Scheduled to be published in the April 10, 2020 edition of the Federal Register, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced they will be issuing a temporary rule to allocate certain scarce or threatened materials for domestic use, so that these materials may not be exported from the United States without explicit approval by FEMA.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and FEMA issued a joint statement today discussing the need to block certain items from export.

“On Friday, April 3, President Trump issued a “Memorandum on Allocating Certain Scarce or Threatened Health and Medical Resources to Domestic Use” directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in consultation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to use the Defense Production Act to keep scarce medical resources within the United States for domestic use. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) subject to this policy includes N95 respirators, and a variety of other filtering respirators; air-purifying respirators; surgical masks; and, surgical gloves.”

According to the notice, the rule will cover five types of personal protective equipment (PPE):

• N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirators, including devices that are disposable half-face-piece non-powered air-purifying particulate respirators intended for use to cover the nose and mouth of the wearer to help reduce wearer exposure to pathogenic biological airborne particulates
• Other Filtering Facepiece Respirators (e.g., those designated as N99, N100, R95, R99, R100, or P95, P99, P100), including single-use, disposable half-mask respiratory protective devices that cover the user’s airway (nose and mouth) and offer protection from particulate materials at an N95 filtration efficiency level per 42 CFR 84.181
• Elastomeric, air-purifying respirators and appropriate particulate filters/cartridges
• PPE surgical masks, including masks that cover the user’s nose and mouth and provide a physical barrier to fluids and particulate material
• PPE gloves or surgical gloves, including those defined at 21 CFR 880.6250 (exam gloves) and 878.4460 (surgical gloves) and such gloves intended for the same purposes

This list is subject to change as more items become scarce or are necessary for national defense.