Covid-19 Oversight News: Booster Shots, CARES Act Funds, and Trump Administration Pandemic Response

American Oversight’s Covid-19 Oversight Hub provides news and policy resources to help you keep track of investigations into the government’s pandemic response. The project brings together a public documents database, an oversight tracker of important ongoing investigations and litigation, regular news updates, and deeper dives into key issues.   

For the latest news on the pandemic, as well as updates on various oversight investigations, sign up for our bi-weekly Covid-19 Oversight News email. 

Congressional Hearings 

• Tues., Sept. 28: The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on CARES Act oversight of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Secretary Janet Yellen and Chair Jerome Powell will testify. 
• Tues., Sept. 28: The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing discussing successful models for protecting communities from Covid-19. 
• Thurs., Sept. 30: The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing regarding oversight of the Treasury’s and the Fed’s pandemic response. 
• Thurs., Sept. 30: The second hearing will take place in the House Transportation Committee’s two-part series examining the impact of the federal pandemic response on the transportation and infrastructure sectors. 
• Thurs., Sept. 30: The Senate HELP Committee will hold a hearing on school reopenings during the pandemic. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will testify. 
• Sat., Oct. 2: The House Veterans’ Committee will hold a hearing examining the impact of Covid-19 on food insecurity among veterans. 

Recent News 

President Biden received a Pfizer-BioNTech booster shot on camera on Monday. But there is still some confusion over who besides those 65 and over is eligible, thanks in part to last week’s changing news about federal recommendations. And while the U.S. has enough doses for boosters and the expected approval of vaccines for young children, Covid-19 deaths and hospitalizations continue to be disproportionately among the millions who are unvaccinated.   

The New York Times published a set of eye-opening charts that illustrate the partisan divide over vaccination and its deadly consequences. “In counties where Donald Trump received at least 70 percent of. The vote, the virus has killed about 47 out of every 100,000 people since the end of June. … In counties where Trump won less than 32 percent of the vote, the number is about 10 out of 100,000. And the gap will probably keep growing.” 

Here are some headlines from around the country: 

• Alabama trying to use Covid relief funds for new prisons (Associated Press) 
• Third judge blocks Tennessee Gov. Lee’s mask opt out in schools (Associated Press) 
• New Mexico health officials link misuse of ivermectin to two Covid-19 deaths (New York Times) 
• DeSantis names doctor who opposes vaccination mandates as surgeon general of Florida (NBC News) 
• Texas still has one of the nation’s worst Covid death rates, even as delta subsides (Houston Chronicle) 
• Idaho morgues are running out of space for bodies as Covid-19 deaths mount (Washington Post) 
• North Carolina hospital system fires about 175 workers in one of the largest-ever mass terminations due to a vaccine mandate (Washington Post) 

New Reports and Briefings 

• A report from the Joint Economic Committee Democrats found that Hispanic Americans workers made up a large share of the essential workers who continued to work hazardous jobs during the pandemic, but face lower wages and poorer benefits than non-Hispanic white workers. 
• Americans for Financial Reform, the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, and Public Citizen released a new report estimating that more than $5 billion in CARES Act money went to companies owned or backed by private equity firms with a collective $908 billion in cash reserves. Read more about the report at NBC News. 
• Earlier this month, Peter Marks, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, briefed the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis about the “status of the coronavirus vaccine landscape in the United States.”  

GAO Reports 

• The Government Accountability Office reviewed the Defense Department’s management of the Defense-Wide Working Capital Fund’s cash balance and the pandemic’s effects on the Defense Logistics Agency’s management of the department’s global supply chain. 
• A new GAO report describes trends in small business and lender participation in the Paycheck Protection Program, including challenges faced by businesses owned by self-employed people, minorities, women, and veterans in obtaining PPP loans. Early lending went disproportionately to larger businesses and businesses in rural areas; in response, the Small Business Administration made changes to increase lending to underserved businesses. 

Select Subcommittee Investigations 

• Documents obtained by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis suggest that Steven Hatfill’s role in the Trump administration’s pandemic response was more extensive than he had let on, with him appearing to have regularly coordinated with high-level White House officials and several federal agencies. Chair James Clyburn outlined this information in a memo to subcommittee members, detailing the basis for a subpoena Clyburn authorized for related documents. 
• In a memo, the select subcommittee’s majority staff outlined evidence that the American Rescue Plan’s direct relief payments helped reduce poverty and support economic recovery during the pandemic.  
• The subcommittee recently obtained documents revealing new details about the Trump White House’s early awareness of the pandemic and its failure to execute an effective strategy. 

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Reports 

• TIGTA evaluated the actions Internal Revenue Service took as required by the agency’s Pandemic Incident Management Plan. In its report, TIGTA said that it had observed instances of noncompliance with federal mask requirements and social distancing guidelines, noting that there are a number of circumstances in which supervisors may not feel comfortable addressing an employee’s noncompliance. The report also noted that IRS officials had varying degrees of understanding of the types of paid leave available to employees with pandemic-related needs. 
• TIGTA also reported on an inspection of the IRS’s efforts to protect people at select Taxpayer Assistance Centers during the pandemic.  

SIGPR Direct Loan Program Survey
The Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR) surveyed both approved and non-approved applicants to the Treasury’s CARES Act-authorized Direct Loan Program. SIGPR issued a report on its findings from the survey.  

Congressional Requests 

• Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez sent a letter to acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tae Johnson asking the agency to release people detained in New Jersey who do not meet existing enforcement priorities rather than transferring detainees to other states, a practice that increases the risk of spreading Covid-19. 
• The Senate Finance Committee asked behavioral health care providers for policy proposals that could address unmet mental health needs. 
• The Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees sent letters calling on the Justice Department and the Federal Aviation Administration to coordinate efforts to ensure the prosecution of dangerous and unruly airline passengers. 
• Eight senators asked President Biden to open the U.S.-Canada border to vaccinated Canadians by October 2021. 
• The select subcommittee wrote to the CEOs of Cargill and the National Beef Packing Company, seeking information related to Covid-19 outbreaks at meatpacking plants. 
• The select subcommittee also wrote to former White House adviser Peter Navarro requesting documents and communications related to his involvement in pandemic response efforts, including the use of non-government accounts to conduct government business. 
• Following reports that Robert Kaplan, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Eric Rosengren, the president of the bank in Boston, made extensive trades in individual stocks and real estate investment trusts, Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent letters to regional Fed presidents asking that they adopt stricter ethics rules and ban the ownership and trading of individual stocks by senior officials. (On Monday, Kaplan and Rosengren announced that they would resign.) 
• Warren also wrote to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, calling on the Fed to revoke Wells Fargo’s status as a financial holding company to require the company to separate its traditional banking activities from its nonbanking activities. Wells Fargo was recently fined $250 million for failing to make progress in addressing “significant deficiencies” in its mortgage lending practices; a previous investigation by Warren found that during the pandemic the bank had placed as many as 1,600 customers into forbearance without their consent.