume. We quickly found out that those lists do not exist or certainly are not made available to congre