Five, four, three, two, one. The committee on Homeland Security will come to order. The committees meeting today received testimony on examining the National Response to the worsening coronavirus pandemic, part two. Without objection, the chair has authorized to declare the committee in recess at any point. To remind members, we are following the tending positions guidance on wearing face coverings at all times, while not under recognition. The chair will only recognize those who are following the guidelines. Today, the committee on Homeland Securitys 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. To be clear, that selfimposed guidance is intended to undermine congressional oversight of the administration, but the committee will move forward with its work today. I would note that the Committee Also invited the department of health and Human Services to participate in this hearing. Hhs refused to send a witness even though the committee scheduled this inperson hearing to accommodate the administrations request. That refusal is yet another example of the Trump Administration shirking its responsibility to answer to congress and the American People on its bungled response to covid19. That being said, we are pleased that administrator gaynor is here to respond to members questions about the pandemic, which has now claimed the lives of over 140,000 americans. The number of u. S. Coronavirus cases continues to surge, with 60,000 new cases yesterday. The country recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day yesterday, for 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 measures such as face coverings, testing, and contact tracing. But 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 gross incompetence and incoherent plan to respond to the pandemic has cost lives. South korea reported its first covid19 case the same day as the United States, but we have suffered 470 times the number of deaths they have. Tragically, in many ways we are no more prepared now to address 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 results are climbing. And 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 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 masks. We are hoping this is an indication President Trump may, at long last, be willing to take the advice of the experts on responding to the pandemic. We need real leadership at the federal level if our country is to overcome the covid19 pandemic and prevent more lives being lost needlessly. Administrator gaynor 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 failures to take care of its own people. Frankly, we do not have time for such ridiculous attempts to distract from the crisis at hand. Instead, i hope to hear from administrator gaynor today about where we currently stand and how the administration can improve its response to this Public Health emergency. The American People are counting on us. I think administrator gaynor and my colleagues for participating in this hearing today. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the full committee, from alabama, mr. Rogers 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 hit the disease from the world the Chinese Communist party reported lifesaving medical supplies while they encouraged foreign travel, ceding the virus across the globe. Facing an extraordinary Public Health crisis in chinas deadly coverup, the Trump Administration has responded with a whole new government response. Since march, fema has helped lead the response effort the agency has coordinated the delivery of over 20 billion ppe to him article pass a no, responders and critical workers. It administered 56 major disaster declarations covering every state and territory. And, obligated over 145 billion dollars 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 to, 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 RulesOpening 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 8th 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 14th, 2020. Prior to this current role, he served as acting administrator for ten months and was previously confirmed to serve as phoenix deputy administrator in october, 2018 administrators danger previously served as the director of rhode island Emergency Management agency. Before his Emergency Management career, administrator gaynor served in the invited states marine corps for 26 years. Without objection, the witnesses full statement will be inserted in the record. I now ask administrative gaynor to summarize his statement for five minutes. Chairman thompson, Ranking Member rodgers and distinguished members of the committee. My name is pete gaynor, and i am the administrator of the federal Emergency Management agency fema . Thank you for the opportunity to discuss femas response and the actions currently underway to protect the American People during the coronavirus covid19 pandemic, as well as the agencys ongoing engagement with the Emergency Management community to enhance Disaster Preparedness within a covid19 environment. One live lost as one life to many in our hearts go out all those that have been affected by the pandemic. This has been a trying time for our country and fema has been working around the clock to help our nation respond to this historic Global Pandemic and other National Disasters. As the fema administrator, it has been my honor to work alongside the dedicated professionals of fema. Today, i want to acknowledge that 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 13th. Since that time, the entire team is worked tirelessly to make a positive impact and many of risk 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 is required some reexamining 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 personally Protection Equipment, ppe. Most ppe is made in asia, where the violence significantly slowed manufacturing and u. S. Law is limited authorities. Fema typically manages an abundance of resources for disasters that are limited in geographic open impact. In responding to covid19, fema has met 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 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 quickly assembled by fema and its federal parts. In less than ten 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 can be kin to stabilize. Our goal is to supplement. This cut International Shipments from 37 days by sea, to one day by air. On march 29th to july 1st, 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 13th, we provided over 8. 4 billion dollars in obligations to states for covid19 related activities, with the first one billion dollars obligating in just 11 days. Another 1. 7 billion dollars has been allocated in support to our National Guard troops, as well as employment 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 for part of the blueprint, fema has delivered more than 41 million swabs and 32 Million Units of medium. What 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 has utilized the 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 pivot, fema recently released a Planning Guidance for 2020 Hurricane Season to help local officials best prepare for common disasters in a pandemic. This 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 working 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 . 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 going through 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 . 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. To help those hospitals or who else may have a shortage. My point is, its still a problem and, can you