Senators want details of US deal with 6 companies to distribute pandemic supplies

Three Senate Democrats have requested a probe of "Project Airbridge," a federal partnership with six of the country's largest medical supply companies to deliver goods from overseas to U.S. healthcare workers, The Hill reported. 

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., sent a letter to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee June 9 claiming that "Taxpayers have shelled out tens of millions of dollars on this secretive project, and they deserve to know whether it actually helped get critical supplies to the areas most in need."

Project Airbridge is led by Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, and was intended to ease critical shortages of personal protective equipment during the height of the pandemic, according to The Hill. 

Under the deal, the federal government paid the six medical supply companies to fly supplies to the U.S. as long as they agreed to sell at least half of the supplies to hot spots designated by the CDC. The companies were allowed to sell the rest of the supplies to anyone they wanted at taxpayer expense, The Hill reported. 

Federal and state lawmakers have criticized the deal, accusing the White House of making distribution decisions based on politics rather than public health. 

The government slowed down the project in May after spending $91 million on it, according to The Hill. 

The White House, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the six medical supply companies have declined to disclose details about which supplies have been delivered and where. 

"It is not clear if the project was effective or cost-efficient, or if other alternatives — such as the early invocation and use of the Defense Production Act to produce medical supplies — would have better alleviated the PPE shortage, saved money, and saved lives," the senators wrote in the letter, according to The Hill. 

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