women had been speaking, hundreds of them, thousands of them but just haven't had access to their words. >> dana rubin, sunday night, 8:00 p.m. eastern on q&a, you can listen to q&a for free on our c-span now app. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies and more, including sparklight. >> greatest town on earth is the place you call home, at spark light, it's our home too, now we're all facing our greatest challenge. that's why sparklight is working around the part to keep you connected, doing our part so you can do yours. >> sparklight supports c-span as a public service, along with these television providers, giving you a front row city to democracy. >> healthcare and national security experts told members of congress that the covid-19

pandemic has shown the u.s. biodefenses are too fragmented and lack coordination. they testified before the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee.

>> the meeting will come to order. i'd like to start off and thank our witnesses for joining us to help assess our readiness to protect americans from by oh logical threats to national security including the department of homeland security's ability to detect, mitigate and deter these threats. we'll also discuss how this committee can work to ensure the department of homeland security's countering weapons of mass destruction, office and other government programs tasked with tackling biological threats have the resources as well as the tools necessary to fulfill

their mission. biological threats can emerge from any number of disease-causing agents such as bacteria, viergss or toxins, whether naturally occurring, accidental or deliberate in origin, these agents can be used to harm humans, plants and animals. we have seen how naturally occurring biological threats such as the virus that causes covid-19 can significant harm our communities if we're not adequately prepared for them. we also face threats from biological weapons that have been manufactured and weaponized for the purpose of targeting americans, for example seen bad actors deliberately use anthrax, rycine and other agents in attacks attempted at targeting officials, with the potential to cause mass casualties,

incapacitation and other threats to national security. compared to other weapons of mass destruction, bioweapons are cheaper to develop, can be deployed covurtly and often have delayed on set making them an appealing choice for bad actors to utilize against randomized or targeted acts. in response to these threats, dhs has taken actions to bolster our nations biodefenses including the biowatch program and its replacement, biological detection for 21st century program, these programs by all accounts have not measurably improved our nation's ability to identify possible biological threats. they have, however, proved the coordination between the federal government and local partners on addressing such threats. in their 2021 report to congress, the government accountability office foubd dhs's biosurveillance programs

lack sufficient technology and other resources to carry out their mission. i also remain concerned about the biowatch program which has suffered a number of setbacks including high rates of false positive tests, significant delays in identifying possible threats, and an inability to detect familiar threats. the committee is also responsible for considering the reauthorization of the department of homeland security's cwmd office before the end of 2023, this office has previously faced unsteady leadership, low morale and the inability to retain qualified employees. although these are signs that these, there are some signs that these issues are improving, this body must consider whether structural changes at dhs are needed to ensure whether they can successfully combat

biological and other threats. in addition to bolstering the federal government's readiness to tackle these threats, we must support innovative efforts by public and other private entities. these programs are evident in my homestate in michigan, which is home to vaccine manufacturers and experts developing decontamination techniques, as well as the university of michigan flint's forth coming biosecurity program i had the opportunity to discuss with their chancellor this week. michigan has also conducted exercises to test the responsiveness of state, local and federal partners to biological attacks and uses test results to identify had you how we can improve your ability to combat these threats. today's hearing will allow the committee to examine how the federal government with build on these kinds of efforts. i look forward to hearing from our panel of healthcare and

national security experts and how lawmakers can advance an effective strategy to protect all our communities from all biological threats. i now turn to ranking member portman, recognized for opening comments. >> thank you, mr. chairman, appreciate your comments this morning and thank the witnesses for being here. interestingly, a lot of the experts before us today, are those who have been sounding the alarm as to our current biosecurity, it's very important and appreciate you standing up to speak out on this. i think the pandemic taught us once again if we have to examine the effectiveness of our biosecurity posture, it's about all kinds of threats, one is manmade, of course, others are accidental or naturally occuric pathogens. and as we've seen over the past couple years can have devastating impact on our country or the entire globe as we experienced with covid-19.

over the past 20 years, seen attempts at biological terrorism, notably the anthrax attacks in 2001, remember following that, the subsequent attacks there was a lot of activity including much of what we'll talk about today, of course the harmful pathogens including h 1 n 1, ebola and most recently covid, despite the threats, our nation's biosecurity efforts have been too fragmented in my view among several agencies and departments which makes it tough to have accountable, hachlers coordination and makes us less able to be prepared for a large scale biological hazards. hope to talk about that some today and more on what to make sure we have the best biocapability out there and make advancements in this area. i am concerned about our capability in terms of the ability to detect various pathogens that could do us a lot

of harm and aren't currently detectable. the department of homeland security countering weapons of homeland destruction office which was just talked about, cwmd, talk about a lot today, very significant role in the mission of biosecurity, but the office is plagued with some challenges, some of which are perennial, some predate the formation of the office itself and some is lack of coordination. biowatch is the primary biocourt program operated by the cwmd office for the last 20 years, in my view, biowatch consistently under delivered on its intended purpose to detect biological agent that is could pose a hazard to the public. so in my view the roles clarifin expanded and i look forward to the experts today whether that's their opinion and if so, what we can do about it. we've invested as tax payers

over $1 billion into the biowatch program and cwmd office now wants to up grade that program with the bp 21 program, bioprotection of the 21st century, make sure it's based on a strong foundation, and ensure it's the kind of investment that is going to be worth while for tax payers and most importantly a system that can protect american people from these harmful biological threats. the authorities of this office, cwmd and homeland security are set to expire late next year. this gives us an opportunity in this committee to reauthorize and make the necessary changes so it does have a broader capability and is better organized. so it may require more funding. but i think mostly, it requires better organization and better accountability. and that's what i hope we can talk about today, have an opportunity again with this

reauthorization to take a careful look at this and improve the system so i look forward to hearing witness's assessments where we are now with preparedness and recommendations for improving this effort to safeguard the american people from biological threats. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you -- it is the practice of the united states committee and government imaffairs committee to swear in witnesses so if each of you will stand and raise your right hand including dr. carazon on video, do you swear the testimony you will give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god? >> i do. >> you may be seated. our first witnesses, christopher curry. mr. curry serves as director of homeland security and justice at u.s. accountability office, leads the agency's work on

national preparedness, emergency management and critical infrastructure protection issues. mr. curry brings almost 20 years of federal experience and his expertise includes the evaluation of federal efforts and programs to prevent, plan for, and respond to both natural and man-made disasters. welcome back, mr. curry, you may proceed with your opening remarks. >> thank you very much, ranking member peters and mr. portman, i appreciate the ability to be here to discuss biosecurity, i'm sorry i can't be there in person but i'd like to focus on two key yours. first, how to strengthen efforts across the federal government and steps homeland security can take to strengthen biosecurity. for a decade well before the pandemic we were concerned for preparedness for a large scale biological event and called for

a better strategy, held many meetings over the years on this issue as well. we were concerned biodefense was too fragmented and uncoordinated across all levels of government and the private sector too, and unfortunately, covid-19 showed these gaps were real. the 2018 biodefense strategy laid the foundation for coordination needed to better prepare for events like covid-19, but the bad news is the strategy was new when the pandemic hit. the good news is the pandemic put the spotlight on this, creating an opportunity to effectively implement the strategy for future events in the years to come. for the last two years under covid, we've been focused on how to successfully implement the biodefense strategy and the lessons we learned from covid-19. two years ago, we made better recommendations to implement this strategy which are even more important today, i think, for example one recommendation centered around being able to make resource and priority decisions across agency that is

just can't tell each other what to do like the department of defense, agriculture, health and human services and dhs. this, still, has not been completed. we also recently looked back on interagency biological plans, exercises, and after action reports done in the years before covid-19. many of the problems and challenges that occurred in covid response were identified in prior exercises and after action reviews, for example, prior exercises and reports from past events like ebola, zika and others found that coordinating at the federal level and between the feds and states was going to be a huge challenge, but we saw this to be the case in the covid response, particularly as it relates to supply chains. the problem is that these gaps weren't closed, because no one agency was accountable for monitoring or closing them and while, we'll never close all the gaps, we certainly could have

closed some of them beforehand and i think this simply just can't happen again. we have to ensure the lessons learned from covid and the exercises we do in the future are not forgotten once this passes. now, i'd like to turn to dhs too, in the biodefense area since 2012, reported on challenges in implementing by oh watch which is the system to detect an airborn bioattack, just last year, reported on efforts to up grade the system and move to bd in your opening statement you mentioned, we foubd it faces a number of challenges, mainly the inherent challenges and importantly, the use domestically in the u.s., like train stations and sporting vernts, very different than truth to do it in a lab or the

war environment. it's a huge challenge. the false alarm issue is still a huge problem that has to be overcome if dhs is to more quickly detect biothreats. we also found the cwmd office failed to develop a effective surveillance system, for example the national biosurveillance integration center failed to fill its mandate and provide value to partners at federal, state and local level. lastly, i know the committee is interested in the effectiveness of the cwd office in general since the office was set up and reorganized overall, i think the office is on a better track, beginning to mature several years after being created. morale improve the slightly, not great, but particularly in some areas of employee engagement which is important, also i think the leadership there is committed to implementing our past recommendations and more importantly, sticking to best practices that have helped other organizations reorganize and

transform effectively in the government. for example, i know the office is working to better communicate with internal and external partners. this is something that altered during the reorganization, is taking some time to restart effectively. we're currently finishing a review of the office and we plan to issue a report on that in the coming months. this completes my statement and i look forward to the discussion and questions. >> thank you, mr. curry, next witness, dr. george serves as the executive director of the bipartisan commission on biodefense a commission whose megsz is deliver comprehensive assessment and recommend auditions. she has also served in the u.s. house of representatives as a subcommittee house director at the house committee on homeland secure and brings a wealth of

experience through contracting work with dhs and the department of health and human services. prior to her role served on active duty in the united states army as military intelligence officer and as a decorated desert storm veteran. welcome back, dr. george, thank you for your service and you are recognized for your opening comments. >> thank you, mr. chairman, chairman peters, ranking member portman, senator romney, the rest of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the state of american biosecurity preparedness, i am asha george, executive director on the commission on about you oh defense, and former secretary of homeland security tom ridge, they and the rest of the commissioners send you greetings and thank you for continuing to security the homeland and examine national biodefense.

senator lieberman and governor ridge testified before this committee in 2015 on the report for national blue print for biodefense, warning the threat to the nation was rising and warned the committee the nation was insufficiently prepared to handle a largescale biological event. sadly, covid-19 emerged and proved our point. a little over six years after that hearing, i come before you today to warn you that, again, while covid-19 dominates our national and global attention, the biological threat continues to increase and while some strides and vein made we are still not sufficiently prepared, last year, state department released a report which it stated clearly and unequivocally, china and russia produce active biological programs, and we must assume our

enemies both nation states and terrorists are paying attention to the vulnerabilities revealed during covid-19 and we must prepare for an attack on the u.s. homeland with by oh logical weapons. we kpot afford to optimize for covid-19 or other naturally occurring diseases with pandemic potential to the exclusion of all else. u.s. preparedness as the chairman said is multifacetted and distributed across all levelsives government and much of the private sector. all 15 cabinet departments, eight independent agencies and one independent institution are responsible for by oh defense including preparedness, since the release of our blue prints, some improvements have certainly been made. for example, congress required and the trump administration relished a national by oh defense strategy to align existing policies and programs across the federal government and the biden administration is said to be refiring that strategy now, but in many other ways, we either make no head way

or took backwards steps. for example, we participated in exercises that demonstrated over and over again that a large scale biological event would overcome the nation quickly but did not take decisive action that those lessons observed became lessons learned. many of the homeland security assets in place today are inadequate to meet a biological threat, we do not believe the biowatch program, for example, will be able to detect biological attacks on our country effectively, last year, we filed a report, advanced protection for the 21st century to describe our concerns, it has been painful watching the dhs trying over and over again like cysipus pushing the boulder you

were the mount to meet the needs of the nation. ranking members of the committee, i suggest to you that 19 years is long enough for things to have gone on the way they have with this program, we recommend you either shut it down or replace it with a program that works the way you want it to. our states, localities and tax payers deserve no less and the good people workic the department of homeland security deserve some relief. i want to applaud the biodefense efforts of fema, secret service, tsa and cisa, all contribute directly to defending the nation from biological threats, the legislation on this office, lacks specificity and needs direction and guidance from you. thank you, again for the opportunity to come before you today with the concerns and

recommendations of the bipartisan commission on biodefense. i would like to thank hudson institute serving as our sponsor, our donors for the commission and congressional staff of course for their tireless efforts to address this important topic. thank you. >> thank you, dr. george. our final witness is dr. parker, associate for the global one health at texas a & n university and share for the advisory board, for biosecurity, leading the global health program working to improve global health by collaborating with national and international experts to pursue groundbreaking health solutions. he brings over 36 years of public service in biodefense, emerging infectious disease and global health security. he is also a former commander and deputy commander of the u.s. army medical research institute

of infectious diseases. dr. parker, welcome to our committee, thank you for your service, you may proceed with opening remarks. >> thank you, it's an honor to be here, ranking member portman and distinguished members of the committee i am honored to appear before you today, addressing gaps in america's security preparedness. as chairman said, i am associate dean for global one health and director of the pandemic and biosecurity program at texas a & m university but today the views and opinions i have are my own. and they are informed by serving career executive leadership positions in dod including, pentagon, as well as dhs, and recent tour back to asper at hss end of last year. covid exposed the stark raemt that a virus can emerge anywhere and spread around the world in weeks with devastating

consequences. we knew a pandemic was coming but was difficult to predict when, how, and where a novel virus would emerge and despite many acknowledged failures that continue to accrue with a response, i submit that actually, we were more prepared before sars emerged than critics acknowledged. after the terrorist attacks of nevada of 9/11, congress allocated programs and funds over the years as threats involved and some lessons observed turned into lessons learned, some not, that all had a preparedness enterprise so we were better prepared than we would have been before sars 2 emerged had it not been for the support of congress and importantly, the work of many dedicated career professionals and in all levels of industry,

academia, and all levels. for example, the accelerated development of safe and effective covid vaccines through operation warp speed would not have been possible without prior congressional support since 2001, this enabled the executive branch to establish new programs and help in vaccines and therapeutics research development, manufacturing and regulatory science. this came with hard and painful lessons learned but steady progress was made over a 20 year journey. ows was successful because hss leaders took charj, each ensuring accountability while establishing a strict chain of command, empowering subordinates and protecting integrity of operation warpspeed industry stepped up to the challenge and

congress provided the appropriations, a sympathy was established with clear moving parts and putting the pieces together, but looking back on the response today, it remains clear we are vulnerable to the next biosecurity crisis whether deliberate or accidental. the scientists determining the level of assessment and threats over two decades, some must have thought it was a hypothetical debate, covid revealed it was not hypothetical. we must be prepared for the next inevitable biosecurity crisis, if covid lessons learned do not teach us the value of preparedness, i do not know what will. waiting for the next crisis to take action is too late. a national pandemic preparedness enterprise which includes states and private sector partners is essential for success, but that will require an effective

centralized leadership structure. we must overcome and learn how to manage a fragmented interagency system, without an effective structure in the seems of bureaucracy, even the most effective leaders at all levels will not be able to drive effective collaboration, coordination and innovation across during peace time nor during a crisis. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you at this hearing, i look forward to answering any questions you have, and in my opening remarks on dhs's security challenges. thank you. >> thank you, dr. parker. for the gao and bipartisan commission on biodefense have both made numerous recommendations over the years that could improve our

biosecurity posture here in the united states. so i'd like to ask my first question to mr. curry and then to dr. george. if each of you could give me and the committee your number one recommendation that remains open for the dhs from your organizations that will better prepare our nation to detect and respond to biological threats, if you give us that number one recommendation and why it is your number one recommendation and why deal with it urgently. dr. curry we'll start with you. >> thank you, mr. chairman, right now, two years after the pandemic started i think the number one recommendation is following up on the lessons learned in after actions from covid. the problem is we have a lot of these gaps these actions identify but didn't really have a mechanism of accountability to

figure out who was supposed to close them and follow up to see if they were closed and if we don't do that after covid then lessons learned are an absolute waste so for me right now that is the number one thing to focus on and whatever actions those might be, not just at the agency level, could be new legislation, new roles and responsibilities identified and clarified as well and that could require the help of congress. >> thank you, mr. curry, dr. george. >> mr. chairman because you asked about recommendations we already made as opposed to others we might make i'll tell you our number one recommendation is to shut down the biowatch and bd 21 programs and replace them with useful technology that actually works. i want you to know oush, our

commission looked at other technologies, in use in other agency and see in fact the cwmd office engaged with some of those other departments and agencies to develop some of this technology, but has not asked them to, perhaps, modify some of that technology for use in terms of biodetection. there's no reason to keep this just limping along the way it is. we should shut down that program and replace it with viable technology. >> augtderization for the cwmd office was going to expire in 2023 unless congress takes some sort of action. before, this committee is going to have to determine if dhs is effectively prepared for to combat potential biosecurity threats, determining whether aspects should be moved to other parts of dhs such as chief

medical officer to ensure it can effectively carry out its mission so dr. george, question for you again, if the cwmd office is given more type, tools, and resources to develop a comprehensive strategy to combat biosecurity threats, do you believe that that would address the challenges that this office challenges or this alternative, would it be more effective for the committee to revisit the decision to consolidate the office of health affairs and domestic nuclear detection office? >> mr. chairman, i believe the committee should revisit this decision. the consolidation of the department's nuclear detection apabilities, biodetection capabilities, chemical detection capabilities and a slew of other wmd-oriented, related activities in this one office, has just simply hasn't worked out particularly well. there were a lot of decisions

that were made that were actually not addressed by statute or legislation. the legislation just asks where you read nuclear in the statute, having to do with the domestic nuclear detection office should also mean reading chemical and biological. that's -- that's too inadequate and you should know none of the committee on the house side and none of the committee on the senate side actually took up that legislation and talked about it. there's no bill report to go with it, therefore there's no guidance for the department of homeland security to really understand where congress was trying to go with it. i would absolutely recommend taking a look at the various elements of this office and i would send all those elements right back to the rest of the department, down to the operational components and over to other parts of the

headquarters elements. the port monitors, for example, should go to the people securing the ports, cvp and coast guard. if you want to keep the biowatch detectors after replacing them with better technology, then you should send those to the secret service that handles national special security events and to, perhaps, to cisa because they're in charge of critical infrastructure and that's where we're putting these detectors. the material threat determinations conducted by department are for the most part conducted by the science and technology direct, they don't need cwmd and a little of ina to get those done, i could go on, but you see where i'm going. i think if you did that and returned the intelligence the element, the wmd intelligence people were taken out of the intelligence of analysis and sent over to this wmd office, i

think if you return these things to 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 stronger biodefense program at the department than what we have right now. >> well thank you for the very comprehensive answer, appreciate that. dr. parker, in your opinion, where should the chief medical officer reside within the department of homeland security? >> 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 it gives you maybe some background of why initially it was established close to the secretary, and it was established in that time when we were very much more urgently concerned about the bioterrorism threat and should be more concerned about that today as has already been discussed, but hurricane katrina happened and it was certainly a realization

that almost every disaster, natural or intentional the department is going to face will have a huge medical public health implication and secretary needed to have somebody close to the secretary's position to advise on the medical public health implications of intentional or natural disaster, so i firmly believe that what transpired back in the day when i was directly at dhs and hss is where the chief medical officer should be today, in a positive advisory role, there's no reason to encumber the chief medical office with acquisition program. think of the models in department of defense, say assistance to secretary health affairs, they have have to run the healthcare system but it's adviser to the secretary and all the implications across the services when it comes to health and just health and medicine and public health so i think there's a similar model looking at the

way d.o.d. does is it and the way it would be helpful for dhs and would be big assistance to the secretary. >> well thank you, ranking member portman, you're rec recognized for your questions. >> appreciate, you all, all three of you have been sounding the alarm and today, are able to give us more specifics as to how you would deal with the shortfalls you see. i was curious in listening to your responses about how to not just make the structure more accountable and simpler in effect, i think dr. george, what you were getting at, but also improve the technology, and one initial question i had, maybe dr. george you could take this, you said some of our adversaries have active bioweapon programs. what do our adversaries and that matter, allies do with regard to protecting our citizens from

bioattacks and what can we learn from them? has the commission been able to analyze comparatively what other countries do? ? mr. -- >> mr. ranking member, i think when dealing with the countries i mentioned it's difficult for the intelligence community or anyone else to tell what their doing to protect themselves or not, but what i can tell you is russia and china are investing billions into 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 integrator than what we are investing here in the united states. it's going to start putting you say at an economic disadvantage

but also put us at a protective disadvantage. >> and does that relate -- excuse me, but does that relate to biowatch and to the monitors as well? >> i -- i don't know. >> how about our european allies or japan or south korea, other countries where we would have assets to exactly what their doing and would be happy to share that information, have you learned anything from them as to how we can do a better job on detection? >> yes, senator, i would say, especially in europe, our european allies and other countries with whom we are friends are working on biodetection and i think their approaches are different from ours. i think they have viewed this as a technological challenge that needs to be iterated, we started

with something in 2003 the labs produced and years later hanging around with that technology. the europe has not done that, they've gone through the cycles and nobody, including department of defense and nasa says they got the absolute solution that will work 100% of the time but working on technology getting us closer to that and i believe we could get that information from our allies, european allies and possibly japan, i don't know, if we asked. >> yeah, indicating they're ahead of us in terms of technology of biowatch and that responsibility. let me ask just a basic question, that i think a lot of people watching today may be interested in. why didn't we detect covid-19? why did it take us so long? i think 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 curry, you could start on that. >> thank you, sir, a lot of opinions as to why we may not have detected it as quick as we want but the point you bring up is about surveillance which is basically scanning the world for potential biological threat so we can get them as quick as possible and address them and this has been a huge challenge across the agencies and biodefense enterprise and this is something we pointed out that multiple agencies have all tried to pursue their own surveillance systems. dhs has one, hss has been trying to do one, d.o.d. has one, usda has one, they've all been pursued separately, some not successful and certainly haven't

been integrated together so i think part of the problem is the fragmentation and lack of integration but one quick point i'll make is during covid, we've created some new, innovative surveillance systems to monitor covid and really get down into the state, local level and private sector and the hospitals, pharmacies and things like that and i think we need to look at what we created there and not just fête rid of it when covid is over, we need to use that to develop new surveillance systems. >> yeah, i know there's been interesting research done for airports, for example, hasn't been implemented as far as i know but has been research that could be quite helpful. dr. parker, thought on that? again, let me give you the precise dates here. the first covid-19 case the cdc confirmed on january 21st, 2020 and recent studies by public health officials suggest it was undetected in the country a couple months previous to that . >> well, i think it really comes down to the need to reenvision

biosurveillance and take advantages of lessons of things we did that were just recommended with our covid-19. and the data analytics, i mean it's really phenomenal now today, for covid, we can unpack and go down to the county level, zip code level and understand what's happening as far as cases, hospitalizations and deaths. we didn't have that capability before covid and certainly stumbled out of the gate with our laboratory diagnostics. it's been talked about add nauseum and need to address those things in the future, not just public health, focus on animal health, plant health, a one health solutions as we think about these -- we have a national biosurveillance strategy -- i forgot. maybe it was 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 lessons observed into lessons learned but it's got to be a one health approach to do this. it is inexcusable the dates you mentioned that now retrospectively we believe it may have been in the united states before january so we got to fix those things in the future so laboratories can pick it up and looking for the disease xs in the future. >> could have made a huge difference had we had the surveillance capability, just quickly and i'll be hopefully, get a second round here, but yes or no, do you think we have adequate surveillance capability for biotech -- just a simple yes or no? >> no. >> no. >> thank you, sir.

>> thank you, senator. senator madea, recognized for questions. >> thank you, mr. chair, a number of issues i'd like to raise in my allotted time but again, just commenting, appreciate dr. parker you mentioning that yes, dates, ability of how quickly we pounced on covid, the existence of a plan, whether or not the plan was implemented on a timely basis is worth discussion because health experts do not operate in a vacuum and i'll leave it at that. first question i want to raise, the senator represents lawrence

livermoore national lab in california, and livermoor and the labs in general are critical to advancing our ability to counter weapons of mass destruction, including at the nexus of biology, engineering and physical signs to address national challenges in biosecurity, energy, human health, the partnership specifically between the countering weapons of mass destruction office and the national labs is an important piece of our government's response to developing exceptional science and technology to detect and mitigate weapons of mass destruction so i'd like to ask each of you some initial thoughts on the importance of partnerships between dhs and other government entities including national labs and how you see that developing as the department continues in the future. start with dr. george, dr. parker, then mr. curry. >> thank you, senator. of course, those kind of partnerships are absolutely critical, 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 a number of ways but in this case we're talking about basic science, the science of human endeavor and i think you have to ask when we're talking about which organizational element ought to be working with them from the department, we have to ask is it appropriate for the cwmd office or the science and technology office to be conducting those partnerships? i submit to you that if this is a basic science issue, that we're talking about, and with, for example, with biowatch, then 19 years of the office of health affairs and cwmd trying to engage and then sometimes not engaging with the national labs and so forth is enough, and

problematic. they probably should have never been doing it. i think it should have been the science and technology director that had been doing it. i think the national labs standby, livermoor produced the first biowatch detector anyhow. i am confident the national labs and other science and technology organizations throughout the country could address this if given the opportunity. >> okay, dr. parker, briefly. >> yes, first, i'm a big fan of lawrence livermoor national lab, get the opportunity to, i think maybe next month -- anyway, i think lawrence liver moor national lab and other national labs have an important part to play here. one reason they're so effective is they can get into the very deep basic science but approach it from an operational

perspective. that's something really unique so anything we can do to encourage engagement in diagnostics and data surveillance, needs to be encouraged and take advantage of that unique scientific expertise that are our national labs and livermoor specifically with an operational orientation. >> okay, i'm interested in your thoughts but i want to get and ask you specific question on a different topic here in a second. a follow-up question for dr. parker. as you know, robust and timely data has become an essential tool in effective government responses. 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 coordinate wgt federal

government to ensure we had a full and complete picture of the pandemic much earlier on. in some cases, states did not report or collect whether it was racial data or other data that would have been illuminating until we were well into the pandemic. can you describe our current capabilities or lack thereof to track health data in a way to more quickly identify and neutralize biological threats? i know we ventured into this under senator portman's questions but any advice -- >> sure, i can share just observations on the front line when i was detailed back to asper end of last year during the covid response and it took several months, before the data analytics and ability to have a comprehensive view down to the zip code level of hospitalizations, deaths, cases so forth, it was really 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 got to be able to take those lessons learned as we go forward and not let those systems be atrophied for lack of a better term at the moment. we got to do had and it's hard, i mean because the data is owned by many different organizations. this is not an easy challenge. we got to figure out how to keep the pipes open when there is a crisis that can be turned on instantaneously to get the situation where it's needed. >> yeah, i imagine a day when the general public is tracking cases, deaths, and hospitalization rates and distinction between hospitalization, icus, ventilators, positivity rates et cetera. and haven't scratched the surface on this variant by that variant by zip code. mr. chair, i know my time is just about one, but i have one more topic i'm eager to get your thoughts on, and as we know

covid-19 has exposed significant inequities in our healthcare system as well as pandemic response. in particular, the pandemic has highlighted the racial and income disparities in our approach to public health. hospitalization and emergency department visits were significantly higher among minority populations while vaccination rates lagged in those very same communities. and this was 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. think about assuring our biodefense response and how to build on the lessons learned during the covid pandemic. i think it's critical 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 primary language is not english. linguistic barriers long recognized in disparity, so mr. curry, how can the government better plan to address these and other racial disparities in biothreat responses and what recommendations would 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 on racial equity and other equity issues. that's one step. another thing, i'll go back to the data. i think part of the problem we saw at the beginning of covid and we see this in other

disasters too for disaster assistance programs, there really wasn't a lot of data how these programs impact certain populations, certain parts of the country, rural versus about they were and makes it really difficult for the federal government to target resources as well. so, i think that's a first step we have to take to get better at this. >> all right. thank you very much. look forward to following up with you. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, senator 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, 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 we've heard about today in terms of responding to

buy bio threats and trying to figure out what's working and what's not working in the current system. let me start with regard to a question about academia and maybe, dr. parker, you're the best person to answer this, since that's where you reside now. does dhs and do other enties including cdc that have biosecurity programs effectively leverage u.s. research universities? is there a good relationship with academia? >> i think early in the -- i'll make this short. early in the life of dhs, there was creation of the universities centers of excellence. that's been a very good and effective program to engage academia. now, the threats have evolved and threats have evolved over time. and what i've observed is biosecurity has been kind of downregulated in importance for those universities centers of excellence. early days there was several --

there was two, three centers that were focused on agricultural biosecurity and food security. those have been amertus status today. >> it sounds like that could be revamped like it was after the anthrax attacks and other incidents. >> correct. >> i think that's what's missing in the current system, a more formalized way to access some of our great advantages as a country, which is our research universities. we talked about how some countries are ahead of us in terms of surveillance but we have a huge advantage in terms of using u.s. research capability. that's one thing we want to work on with you. there's another we haven't talked about today, at least in detail, that's the national biosurveillance integration center, nbic. is it needed? is it helpful?

does it add something beyond what cdc already does? it's part of dhs and cdc with, seems to me, a similar responsibility. talk to us about nbic. >> yes, sir. well, we reported on it several times over the last decade, and what we found pretty consistently is they've struggled to meet their mandate of providing broad biosurveillance. part of that is they don't really have the access to the data they need, both the data at other federal agencies or down at the local level to produce the real-time information you would need to make decisions. the other thing we heard from its partners, particularly at the federal level and state level, is that, you know, since they use a lot of publicly available information, and they do a pretty good job of sin that sizing that information, it's not really new or that novel to the people that need to make decisions in this arena. so, you know, it's not what they produce has no value, but another concern i have is that, i mentioned this before, there were four different surveillance

efforts across the four big departments. homeland security, defense, usda and hhs. all separate, all stovepipe, don't work together. so have been successful for their individual purposes, some have not. 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 stay because there's no one at a top level that can say that they can make that decision. >> yeah. well, this is -- 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 departments or agencies effectively trying to achieve the same mission and not sharing information, from what you said between themselves, that's an opportunity for us in terms of reorganization. the problem that i see, and i don't want to get into anything that's classified here, is that

we have surveillance capability in certain 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 just like to stay away from that stuff. but it's not comprehensive. and everybody knows that. second, and you look at the biological threats we face today, it's not comprehensive. and that goes to the technology issue. that's one reason i asked earlier about what other countries are doing and whether we can learn and whether academia is fully engaged. it seems we have an opportunity to have better technology. could you address that in the appropriate way, dr. george, and we don't want to give our adversaries information they shouldn't have, but we also have 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. that system or a 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 we do have it and that information should be coming into a place and combined with the information we're getting from nbic, the information we're getting from the cdc and so forth. that was the original vision for the national biosurveillance integration center. as chris said earlier, the department doesn't have the access it needs to that information. but i think the other -- 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, it's just going along the way it is. i think that -- yes, sir?

>> there's obviously two great opportunities here. one would be to require that all the information is consolidated in one place and nbic is probably the way to do it. second is, and i think this was discussed earlier, dr. parker, in terms of the academic contribution here is that we have the capability to collect and assess data we have never had before. didn't have, frankly, after anthrax and other biological threats that led us to try to come up with a national system. we have the capability to do this in ways we've never had before and massive amounts of data being amassed quickly and being able to produce something meaningful that can be disseminated to the appropriate agencies and departments. is that accurate? >> 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 biosurveillance

integration center. you would have to decide to make that kind of investment in 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. senator hassan. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> 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. because i've been in and out a little bit, i may be a little repetitive. apologies in advance if i am. 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 biological agents through it's biowatch program.

however, biowatch is only able to detect bioagents from a limited known library of threats, which leaves a critical blind spot in our detectionz system, especially since naturally occurring disease outbreaks and accidental releases are likely to consist of previously unknown biological agents. the department is attempting to replace biowatch with a new program, but the readiness, as i understand it, of that technology is still really years away. dr. george, can you spoo he can to what a successful biodetection program looks like and how current federal programs fall short. >> yes, senator. so, a successful biodetection program has a number of different kinds of detectors within it 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 the point where it's actually detecting what it's supposed to. but 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. for example, you could have particle detectors that aren't looking for specific agents but are looking for how many particles are in a particular room or area and can note that, hey, suddenly we're seeing a whole bunch of something or a whole bunch of virus in this one place. what is that? and send the alert to somebody else to go take a look. we also have -- you know, there are hand-held detectors. there are all kinds of deteblg tors. detectors can you put inside, detectors can you put outside. i think we need a vast amount of those spread out all over the place and gather all that information together. 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. hey, look, somebody's in a hospital now. this seems to be unexplained. medicare has some things to say. cvs is suddenly reporting that everybody's running in to get certain medications from them and so forth. that's how you would put together such a system. >> really collecting a cross-section of data, each of which is signaling a particular proof point and doing it in a broad range of areas. >> yes. >> yes. >> this is a question to mr. currie and dr. parker. one way we can detect biological threats is screening patients at hospitals and other health care facilities. there was just a discussion as i came in with senator portman on this issue of what kind of data do we have, but as i understand much of this data would be collected by nonfederal entities. so, federal agencies would need to closely coordinate with them. unfortunately, as the government accountability office reports, the current national biodefense

strategy does not assess nonbiothreat capabilities nor does it establish coordination with nonfederal agencies. how can the federal government ensure that its nonfederal partners have the ability to collect information on potential biothreats? 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 example of a lesson learned from covid-19 than better coordination with nonfederal entities. we saw this with not just issues related to the strategic national stockpile but how supplies with distributed throughout the country. you know, that being different in every state. it just perfectly encapsulated the challenge there. in my view, the thing we can do, dr. parker made a great point earlier.

we have these lessons learned that we've seen in covid. we developed these monitoring systems, these tracking systems, these need to be formalized. we need to execute and implement these formally post-covid for the future. and i think that may require, because this issue crosses jurisdiction, it crosses federal departments that will likely require legislation and other actions to do that formally. >> dr. parker? >> sure. i'll just echo that and add on a couple of examples. i know in hhs, i observed firsthand during covid response the establishment of the supply chain control tower that was able to link sns with all the private sector and get visibility to supply chains and able to focus, actually anticipating where supplies were going to be short. that evolved into the health care control tower that similarly could really anticipate whether there would 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 have to figure out how to tap those lessons observed and turn them into lessons learned. it may not be something that's practiced on a day-to-day basis but when there's a crisis, we have to turn that data pipes on so we can have that coordination between the appropriate federal and state and local authorities and the private sector partners. >> we're system of federalism, we need to apply that when we're talking about data sharing as well. to mr. currie, the strategic national stockpile should be a critical tool for responding to buy yoe security incidents 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 had a number of concerns about the

strategic national stockpile. before covid we were actually concerned about the way it was funded sporadically and what that might mean in terms of its readiness to handle an event like this. as you know, in the past, it was used to handle more localized events, like h1n1 or zika, where you needed to target a specific part of the country. covid, we needed it nationwide and it wasn't ready. i think one of the biggest challenges that we've identified is just the lack of understanding at all levels of government, including across the federal partnership about how this -- how this stockpile is distributed and procured. procurement was an important piece of this because you can't keep enough things on stock or in a warehouse to deploy throughout the whole country. you have to be able to procure up and acquire those things when you need them. we just weren't ready to do that. >> thank you. given these challenges, i'm committed to working with my

colleagues on this committee and on the health education, labor and pensions committee to pass provisions that we have in a bipartisan bill, called the strengthening america's stockpile act. it already passed the house. we will itten to work to see if we can get it through on the senate side. i think this is an opportunity really for us -- really to make progress and built up the kind of stockpile 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 well over my time. and i can recognize senator sinema, who should be joining us remotely. >> thank you, madame chairman. thank you to our witnesses joining us today. the testimony we've heard today is worrisome. the threat of a biological event in the united states must be taken seriously and we need to work together deliberately and in a bipartisan manner to ensure

the safety of our communities. we work to make sure communities in our state of arizona and across the nation are protected against accidental and intentional events. my first question is for mr. currie. your testimony focused on what has happened since congress first addressed the biosecurity risk in 2016, but since then it seems like dhs have the largest role. they're smaller departments and fewer resources than the department of defense. should we look at ways in which the dod could take on a larger role? if so, what could that entail? >> yes, ma'am. thank you for the question. it's a great point. dod has decades and decades of experience in biosecurity that they have had to do to prepare for a war and to protect war fighters. so, i agree. there's a tremendous number of lessons learned, research and efforts at the department of defense that can be learned by 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 one of the biggest challenges. 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 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. i agree with you, the department of defense has a big role to play. >> thank you. with various agencies focused on separate pieces of our biosecurity initiatives and considering the broad coordination required for quick response to an emergency, do you believe that our federal workforce is prepared to prevent or respond to an attack? if not, where are the skills

gaps and are there specific steps congress should take to ensure we're hiring and retaining the correct staff? again for you, mr. currie. >> thank you. i think we're much better off today than we were in early 2020 or late 2019. i think most departments and agencies in the workforce and -- are accustomed to this being part of their mission. even some departments that didn't think they were going to have a role in the past. we're much better off. i agree. we need to continue focusing on 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 how pornts it is to communicate and work together. you said covid fatigue creates additional risk because it's almost certain our nation will see other biosecurity threats in the future. taking what we've learned from covid-19 and the reaction of

americans, what steps can we take in partnership with state and local governments to close existing biosecurity gaps that require immediate attention? >> thank you for the question. i think the first and foremost thing we really need to do is address some of the federal inner agency seams and figuring out how to better manage the seams between the different federal departments and agencies. that's going to require strong centralized leadership. probably in the national security council or perhaps co-chaired by the national security council and office of science and technology policy. we have to have a clear strategic vision and goals. and whoa have to have buy-in from our state and local leaders, emergency management, public health and we have to get buy-in also from industry partners as well and university partners and ngos. it starts with a good strategic plan and getting buy-in -- leadership at the highest levels of our government that this this is important, takes support from

congress. this is going to be important. it's going to be authorization and appropriations and we have to have buy-in all the way through. there has to be a lot of dialogue. good leaders engage with their partners and stakeholders and it's a two-way conversation. all that's going to be essential to make sure we have a national preparedness plan. not just a federal plan. thank you. >> my next question is for both dr. parker and dr. george. you both addressed the lack of leadership. much of your analysis describes structural issues and difficulty working across many agencies, work groups and related barriers. do you believe the country would be safer if we created one independent agency solely focused on biosecurity or should this be addressed by providing dhs leadership accountability or another option? >> who do you want to go first? >> go ahead. >> dr. george. >> thank you, senator sinema.

i think creating an independence agency would be a mistake. every department and agency -- sorry. every cabinet 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 that all of those entities need to be coordinated. i don't think we have to pull all of that out into one independent agency but perhaps we need an entity that will be able to coordinate across the entire government. we recommended that the vice president of the united states be put in charge of all biodefense with a deputy national security adviser supporting that effort. i still believe that's the way

to go because you have so many departments and agencies involved. i think if you created another agency, you would have to 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. i think the way -- another way to think about it is the true strength and the potential of our national preparedness enterprise as we have diversity and diversity by the various departments and agencies that have their own strengths, they have their authorities and appropriations for the lane they work in and they have their expertise that we need to bring to the fight for biosecurity preparedness and response. the challenge is, how do we marshal all that strength and expertise across the federal inner agency. that's what we need to do. and marshal that strength and working closely with our state

and local partners, particularly emergency management and public health and in our private sector and university partners, too. >> thank you. madame chair, i know my time has expired. i have one quick question for dr. george. you specifically mentioned for cleaning up directives. i would like to submit a question for the record requesting that you give us and submit specific recommendations for changes so we can make necessary updates. is that something you could provide for us, dr. george? >> yes, senator. >> thank you. madame chair, i yield back. >> thank you, senator. >> oh, i apologize. >> no worries. we've been playing a little bit of musical chairs up here. it's good to be back before the committee here. certainly i've heard some testimony today from all of our witnesses that the dhs's biosurveillance and detectionz programs have certainly struggled to find their mission and to carry out those missions.

a major part of the dhs counterbuy yore terrorism goes to buy yoe watch. my question to you, dr. parker, you've been a part of biodefense enterprises for decades, both in and out of government. you mentioned in your testimony that it's time to transition biowatch once there are better technological solutions. where do you think the country is in developing these technologies? if you could share that with the committee, i'd appreciate it. also practice whamz, capabilities or technologies would you suggest the dhs should focus on to make sure we are, indeed, prepared? >> sure. well, i think -- i do -- dr. george has already made some very, very good comments about the status of biowatch and what we need to be doing with it. my comment about it's time to transition biowatch to something new, we need to reenvision what biosurveillance is and what, then, dhs's role is in a

national biosurveillance strategy. at the end of the day, i do believe that we are going to need environmental detectors,ary so will detectors, like biowatch, with improved technology. we don't need them everywhere but we need them for some threats. there's a reason why in the past i have testified when i was still in government service that the top three threats, i believe, were anthrax, anthrax and anthrax from a bioterrorism perspective. we better have aerosol collector devices. we need an implementation to bring together the best of the dhs and cdc and department of interior for some of the wildlife surveillance as well. and the original envision of nbic was to integrate -- so that's going to be a critical

part that we do this as well. fwook biowatch. we'll have to invest in science and technology, research and development to come up with the right tools, the better tools we need for biowatch. maybe i might disagree with dr. george a little bit. i would not want to be the federal official who says, let's turn it off. and then three months later, we experience an aerosol release of an anthrax. we have to have -- look at those tradeoffs and determine what are the highest priority threats and where are the highest priority locations we might to want dough ploy the current generation of technology with the biowatch detectors and really focus on the research and development we can bring along, transformative technologies. we need to look at new approaches. covid-19 taught us a lot about waste water surveillance. and i think that's the ripe area for homeland security to look at what are some strategies we can

do for these novel surveillance approaches and waste water surveillance is one such example. the department has reached through its different components there are opportunities for some novel kind of immediate surveillance activities that could be explored if we open up our mind to a new way of thinking about how to do it. that's got to be -- we have to fix our inner agency problems, too, because it will require coordination for dhs to do that effecttively. >> thank you. mr. currie, my in exquestion is for you. the gao report reviewing the national biodefense strategy found there are no clear detailed processes, roles and responsibilities for joint decision-making, including how agencies will identify opportunities to leverage resources or who will make and enforce those decisions. the gao, as you know, made four

priority recommendations to the dhs. all of them, unfortunately, remain open. mr. currie, if you could spend time telling this committee the ways you believe the federal government failed in implementing the biodefense strategy from 2018. >> thank you, sir. i think the good news is we got a strategy and a steering committee was developed to kind of have that type of coordination. i think what we haven't seen yet is the execution on some of the tough decision-making and coordination across departments. dr. george talked about this when they were recommended that the vice president be responsible for this function. i think one key here is there has to be an entity or a way to look across the biodefense enterprise and make resource and problematic decisions. and that just hasn't happened. omb would have to play a big role in that, looking across to look at budgets, look at resource, but it's very difficult to prioritize

programs. for example, to say, let's invest in biowatch and not hhs's public infrastructure because they can't tell each other what to do. that issue still hasn't been sorted out. because the strategy was just implemented before covid, you know, we haven't had a chance to really see some of those things play out in the budgeting process to see if they're making those kind of decisions. you know, i think we still need to get there. i'm not sure that the structure we have under the strategy is not able to get there eventually but if not, we need to do something else. >> very good. one area of particular concern to me is within dhs, the cwmd's workforce morale is extremely low. in 2019, morale within cwmd was ranked lowest among all subagencies in the federal government and only slightly improved in 2022. improvement's good.

only slightly an improvement. the office certainly has faced leadership and attrition problems in recent years. my question for you, dr. parker, you've worked in numerous federal departments addressing cwmd threats. what would be your top recommendation to this committee as to how we might improve morale within this office? >> yeah. morale certainly, whenever you learn and hear about morale issues in any organization, it's always something that is concerning. i was encouraged to hear that there are some improvements and so, perhaps, it's on the right track. any time there are issues in an organization, it's always important to try to understand what are the root causes and perhaps maybe the organizational changes we tapped into over the last several years. change is always hard on people. so that sometimes is not surprising when you have morale issues when there's organizational change, but that

requires leadership working closely, people to make sure they're part of the change agents as an organization evolves from its current state to the next state. but finding the root cause is very important and making sure everybody -- the workforce feels like they have a voice, that everybody is being treated with respect to dignity is always very, very important in an organizational morale and organizational and mission effectiveness. >> very good. i would certainly like to think our witnesses for joining us here today. this is an incredibly important discussion. and certainly doesn't end today. we'll have a lot more to discuss in the months and years ahead. our nation continues to respond to covid-19 pandemic and it's certainly clear that we need to do a much better job to prepare for future biological incidents. your testimony, all of your testimony, will help inform the committee and our legislative activities, such as reorganizing

and re -- reorganizing and reauthorizing, perhaps, the wwmd office and guide our oversight actions. i want to thank ranking member portman for holding this hearing with me. i look forward to working together to address these threats and to improve the homeland security for our nation. i'd also like to note that, unfortunately, dr. alex garza, former chief medical officer and assistant secretary for health affairs at the department of homeland security was invited but he was unable to testify today because of some personal circumstances. however, he was able to submit his written testimony, which we appreciate. i ask unanimous consent if that testimony be placed into the official record of the hearing. the record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days, until 5:00 p.m. on march 4, 2022 for the submission of statements and he can questions for the record.

this hearing is now adjourned. >> thank you again for your testimony. thank you for being here.

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