determinations that are conducted by the department are for the most part conducted by the science and technology directorate. they don't need cwmd for mina to go on. you see where i'm going. i think if you did that and returned the intelligence element, the wmd intelligence people were taken out of the office of intelligence and analysis and sent over to the wmd office. i think if you returned where they started from and send them to where it makes sense to have those assets, i think you'll have a stronger department and a stronger biodefense program at the department than what we have right now. >> well, thank you. thank you for a very comprehensive answer. i appreciate that. dr. parker, if your opinion where should the chief medical officer reside within the department of homeland security? >> well, thank you.

and actually, in my written testimony i do have a description about the early days of the establishment of the chief medical officer and i think that gives you some maybe background why initially it was established, post of the secretary, and it was established in that time when we were very much more urgently concerned about the bioterrorism threat and we should be more concerned about that today as has been discussed, but hurricane katrina happened and it's a realization that almost every disaster, natural or intentional, that the department's going to face is going to have a huge medical, public health implication and the secretary needed to have somebody close to the secretary's position to advise on the medical, public health implications of an intentional and natural disaster so i firmly believe that what transpired back in the day when i was directly at hhs is where the medical officer ought to be

today. and i think in a policy advisory role, i think there's no reason to encumber, say the chief medical office with an acquisition program. so it's really, think about some of the models in the department of defense with, say, you know, assistant secretary for health affairs and they have to run the system and it's advisor and implication across the services when it comes to health and-- just health and medicine and public health. so i think there's a similar model that's looking at the way that dod does it and i think it would be helpful for dhs and i think it would be a big assistance to the secretary. >> well, thank you. thank you, mr. portman, for your questions. >> and all three of you have been sounding the alarm and today you're able to give us more specifics as to how you would deal with the shortfalls that you see. i was just, i was curious in

listening to your responses about how to not just make this structure more accountable and simpler in effect, i think that's what dr. george, you were getting at. but also improve the technology and one initial question i would have, maybe dr. george you could take this. that you said some of our adversaries have that's programs and what do they do to protect citizens from bioattacks and what can we learn from them? has the commission been able to analyze comparatively what other countries do? >> mr. ranking member, i think when you're talking about the four countries that i mentioned, it's very difficult for the intelligence community or anybody else to figure out what they're doing to protect themselves or not, but what i can tell you is that russia and china are investing billions

into their bioeconomy and part of doing that is investment in protective technologies, vaccines, personal protective equipment and anything else that will bring the economic aspect of biology in the 21st century up to the next level. they are investing at a rate much greater than what we are investing here in the united states. it's going to start putting us at an economic disadvantage, but it's also going to put us art a protective disadvantage. i believe that-- >> and does that relate-- excuse me, does that relate to biowatch and to the monitors as well? >> i don't know, senator. i would have-- >> how about our european allies or japan or south career, other countries where we would have access to exactly what they're doing? and i assume would be happy to share that information. have we learned anything from

them how we can do a better job on detection? >> yes, senator, i would say especially in europe. our european allies and other countries with tomorrow-- with whom we are friends, are working on biotech, and their approaches are different from ours. they have viewed this as a technological challenge that needs to be iterated. we started with something in 2003 that the national labs produced and 18 years, 19 years later are hanging around using that same technology. the europeans have not done that, they have gone through their cycles over and over and improved. now, nobody, including our department of defense and nasa, says that they've got the absolute solution that's going to work 100% of the time, but they're working on technology that's getting us closer and closer to that and i believe we could get that information from our allies.

our european allies and possibly japan, i don't know. if we asked. >> you're indicating they're ahead of us in terms of technology, by biowatch and that responsibility. let me ask just a basic question. i think a lot of people who are watching today might be interested in. why didn't we defect covid-19? why did it take us so long? i think it was not until january that we actually felt like we had discovered this covid virus when in fact it had been around for a few months. maybe director currie you could start on that. >> thank you, sir. well, i mean, there's a lot of opinions as to why we may not have detected it as quickly as we want, but the point you bring up is about surveillance, which is, surveillance is

basically scanning the world for potential biological threats so we can get to them as quickly as possible and address them. this has been a huge thing across the agencies and enterprise. multiple agencies tried to pursue their own surveillance, dhs has one, dod has one, and they have been-- some have been successful, but they certainly haven't been integrated together. and i think the problem of lack of integration. during covid we've created new innovative surveillance systems to monitor covid and in the hospitals and pharmacies and i think we need to look at what is there and not yet rid of it when covid is over and useful

surveillance system. >> i know, from the airport, i think, hasn't been implemented as far as i know. and there is research that is helpful. and dr. parker, give you the precise dates here. >> okay. >> the first covid-19 case that the c.d.c. confirmed was january 21st, 2020. and recent studies by public health officials suggest that it was undetected in the country a couple of months previous to that. >> well, i think it really comes down to the need to reenvision biosurveillance and take advantage of the lessons and the things that we did build and are recommended with covid-19. and the data analytics, i mean, it's phenomenal now today for covid, we can unpack and go down to the county level, the zip code level and understand what's happening as far as cases and hospitalizations and deaths, we didn't have that possibility before covid and we certainly stumbled out of the

gate with our laboratory diagnostic and it's been talked about ad nauseam and we need to address some of those things in the future and we need to address it so we're not just also focused on the public health. we have to focus on animal health, and plant health, we have to take a one health solution as we think about these, our strategy and we have a national biodefense-- biosurveillance strategy. oh, i forgot, maybe it was through 2012, 2013, it was some years ago, but i don't believe we ever had a very good implementation plan of that strategy. so covid-19, we need to reenvision what biosurveillance means and take advantage of our lessons observed and turned them into lessons learned. and it needs to be one. >> my time, quick. >> it's inexcusable the dates that retrospectively it may have been in the united states before january so we've got to fix those in the future so our

laboratories can pick it up and we can look for the diseases in the future. >> could have made a huge difference had we had the surveillance capability and quickly, and hope to get a second round. yes or no, did we have adequate surveillance capability for biotechs and just a simple yes or no, dr. george. >> no. >> no. >> director. >> no. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you senator portman. senator padilla, you're recognized for your questions. >> thank you, mr. chair. there are a number of issues i'd like to raise in my allotted time, but i want to again by commenting. dr. parker, you mentioned the dates and ability how quickly we pounced on covid. the existence of a strategy, the existence of a plan, whether or not that plan was implemented on a timely basis or a completely is worthwhile

discussion because our public health experts and disease control personnel do not operate in a vacuum. and i'll leave it at that. >> first question i want to raise, you know, is the center who represents livermore national lab in california part of our national lab infrastructure, livermore in particular and labs are critical to advance our ability to counter weapons of mass destruction. the lab's mission includes work at nexis, biology, engineering and physical sciences to address national security in chemical security, biosecurity, human health and the partnership between encount the weapons of mass destruction office and the national labs is an important piece of our government's response to developing exceptional science and technology that can detect

and mitigate weapons of mass destruction, so, i'd like to ask each of you just some initial thoughts on the importance of partnerships between dhs and other government entities, including national labs and how you view that partnership developing as this committee considers the future of these efforts. we'll start with dr. george, dr. parker, and then mr. currie. >> thank you, senator. of course, those kinds of partnerships are absolutely critical and, but they need to be focused as well. you're talking about science and technology. the national labs, nasa, darpa, all of these science oriented, science, you know, mission-oriented entities can be utilized and worked with in any number of ways, but you know, in this case, we're talking about basic science. we're talking about the scientific endeavor and i think you have to ask when we're talking about which organizational element ought to be working with them from the

departments, we have to ask, is it appropriate for the cwmd office or the science and technology office to be conducting partnerships. i submit to you, if this is a basic science issue we're talking about, for example, with biowatch, then 19 years of the office of health affairs and then cwmd trying to engage and then sometimes not engaging with the national labs and so forth is enough. and problematic. they probably never should have been doing it. i think it should have been the science director that should have been doing. it livermore produced the first bioprotector anyway. i'm confident the national labs and other science and technology organizations throughout the country could address this if given the opportunity. >> dr. parker. >> yes, thanks, first, i'm a

big fan of livermore national lab and an opportunity, maybe next month. but anyway, i think lawrence livermore national lab and the other national labs have an incredibly important part to play here and one reason why they're so effective. they can get into the very deep basic science, but they approach it from an operational perspective and that's one things that's unique about our national labs and livermore in particular. and so, i think anything that we can do to encourage actually the reengagement into the transformative science that's needed for detection, diagnostic and surveillance and informatics and take the national expertise at livermore that has an operation--

>> i want to ask you about a different question, a follow-up question for dr. parker. as you know, robust and timely data has become an essential tool in effective governor responses. and unfortunately, when it came to covid, covid proved how the lack of data or timely data can cause harm and stalled responses to biological incidents. multiple agencies reported issues, tracking health data and coordinating with the federal government to ensure that we had a full and complete picture of the pandemic, which we had much earlier on. in some cases, states did not report pour collect whether it's data or other data that would have been illuminaing until we were well into the pandemic. can you describe our current capabilities or lack thereof to track data that would neutralize biological threats.

nobody kind of ventured into this under senator portman's questions. >> yes, sir, i can sure some personal, just observations when i had a front line when i was detailed last year during the covid response and actually, it took several months actually before the data analytics and the ability to have a comprehensive view down to the zip code level of hospitalizations, deaths, cases and so forth. it was really, it was not until hospitals started being able to tap the data from the hospital system that we began to get that and that was six months into covid. so we've got to be able to kind of take those lessons learn as we go forward and not let those systems atrophy for lack of a better term. it's hard because the data is owned by many different organizations so this is not an easy challenge, but we've got if figure out how to keep those pipes open so we can get the

situational awareness where needed. >> i can imagine a day when general public is looking at hospitalization rates and icu,'s ventilators, positivity rates and et cetera, and we haven't scratched the service on this variant versus that variant by zip code. i know my time is just about up. i have one more topic, i'm eager to get mr. currie's thoughts on. covid-19 has exposed inequities in our health care system and response, and highlighted the racial and income disparities in our approach to public health. and the emergency departments where they're significantly and persistently higher among minority populations while vaccinations rates lag in those very same communities. and this is the case across the

country. you know, there's clear evidence of the stark contrast between those with resources faring better during emergencies, versus communities, families, individuals, without sufficient resources. so as you think about ensuring our biodefense response, and how we could build on lessons learned during the covid pandemic. i think it's critical that we're intentional about addressing equity and the unique needs of minority and other vulnerable populations, for example, some residents do not have access to reliable high speed internet or communities whose primary or preferred language is not english. linguistic bearers have been a factor to help disparity. mr. currie, how can the government better plan to address these and other racial disparities and responses and

recommendations you have for the committee on how we not repeat the covid experience and do better in the future? >> thank you, senator. i mean, i think the first step is recognizing the issue, recognizing the problem and i think, you know, the administration has put out executive orders last year on focusing federal programs better on other issues. i'll just go back to the data. i think part of the problem we saw the beginning of covid and we see this in other disasters, too, for disaster assistance program, there's not a lot of data and there wasn't a lot of data on how the programs impacted certain populations and certain parts of the country, rural versus urban and that created a lot of questions how effective they were and makes it difficult for the federal government to target resources and that's the step that we have to take to get better at this. >> look forward to following up with you, thank you, mr. chair.

>> thank you, padilla. i need to step away to attend briefly an armed services committee. ranking member portman will take the gavel and has some additional questions. thank you, mr. chairman, i have a number of questions and looking for some quick answers just to help us to be able to figure out a better way to move forward in terms of the fragmentation that's currently out there that we've heard about today in terms of responding to biothreats and also trying to figure out better, you know, what's working and what's not working in the current system, but let me start with regard to a question about academia and maybe dr. parker, you're the best person to answer this, because that's where you reside now. does dhs and do other entities, including c.d.c. that have biosecurity programs, effectively leverage research universities? is there a good leadership with

academia? >> i'll make this short. early in the life of dhs there was the creation of university centers of excellence and that's been, i think, a very good and effective program to engage academia. now, the threats have evolved and priorities have evolved over time and what i've observed as biosecurity has been downgraded in importance, centers of excellence and early days there was several -- there was two, three, senators that were focused on agriculture biosecurity and good security and those have been emeritus status today. >> so it sounds like that could be revamped as it was perhaps after the anthrax attacks and other incidents? >> correct. >> and i think that's one thing that's missing in the current system is having a more formalized way to access some of our great advantages in the country which is our research

universities. we talked earlier how some countries are ahead of us now in terms of surveillance, but we certainly have a huge advantage in terms of using u.s. research capability. so that's one thing we want to work on for you. doctor, and you may be the person to answer this. another group that we haven't talked about today at least in the detail and that's the national biosurveillance integration center, and the ic. is it needed? is it helpful? does it add something beyond what they do. it's part of dhs and then c.d.c. with the similar responsibilities. talk to us about mdic. >> yes, sir. well, we've reported on it several times over the last decade and what we've found pretty consistently is they've struggled to meet their mandate of providing broad biosurveillance. a part of that is they don't really have the access to the data they need.

the data at other federal agencies are down at the local level to produce the information you would need to make decisions and the other thing we heard from partners, particularly apartment the federal and state level. since they use publicly available information and they do a pretty good job of that information, it's not really new or that novel to the people that need to make decisions in in arena. so, you know, it's not that what they produce has no value, but the other concern i have, i mentioned this before, there are four different surveillance efforts across the four big departments, homeland security defense, usda and hhs. all separate, all stove pipe. don't work together and some have been successful for their individual purposes and some have not and i think that just shows you the lack of coordination across this whole enterprise. it's very difficult to make the decision of which one should go and which should stay because there's no one at a top level that can say, that can make that defense.

>> you know, well, i think this has been brought up by all three of you in one way or another, too much fragmentation and not enough accountability to have four different departmental agencies effectively trying to tease this same mission and perhaps not sharing information from what you said between themselves and that's in terms of reorganization. the problem that i see, i don't want to get into anything that's classified here, but is that we have surveillance capability in certain is areas, certain urban centers, and this information is publicly available. i'm not going to name the number of cities, even though it's publicly available because i'd just like to stay away from that sort of stuff, but it's not comprehensive. and everybody knows that. second, when you look at the biological threats we face today, it's not comprehensive. and that goes for the

technology issue and that's one reason i asked earlier what countries were doing and whether we could learn and academia was fully engaged and an opportunity to have better technology. could you address that in the appropriate way, dr. george, and you know, we don't want to give our adversaries information that they shouldn't have, but we've got to figure out how to fix the system so it's more effective. >> well, senator, i think you're absolutely right. what we want is a comprehensive system and that system or comprehensive coverage of the entire country. what that would require is, drawing information and data from a variety of different sources. so it's okay that we don't have biowatch in every single jurisdiction throughout the country, but we have it in the number that we do have it and that information should be coming into a place and combined with the information we're getting from mbic. the information we're getting from the c.d.c. and so forth.

na was the original vision for the national biosurveillance interorganization center. as chris said earlier, the department doesn't have the access to that information, but i think the other side of that coin, as far as this body is concerned, is that congress did not mandate that all of the other departments and agencies provide that information in the first place. so you know, it's going along the way it is. i think that-- yes, sir. >> for a second. there are obviously two great opportunities here, one would be to require all the information is consolidated in one place and bic is probably the place to do it and second is, and i think this was discussed earlier, dr. parker in terms of the academic distribution here is that we have capability to collect and assist data that we've never had before. didn't have, frankly, after

anthrax and other biological threats led us to try to come up with a national system so we had the capability to do that which we've never had before and massive amounts of data quickly and being able to produce something that's meaningful that can then be disseminated to the appropriate agencies and departments. is that accurate? >> senator, i think we have the capability as a nation. we do not have that data analysis capability at the department of homeland security and certainly not in the national integration center so you would have to decide to make that kind of investment in that part of dhs or somewhere else in the government if you choose. but we can get there, it's just going to require some more money and upgrading that capability. >> great. my time has expired. i'm going to turn it to the new chair of this committee. >> well, thank you very much. >> thank you all. >> i want to thank you, senator portman and senator peters for

holding this hearing and i want to thank the witnesses for your testimony and for providing your expertise and perspective on this really important issue. and because i've been in and out a little bit, i may be a little bit repetitive and apologies in advance if i am. but i want to start with a question to you, dr. george, to detect biological threats, the department of homeland security, has mainly focused on directly detecting airborne by logics with a biolot is only able to detect from a limited library of threats which leaves a critical blind spot especially since naturally occurring disease outbreaks and accidental releases are likely to consist of previously unknown by biological agents. the readiness of that technology is really years away.

dr. george can you speak to what a successful biological program looks like and how they fall short? >> yes, senator. a successful biological program has a number of different kinds of detectors within in and spread all throughout the united states. at least for our nation. it's fine to have the biowatch detectors if you can get the equipment to detect what it's actually supposed to. >> right. >> you're absolutely right. we are facing so many other threats than just a handful of threats that biowatch was supposed to pick up on. so, you also need other pieces of equipment. so, for example, you could have particle detectors that aren't looking for specific agencies, but are looking to see how many particles are in a particular room or in an area, and can note that, hey, suddenly we're seeing a whole bunch of something, or a while bunch of virus in this one place.

what is that? and send the alert to somebody else to take a look. we also have, you know, there are hand held detectors, there are all kinds of detectors. there are detectors, you can put inside, detectors you can put outside. i think we need a vast panoply of those spread out all over the place and gather all of this information together because if you look at how we detect disease anyway, whether we have a detector or not, we're always drawing on a number of pieces of information. hey, there's something going on over in china or look, somebody's in a hospital now. this seems to be unexplained. medicare has something to say and cvs is reporting that everybody is running in to get certain medications so forth. that's how you would put together such a system. >> really directing a cross-session of data each of way is signaling. >> right. a particular proof point and doing it in a broad range of

areas. >> yes. >> okay. this is a question to mr. currie and dr. parker. one way that we could detect biological threats is screening patients at hospital and other health care facilities and there was just a discussion as i came in with senator portman on this issue, what kind of data do we have? but as i understand much of this data would be collected by nonfederal entities. soap federal agencies would need to closely coordinate with them. unfortunately, as the government accountability office reports the current national biodefense strategies, nor does it establish a coordination with other entities. so mr. currie and dr. parker, how can the federal government ensure that its nonfederal partners can the capability on potential biological threats and coordinate federal and nonfederal efforts.

i'll start with mr. currie and then we'll go to dr. parker. >> thank you, senator hassan. i couldn't think of a better lesson learned covid-19 and noncoordination. we've seen this not only with the stockpiles, but how things are distributed throughout the country and being different in every state, perfectly caps lated the challenge there. and in my view, the thing that we can do, dr. parker said earlier and made a great point that we have these lessons learned that we've seen in covid. we've developed the monitoring systems, these tracking systems, these coordination mechanisms and these need to be formalized and execute these post covid for the future and i think that might be crossing the jurisdiction and the federal departments that will likely require legislation and other actions to do that formally. >> dr. parker. >> sure, and i'll just echo

that and odd on a couple of examples, i know in hhs, i observed for during covid response the establishment of the control power able to link with the private sector and gets the abilities to the supply chains and focus and anticipate where supplies were going to be shorts and then that evolved into the health care cell change and tower at that similarly could really anticipate whether they're going to be shortages in a hospital system, somewhere in the united states and shifts could be made in coordination with the federal government and the private sector so they could be working in unison. we've got to figure out how to tap those lessons learned into those observed. it may not be practiced on a day-to-day basis, but when there's a crisis we need to have the coordination between the appropriate federal and state and local authorities and the private sector partners. >> yeah, no, i mean, we're

systems federalism and we need to apply that when we're talking about data sharing as well. >> to mr. currie, the strategic national stock piles should be a critical tool. by quickly providing medical supplies to aid in the response. what are the most significant challenges when it comes to managing the strategic national stockpile? >> ma'am, since covid and really, well before covid, we've had a number of concerns about the strategic national stockpile. before covid we were concerned about the way it was funded sporadically and what it meet mean in terms of readiness to handle an event like this, in the past it was to use h1n1, or what is the target in the specific areas of the country or specific population, of course, in covid we needed it nationwide and it wasn't ready. and so, i think one of the

biggest challenges that we've identified is the lack of understanding at levels of government, including the federal partnership, how this stockpile is distributed and procured. procurement was an important piece of this. you can't deep enough things on stock or at the warehouse to deploy throughout the country so you have to be able to procure up and we weren't ready to do this. thank you, given these challenges, i'm committed working with the committee and on the labor and pensions committee. on a bipartisan bill, which is called the america's strategic stock pile act and it already passed the house and we will continue to work to see if we can get it on the senate side because i think ins an opportunity for us, really, really to make progress and build up the stock pile that would help. i hope there's not another

crisis like the one we are going through right now, but we need to be prepared for it to be sure. with that, i am all over my time and i can recognize senator sinema who should be joining us remotely. >> thank you, madam chairman. and the testimony we've heard is worrisome and the threat after biologics should be taken seriously and work for the safety of our community and work to make sure communities in my state of arizona and those across the country are protected from accidental and intentional events. mr. currie, your testimony focuses on what happened since congress first addressed the biorisk in 2016, but since then seems that dhs has the largest role. they're smaller departments with fewer resources than the department of defense. considering the resources of

the dod. should we look at ways the dod could take on a larger role. if so, what could that entail? >> yes, ma'am, thank you for the questions. it's a great point. dod has decades and decades of experience in biosecurity. that they've had to do to prepare for a war and protect war fighters. so, i agree, there's a tremendous number of lessons learned and research and efforts at the department of defense na can be learned by the domestic agencies like the department of homeland security and usda. i will say this though, while the technology, i think, would be helpful and the coordination would be great. applying some of these technologies in the homeland is actually, i think, one of the biggest challenges because while basic research is part of the solution, when you apply these technologies to train stations and subway stations and crowded places in this country. it's very, very different in terms of the way it needs to

work and, for example, you know, you just can't have false alarms. that doesn't work. if you have to evacuate a subway station, so, it's a very technically complicated issue here in the homeland and i degree with you, the department of defense has a big role to play. >> thank you. with various agencies focused on biosecurity initiatives and the broad requirement for response in an emergency. do you believe they're prepared to prevent or respond to an attack, if not, where are the it skills gaps and are there specific steps congress should take to assure that they're taking the right steps. again for you, mr. currie. >> i think we were better off than early 2020 or late 2019. i think most departments and agencies in the work force and accustomed to this being a part of the mission and even departments that didn't think they would have a role in the

health emergency in the past. we're much better off and we need to continue preparing for this effort and putting people in place across the government that are going to focus on this. >> next i'll turn to dr. parker. your work shows important it is to communicate and covid creates an additional risk because it's virtually certain that we'll see biosecurity in the future. taken what we've learned in the covid-19 pandemic and the continued threat of the virus, what steps can we take with state and local governments, to close biosecurity gaps that require immediate attention? >> thank you for the question. first and foremost thing that we need to do is address some of the federal interagency scenes and figuring out how to better manage the scenes between the different federal departments and agencies and that's going to require strong

centralized leadership probably in the national security council and perhaps co-compared by the national security council and office of technology policy. we've got to have a clear strategic vision and go and buy-in from our state and local leaders and emergency management and public health. and buy-in from the industry partners and nbo's so it starts with a good strategic plan and getting buy-in, leadership at the highest levels of government. it's going to take the support of congress, and senate and appropriations and buy-in all the way through. a lot of dialog. good leaders engage with their partners and stakeholders, it's a two-way conversation so all of that is he thinks is to make sure that-- that is essential to make sure we have a national not just a federal plan. thank you. >> thank you. >> my next question for dr. parker and dr. george.

you both addressed the lack of leadership and focus regarding biosecurity and working across the agencies, workers and barriers. do you believe the country would be safer if we created an independent agency solely focused on biosecurity or providing dhs with more leadership or accountability or another option? >> who do you want to go first? go ahead. dr. george. >> thank you, senator sinema. i think that creating an independent agency would be a mistake. every department and agency-- well, sorry, every department, eight independent agencies and one institution have responsibilities for biodefense. i think across the board, including the department of homeland security, those, all of those responsibilities should be addressed by congress that there should be additional

legislation if needed and then all of those entights-- entities need to be coordinated. i don't think they need to be pulled out. we need an entity across the environment. we recommended that the vice-president of the united states be put this charge of biodefense with a deputy national security advisor supporting that effort. i still believe that that's the way to go. the commission believes that's the way to go because you have so many departments and agencies involved. i think if you create another agency, you'd have give them some massive, massive authorities to be able to tell anybody else what to do. even to get information from them. and i just don't think that would work very well. >> and i agree with dr. george. the way-- another way to think about it is the true strength in the

potential of our national enterprise as we have diversity and diversity by the various departments and agencies that have their own strengths, they have their authorities and their appropriations for kind of the lane that they work in and their expertise that we need to bring to the fight for biosecurity preparedness and response. the challenge is how do we marshal all of that strength and expertise across the interagency. that's what we need to do and then marshal that strength and working closely with our state and local partners, particularly emergency management and public health and within our private security and partners, too. >> thank you, madam chair, i know that my time expired. one quick question for dr. george. you mentioned the need of cleaning of current statutory directives. i'd like to submit a question for the record for necessary

changes so we can make updates. is that something that you-- >> yes. >> and i yield back. >> i apologize. >> no worries. we've been playing a little bit of a music cal chairs up here, good to be back before the committee here. certainly i've heard some testimony today from all of our witnesses that the dhs' biosurveillance program has struggled to find the missions and carry out the m missions. a good deal of the budget goes to the biointegration center and biowatch. so dr. park eyou've been a part of the department in and out of government and mentioned in your testimony that it's time to transition biowatch which there are better technological solutions. where do you think the country is in developing technologies, if you could share that with the committee i'd appreciate it

and also, what programs, capabilities or technologies you would you suggest dhs should focus on to make sure that we're indeed prepared? >> sure, well, i think i do-- and dr. george has already i think made some very, very good comments about the status of biowatch and what we need to be doing with it. ... atch -- we need to transition what bio surveillance is and what dhs role is in national bio surveillance strategy. at the end of the day i do believe republican senator todd young of indiana is talking about u.s. competitiveness and innovation. this is hosted by the bipartisan policy center. live coverage on c-span2. >> he is leading efforts around telehealth, seniors, small business