House Coronavirus Oversight Panel to Focus on U.S. Reopening

(Bloomberg) -- A new U.S. House panel created to oversee coronavirus relief spending will focus its first briefing on requirements to safely reopen the American economy during the coronavirus pandemic.

Among participants at the hearing on Wednesday will be former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, one of the authors of a report released in late March by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, “National Coronavirus Response: A Road Map to Reopening.”

Gottlieb served as head of the FDA under President Donald Trump until April of last year.

A co-author of that report, Mark McClellan, a former commissioner of the FDA and former administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also plans to take part in the hearing.

Three others participating are Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute at Harvard University; Tom Inglesby, director for health security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

The 12-member committee is led by Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat. It was created on a party-line vote when lawmakers were in Washington last month to pass the most recent coronavirus aid package.

There are seven Democrats and five Republicans on the panel. Republicans have warned they believe Democrats will use the committee for partisan attacks on Trump and his administration.

Along with the American Enterprise Institute report, the panel will discuss other plans to guide federal and state efforts to safely reopen the country.

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