Republicans demand answers from Biden on COVID-19 testing funds
by Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent |
| January 18, 2022 05:15 AM
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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