A group of lawmakers recently introduced legislation designed to address healthcare industry personnel personal protective equipment shortages amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Gary Peters (D-MI), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Chris Murphy (D-CT) said the Protect Our Heroes Act Of 2020 increases N-95 mask production and improves the transparency of the supply and distribution of medical supplies needed to combat the pandemic.
“It’s inexcusable that across the country health professionals are still being forced to reuse PPE and states, Tribes, communities, and medical facilities are being left to fend for themselves and bid against each other for scarce supplies,” Murray said. I’m pushing for this legislation to provide much-needed funding to ramp up PPE production.”
The bill authorizes $10 billion for the strategic national stockpile to purchase critical PPE, including nitrile gloves, gowns, face shields and surgical masks, among other equipment. The funding allotment provides certainty to manufacturers that there will be a market when they increase production.
Additionally, the lawmakers said the bill uses the Defense Production Act (DPA), as well as authorities in the Federal Emergency Management Act (FEMA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to spur the development, investment, and production of PPE; authorizes $1 billion for the Small Business Administration to provide grants for small business retooling domestic facilities to produce critical protective equipment over the next two years; and requires the federal government to release reports regularly on the supplies needed to fight COVID-19 and provide direction for bolstering domestic manufacturing to provide those supplies.