[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                   EXAMINING THE WHITE HOUSE'S ROLE IN
                    PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

            SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

                                 OF THE

               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                             MARCH 6, 2024
                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-92
                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
  
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                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
55-179 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024   


               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida               Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York            Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida

                                 ------                                
                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
             Mitchell Benzine, Subcommittee Staff Director
                        Marie Policastro, Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                Miles Lichtman, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                                 ------                                

            Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic

                     Brad Wenstrup, Ohio, Chairman
Nicole Malliotakis, New York         Raul Ruiz, California, Ranking 
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa           Minority Member
Debbie Lesko, Arizona                Debbie Dingell, Michigan
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
John Joyce, Pennsylvania             Deborah Ross, North Carolina
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Robert Garcia, California
Ronny Jackson, Texas                 Ami Bera, California
Rich Mccormick, Georgia              Jill Tokuda, Hawaii

                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Hearing held on March 6, 2024....................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

Maj. Gen. Paul Friedrichs, M.D. (ret.), Director, Office of 
  Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, The White House
Oral Statement...................................................     4

Written opening statements and the written statements of the 
  witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * Letter, May 15, 2018, to Bolton, from Reps. Connolly and 
  Bera; submitted by Rep. Bera.

  * Questions for the record: to Maj. Gen. Friedrichs; submitted 
  by Rep. Wenstrup.

  * Questions for the record: to Maj. Gen. Friedrichs; submitted 
  by Rep. Dingell.

  * Questions for the record: to Maj. Gen. Friedrichs; submitted 
  by Rep. Garcia.

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
 EXAMINING THE WHITE HOUSE'S ROLE IN PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE


                              ----------                              


                        Wednesday, March 6, 2024

                        House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

            Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brad R. Wenstrup 
(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Wenstrup, Malliotakis, Miller-
Meeks, Joyce, McCormick, Ruiz, Dingell, Mfume, Ross, Bera, and 
Tokuda.
    Also present: Representative Moskowitz.
    Dr. Wenstrup. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus 
Pandemic will come to order.
    I want to welcome everyone this morning.
    And without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at 
any time.
    I ask for unanimous consent for Mr. Moskowitz from Florida 
and a Member of the full Committee to participate in today's 
hearing.
    I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    The COVID-19 pandemic lasted over a thousand days, took 
millions of lives, and extracted a crushing physical, 
emotional, social, and economic toll on our country. There will 
be other pandemics or significant public health emergencies 
that test our Nation's preparedness and resiliency in the 
future. We can expect it. And we can't turn a blind eye to this 
fact. We can't pretend that this is a one-off or even once-in-
a-century catastrophic event.
    Executive departments and agencies should be well on their 
way to collecting and analyzing lessons learned and 
implementing corresponding changes to our Nation's plans and 
priorities.
    Based on lessons learned, including recommendations that 
this Select Subcommittee will make later this year, Congress 
must ensure that departments and agencies have the necessary 
authorities and resources to prepare for and respond to the 
next pandemic.
    In an effort to do better, Congress passed the Prepare for 
and Respond to Existing Viruses, Emerging New Threats, Pandemic 
Act, more commonly referred to as the PREVENT Pandemics Act.
    Included in the PREVENT Act was the requirement for the 
White House to establish the Office of Pandemic Preparedness 
and Response Policy as a permanent component of the Executive 
Office of the President. With the creation of this office, the 
White House now has a permanent element dedicated to pandemic 
preparedness and response fully focused on doing better in the 
future.
    And we are here to ensure that this new office helps us 
achieve that, not just add other layers of bureaucracy, but to 
actually achieve that goal.
    OPPR is charged with leading, coordinating, and 
implementing actions related to preparedness for, response to 
known and unknown biological threats or pathogens that could 
lead to a pandemic or to significant public health-related 
disruptions in the United States.
    As I've said many times, the goals of this Subcommittee is 
to create a path forward for us to possibly predict the next 
pandemic, prepare for it, protect ourselves, and maybe even 
prevent it.
    Appearing before us today is Major General, retired, Paul 
Friedrichs. General Friedrichs is the inaugural director of the 
White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy 
which was officially stood up in August 2023.
    Today I hope we can have a serious and productive 
conversation about how the whole of government can do better 
and how we can do better next time.
    And while doing better must involve plans to prevent or 
mitigate the loss of life and devastating emotional, social, 
and economic consequences, we also need to address another 
casualty of the pandemic. The casualty is Americans' trust in 
public health and their government's ability to respond to a 
crisis of this magnitude.
    It's a tall challenge, no doubt, but doing better must 
involve restoring public trust and confidence. Integrity, 
experience, credibility, these are the attributes that 
Americans must see in public health institutions and officials. 
If we can't restore the public trust, the most comprehensive, 
sound preparedness and response plan may end up being in vain. 
So, we want to work toward that goal.
    I hope this hearing will provide us with an opportunity to 
discuss what lessons were learned during the pandemic and how 
we can do better. These lessons are critical in preparing for 
future pandemics. We need to plan and prepare for potential 
pandemic pathogens and emerging biological threats with the 
same level of urgency and effort that we plan and prepare for 
the actions of potential adversaries. Americans are counting on 
us to do just that.
    So, I look forward to a robust and on-topic discussion this 
morning. Thank you.
    And I would now like to recognize Ranking Member Dr. Ruiz 
for the purpose of making an opening statement.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you to Major General Friedrichs for your 
participation in today's hearing, as well as for your service 
to our Nation.
    When I think back to this time 4 years ago, and can't 
believe I just said 4 years ago, I can't help but think of the 
uncertainty that gripped our Nation as the COVID-19 pandemic 
took hold. We knew little about this novel virus, about the way 
it spread, the danger it posed, and the damage it would inflict 
on our communities.
    But during this time of significant uncertainty, one thing 
became increasingly clear: Our Nation was not where it needed 
to be when it came to pandemic preparedness and response.
    Now, thanks to the rapid production of vaccines under the 
Trump Administration and the rapid and sustained deployment of 
COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics under the Biden 
Administration and robust public health investments in the 
American Rescue Plan, we have left the darkest days of the 
pandemic behind us.
    And while we continue the work of keeping COVID-19 at bay, 
we must balance the imperative of mitigating the threat that 
new viruses could pose to Americans' health and preparing for 
future pandemics.
    Last Congress, Democrats led the House in taking meaningful 
steps toward bolstering our pandemic preparedness and response 
capabilities with the passage of the Consolidated 
Appropriations Act of 2023. Included in this law were 
bipartisan provisions from the PREVENT Pandemics Act which made 
several significant reforms to help ensure we are better 
prepared when a future pandemic strikes.
    These reforms acted to advance our Nation's biosafety and 
biosecurity, revitalize our public health work force, prevent 
undue foreign influence in biomedical research, and enhance our 
Strategic National Stockpile. Notably, this law also 
established the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response 
Policy within the White House, taking a lessons-learned 
approach to strengthening our Nation's pandemic preparedness 
and response capabilities.
    Ultimately, these policies and the creation of OPPR have 
charted the course for a more efficient, streamlined pandemic 
response for the future, and they have shown what we can do 
when we come together constructively to protect Americans' 
health and save lives.
    OPPR's work to coordinate pandemic preparedness and 
response activities means that when the next pandemic comes, 
our Nation can readily launch a response that best protects the 
American people. You see, the important work that OPPR is doing 
right now will help prevent our Nation from replicating the 
chaos of the first months of the initial COVID-19 response, 
which left states, local governments, and hospitals without the 
resources they needed to protect people's health.
    OPPR has already helped guide our Nation through a 
challenging respiratory season this past fall and winter, 
leading to a 24 percent reduction in reported deaths from 
COVID-19, pneumonia, and influenza so far this season as 
compared to last. And OPPR continues to oversee the Biden 
administration's efforts to strengthen our supply chains, 
develop new vaccines, and stay on the cutting edge with 
advanced therapeutics, both for COVID-19 and for future public 
health threats.
    While coordinating all of these efforts, OPPR also 
quarterbacks the Biden administration's National Biodefense 
Strategy and Implementation Plan, which provides a framework 
for fortifying our whole-of-government capabilities to assess, 
prevent, and respond to biological threats.
    While OPPR is still a new and growing office, its mission 
as the steward of our Nation's Pandemic Preparedness and 
Response Policy means that it is at the center of the forward-
looking work of mitigating future public health threats and 
saving future lives.
    As a physician and a public health expert, developing 
forward-looking solutions that help our Nation better prevent 
and prepare for future public health crises is my top priority. 
And as Ranking Member, it is my hope that we can emulate Major 
General Friedrichs' work in our own Select Subcommittee.
    So, I hope that today's hearing yields constructive 
policies like those that created OPPR in the first place, that 
help this office carry out its essential work for the American 
people. I look forward to today's discussion.
    And I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
    Our witness today is Major General, retired, Paul 
Friedrichs. General Friedrichs is the director of the Office of 
Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.
    Prior to his appointment as the Director, the General 
served 37 years in the Air Force. He recently served as Joint 
Staff Surgeon, Principal Medical Advisor to the Chairman of the 
Joint Staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Pursuant to the Committee on Oversight and Accountability 
rule 9(g), the witness will please stand and raise your right 
hand.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    Thank you.
    Let the record show that the witness answered in the 
affirmative.
    The Select Subcommittee certainly appreciates you all for 
being here today. We look forward to the testimony. Let me 
remind the witness that we have read your written statement and 
that will appear in full in the hearing record, but please 
limit your first opening oral statement to 5 minutes.
    And as a reminder, press the button on the microphone in 
front of you so it is on, Members can hear you. And when you 
begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green. And 
after 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the red light 
comes on, your 5 minutes has expired, and we'll ask you to wrap 
up and get into questions.
    So, I now recognize you, General, to give an opening 
statement.

            STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL PAUL FRIEDRICHS, M.D.

                                 (RET.)

                                DIRECTOR

                  OFFICE OF PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND

                            RESPONSE POLICY

                            THE WHITE HOUSE

    General Friedrichs. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Ruiz, 
and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you very 
much for the opportunity to testify before you today regarding 
the work of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and 
Response Policy.
    As both of you noted, OPPR was borne out of the lessons 
learned from the recent pandemic which cost our Nation nearly 
1.2 million lives, trillions of dollars, and resulted in tens 
of millions more with long COVID and other sequelae of this 
pandemic.
    As you described so clearly, Congress in a bipartisan 
manner came together to establish OPPR and charged it with 
leading and coordinating actions related to preparedness for 
and response to future biological threats. In August of this 
year--of last year, I was honored to be appointed by the 
President to serve as the office's inaugural director.
    Over the course of my 37 years as an Air Force officer and 
physician, I've had the privilege of caring for those ill and 
injured in combat and in austere locations all over the world, 
from the South Pole to above the Arctic Circle and many places 
in between.
    I'm grateful to have had the privilege of working with our 
space program, with our research and development colleagues, 
and the opportunity to run our global Aeromedical Evacuation 
System and work with those partners around the world who enable 
us to care for our ill and injured wherever they might be. 
These diverse experiences have helped to prepare me for the 
privilege of now leading this remarkable OPPR team and working 
closely with our interagency, industry, and other colleagues.
    I'm also grateful for this opportunity to share with all of 
you the progress that our team has made in its first 7 months.
    We have initially focused on three responsibilities. The 
first one, as both of you noted, is learning from the recent 
pandemic and understanding the key lessons that we have at 
least observed. The second is refining our planning and 
preparedness for future biological incidents based on what we 
have learned. And the third is providing advice and informing 
Federal investments to enhance our biopreparedness.
    Congress directed that we prepare a report which 
summarizes, among other things, key lessons learned from the 
recent pandemic, as well as areas for improvement. To that end, 
we are actively collating and assessing a wide array of lessons 
observed and learned from Federal departments and agencies, as 
well as from key public health, medical, industrial, and other 
partners.
    This comprehensive review will result in a report to 
Congress and to the President later this year that sets out the 
key issues, gaps that create risk, and recommendations, to 
address them, as well as persistent barriers and opportunities 
for further collaboration to improve our biopreparedness.
    Leveraging this analysis, OPPR will work with interagency 
and other partners to test our country's preparedness in an 
ongoing fashion, and we have a great annual opportunity to do 
that each year with the fall-winter respiratory cycle, as you 
both mentioned there, a time when millions of Americans become 
ill with respiratory illnesses. And those illnesses test the 
resilience of our medical and public health infrastructure, 
resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of some of our 
most vulnerable Americans.
    As we continue to learn from these efforts to mitigate 
predictable seasonal threats, we will enhance our preparedness 
for unpredictable biological incidents which, as you noted, 
will happen in the future.
    OPPR is also reviewing and recommending updates to 
applicable Federal plans to ensure that departments and 
agencies are ready to facilitate a whole-of-government 
integrated response to future biological incidents.
    During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden-Harris 
administration made historic investments in tests, vaccines, 
and treatments, often leveraging the work begun with Operation 
Warp Speed. COVID-19, which at one point was the No. 1 leading 
cause of death in the country, is now the number 10 cause of 
death. Still a significant concern, but we have made real 
progress. And OPPR is committed to ensuring that these key 
successes of the past 4 years inform updates to our plans at 
every level of government so we can rapidly replicate what 
worked in future bio--so that we're better prepared for future 
biological incidents.
    Congress also directed OPPR to provide advice on 
biodefense-related budget decisions, and our team is working 
with key Federal partners to develop processes to provide 
timely, detailed advice on enhancements to our ability to 
collect and analyze data about outbreaks, development of next-
generation medical countermeasures, and other risk mitigation 
measures.
    In addition, OPPR is working closely with key stakeholders 
to enhance our ability to rapidly develop protective measures 
in the future.
    While we're new, we're committed. And we're eager to answer 
your questions.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
    I now recognize myself for questions.
    You know, by statute, the--that created the OPPR, as you 
mentioned, you're required to submit a preparedness outlook 
report within 1 year. So, my first question is: Do you believe 
your office is on track and properly resourced to deliver that? 
And maybe briefly tell me, in your mind, what preparedness 
looks like.
    General Friedrichs. Chairman Wenstrup, thank you very much. 
Our office is committed to a good-faith effort to deliver this 
report and ensure that it is as comprehensive as possible.
    And as I mentioned in my opening statement, we're reaching 
out, not only to Federal departments and agencies, but also to 
state, local, county, industry, and other partners to collect 
any reports or assessments that they have provided or conducted 
so that we can include those in the final report and 
acknowledge, not only the whole-of-government, but the whole-
of-society nature of this response.
    We will deliver that report this year. I will freely 
acknowledge that there have been some challenges related to the 
current budget environment which have slowed our work down a 
bit, but we have found ways to work through that.
    And as we've done that and as we've reached out to partners 
across the country, what they've consistently shared with us is 
their perception of the value of taking a hard look at what 
happened over the last 4 years and capturing those lessons, as 
well as the remaining gaps that we've identified, so that we 
can collectively then discuss how best to mitigate the risk 
that those gaps create.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Will you have an opportunity to or will you 
be looking at, say, what other nations may have done during the 
pandemic? Again, looking for maybe things that worked and 
didn't work, and I know that in some cases it's apples to 
oranges, but maybe worth looking into?
    General Friedrichs. Congressman, thank you very much. And 
I've had the great privilege in prior roles of serving as the 
United States representative to the NATO Medical Committee and 
working with other allies and partners in different roles. And 
those personal relationships with colleagues around the world 
have given me the opportunity to discuss with many of my 
colleagues around the world what their countries have learned. 
And as you said, each country has somewhat different 
experiences.
    But I think it is absolutely safe to say that in every 
discussion that we've had about this, some of the key things 
that have arisen have been the need for a whole-of-government 
response and a recognition that a pandemic by definition is a 
global event, not solely a local event. It has to be addressed 
both globally and locally for those responses to be effective 
and as efficient as possible.
    So, I continue to work with our colleagues across the 
Executive Office of the President and the departments and 
agencies so that we can collect as much information as possible 
from all of those stakeholders to inform the report that we'll 
provide later this year.
    Dr. Wenstrup. And we talk about a whole-of-government 
response. Do you think your office will have the ability to 
break some of those silos that tend to exist sometimes within 
our government in an attempt to bring them all together?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you, sir. And that is absolutely 
my commitment in a good-faith effort collaboratively, 
transparently, and inclusively to leverage the convening 
authority that we have to bring the key stakeholders within 
government together. And we were clearly charged to do that in 
the bipartisan language that created this office.
    The success will be judged by what happens in the next 
pandemic, and so I don't want to overstate what we've done in 
the last 7 months. But I am grateful for our colleagues across 
the Federal Government who have partnered with us and who have 
recognized the opportunity, as you said, to break down those 
stovepipes and find better ways to work together so that we're 
better prepared for future events.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
    Another question, based on what we experienced with the 3-
plus years of the pandemic, what do you see--and, again, on a 
very general level, what is essential to improving the quality 
and delivery of diagnostics, therapeutics, and other medical 
countermeasures?
    I mean, this pandemic tested us in every way, because even 
with this particular vaccine, we knew that people still got 
COVID. So, therapeutics was very important. It wasn't just a 
matter of getting a vaccine and the story ends, but being able 
to treat those that maybe didn't get as sick, but to respond in 
that way.
    General Friedrichs. Thank you, sir. And I'd start with 
the--you know, one of the most important long-term investments 
that this country should continue to make is investing in our 
public health data systems and our ability to see outbreaks as 
they occur.
    The faster that we identify that an outbreak is occurring, 
the more quickly we can then move to developing the appropriate 
safe and effective diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines to 
mitigate the risk of that outbreak. So, that ability to detect 
what's happening is the first step.
    The next step, as you described, is how do we build those 
capabilities and then ensure that they're safely and 
appropriately manufactured, distributed, and administered, and 
that we track the impact that they have on the outbreak as it's 
occurring. That's a tall order but one that we're committed to 
achieving.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
    I now recognize Ranking Member Dr. Ruiz from California for 
questions.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you again for being here, Major General 
Friedrichs.
    In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress came 
together in a bipartisan fashion to develop the concept of your 
office which was ultimately established through the Democrat's 
Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023.
    Since its launch last July, OPPR has worked tirelessly on 
the mission of forward-looking work to prepare for future 
pandemics, the very work I've long called for in this Select 
Subcommittee.
    With so many competing priorities, why is it so important 
that we continue to keep our eye on the ball when it comes to 
future pandemic preparedness?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you very much, Ranking Member 
Ruiz. And I'd say--start with the complexity of the threat. 
It's important that we do this because the threat space is 
changing. The COVID pandemic, like the 1919 influenza pandemic, 
was a global event, and those will continue to occur, as they 
have throughout the history of mankind. And there are other 
biological events, like measles outbreaks, that continue to 
challenge public health systems.
    But in addition to that, as laid out in the National 
Biodefense Strategy, we also have to consider accidental and 
other biological threats, and integrating those preparedness 
and response efforts is how we will ensure that we're best 
prepared for whatever the source of the next pandemic may be.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you.
    And during recent bipartisan meetings with international 
pandemic preparedness officials and experts, I asked how 
lessons learned from the COVID-19 are being applied to the work 
of preparing for future public health threats.
    So, Major General Friedrichs, I'd like to ask you the same 
question. What key lessons that you've learned are you applying 
from the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthening our whole-of-
government pandemic preparedness and response?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you.
    And I think the most important lesson, and both of you have 
touched on it in your opening comments, is the need for further 
integration and optimizing how we work across what you 
described as the stovepipes that are inevitable in large 
organizations and around the world.
    Each country is a sovereign nation, and we have to continue 
to work on building the infrastructure that allows us to 
rapidly share information when an outbreak is occurring and 
then identify what the options are available at that moment in 
time to mitigate the risk related to that outbreak.
    Within the Federal Government, we've seen a real appetite 
and support for working on collecting lessons observed--and I 
won't say lessons learned yet, but lessons observed--over the 
last 4 years, integrating them into a report that lays out what 
we've learned, and then using that to update our plans.
    I think that planning effort really gets to the crux of 
your question, which is, how do we capture an updated playbook 
that lays out what we will do next time? How do we do this 
better?
    These are inherently global, inherently complex, and 
inherently lethal and expensive whole-of-society, whole-of-
globe efforts. The most effective responses are ones that 
acknowledge that early in the response and then work across all 
of the levers of government at every level and with industry 
and other key stakeholders to both begin the response effort 
and then to adjust it as we learn more about the outbreak.
    Dr. Ruiz. You know, we also discussed the kinds of reforms 
we wished we saw during COVID-19 that we should continue to 
work toward as part of our future pandemic preparedness, 
improvements like greater transparency in the wake of emerging 
threats, stronger supply chains domestically and in partnership 
with our allies, and more nimble collaboration with local and 
private sector partners as part of our on-the-ground response.
    So, as we look to future pandemic preparedness, what 
improvements do you hope to see in our Federal response to 
novel viruses and public health threats?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you very much. And the most 
immediate one is that we are deliberately and recurrently 
meeting with state, local, Tribal, community, and other leaders 
across the country to both hear their advice on where they 
think improvements are needed and then to give them insight 
into what we are working on learning, planning, and proposing. 
And that collaboration has been incredibly well received.
    Last week, we met with the state and tribal health 
officers, as well as chief health officers, from some of the 
largest cities in the United States. And there was 
overwhelmingly positive feedback for having the White House 
involved in those discussions and for the effort to integrate 
across Federal departments and agencies.
    So, we see a real opportunity, as directed by Congress, in 
enabling legislation.
    Dr. Ruiz. So, I know it's early and you're in the 
investigative phase, but what is emerging as a high-priority 
recommendation that can have the biggest impact in our 
preparedness for the next pandemic through your discussions?
    I know it might change, you know, with the final report 
after you get more of the data and collect the sources. But as 
of right now, what are you seeing as, you know, one of the most 
important things we could start doing?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you.
    It's what you and Chairman Wenstrup highlighted. It's that 
collaboration across silos, and it's the respectful, 
collaborative, collegial, professional interactions that have 
to happen so that we can provide advice to inform the decisions 
that Americans make.
    Dr. Ruiz. So, communications and working together.
    And so, what are some of the successes from the COVID-19 
response that we should replicate?
    General Friedrichs. I think as we look back over the past 4 
years, one of the real successes was our ability to rapidly 
produce safe and effective therapeutics, diagnostics, and 
vaccines and that leverage to whole-of-government approach with 
DOD contracting, HHS expertise, and many other key stakeholders 
across the country.
    And we should also acknowledge that we were fortunate that 
we had 20 years of research on the SARS-CoV virus and more than 
10 years of research on the mRNA delivery platform that allowed 
us to move as quickly as we did. So, we can't count on that 
happening again.
    Dr. Ruiz. And the type of vaccine, the mRNA, had 
implications on how fast you were able to develop the vaccine. 
Is that correct? Or----
    General Friedrichs. Congressman, that's correct. And to 
kind of wind the clock back to when we were in the spring of 
2020, looking at options, part of what this government did very 
wisely was to look at multiple delivery platforms. And as many 
of you are aware, there are different ways that vaccines can be 
produced, different ways that therapeutics can be produced.
    And each future pandemic is going to be different. So, I 
want to highlight that as a best practice, that if you bet on 
only one horse and something happens, then you've got nothing. 
You're going have to bet across the spectrum of capabilities 
that exist today and keep improving those capabilities for 
future events.
    Dr. Ruiz. So, I have one more question. What's--what's on 
the agenda for 2024 for your office, and when can we expect to 
see the report?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you.
    So, the first thing is completing that report. And I commit 
with the best faith and 30--almost 38 years of service to get 
that as quickly as possible with the constraints that I 
mentioned earlier.
    Dr. Ruiz. This year?
    General Friedrichs. Yes, sir.
    Dr. Ruiz. OK.
    General Friedrichs. We will get that this year.
    The second thing is updating Federal plans. And, again, I 
think that's incredibly important that we don't just write a 
report that sits on a shelf, but we leverage what we've 
captured in that report and use that to update Federal plans 
which then state, tribal, local, and other officials can use to 
update their plans.
    Third one that's very important also that I mentioned in my 
opening comments is providing advice on the budget. Based on 
those lessons learned and that planning effort, how do we 
continue to provide the best recommendations to the President 
on what should be in future budgets to enhance our 
preparedness?
    And then, finally, it's leveraging that fall and winter 
respiratory season, which we have on good authority is going to 
start in about 6 months. October happens about the same time 
every year. And knowing that, we should be able to plan for 
that and identify what we're going to do differently in this 
next fall-winter season to continue to improve the options that 
we offer the American public to reduce the risk to themselves, 
their families, and their coworkers.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I hope Leap Year doesn't throw you off by a 
day. Anyway, it gives you an extra day anyway.
    I now recognize Ms. Malliotakis from New York for 5 minutes 
of questions.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you, Major General, for being here 
today. We appreciate your testimony.
    I want to focus on, again, the Nation's stockpile, right, 
for preparedness. Obviously, during COVID, there were a lot of 
things that were wrong with regards to not having enough PPE, 
ventilators, hand sanitizer, pharmaceuticals. And we face this 
issue now, not even with the pandemic, right? We know that the 
USA has a shortage of 250 pharmaceutical drugs, including 
chemotherapies, including antibiotics. We know that we rely on 
India and China for active pharmaceutical ingredients that make 
up about 70 percent of our generics.
    So, whether it's a pandemic or just everyday life, I think 
we need to be doing more to ensure that we're having an 
adequate supply of our necessary drugs and that we're producing 
those active pharmaceutical ingredients here in the United 
States, not depending on Communist China for them.
    And so my question is, how are you working in a cross-
section perhaps with HHS or other agencies to address this 
issue? Because I'd really like to work with--I know we all do--
want to work with you. And I'm also a Member of the Ways and 
Means Committee. And as such, I think we can be looking, 
examining some of our tax policies, maybe some incentives to 
bring that manufacturing home to the United States.
    So, I'd love to hear from your perspective on what you guys 
are already working to address this issue.
    General Friedrichs. Congresswoman, thank you. And I think 
you've gotten to one of these really important preparedness 
issues that has been a focus of mine long before coming to this 
role.
    You're absolutely right that we need to understand our 
supply chains. We need to understand, not only where the 
finished product is assembled, but also where all the 
ingredients and the parts and pieces that constitute that 
product come from and whether we'll have ready access to those 
on a good day or on the next worst day in American history.
    And so that ongoing work has been started before our office 
was stood up. The National Economic Council, the Domestic 
Policy Council, and many departments and agencies are involved 
in that. We have become heavily involved in that.
    And I'm very pleased to share with you that we've brought 
on board some subject matter experts to our team specifically 
to help integrate those efforts on medical supply chain in 
support of that broader supply chain effort across the whole of 
government.
    I think, as you described, there are going to be multiple 
levers that are available to be pulled, and what we are working 
on collaboratively across the government and with other 
stakeholders is to identify which will have the greatest 
impact.
    There was a reference made earlier to international 
partners, and it's clear that if every country tries to double 
down on producing the same four or five things, we may all be 
successful on those four or five, but the remaining 200 that 
you mentioned, for example, won't be addressed.
    And so, there's opportunities to collaborate, not only 
across the U.S. Government and with our domestic partners, but 
also with our international partners to understand where 
they're making investments to enhance supply chains, especially 
with key allies like the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, and 
others.
    So, I think there's tremendous opportunity to leverage the 
work that's been done over the last several years, informed by 
the lessons from COVID and the work that you described, to 
continue to improve our preparedness.
    Ms. Malliotakis. So, our committee in Ways and Means is 
also very focused on this. And I do believe it's going to 
require some type of incentive, some type of, you know, tax 
incentives to bring these manufacturers back to the United 
States. It makes it difficult when we're competing with 
Communist China that's subsidizing complete industries.
    And so, we've also been working with our neighboring 
countries or speaking with other countries about how we can, if 
not onshore, offshore. But we certainly shouldn't be relying on 
the Communist Chinese for pharmaceutical that any day they 
could decide they want to cutoff supply and we'd see millions 
of Americans die as a result.
    So, I really urge you, the administration, to make this a 
priority. I mean, it seems like you're already working on it, 
but we really need, I think, to take appropriate steps to get 
that supply going here in the United States.
    Now, with regards to a pandemic, are you working with--as 
we saw, you know, alcohol companies started producing hand 
sanitizers during COVID and people really stepped up. Are we 
putting together, I guess, an inventory of manufacturers that 
can step up in the event that we do need to mass produce 
therapeutics, pharmaceuticals, PPE in the future?
    General Friedrichs. Congresswoman, thanks. So, several 
points that you raised, I'll try to answer all of them there.
    First, in the report that we had discussed earlier, we will 
describe where we've been able to capture those sorts of 
exigent changes that were made within the U.S. industrial base 
to support our response during the last pandemic so that we can 
highlight what we did and how we did it and have that ready to 
go in the future or what it would take to keep that ready to go 
in the future.
    There's also the question of investments in sustaining 
production capability here in the United States for things that 
may not always be needed in the same quantity in between 
pandemics as they are in pandemics and then, as you said, a 
series of incentives to incent the purchase of things that are 
purchased here in the United States, which this administration 
is already working on.
    So, I'm eager to work with you and others on that as we go 
forward as part of this whole-of-government effort.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you very much.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mrs. Dingell from Michigan 
for 5 minutes of questions.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I would like to say I agree with my colleague on all 
those issues raised, and I hope you can help us tell Congress 
that we can work on a bipartisan way on what we need to do. 
That is one of the goals of, I think, of this Committee that we 
all agree on.
    The Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, or 
OPPR, is not only tasked with steering the long-range work of 
preparing for future pandemics and outbreaks, it also has a 
role in coordinating the day-to-day work of the Federal 
Government of responding to infectious disease threat, 
including seasonal upticks of viruses during winter months.
    Again, Major General, thank you for being here. Can you 
tell us how these missions are complementary to one another?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you very much, Congresswoman 
Dingell. And I have spent nearly 38 years in government, and I 
am allergic to bureaucratic buffoonery. So, I will commit in 
good faith that I will never knowingly do something that 
creates duplicative or unhelpful layers of bureaucracy.
    I think where we have brought value just in the 7 months 
that we're here is working across departments and agencies to 
highlight who's doing what.
    There's tremendous people working very hard every day to 
mitigate risk, but sometimes there are opportunities to 
leverage the convening power that our office has to bring them 
together in a very proactive and positive way to share with 
each other what they're doing and to identify where there may 
be gaps in that work and then to collaborate on filling those 
gaps as we go forward.
    I'm a big believer in transparency and inclusion. I think 
that it goes beyond just the government stakeholders here. And 
as several of you mentioned, the industry stakeholders are a 
key part of this. And throughout my career, we found that it's 
important to partner with those in industry who produce the 
tools that we need to respond to whatever the task may be and 
also to partner with those who are doing the research and 
development, that make those tools possible, and those who are 
using the tools, so we understand how well they're working.
    So, we take incredibly seriously the charge in our enabling 
legislation to work with all of those stakeholders and leverage 
the convening authority that we have to integrate efforts 
across the Federal Government.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you for that.
    This past respiratory virus season--which, quite frankly, 
we're still in, I got a lot of people just sick in my office--
we saw a three-prong threat from COVID-19, influenza, and RSV. 
It also happened to be the first respiratory virus season that 
we took on following the conclusion of the COVID-19 public 
health emergency.
    Major General, why was this respiratory virus season a 
particularly complex one for our Federal public health agencies 
to navigate?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you.
    I think several reasons, and some of them were alluded to 
earlier, in that we're standing up a new office. So, there's a 
new person and new group at the table. And I'm grateful to our 
interagency colleagues who have welcomed us to the efforts to 
mitigate risk from these respiratory pathogens.
    I think part of what made it more complex is an incredibly 
good news story that this is the first time in human history 
that, thanks to the great work in our R&D industry and our 
pharmaceutical industry, we had vaccines and therapeutics for 
all three of the leading respiratory viruses that caused the 
respiratory illnesses across this season. And that offered us 
opportunities then to rethink our messaging and how we inform 
the American public of the choices that they can make to 
mitigate risks for themselves and for others.
    It also was more complex in that we transitioned from 
government-acquired vaccines for COVID, for example, back to 
the commercial market, which is how vaccines are traditionally 
provided for many Americans.
    And I commend our colleagues in HHS and across the 
government who worked very hard with DOD, the VA, and with the 
commercial entities to ensure that that transition went as 
smoothly as possible.
    There were great lessons to be learned from all of that. I 
think, as we said, as was mentioned previously by Ranking 
Member Ruiz, we've seen a drop in some of the most worrisome 
outcomes during this season. We need to continue to work every 
season to continue to decrease the number of Americans that are 
affected by these preventable illnesses.
    Mrs. Dingell. OK. Well, I'm starting to run out of time. 
But my understanding is that despite the unique challenges 
posed by the most recent respiratory virus season, you were 
successful in continuing to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 in 
keeping all the viruses at bay. For example, COVID-19 has 
declined from the third to the tenth leading cause of death in 
the United States, and reported deaths from COVID-19, pneumonia 
and influenza are down 24 percent so far this season.
    Can you, just quickly, looking ahead to future respiratory 
virus seasons, what lessons and best practices can we carry 
forward to ensure continued success in protecting American 
health?
    You've got like 5 seconds.
    General Friedrichs. Collaborate and communicate.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I may have more--I will have more questions 
for the record because I think there's some good questions to 
ask about immunizations and confusion and all of that. But 
thank you, and I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. Understood.
    I now recognize Dr. Joyce from Pennsylvania for 5 minutes 
of questioning.
    Dr. Joyce. Thank you, Chairman Wenstrup.
    Thank you for convening this hearing, to our witness for 
appearing today.
    This is an opportunity to see how we can leverage the 
lessons that we've learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and our 
U.S. Government response going forward.
    The Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response is unique 
compared to other public health components set up within the 
Executive Office of the President. In the past, similar offices 
have been established as a direct response to a specific 
biologic threat and then subsequently disbanded when the public 
health threat has subsided. The OPPR is unprecedented, being a 
permanent office within the EOP, solely focusing on public 
health crisis.
    The COVID-19 pandemic revealed deficiencies in our 
biodefense that must be remedied. The OPPR is charged with 
taking steps to prepare and coordinate with relevant agencies 
to address the next biologic threat that we might face.
    While there are benefits to working proactively to ensure 
the Federal Government stands ready in the face of biological 
incident, it is important that we do not allow bureaucratic 
barriers to inhibit that much needed response.
    Dr. Friedrichs, how can the OPPR balance its mission of 
proactively putting systems in place to respond to a biologic 
incident with the need for flexibility within those systems to 
respond to different types of future threats?
    General Friedrichs. Congressman, thank you from the bottom 
of my heart because you've hit on some of the really 
fundamental commitments that our office has made from day one 
as we read through what Congress tasked us to do.
    And as you said, it's not just preparing for the next 
pandemic. There's a host of other public health biological 
incidents that cause risk to the American public, and we are 
better prepared for the next pandemic if we address those 
opportunities to enhance our preparedness, whether it's the 
fall-winter respiratory season or other pathogens as they 
occur.
    And that integrating and convening function that we were 
designed to provide is the opportunity to bring people to the 
table, have those proactive discussions, update plans, and be 
better prepared. And I will obviously bring the bias of 37 
years in the military to this discussion that the planning is 
often incredibly important just to talk through what might go 
wrong and anticipate it so that it never goes wrong.
    I believe and I commit to you and to everyone in this 
Committee that we will continue to bring value through that 
convening authority that we have so that we can have those 
ongoing proactive discussions and be better prepared for the 
next biological incident.
    Dr. Joyce. Thank you, Dr. Friedrichs.
    Part of being nimble--I think you've acknowledged that 
needs to occur--to any potential biologic threat is to have 
strong domestic industrial base for essential medical supplies 
and for countermeasures as well.
    While this Committee commends early efforts to enhance this 
base, we remain concerned about our limited infrastructure for 
producing critical items like API and pharmaceuticals.
    Earlier you talked about domestic industrial base 
involvement. I recognize that keenly needs to be addressed, and 
I'm glad you've taken that charge. Can you please provide for 
us where you expect that to occur and any industrial base 
involvement that you've already reached out to?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you very much. And you're exactly 
right in highlighting the importance of that and how our office 
has embraced that, because in any biological incident, there 
are multiple tools required to mitigate the risk, whether it's 
the diagnostics, the therapeutics, the vaccines, PPE, medical 
equipment, hospital beds, you name it.
    And what we have engaged in from day one, literally the 
first week that the office was created, was outreach to key 
industry partners here in the United States to begin to 
establish that ongoing dialog with them, to understand what 
they're working on and how we can integrate those efforts with 
the ones that----
    Dr. Joyce. How has the response been?
    General Friedrichs. Incredibly positive.
    Dr. Joyce. Any--any gaps, any areas where you think that 
from a Federal point of view, from a congressional point of 
view, that we need to provide that essential encouragement?
    General Friedrichs. Congressman, I think in our report, if 
you'll forgive me, I'm going to defer the--your--the answer to 
your last question to our report when we pull all of our 
findings together to give you the most thorough answer. But I 
would say, the response from industry has been incredibly 
positive, as it has been from other stakeholders that reach out 
to the affected communities. All of them have highlighted the 
value of the convening that we are doing and our willingness to 
listen to what they've been experiencing and bring that back--
--
    Dr. Joyce. And as my time wanes, I'm going to ask you to 
reiterate when we should expect that report to occur?
    General Friedrichs. This year, sir.
    Dr. Joyce. Thank you again.
    Mr. Chairman, my time has expired and I yield.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I'll now recognize Ms. Tokuda from Hawaii for 
5 minutes of questions.
    Ms. Tokuda. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you, sir, for being here. I know you've got a lot of 
questions, very similar, but I'm trying to help paint the 
picture for the public. This might be something a bit difficult 
to describe, but people often, I feel, better understand things 
through the lens of their own experience and what has happened 
versus what might happen going forward.
    So, to help us truly appreciate the work and the importance 
of your office, what have--you know, what could have been 
different, what might have been different if the Office of 
Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy had existed, had been 
fully funded, had been fully functioning when COVID hit us? 
Just some concrete examples for people listening.
    General Friedrichs. Yes. Thank you very much, 
Congresswoman. And I think one--one area where we will continue 
to, I hope, play a very important and proactive and recurring 
role is updating Federal plans as we go through biological 
events. There were a variety of plans in existence in 2019 and 
2020.
    As we go back and we look at the lessons observed from this 
pandemic, there were clearly things that those plans addressed 
very well and other areas where those plans need to be updated. 
And so that's an area where, as we move forward, we will 
continue to work with our Federal agencies and state, local, 
Tribal, and territorial partners to make sure that the plans 
reflect what we've learned as we go through each of the 
biological incidents that occur.
    Another one gets back to a point that many of you have 
raised and that's the outreach to industry, and ensuring that 
we're doing that on a recurring, proactive basis, that we're 
not waiting for a crisis to figure out who to call when there's 
a particular problem with a particular part of the supply chain 
or the healthcare enterprise.
    And the third one gets back to trust; it's how do we 
continue to show the American public that we are collaborating, 
we are collegially and professionally working across both sides 
of Congress, with everyone who's willing to work with us to 
transparently and accurately describe what we know and what we 
don't know in order to inform the choices that Americans make 
for their own health and for their families and for their 
coworkers.
    Ms. Tokuda. OK. So if I'm--I'm hearing you right, then, if 
you had been in existence when COVID hit we'd have things like 
we'd know exactly, you know, who to call for the right 
information; we'd have had plans that had been executed and 
properly in place to make sure we're prepared; our supply chain 
would be better solidified, and we would not have supply chain 
issues; communication, trust and communication would exist so 
that we would not have any wrong information out there with the 
public distrusting us, those types of things might have existed 
if your office had been in existence, you know, when COVID hit 
us?
    General Friedrichs. Congresswoman, those are all 
aspirational outcomes that I've described to you there. I'm 
neither foolish enough nor arrogant enough to think that we 
will be successful in the first 7 months on all of those. This 
will only work if we can partner across the whole-of-government 
and with key stakeholders around the world and with state, 
local, tribal, and territorial partners. This has got to be a 
collaborative effort.
    Ms. Tokuda. Absolutely, and I'm hearing you loud and clear 
on the collaboration. To follow-up on this though, you know, I 
know you've got a report coming up, I believe, in July or so, 
in the summertime, that you'll be presenting to us. You have a 
number of different reports due every 2 to 5 years depending on 
the updates necessary. Preparedness reports are only as good as 
the actions that are actually taken to follow and execute them. 
We've got a ton of reports everywhere and plans.
    What accountability metrics or tracking mechanisms are--is 
the office planning to build into it to make sure we're 
actually following through on these recommendations and being 
held accountable, quite frankly, if we are not? Are we going to 
be measuring our levels of preparedness based upon these 
various reports, both the ones you've produced as well as the 
ones you're recommending be updated?
    Again, we want to make sure that we are prepared when 
crisis hits. We've got a number of plans probably in our 
stockpiles that have talked about scenarios like COVID for 
decades. How are you going to make sure we're actually holding 
ourselves accountable and are accountable in measuring to those 
reports?
    General Friedrichs. Congresswoman, thank you, and could not 
agree with you more. I think some of the immediate measures are 
our ability to see outbreaks as they occur, can our public 
health systems detect what's happening in near real-time and 
provide that information to inform decisions that elected and 
other leaders are making; can we rapidly produce 
countermeasures when we detect an outbreak.
    The National Biodefense Strategy lays out a number of key 
areas that we focused on, and there are measures behind that 
that look at the number of days that it would take or the 
quantities that are needed that----
    Ms. Tokuda. Sorry, I'm running out of time here. Are we 
actually measuring ourselves to see if we're actually doing it 
and if we're in a safe time period in terms of our 
preparedness, our stockpile, all of these things?
    General Friedrichs. We will lay out where we are in our 
report.
    Ms. Tokuda. I know I'm out of time, Chair. I might have 
other questions. I would say this, you've mentioned numerous 
times that every year we have a chance to test ourselves. I 
would say we also give ourselves a score at the end of it to 
see how we're doing to actually respond to it based upon our 
plans and procedures.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Miller-Meeks from Iowa 
for 5 minutes of questions.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And I thank Dr. Friedrichs for testifying before the Select 
Subcommittee today.
    Dr. Friedrichs, as you note in your written testimony, 
Congress established the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and 
Response Policy, OPPR, and this was in the latter part of 2022, 
to lead and cooperate actions related to preparedness for and 
response to known and unknown biological threats or pathogens 
that could lead to a pandemic or significant public health 
related disruptions in the United States.
    And actually, to follow-up on my colleague's question, a 
similar question but perhaps not in the same manner, and that 
is, I'm an ophthalmologist. I was also a former Director of the 
Iowa Department of Public Health. And as an ophthalmologist, 
let me just say, hindsight is 20/20. And so, that is, we 
certainly know that there were challenges during COVID for a 
variety of reasons. It required a governmentwide response, 
especially from our healthcare agencies and from our CDC and 
our state and local public health agencies.
    Given that OPPR was established after the worst of the 
pandemic, I have some questions about what lessons we learned 
from the government's response to COVID-19, and I specifically 
ask this because I've met with CDC and the new Director, and we 
still haven't acknowledged mistakes, like the CDC's failure to, 
you know, to develop a test in a timely fashion or to use--
utilize our research laboratories, our private university 
laboratories to help with that; to reopen schools in a timely 
fashion, especially given that overseas evidence had already 
shown that there was not a problem with children.
    We knew early on in the pandemic that the China's Communist 
Party, one of the truthful things they said was that there's 
not a concern among children, especially elementary school-aged 
children, about risk benefit for COVID-19 vaccines, myocarditis 
and pericarditis in young people, mandatory vaccines and what 
that's done to increase vaccine hesitancy. I could go on and on 
with the mistakes that still have not been acknowledged and 
accurate reporting of adverse outcomes.
    So, how will you ensure that the efforts made by OPPR--and 
this is my concern--will not be duplicated by other agencies, 
such as the CDC or ASPR or the FDA or the NIH or HHS? All of 
these agencies have input. How do you coordinate with each 
respective agency? And I grant--I, you know, understand that 
you also work more with industry, which I think is important.
    What of powers and authorities? Who is going to be the 
messenger? Who is going to speak? Is that ASPR? Is that CDC? Is 
that someone who's appointed by whoever the President happens 
to be when we have our next pandemic? Can you contract and can 
you order other agencies to gather certain information?
    General Friedrichs. Congresswoman, thank you. And you laid 
out a number of things, so I'll hopefully address all of them 
as I go forward. Some of the easy ones to answer very briefly, 
we do not have contracting authority, nor do we have the funds 
to do that, so we will not be a contracting agency competing 
with ASPR; we don't perform bench research, so we will not be 
competing with the NIH; we are not the public health experts, 
that's CDC, and we will not be competing with CDC.
    What we are are the conveners that bring all of those 
groups together, as well as the leaders of the national labs 
and the Department of Energy and the labs in the Department of 
Defense, and the people who are working on contracting and DOD 
and DHS and VA and other Federal agencies.
    So, regardless of the topic that you described, what we 
bring to the discussion is the ability to convene and to 
integrate efforts across departments and agencies, not to 
duplicate but to identify where there's opportunities to better 
synchronize and integrate what we're doing across the whole-of-
government and with our state, local, tribal, and territorial 
partners, industry partners, academic partners, and others who 
share our commitment to mitigating risk.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. So, then that brings up a very--very 
simple question: So, in public health, we're used to convening. 
It's one of the things that we do and do very well. So, if 
COVID-19--well, I'll just say, in the next pandemic, because we 
know that there will be another one, which agency do you think 
is best fit to handle the response, because I think that having 
another agency in the White House can lead to confusing 
messages to the public.
    General Friedrichs. Congresswoman, thank you for sharing 
that concern. And I'll go back to the painfully learned lessons 
after Katrina that led to the development of the National 
Response Framework. What we learned and what we've continued to 
learn in multiple responses since Katrina is the value of the 
whole-of-government response that addresses all of the aspects 
of an event as it's occurring. And as several people have noted 
already, in the case of a biological event, there's educational 
impacts, there's industrial impacts, there's impacts on food 
supply; the entire society was affected by that.
    Our role as OPPR in the convening role that we play is not 
to duplicate what any individual department does but to ensure 
that we leverage those best practices that our country has 
painfully garnered over the last nearly 20 years now to ensure 
that we bring all of those voices to the table and that we 
provide the best advice possible based on all of those inputs.
    Dr. Miller-Meeks. Thank you. I yield back.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Mr. Mfume from Maryland for 5 
minutes of questions.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to thank 
you and the Ranking Member for convening us on this subject.
    I want to thank Major General Friedrichs for your time, for 
your service to this country previously, and what you are doing 
now obviously.
    Many of us on this side of the aisle, Major General, have 
pointedly and consistently tried to prioritize why it's 
important to champion forward-looking solutions in order to 
prepare, as we just heard, for the next oncoming pandemic, 
which we all expect will be a part of us. We believe 
individually and jointly, if I might say so, that we've got to 
be, as a Nation, adequately prepared and fully equipped with 
the public health tools that will allow us to be able to 
respond quickly in a very nimble fashion and effectively. 
Thankfully, this Congress passed and President Biden signed 
into law the Appropriations Act of 2023, which really created 
the entity that you are here to represent today.
    And I've got a couple of concerns, but before I mention 
those, let me just say what I try to always do, and that is to 
put these discussions in context with respect to the pandemic. 
We were operating in real-time. We had never been in that space 
before as a Congress, and it's been over 100 years since the 
Nation had to deal with anything like that. So there were 
mistakes along the way, which should be expected. There were no 
experts.
    We were not as nimble as we thought we could've been or 
should have been as a Nation, because there was so much 
reaction to the amount of deaths that were taking place in our 
urban areas, in our rural areas, and elsewhere. And we had--
we'd been hampered because we were reacting in real-time to 
come up with everything now in hindsight--if I can use that 
term also--that we all know about.
    We--it's not enough to be a Monday morning quarterback on 
something like this. The best thing I think is to say we did 
what we could do when we could do it in the best way we could 
do it, hopefully, in real-time. And now that we look back on 
it, we know that there are a number of things that we can and 
ought to look forward to.
    So, I've got a couple of quick concerns. I've got a little 
bit of time here. I am really concerned with your ability to do 
what you do if you don't have adequate staffing. Now, is it 
true or not true that many of the small number of staff that 
you have are--some of them are detailees from other agencies? 
Is that correct?
    General Friedrichs. That is correct, Congressman.
    Mr. Mfume. And unless you're able to get adequate and 
proper funding, you're probably going to have to keep doing 
that, and when you do it it already reduces your ability to 
make what I believe would be a true and lasting difference. So 
can you just for a moment express to me your own thoughts about 
what the implications would be if we were to cede to the 
demands that some have that we need to reduce and cut our 
preparedness by over a couple of billion dollars. What would 
that create in your mind?
    General Friedrichs. Congressman, thank you very much. And, 
you know, I want to first start with acknowledging what you 
said that there are many people over the last 4 years who did 
everything within their power to make the best decisions they 
could with the information they had at that moment in time. It 
is also true that there's a lot that we can learn from the 
decisions that were or were not made so that we're better 
prepared in the future.
    And to your point and to your question there, as we look 
across the Federal Government and all of the different tools 
that are required to be prepared for biological incidents when 
they occur, that whole-of-government response, we are seeing 
that there are areas where we could be better prepared, where 
we could have better bio surveillance, where we could have 
better industrial production capacity here in the United 
States.
    We will bring those recommendations back in our report both 
to Congress and to the President laying out what we've learned 
in the course of the 7 months so far, in the remaining time 
that we're going to work on this report, with very specific 
recommendations on how we can mitigate those gaps and risks so 
that we are better prepared.
    Mr. Mfume. How much more money do you need or do you 
anticipate you will need?
    General Friedrichs. Congressman, I'm--I want to be very 
mindful of getting ahead of the President's budgeting process, 
but we will bring back very specific recommendations in our 
report. And I can assure you that, as has been highlighted by 
Members from both sides of the aisle, there are multiple areas 
in which we can improve our preparedness.
    Mr. Mfume. That was the answer I would give.
    There are a lot of efforts to kind of push you toward a 
mission creep by some who think that you shouldn't just be 
doing preparedness, that all of our efforts should be in 
prevention. And I take the position that we ought to be able to 
do both and we ought to do both effectively. So, I know there 
is an effort to try to get you over into the other space, which 
is why I was glad you answered the previous question about 
where you are amongst all these other agencies, in that you are 
conveners of the agencies around a central mission and that you 
do not duplicate the services.
    One quick thing before my time has expired, the American 
Association of Medical Colleges put out a report estimating a 
projective shortage of physicians in this country of 
approximately 124,000 within the next 10 years. Now, that's a 
conservative estimate. I know you can't see into the future, 
but if you could just give us your best thinking on how does 
that affect our ability to prepare and then obviously to 
prevent?
    General Friedrichs. Chairman, may I respond? Thank you.
    So, Congressman, I can't thank you enough for highlighting 
that, because at the end of the day, those incredibly dedicated 
people who save lives every day during the pandemic are 
frustrated, they're concerned, they're being attacked for what 
they did in many cases. We've seen an exodus of healthcare 
workers, public healthcare workers, community healthcare 
workers that are creating the shortfalls that you've described.
    Today, depending on which source you look at, there's a 
shortage of between 50,000 to 80,000 physicians, 300,000 to 
400,000 nurses, and I could go on and on and on. We can't be 
prepared if people will not work in this career field, and so 
there's an opportunity for us to partner, to collaborate, to 
look at how we address the supply chain for not just stuff but 
for the people who actually provide the care, for the people 
who hold the hand of your family member when they're in the ICU 
and take care of her. That's an incredible opportunity for us 
to collaborate and partner across both sides of the aisle.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you. My time has expired. I thank the 
Chair for the additional time.
    Dr. Wenstrup. That's a good segue to recognizing Dr. 
McCormick, emergency physician, who was not here during the 
height of the pandemic. He was in the emergency department 
taking care of patients. Dr. McCormick, you're recognized.
    Dr. McCormick. Thank you, sir.
    Thank you, Dr. Chair. Appreciate all your hard work in this 
regard. It's good to see you here today, sir. Thank you for 
your military service. I appreciate that as well, take that 
very seriously.
    It's interesting, though, when I was just listening to the 
other side of the aisle talk about how much money do you need, 
how much money are you short. I have yet to ever be in a 
hearing where anybody who was ever asked that question that 
says, ``I have enough money. We're good. Matter of fact, you 
can cut my budget. It's fine.'' It's a great question. It's 
always asked from that side of the aisle: How much more money 
do you need? The problem is, everybody says they need more 
money. So, let's have a realistic talk about what that means.
    Moving into the future, and as an ER physician, by the way, 
I appreciate you recognizing that a lot of us had burnout 
during this last 3, 4 years. From the beginning of the 
pandemic, we were doing our very best, and we were trying to 
make our case as to how to treat a patient based on our best 
ability to understand something that nobody had ever seen 
before, and witnessing thousands of patients that were being 
treated; and then being told by a government person, whether 
they be a physician or whatever, somebody who thought they knew 
better than me, who was treating thousands of patients, how to 
treat the patient and then saying, I'm going to censor you. I 
am going to tell you you're wrong, even though they hadn't 
treated one patient. That's one of the things that you 
mentioned as far as the burnout and being under appreciated for 
what we were trying to accomplish, which is ultimately to take 
care of that person we're holding the hand of while they may be 
dying. So, thank you for recognizing that.
    One thing that worries me is that by preparing for the last 
pandemic we're not preparing for the next, and we have seen 
this in warfare and we're seeing this in a war against a 
pandemic. And what I'm worrying about is the flexibility moving 
forward and how we best prepare to be--to have a flexible 
model, so we can react to whether it be a bacterial infection, 
whether it be affecting your lungs or your brain or some other 
part of your body, or a fungal infection or a viral infection. 
It doesn't matter. Whatever that next thing that we have to 
handle, that we have a flexible model that's not all of our 
eggs in one basket, that we spend billions of dollars padding 
the pocket of certain people but to prepare for the last 
pandemic instead of the next one.
    My question specifically for you, General Friedrichs, as 
director of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response 
Policy, you also serve as the co-chair of Public Health 
Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise, which oversees 
the Strategic National Stockpile. Based on your time in the 
pandemic, I imagine you can attest to the need to coordinate 
with private industry to advance America's national security 
interests.
    In this regard, I thought Trump did a good job with trying 
to come up with a vaccination at warp speed, if you will, 
teaming up with private industry to make that happen. I have 
some concerns about what the Biden administration has done to 
team up with the private industry to accomplish the same kind 
of missions in a flexible model moving forward. Can you please 
discuss the efforts of your office in taking to work this hand-
in-hand compilation with private industry to make these kind of 
flexible models into the future work?
    General Friedrichs. Congressman, thank you very much, and 
that is one of the charges that we were given when this office 
was created, and it's one that I take very seriously, because 
there is no pandemic response without our industry partners, 
without the people who produce the PPE or the vaccines or the 
therapeutics.
    So we've spent a great deal of our time in the last 7 
months reaching out to industry stakeholders, to different 
groups that make up larger parts of the industry, the small-and 
the medium-size manufacturers, meeting with them and listening 
to what they experienced over the last 4 years so that we can 
bring that into the report that we're doing and then work on 
updating our plans.
    You mentioned Operation Warp Speed, which is, again, a 
remarkable testimony to what happens when a public/private 
partnership is created and resource, and it also is noteworthy 
that that started in May 2020. It would be ideal if working 
with industry and with our Federal and other stakeholders we 
can write a plan where that's ready to go in 5 weeks, not in 5 
months, because we've developed those partnerships, we've 
developed plans that understand and lay out how we will 
collaborate quickly and effectively with all of those 
stakeholders.
    And I would hate for anyone to misinterpret my comment; 
that is not a criticism. I accept responsibility for having 
been one of those involved in and had the great privilege of 
standing up Operation Warp Speed. But the reality was that we 
were building those connections as the pandemic was unfolding, 
as we were trying to understand exactly what the magnitude of 
the pandemic would be. What we are going to work on with these 
industry stakeholders--and we met with several of them as 
recently as yesterday--is how do we do that as quickly and 
effectively as possible before the next pandemic not during it.
    Dr. McCormick. OK. Great. And just in conclusion, I just 
want to stress that we--we don't need bigger government. We 
don't need this idea that the government is going to accomplish 
everything when we talk about a pandemic or space exploration 
or AI or anything else. You can see this marriage of government 
helping private industry take over something in a much more 
effective and efficient way into the future I think is the 
solution.
    And this idea that the big brother, government, gets to 
decide all the conclusions by itself, by investing all these--
this money for a one-sided view of how we're going to solve a 
problem instead of empowering the people to solve it is a false 
narrative. And I just want to say that the worst thing we can 
do is grow a government in size and scope to the point where 
they can tell you what to do with your business, with your 
medical care, and everything else. This is a decision that 
people can make, that medical professionals can make far better 
than the government, and that's the thing I want to highlight 
in my conclusion.
    With that, I yield. Thank you.
    Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize Dr. Bera from California for 
5 minutes of questions.
    Dr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you, Dr. Friedrichs, for your service to our 
country. I'm just going to touch on one thing, because folks 
have touched on what would've happened if OPPR had existed 
prior to the pandemic. And as a physician, someone who's done 
global health and has been very interested in pandemic 
preparedness, I would just point out, you know, post Ebola, you 
know, working with the Obama Administration, we did stand up at 
the NSC an individual whose sole job was to focus on pandemics 
around the world.
    And, Mr. Chairman, if I could enter into the record a 
letter that we sent to John Bolton dated May 15, 2018, because 
the prior administration did dismantle that position. Now, that 
was done through executive orders.
    I am glad that we as Congress, through the legislative 
processes, stepped up OPPR, because I think it is incredibly 
necessary. And we just saw what a pandemic, what a virus did in 
terms of disrupting not just the United States of America but 
the entire world. So, again, I'm glad that you're in this 
position and glad that you're there and that we were able to 
stand up this office.
    To my colleague, Dr. McCormick's question, just playing off 
of that, one of the initiatives is Project NextGen, which I 
think you're in charge of in terms of working across the 
interagency process, BARDA, the National Institute of Allergies 
and Infectious Diseases and other agencies, really looking at 
those countermeasures. And I certainly think this is incredibly 
important. It was remarkable that we came up with a vaccine in 
12 months, but as you just pointed out, do we have the ability 
to come up with countermeasures, you know, can we get that down 
to 100 days, can we get that down to a shorter period.
    I came in here late, so you may have already addressed 
this, but I'd love to hear how the Project NextGen is going, 
how that coordination is occurring, and then how you're 
interacting with the private sector to address it.
    General Friedrichs. Thank you, Congressman. There's a lot 
packed in there, so several responses there. First, I think, on 
Project NextGen, it's very important to highlight that this was 
a deliberate effort to invest in areas in which industry was 
not already investing, so this was back to concerns about 
duplicating effort. As we designed and we--not our office, 
because it was started before our office was created--as we, 
the Federal Government, looked at that space, it was how do we 
continue to look for solutions that others are not yet 
investing in, and that's a very important point. That's where 
the government can play a role, absolutely not in duplicating 
but in filling out the portfolio, because as you and others 
have pointed out, we don't know what the next pandemic will 
bring. And so, part of the great strength of this country is 
our ability to country to look for those novel solutions that 
don't exist today, the things that others have not yet found, 
and have those ready to go when they're needed going forward.
    I think to your point about global health and integration, 
again, one of the opportunities is to understand what other 
countries are investing in again so that we're not duplicating 
but complementing each other's investment portfolios so that 
we're betting on as many of the potential solutions as 
possible.
    You and I know that there's 120 viruses that can infect the 
human being, and of those 20 to 30, depending on what 
definition you use, have the potential to cause a future 
pandemic or significant biological event. We are working 
closely across industry and with academia and international 
partners to understand who's investing in mitigation measures 
for each of those potential pandemic pathogens so that we are 
better prepared, no matter what the next pathogen is that 
causes a significant threat, both to our public and to the 
broader global public.
    Dr. Bera. Great. And, yes, I have the privilege of serving 
on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence with the--
with the Chairman. And, you know, when folks ask me what keeps 
me awake at night, we saw what a--whether this was lab leak or 
a zoonotic spread of a virus, what it did, I do worry about the 
biothreats space and, you know, what bad actors potentially 
could do. And a lot of what you're doing through Project 
NextGen also will help prepare us if there is a manmade 
pathogen, you know, something that--a deliberate pathogen.
    I guess, in my last 30 seconds, is Project NextGen just 
focused on the countermeasures? Are you also through your 
office looking at the surveillance environment as well?
    General Friedrichs. Thank you very much. So, Project 
NextGen is being run by BARDA, so I want to be clear that our 
office is providing oversight and we're partnering with them, 
but we're not running it from our office. I also want to be 
clear that it is focused on therapeutics and--primarily focused 
on therapeutics and vaccines. And the third leg of that, which 
is really important and gets to the points that you just made, 
are looking at what we call enablers, how do we ensure that the 
whole ecosystem is better prepared. And so, there's some very 
integrity intriguing investments being made there as well.
    And if I may, just to finish that thought that you raised, 
there's a comment made about the importance of integrity, and I 
will put my 37 years in uniform on the line here and say that I 
took this job because I share the concerns that you and others 
have raised about future biological threats, whatever the 
source.
    I'm committed to working with you and every Member of this 
Committee and anyone else who shares that concern about bio-
preparedness so that we are as prepared as possible. We will 
bring you our recommendations so that we can inform the 
decisions that you all make in order to then be better prepared 
for the future.
    Dr. Bera. Great. Thank you. And with that, I yield back.
    Dr. McCormick. Without objection, so ordered.
    Just in the nick of time, I now recognize Mr. Moskowitz 
from Florida for 5 minutes of questions.
    Mr. Moskowitz. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
    Major General, I want to focus on the supply chain really 
quickly. So, in a prior life, I was in charge of the COVID 
response for the state of Florida. I was the Director of 
Emergency Management at the time coming out of doing Hurricane 
Michael; a year later, we wound up into COVID. And the systemic 
failures of the supply chain at all levels was unprecedented, 
right, the first 50 state disaster in American history, right.
    So, FEMA is responding to 50 states, every disaster 
management agency in each state is set up. Everyone's competing 
against each other for supplies. In fact, the states aren't 
just competing against states; the states are competing against 
the Federal Government for critical supplies. And everyone was 
kind of on their own; states were really on their own. The 
Federal Government obviously stepped up to help reimburse those 
states to pay for that. But as far as the operation was 
concerned, especially in the very beginning, there's just no 
doubt that there weren't enough emergency supplies to go to in 
the SNS in the beginning, and we had to rely on other 
countries.
    I was flying stuff in from China, I was flying stuff in 
from Italy, chartering my own planes to do so, and, you know, 
whether that was masks or gowns or gloves, you know, or 
ventilators or nasal cannula or oxygen, whether that was, you 
know, test strips or test swabs, I mean, you name it, we were 
on our own, OK, for a long period of time.
    And I'm not interested in appointing blame in this. What I 
want to know is, what have we done at all to fix that, because 
my concern is, is that in the last year of the Trump 
administration and in the first year of the Biden 
administration we spent $8 trillion in two bills, or $7.5 
trillion in two bills, whatever the final number was, and 
nothing in there dramatically fixed that supply chain issue. 
So, I just wanted to see if you wanted to talk about that for a 
couple minutes.
    General Friedrichs. Congressman, thank you very much. And I 
think there are a number of things that we've done in a very 
collaborative fashion to move forward on that. One is the White 
House Supply Chain Council that was established to try and 
address not only medical supply chain but broader supply chain 
issues. And it starts with understanding not just where a piece 
of equipment or a pharmaceutical is finally assembled but all 
the parts and pieces that go into it and where those come from 
as well, and so there's been a great deal of work done in that 
area.
    I'm very excited to share that we have brought on some 
subject matter experts to our team specifically to work on the 
medical supply chain aspects of that in the pharmaceutical side 
of that to help inform the recommendations that go forward to 
that supply chain council and that will be captured in the 
report that we'll deliver later this year to the President and 
to Congress.
    And as we go through this, I think we need to acknowledge 
what you and others have touched on, that this is a dynamic 
discussion. It's not a snapshot, and if we make an investment 
here today, we're done with it forever, because supply chains 
are constantly changing. And so, one of the great successes 
that we will hold up is the supply chain tower that was created 
during the pandemic to be able to see where there were 
shortfalls at that moment in time and----
    Mr. Moskowitz. No, and I understand that, Major General. 
What I'm trying to figure out is--and you never want to be a 
General fighting the last war, right. COVID was COVID, right. 
Just like when you're preparing for a hurricane, you don't want 
to just prepare for Irma or Michael or Ian, you want--because 
if you just prepare for that same event, the likelihood is the 
identical event doesn't happen. It's something more dynamic, 
something slightly different.
    But as far as being able for the country to self-perform, 
right, yes, absolutely knowing where we make certain things and 
what the production capacity is for that, I think, is that data 
is important. I don't think we had that, quite frankly. In 
fact, I'm still concerned about the FDA knowing that when it 
comes to critical medication and medicine. But I am still 
concerned that today we kind of don't know, you know, if--if we 
needed very similar items, right.
    What's our run rate, right, internally in this country? We 
could support it for a month, we could support it for 3 months 
before we have to start, you know, importing stuff. We live in 
a global economy. We know we don't make everything here at all. 
And, you know, like, what I want to know is how--how can we 
survive? Because in COVID it was less than 30 days. It was--it 
was super quick before we had to start getting stuff from other 
places.
    And these corporations have multinational agreements, so 
they're making stuff here and they're shipping it around the 
world. I dealt with that. And we were very hesitant to use the 
Production Act, because, oh, by the way, when you use it it 
takes a very long time to retool these factories. So, you know, 
if you want to comment on that you can.
    General Friedrichs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And thank you, Congressman. And I'll just briefly say, I 
think you've highlighted a number of concerns. We will address 
many of those in the report that we bring back to the President 
and Congress, and this will be a work in progress. The next 
pandemic almost certainly will not be COVID, so it will be a 
different set of supply chain issues and a different set of 
challenges, but building that capability is part of what we're 
very committed to working with you and other stakeholders on.
    Dr. McCormick. With that, the gentleman's time is expired.
    I now recognize Ms. Ross from North Carolina for 5 minutes 
of questions.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    I'd like to focus today on the progress that the Biden 
administration has made in its execution of the National 
Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan. This plan sets 
forth a coordinated effort to orchestrate the full range of 
activity that is carried out across the government to prevent, 
prepare, and respond to biological threats and does so through 
a series of targeted actions and goals to expand our Nation's 
pandemic preparedness capabilities. One key through line of the 
plan's various objectives for strengthening our preparedness is 
improving timely, accurate, and science-driven risk 
communication when biological incidents take place.
    Major General Friedrichs, nice to meet you. Sorry, I was 
coming from another committee. How has your office worked 
across the administration to strengthen its risk communication 
practices as part of the execution of the National Biodefense 
Strategy and Implementation Plan communication?
    General Friedrichs. Congresswoman Ross, thank you, and it's 
nice to meet you as well. And this is an area that I share your 
concern with because, at the end of the day, a mom is going to 
make decisions about whether her kid goes to school; an 
employer is going to make decisions about their work force 
based on the information that they have in front of them. So, 
we're partnering very closely not only with stakeholders in the 
Federal Government but across the Nation and with international 
partners to understand how we collect data and share that as 
quickly as possible to understand when a biological incident is 
occurring and what the risks are that it poses.
    If we wind the clock back to January and February 2020, 
there were many unanswered questions. How can we answer those 
as quickly as possible in the next pandemic is one of the first 
tasks on which we're working, and then provide that information 
as objectively, clearly, and concisely as possible to the 
American public.
    The second part from a risk communication standpoint is 
what's the risk of that pathogen versus the risks and benefits 
of the mitigation measures that we offer. And laying that out 
again as clearly, concisely, and as timely as possible is a 
whole-of-government and really whole-of-society effort. One of 
the great successes that we should recognize in this pandemic 
was the effort to reach out to faith leaders and community 
leaders and nontraditional voices and share that information 
with them, and they then chose to share that with those with 
whom they interacted.
    I'm very grateful to many of those partners for continuing 
to reach out and meet with us and share what they perceive to 
be the best practices during the pandemic so we can capture 
those in our planning efforts, so that we don't have to 
rediscover those connections in the next pandemic, but we can 
leverage them every fall and winter during the repository 
season. We can leverage them if there's a bad outbreak in a 
particular community, and we can leverage and improve them from 
those experiences so we're better prepared for the next 
pandemic.
    Ms. Ross. And do you think those--I'm going off script, 
staff.
    Do you think that those relationships that you formed--you 
said, you know, use it during flu season or whatever--can also 
be the foundation of better public health outcomes in 
communities that have been underserved and may be suspicious of 
the medical community?
    General Friedrichs. Congresswoman, I don't care where 
patients get their information from if it's accurate and it's 
timely and it helps them make the right choices. This is not 
just about there's only one way to communicate. I care, as I 
believe you do, deeply that we leverage every possible 
communication channel to get that information to people where 
they are, when they need it to inform the choices that they 
have to make.
    And so we will work with anyone who's willing to help 
partner with us and with the CDC and the many other partners in 
this space so that we are communicating as broadly and as 
deeply to the American public as possible, not just in the 
medical language that I'm familiar with as a physician, but 
also in those terms and phrases that are more familiar in other 
communities around the country there.
    My wife assures me that at times communication may not be 
my forte, that I struggle sometimes to be as clear as she 
needs, and I think that we sometimes bump up against that if we 
use medical speak and don't communicate as effectively and 
clearly as possible with everyone where they are in the 
discussion. So, we're looking for those partners who can help 
us amplify the facts, the science as you described it, in a way 
that is accurate and timely, concise and clear for the American 
public wherever they are in that discussion.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I yield 
back.
    Dr. McCormick. The gentlelady yields.
    I would now like to yield to Ranking Member Ruiz for a 
closing statement, if you would like to make one.
    Dr. Ruiz. Thank you.
    And thank you again to Major General Friedrichs for joining 
us for today's hearing. Your perspective on our Nation's 
pandemic readiness has provided us with valuable insight that I 
hope we can harness to create constructive, forward-looking 
policies.
    As we've discussed over the course of today's hearing, our 
Nation was wholly unprepared to address COVID-19 when it first 
took hold. And now that we have emerged from the depths of this 
pandemic, it is my hope that we can apply the lessons that 
we've learned to crafting policies that will ensure we are 
better prepared when the next pandemic strikes. And I'm glad 
that OPPR and this administration are working to address the 
vulnerabilities in our Nation's supply chains that the pandemic 
laid bare, and I'm excited for what the future holds thanks to 
initiatives like Project NextGen.
    I hope that as Members of this Select Subcommittee we can 
identify ways to build on this progress by working with OPPR 
and empowering this office to continuing carrying out its 
essential duties. And as a physician, an emergency physician, 
the more senior emergency physician in this dais, I've greatly 
valued this opportunity here today to generate forward-looking 
solutions that will help our Nation mitigate future public 
health threats and save future lives.
    I look forward to continued collaboration with OPPR on this 
critical work. I--I'm looking forward to our future 
conversations. I'm looking forward to the reports. I will be 
tracking very closely beyond even this Congress with your 
reports in the future. And I look forward to working with you. 
And with that, I yield back.
    Dr. McCormick. Thank you, Ranking Member, emergency 
medicine physician----
    Dr. Ruiz. Senior.
    Dr. McCormick [continuing]. Senior Member.
    As the more current emergency medicine physician who 
survived the COVID pandemic on the front lines, I would like to 
thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your time 
today, being here on this hearing for this long day for you.
    In closing, I'd like to thank everyone for being here for 
this hearing. I thank our witness, Major General Paul 
Friedrichs, for testifying before this Subcommittee of COVID. 
As it was said during today's hearing, the--and throughout the 
other subcommittees' investigations, it is important that we do 
not allow bureaucrat barriers to hinder our government's 
response.
    During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw benefits of being able 
to respond quickly through efforts such as Operation Warp 
Speed, which have helped save countless lives. It is important 
that the government remains flexible in order to respond to 
evolving threats. We have many tools throughout the government 
to help mitigate risks when it comes to public health crises, 
and we must remain nimble in order to address them and ensure 
that we are able to integrate and work with the private sector.
    As we heard today, there are many agencies and departments 
involved in coordinating process in working with the 
industries. We have to make sure that our government response 
is structured in a way to address a future pandemic quickly so 
the government has the proper authorities and resources 
available to act. We look forward to the report that Major 
General Friedrichs said the OPPR will be putting forth later 
this year. I'm hopeful that the report will be fulsome so we 
can better understand the office's role.
    And also, I hope that we can evaluate if a department in 
the White House, in the Executive Office of the President, is 
the best way for a government to prepare to respond for the 
public emergency. And I hope it's not a one-sided discussion. I 
hope it's comprehensive with lots of people's input not just 
one branch of the government. The most representative role, of 
course, is The People's House, and I hope you'll remember that 
also in your response.
    I appreciate Major General Friedrichs testifying today in 
the importance of effective communication within the Federal 
Government, and that he is allergic to bureaucratic buffoonery 
in the future. We look forward to continuing to examine the 
best ways our government can predict, prepare, protect, and 
prevent the future public health crises and appreciate today's 
topic on the discussion.
    Most of all, I hope that we remember that we, the 
government, are the servants of the people and not their lords. 
We are here to educate and give guidance and should never use 
the power we were granted by the people against the people.
    With that, semper fidelis, and I yield.
    Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days 
within which to submit materials and to submit additional 
written questions for the witnesses, which will be forwarded to 
the witness for his response.
    If there is no further business, without objection, the 
Select Subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:38 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]