A cyclist passes a “Health Advisory” sign on March 18, 2020, in Miami Beach, Florida, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A cyclist passes a “Health Advisory” sign on March 18, 2020, in Miami Beach, Florida, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cliff Hawkins / Getty Images

Preparation for pandemics and natural disasters updated in bill passed by Senate panel

Legislation would increase accountability, transparency in how federal government helps state, local governments prepare for and respond to public health emergencies.

A U.S. Senate committee approved legislation Thursday that would update how the federal government prepares for and then responds to pandemics and natural disasters.

The broadly bipartisan legislation moved through the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee following a 17-3 vote after members adopted two bipartisan amendments.

Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Braun of Indiana and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama voted against moving the bill to the Senate floor. Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin voted present.

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the top Republican on the committee, said the COVID-19 pandemic showed Congress that the existing Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act was “far from perfect.”

Congress originally established the law in 2006, following the federal government’s “failures” in responding to Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Cassidy said.

“Although mistakes were made during COVID-19, we did learn some tough lessons and we hope this legislation is here to make sure that future generations are not forced to learn on the fly should another crisis occur,” Cassidy said.

“We’re updating the playbook, and we’re ensuring that our framework remains flexible to address those future threats — a future Hurricane Katrina for example,” he added.

The legislation, Cassidy said, would increase accountability and transparency in how the federal government helps state and local governments prepare for and respond to public health emergencies.

COVID pandemic showed the U.S. was ‘tragically unprepared’ for crisis

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the committee’s chair, said during the hearing the bill would help the federal government better prepare for future pandemics and natural disasters as well as possible biological, chemical or nuclear threats.

“I think it is fair to say that while all of our public health people worked tirelessly and did everything they could to protect the American people, it would be an understatement to say we were tragically unprepared to respond to that crisis,” Sanders said.

In this file photo, a nurse treats a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at a hospital on May 1, 2020, in Leonardtown, Maryland. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The 107-page bill has several sections, including a reauthorization of the Hospital Preparedness Program, an update of the National Health Security Strategy and updates to the Annual Threat-Based Review for the Strategic National Stockpile, according to a summary.

The bill, Sanders said, would require companies to tell the U.S. Food and Drug Administration if there’s a spike in demand for any of their products that they are unable to meet, like a shortage of children’s Tylenol.

The measure would also expand emergency medical services in rural areas, Sanders said.

The bill is co-sponsored in the Senate by Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, Utah Republican Mitt Romney, Sanders and Cassidy.

Strengthening the Strategic National Stockpile

The HELP Committee adopted two amendments to the bill, one from North Carolina Republican Sen. Ted Budd and New Hampshire Democrat Maggie Hassan as well as a second amendment from Colorado Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper and Budd.

The Budd-Hassan amendment would strengthen the Strategic National Stockpile, which purchases and stores personal protective equipment, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, among other critical supplies. The amendment implements some recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office.

The Hickenlooper-Budd amendment would establish an emerging pathogen preparedness program at the FDA that would allow the agency to respond faster during a future pandemic.

“This new team will allow FDA to dedicate the necessary manpower to be able to quickly evaluate and … clear the many countermeasures that would come before them during a pandemic,” Hickenlooper said. “Getting these countermeasures to the public fast in a time of crisis will save lives.”

The FDA had requested the authority from Congress, he said.

Cassidy spoke out against the amendment, saying he was unsure why the FDA would need Congress to establish a new program for emerging threats since it already has “an office of counterterrorism and emerging threats.”

Tuberville amendment on CDC directors was rejected

The HELP Committee also rejected several amendments.

A majority of the panel did not agree to add a proposal from Tuberville that would have required any new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention directors nominated by the president to get Senate approval immediately, moving up the timetable from January 2025.

Braun and Budd had an amendment rejected that would have prevented the secretary of the Health and Human Services Department from declaring a public health emergency on gun violence.

The panel rejected several amendments from Paul, including one that would have divided the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within the National Institutes of Health up into three different agencies.

Paul unsuccessfully proposed another amendment that would have barred federal funding from going to gain of function research in China.

Paul defined that as “any research project that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity or transmissibility in mammals.”

Sanders said Paul’s concerns about that type of research are important and pledged to work with the Kentucky Republican on the issue moving forward, though he said the bill itself gets at the issue.

“I worked with ranking member Cassidy to include a provision in this bill to make sure that any country, including China, that is deemed dangerous by our intelligence community would not be able to receive medical research dollars from the U.S. government for a minimum of five years,” Sanders said.

Paul’s amendment on gain of function research, Sanders said, could have jeopardized international collaborations on medical research.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.