FTC Creates COVID-19 Response Team, Issues Pandemic-Specific Plan
The FTC created an agency-wide pandemic response team and a pandemic-specific plan to address evolving COVID-19 issues, according to documents we obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Chairman Joe Simons declined to share the plan's annex with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., calling it “nonpublic” in a March 13 letter to the Senate Commerce Committee ranking member. Federal guidance on COVID-19 hasn’t "always kept up with the most pressing concerns expressed by FTC staff,” Simons wrote. He recommended a “timely and consolidated” source or site for federal agencies to plan for and “adapt to quickly changing circumstances.”
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of Personnel Management and others have provided “adequate guidance” on pandemic planning “in general,” Simons wrote. He noted it's a “highly fluid situation.”
The commission’s 2016 continuity of operations plan (COOP) covers a “broad range of emergency scenarios,” but the FTC as of March 13 hadn’t activated the COOP in response to the disease, Simons wrote. That same week, the agency finalized the annex to respond to issues outside COOP’s scope. The annex was created to address “additional considerations, challenges, and elements specific to the dynamic nature of a pandemic,” Simons wrote: “Both documents are nonpublic.”
The agency and Cantwell’s office didn’t comment Wednesday. Ex-FTC Consumer Protection Bureau Director Howard Beales, now a George Washington University strategic management and public policy professor, suggested the nonpublic determination could be a matter of enforcement. “I'm only speculating, but they may regard it as nonpublic because it talks about how they will decide which cases get priority,” he emailed. “They wouldn't want to tell people that, particularly for cases in litigation.”
Cantwell wrote March 6 requesting information about the agency’s COVID-19 response, with some specific questions about on-site screening. The agency isn’t providing COVID-19 screening at FTC facilities aside from posting signage in building entrances, Simons wrote: “The Federal Protective Service does not allow their Physical Security Officers to screen visitors with questions about their foreign travel or questions about their proximity to at-risk individuals. As a result, the FTC is unable to enforce screening procedures other than by placing signage.”
FTC staffers who have traveled to regions or areas of concern, based on State Department and CDC guidelines, have been advised to stay at home for two weeks after returning to the U.S., Simons said. The same goes for employees who have come into contact with anyone who has traveled to these areas or anyone diagnosed with COVID-19, he said.
The commission disseminated COVID-19-related guidance and information via memos and other communication to employees and contractors regarding building access, travel, meetings, telework, supplies and general health issues, Simons wrote: “We are fully committed to protecting the health and safety of our staff as well as ensuring the FTC is prepared to continue performing its mission.”
The response team, coordinating with Simons and Executive Director David Robbins, created an intranet page to be a centralized source for FAQs, memos guidance, travel advisories and links to external agency sites, Simons said.