Congressional Republicans are stepping up pressure on the Biden administration to explain why the federal government cannot supply desperately needed COVID-19 tests despite hefty funding provided by Congress.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly two years ago, lawmakers have approved more than $80 billion for virus testing. Democrats unilaterally passed $47 billion of that funding in March to cover the development, manufacture, purchase, and distribution of new rapid COVID-19 tests.
But nine months later, COVID-19 tests have become nearly impossible to find during the latest surge caused by the omicron variant, and Republicans are demanding Biden provide answers about why the administration was not prepared.
“For the last month, Americans have faced long lines at testing centers. They’ve gone to places where they thought they could purchase a rapid test to find empty shelves,” Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican who helped craft some of the legislation providing testing funds, said. “The question I really have is the same that many Americans have, which is, what went wrong? Why are we facing such a shortage of tests now?”
Blunt, along with Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican who also helped write the legislation providing COVID-19 testing money, wrote to the administration requesting information on the $82.6 billion allocated to produce and distribute the tests.
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“It is unclear to us why we are facing such dire circumstances now,” The senators wrote. “It does not appear to be because of lack of funding, but a more fundamental lack of strategy and a failure to anticipate future testing needs by the administration.”
Across the Capitol, House Republicans lashed out at the Biden administration for diverting $850 million (nearly 10% of the testing funding allocated in March) to the crisis on the southern border. The funds were used for, among other things, housing for the massive influx of illegal immigrants.
“Your Administration has misused taxpayer dollars to spend on items unrelated to COVID-19 and repurposed funds for the southern border crisis of your own creation,” House Ways and Means Committee Republicans wrote to Biden this week.
Republicans also accuse the Biden administration of focusing the COVID-19 response on vaccinations and vaccine mandates instead of testing and treatment.
Doses of effective treatments, such as monoclonal antibodies, are limited. The federal government recently began controlling distribution to the states.
The Biden administration announced last week it would begin addressing the testing shortage by distributing nearly 500 million at-home COVID-19 rapid tests “to the American people for free.” Tests can be ordered beginning Jan. 19 but won’t ship for 7 to 12 days.
Republicans criticized that plan also, arguing it won’t provide enough tests for individuals to test twice, which health officials say is necessary to ensure accuracy. The tests, administration officials said, are less sensitive to the omicron variant, which comprises the bulk of the cases currently.
Republicans warn that the tests won’t be widely available until omicron has already peaked.
“These tests haven’t been purchased yet,” Blunt said last week. “They haven’t been produced yet. They haven’t been distributed yet. And what do we do in the next weeks as we wait for even that to be done?”
Adding to the partisan battle over Biden’s COVID-19 response, his administration is preparing to seek even more funding from Congress, part of it to provide for additional testing.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters last month only $10 billion is left of the more than $47 billion appropriated for COVID-19 testing in the March spending bill and that the government would likely need more money to battle omicron. Becerra did not address the $33 billion in funds provided prior to the spending legislation signed by Biden in March.
In a phone call with reporters last week, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Democrats anticipate “substantial sums to be requested” by the White House to battle COVID, including money to provide free testing.
Biden and Democrats are likely to run into opposition from the GOP, which opposed the last round of COVID-19 aid and is fighting to rein in federal spending.
Overall, Congress has passed $6 trillion in COVID-19 aid, one-third of it under Biden.
In a letter to Becerra, Burr and Blunt earlier this month sought to find out where the more than $80 billion has been spent or why it has not yet been utilized.
“As we continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic,” they wrote, “it is important that Congress, and the American people, have an understanding of the administration’s strategy and accounting of how the Department is using taxpayer funding.”
