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FEMA's $237.6 Million Airlift of Protective Gear: 35 Percent Traced to Priority Sites
FEMA paid $237.6 million in 2020 to fly about 1.1 billion pieces of protective equipment into the United States. Its inspector general could confirm that only 35 percent reached designated healthcare facilities in prioritized locations, "instead of the 50 percent minimum required by FEMA."
Project Airbridge ran from March 29 to June 30, 2020. FEMA paid for air freight from factories in countries such as Malaysia, China and Vietnam, which cut shipping from about 36 days to about 4. In return, six medical supply distributors, about 90 percent of the pre-pandemic market, agreed to send at least 50 percent of the equipment flown in to places FEMA and HHS prioritized. Most of what flew was gloves: 936.9 million, against 122.4 million masks and 66.6 million gowns.1
The inspector general found that FEMA went from concept to launch in about a week without assessing the distributors' supply chains, and that the flights "supplemented the distributors' already large domestic inventories", which grew about one-third between March and June 2020. Its conclusion: "the project's $238 million may have been better spent on other COVID-19 initiatives." FEMA concurred with both recommendations.1
Six million N95 masks at $5.90, never delivered
The Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to buy six million N95 masks at $5.90 each from Federal Government Experts, LLC, and on April 15, 2020 FEMA ordered 500,000 more at $7.02 each. The company's owner, Robert Stewart Jr., was sentenced on June 16, 2021 to 21 months in prison and three years of supervised release for making false statements to win the contracts and then failing to deliver.2 His guilty plea on February 3, 2021 also covered wire fraud on two pandemic loans to the company, an $805,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan from Celtic Bank and a $261,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan, whose applications overstated its payroll and employees. He repaid both loans before he was sentenced.3
A memo released the next day by the majority staff of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis puts the scheme at "$38.7 million in federal contracts" and says Stewart "lied to federal government officials more than 30 times." VA had told him on April 5, 2020 that it would pay $4.00 a mask; he drove the price up by claiming FEMA had told him that day of "their intent to purchase" two million. VA's contracting officer noted he "was only able to do a minimal amount of price analysis." Two weeks after VA terminated the first contract and referred it to its inspector general, it awarded him a second contract worth $249,900, which was canceled before any money was spent.2
No taxpayer money was paid to Stewart under the VA and FEMA contracts, the memo says. It is a majority-staff document, and it blames the Trump Administration's lack of preparedness for the risks agencies took.2
Notes
- DHS Office of Inspector General, FEMA Did Not Provide Sufficient Oversight of Project Airbridge, OIG-23-14, February 7, 2023, pp. 2-4, 6 and 12. ↩1 ↩2
- House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, majority staff memorandum, Investigation into Federal Government Experts, LLC, June 17, 2021, pp. 1-2. ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
- United States v. Stewart, E.D. Va. No. 1:21-cr-00005, Dkt. 14, position of the United States with respect to sentencing, June 9, 2021, pp. 1, 4 and 9. ↩
Primary sources used in this article
- DHS Office of Inspector General, "FEMA Did Not Provide Sufficient Oversight of Project Airbridge," OIG-23-14 (February 7, 2023)
- House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, majority staff memorandum, "Investigation into Federal Government Experts, LLC" (June 17, 2021)
- United States v. Stewart, E.D. Va. No. 1:21-cr-00005, Dkt. 14, position of the United States with respect to sentencing (June 9, 2021)