he invoked the federal production act. that will compel suppliers and manufacturers to boost production and ingredient suppliers will have to deliver to formula companies first before any other customer. president biden is also directing military aircraft and commercial airlines to import formula from abroad, something the fda has long stood in the way of. currently the fda bans most foreign infant formula, not because of health concerns about labelling issues. in the face of this crisis, the agency promises to hurry up their review process to expedite imports. on capitol hill lawmakers voted with overwhelming support 12-9 to pass a bill that would widen access to baby formula for families using the nutrition program for women, infants and children known as wic. almost half of the babies born in the united states qualify for wic. when the shortage hit, many of the alternative brands or specialty formulas were not covered by wit benefits. now more family will be able to get he
biden administration, the latest being this baby formula short and. shortage. but today the president does feel he has wind at his sails. the president welcoming two major european countries, the heads of finland and sweden who were not interested in joining nato until we saw russia s aggression in ukraine and with all that the president has folk $ on keeping our allies together only led to their interest in joining that alliance. the president welcoming them into the rose garden saying they more than meet the qualifications. then we have the president thanking congress, the bipartisan support for that latest round of ukraine security assistance, the president in that statement announcing that he was prepared now today to release even more security assistance for the ukrainians in the form of further artillery and radar, equipment that can be put to use very quickly to defend themselves. and then he s coming here to
families are struggling and some kids are ending up in nicu, pediatric intensive care units. wic not we looked into that. this is what i can tell you my understanding is. the states have different rules for wic, which is the support for women, infants and children. and, by the way, of all those who buy infant formula, katie, 68% are people who are on wic. that s a lot. that s a lot of people. each state does it differently. they ve been given a usda waiver to say you don t just have to use essentially your coupon to buy this brand, you can buy other brands to try to help people be able to find something but not all states have done that. so what congress just did, the house just did is try to force more states to allow more people
what congress needs to do is put a boatload of money in there, whether it s $20 billion, $40 billion, $50 billion. after 9/11 we put $20 billion in there just for new york city. i think congress would be well-served to just put a big pot of money in there. and i would just say $20 billion off the top of my head. and that may not seem like a lot when we hear estimates of, you know, this or that hurricane is going to cost s$150 billion. i could caution american citizens to realize something. fema doesn t make people whole. fema doesn t come in and rebuild your home or rebuild your business. fema will come in and rebuild infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, public schools and help with those costs. but they don t make people ho whole. that s not the job of fema. fema s job is to provide temporary assistance so that you can get your feet back on the ground as kind of a jumpstart. so when people hear $150 billion in damages expected from
enough food, water, and shelter before the government can get back in. we have predeployed and prestaged but we can t get to that final point of care until conditions permit. one housekeeping question. for fema to have resources and no broken chain there, the president needs to sign legislation now that s just passed this morning. any indication of when that s going to happen. i d like to start by thanking congress. they came in a fast way to give us emergency supplemental funding. first, fema still has the money they need so there s no break in operations. let me make sure the clarify on your question there, but there will be are a break in operation fz they run out of money. thank you to the house and senate leadership for bringing everyone back in and passing that so quickly and responsibly. we anticipate, honestly, this is a realtime event. the bill may be on its way. it requires signature by the speaker, the vice president, and then signature by the president