U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Anthony Brindisi, Tom Reed, Josh Gottheimer, Will Hurd, Tom Suozzi and Dean Phillips introduced the Made in America Emergency Preparedness Act.
The legislation authorizes the creation of a National Commission on United States Preparedness for National Emergencies. This Commission would be modeled on the 9/11 Commission, and would look at the national emergency response by the U.S. government and private sector to the pandemic. The Commission would report findings to Congress and the president on what steps and items are necessary to ensure America’s effective response to future national emergencies.
States that fail to implement the findings of the Commission’s report by 2025 would lose access to federal funds designated for emergency preparedness, unless DHS can certify that the state is working in good faith to implement the findings of the Commission. States would be required to be recertified every fiscal year.
The Commission would also be required to provide a report and recommendations to the president on goods that are essential to a response to a national emergency and must be manufactured in the United States. To ensure that federal procurement supply chains are more self-sufficient and can rely on more domestic sources of production, the bill also mandates that by 2025, federal agencies responsible for responding to national emergencies are procuring essential supplies, like medication and personal protective equipment, from domestic sources or manufacturing in the United States.
Specifically, goods procured by the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, along with the Centers for Disease Control and National Institute of Health would be manufactured by American businesses, allowing the national supply chain and domestic stockpile to become more reliant on American manufacturing.
“We simply cannot outsource our public safety and national security to foreign nations. We must reconstitute our healthcare and public safety supply chain back to the United States. Medical products, protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, emergency response equipment and all other critical items and materials needed to respond to a national emergency must be produced domestically for domestic consumption, especially during a critical, time-sensitive crisis,” Fitzpatrick said. “Our response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks was ‘Never Again.’ We must have that same exact response to COVID-19. This landmark, bipartisan legislation does just that.”
To help incentivize businesses and manufacturers to come into compliance with the federal procurement requirements and encourage domestic production, the bill would allow immediate expensing for firms that incur costs associated with expanded pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturing within the United States, including personal protective equipment and any other item determined by the Commission to be necessary.
