Should Trump use wartime law to spur testing?
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are pressing the administration to use the Defense Production Act to increase the amount of coronavirus testing available and to appoint new leadership and oversight for the National Strategic Stockpile.
“It is stunning that the president is not using the power that has been granted to him to save lives,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
In fact, Trump has several times invoked the Defense Production Act, a wartime power that allows the president to intervene in American manufacturing in times of national emergency. He used it to spur the production of ventilators, masks and, most recently, meat processing.
Around the country, meat plants have become sites for coronavirus outbreaks. As workers fall ill, production has slowed and some farmers have had to euthanize pigs and chickens they cannot sell for meat.
“It is important that processors of beef, pork and poultry (‘meat and poultry’) in the food supply chain continue operating and fulfilling orders to ensure a continued supply of protein for Americans,” Trump wrote in the order.
"However, outbreaks of COVID-19 among workers at some processing facilities have led to the reduction in some of those facilities’ production capacity.”
Trump has defended his use of the DPA, saying he can use the law as leverage to make companies voluntarily produce what America needs, without always signing an executive to officially deploy it. Groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have pressured Trump not to use the law and intervene in U.S. businesses, reports suggest.
“When scarcity is the rule, prices go up. Industries can make a lot of money,” Murphy said. “We worry that the president is choosing profits over the health and safety of our constituents.”
Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary, told reporters Thursday afternoon, “The president is concerned about one thing and one thing alone and that’s protecting the health and well-being of the American people.”
Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y, said there was “no good answer” for why Trump used the DPA for meatpacking but not testing.
“Keeping these plants — meatpacking plants and others — open requires testing," Schumer said.
Murphy and other Senate Democrats unveiled a bill Wednesday to federalize the medical supply chain and appoint a new government executive to oversee production, make purchases and distribute the supplies, while reporting the nation’s coronavirus supply needs to Congress each week.
The bill would also create an independent government watchdog to oversee the efforts.
Schumer made it clear the bill is intended to “put pressure on the Trump administration to step up to the plate” and work with states to deliver more medical supplies where they are needed. Democrats will also press to include it in the next coronavirus response bill passed by Congress.
Democrats have repeatedly hammered President Donald Trump’s administration on the slow rollout of coronavirus testing in the U.S. They have criticized Trump’s Centers for Disease Control for creating its own coronavirus test, instead of deploying one used internationally, blamed Trump for shortages in testing-related supplies and said the president has no plan to conduct the widespread testing needed to reopen the economy.
Over 6 million people had been tested for coronavirus in the U.S. as of Thursday, according to the COVID Tracking Project, which compiles U.S. testing data from many sources. That’s roughly one in 50 people. This week the U.S. has been conducting an average of about 200,000 tests per day.
But many public health organizations have said the U.S. should be doing more. An analysis by the Rockefeller Foundation last week said the U.S. should test 3 million people a week. Vital Strategies, the nonprofit headed by former CDC Director Tom Frieden, suggested at least 450,000 tests per day.
The Trump administration Monday rolled out a national testing “blueprint,” calling for robust diagnostic testing and the use of widespread testing to monitor high-risk populations for outbreaks, but including no target numbers.
Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday on CNN everyone who needs a COVID-19 test should be able to get one by the end of May or start of June.
"That’s what I'm being told by the people who are responsible for the testing," Fauci said. “If that doesn't happen, I’m going to go to them and say, ‘What happened here?’ Why didn’t it happen and how can we fix it?’”
Gov. Ned Lamont predicted on April 24 that Connecticut would have the broadbased testing needed to reopen in a few weeks.
“I'm not sitting around waiting for the White House to help us out,” Lamont said on CNN. “What we are doing is teaming with CVS, teaming with Quest Diagnostic, teaming with major businesses, public/private partnerships. They have access to a lot of the key ingredients we need to ramp up our testing, and that’s just what we’re doing.”
Congress gave the Trump administration $25 billion to amp up testing efforts last week and required the administration to develop a national testing strategy.
In part, testing has been hindered by shortages in swabs and reagents needed to conduct the tests.
Schumer has been pressing Trump to improve the federal government’s medical supply distribution for about a month. On April 2, Schumer wrote to Trump asking him to appoint a medical supply “czar” with a military background.
He slammed the officials Trump tasked with overseeing supply distribution as “inexperienced and unqualified people” and the administration’s response as “confused and uncoordinated.”
Trump responded with his own caustic letter, rebuffing the idea by noting that Rear Admiral John Polowczyck, a U.S. Navy logistics and operations officer was in charge of distributions. Trump called Schumer a “bad” senator and wrote that it was “no wonder that AOC and others are thinking of running against you in the primary,” referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DBronx.
In March and early April, Connecticut and other states’ shipments of personal protective equipment from the National Stockpile were based on outdated population data, not the extent of states’ outbreaks. Officials said at the time that states should not expect to receive more from the stockpile.
“What this is pointed to is the need to for a much clearer framework around the health care stockpile, which turned out not only to be nearly empty, but also curiously weak on the framework of regulations that would direct the distributions,” said William Galston, senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program.
"It may be that one of the consequences of a full review of this episode, once it is behind us, with some 9/11-style commission, would be complete redoing of the legislation creating the National Healthcare Stockpile."
Governors have repeatedly complained that they have no other choice than to compete against one another on the private market for supplies, as prices climb.
“We worry that the president is choosing profits over the health and safety of our constituents.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.