many of our television programs are also available as podcasts. find them all on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. health care and national security experts testified on u.s. biosecurity preparedness which includes stopping the spread or introduction of harmful or beganisms to human, animal and plant life. while discussing the readiness and ability to assess threats, witnesses said the covid-19 pandemic has shown the u.s. biodefenses are too fragmented and lack coordination. the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee held the hearing. security and governmental affairs committee. this is just under 90 minutes.

[indiscernible chatter] >> the committee will come to order. i would like to start off and thinker witnesses for joining us to help assess our readiness to protect americans from biological threats to national security, including the

department's ability to detect, mitigate and deter these threats . we will discuss of this committee can work to ensure the department of homeland security is counting -- and other programs test with 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, viruses, 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 significantly harm our communities if we are not adequately prepared for them. we also face threats from biological weapons that have

been manufactured at weaponized for the purpose of deliberately targeting americans. we have seen bad actors deliberately use anthrax and other harmful biological agents in attempted attacks, including targeting elected officials. these weapons have the potential to cause everything from mass casualties to incapacitation to agricultural destruction and other serious disruptions to our economic and national security. compared to other weapons bio weapons are cheaper to develop, they can be deployed covertly and often have a delayed onset, making them an appealing choice were bad actors to utilize against randomized or targeted acts. in response to these threats dhss taken actions to bolster our nation's bio defenses including a pile watch program and its replacement.

these programs by all accounts have not measurably improved our nation's ability to identify possible biological threats. they have however improved coordination between the federal government and local partners on addressing such threats. in their 2021 report to congress the government accountability office found dhs's surveillance programs including bd21 lack sufficient technology and resources to carry out and define their mission. i also remain concerned about the bio watch program, which i suffered a number of setbacks, including pirates of false positive tests, significant delays in identifying possible threats and an inability to detect familiar threats. the committee is responsible for considering the reauthorization of the department of homeland security's cwmd office before

the end of 2023. it has previously faced state -- unsteady leadership, low morale and the inability to retain qualified employees. although there are some signs that these issues are improving this body must consider whether structural changes at dhs are needed to ensure they can successfully combat biological and other threats. in addition to bolstering readiness to tackle these threats we must also support innovative efforts by other public and private entities. these programs are evident in my home state of michigan, which is overdue vexing manufacturers and experts developing decontamination techniques as well as the university of michigan's forthcoming security program, which i had the opportunity to discuss with the chancellor earlier this week.

michigan has also conducted exercises that test responsiveness of state, local, and federal partners to biological attacks and uses test results to identify our ability to combat these threats. today's urine will allow the committee to decide how the federal government can build on these efforts. i look forward to hearing from our panel of experts and how lawmakers can advance an effective and comprehensive strategy to protect all of our communities from all biological threats. i now turn to ranking member portman. >> thank you. i appreciate your comments this morning and think the were being here. a lot of the experts before us today are those that have been sounding the alarm as to our current bio security, so i look forward to hearing from you and i thank you for being willing to stand up and speak out on this.

i think the pandemic has taught us once again we have to examine the effectiveness of our bio security posture. it is about all kinds of security threats. one is man-made, others are naturally occurring pathogens. this could have a devastating impact on our country or even the entire globe as we have experience with covid-19. over the past 20 years we have seen attempts at biological terrorism, notably the anthrax attacks of 2001. following that there was a lot of activity, including setting up much of what we will talk about today. harmful pathogens including h1n1, ebola, and was recently covered. our nation's bio security efforts have been too fragmented in my view. among several different agencies and departments, which makes it tough to have accountability and makes us less ability to be

prepared for large-scale biological hazards. we'll talk about that today. and make smart investments in research and development in that 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 are not currently detectable. the department of homeland security's countering weapons of mass destruction office -- we will talk about that a lot today , a very significant role in this mission of bio security. the office is plagued with challenges, some of which are perennial, some of which predate the formation of the office itself and some of it is lack of coordination. by watch as the primary program. for the last 20 years by watch as consistently under delivered

on its intended purpose to detect biological agents that could possibly pose a hazard to the public. in my view the roles need to be clarified but detection expanded. i look forward to the views of the experts today. if that is their opinion and what can we do about it? we have invested us taxpayers over $1 billion into the program. the office wants to update that program with bio detergent of the 21st century. i think it is a good time for us to ensure the program is based on a strong foundation and ensure that it is the kind of investment that is going to be worthwhile for taxpayers and most importantly it is a system that can protect the american people from harmful biological threats. the authorities of this office

are set to expire late next year. this gives us an opportunity to reauthorize and to make necessary changes so it does have broader capability and is better organized. it may require more funding. most of it requires better organization and better accountability. we will have an opportunity with this reauthorization to take a careful look at this and improve the system. i look forward to hearing the witnesses' assessments and recommendations for improving this national effort to safeguard the american people from violence or threats. >> thank you. it is the practice of the homeland security and governmental affairs committee to swearing witnesses. if each of you would stand and raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you will give before this 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 witness is christopher curry. mr. curry serves as the director of homeland security and justice at the u.s. government accountability's. he 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, chairman peters. i appreciate the opportunity to discuss doj's work on bio

security. today i would like to focus on two key areas. first is how we can strengthen efforts across the federal government and the steps the department of homeland security can take to strengthen bio security. well before the pandemic we have been concerned about our preparedness for a large-scale biological event and difficult for better strategies. this committee has held many hearings over the years on this issue as well. we were concerned about offenses too fragmented and uncoordinated across all levels of government and the private sector. covid-19 showed that these gaps were real. the 2018 defense strategy laid the foundation for the type of coordination needed to better prepare for events like covid-19, but the bad news is the strategy was new when the pandemic hit. the pandemic put the spotlight on this, creating an opportunity to effectively implement the

strategy for future events in years to come. for the last two years we have been focused on how to successfully implement the defense strategy and implement lessons we have learned from covid-19. two years ago we made recommendations to better implement the strategy, which are more important today i think. one recommendation cetnere -- centered around agencies. by going interagency biological plans, exercises, and after action reports done in the years before covid-19. many of the problems and challenges that occurred in covert response were identified in prior exercises and after action reviews. prior exercises at reports from past events like ebola, zika,

and others found coordinating at the federal level and between the states would be a challenge. we saw this to be the case -- we have doors the lessons are not forgotten. i would like to turn to dhs. since 2012 we have reported on challenges and implement it by watch, a system to detect airborne bio attacks. just last year we reported on challenges in an effort to upgrade the system moved to bd21

. we found it faces a number of technology challenges and uncertainties of combining these technologies for use in the domestic environment. it is very different than trying to do it in a lab or the war environment. it is a huge challenge. the false alarm issue is still a big problem that has to be overcome so dhs can more quickly detect threats in these environments. we found the office has struggled to develop an effective surveillance system. integration center has struggled to fulfill its mandate and provide value to its partners. under the committee is also interested in the effectiveness of the office in general since the office was set up and

reorganize. overall i think the office is on a better track and is beginning to mature several years after being created. morale has improved slightly, so not great but it has been proved particularly in some of the areas of employee engagement, which is important. i think the leadership there is committed to implementing past recommendations and sticking to best practices developed other organizations we organize and transform effectively in the government. i know the office is working to better communicate with internal and external partners. it is taking some time to restart effectively. we are 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. our next witness is dr. george,

a public health security professional. dr. george serves as the executive director of a bipartisan commission whose mission is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the state of u.s. bio defense efforts and issue recommendations. she has also served as a staff director and brings a wealth of experience through her contracting work with dhs and the department of health and human services. she served on active duty in the united states army as a military intelligence officer and is eight decorated desert storm veteran. welcome back, dr. george. you are recognized for your opening comments. >> thank you. chairman peters, ranking member and -- ortman, and the rest of the committee thank you for the opportunity to speak with you

today about the state of american bio security preparedness. i am the executive director of a bipartisan commission. they send you their greetings and thank you for continuing to secure the homeland. senator lieberman and government -- governor ridge testified before this committee when our commission released its first report, national blueprint on defense. they informed this committee that the nation wasn't sufficiently prepared to handle a large-scale 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, well covid-19 dominates our

national and global attention, the biological threat continues to increase, and while some strides have been made we are still not sufficiently prepared. last year the state department released a report in which it stated clearly and unequivocally that russia and north korea possess active biological weapons programs with china and iran not behind. we must assume our enemies are paying attention to the vulnerabilities during covid-19 and we must prepare for an attack on the u.s. with a biological weapons. you cannot afford to optimize for covid-19 or other naturally occurring diseases to the exclusion of all else. u.s. bio preparedness is multifaceted and distributed across government and private sector. eight dependent agencies and one

independent institution are responsible for bio defense, including preparedness. since the release of our blueprint some improvements have been made. congress required and the trump administration released a national bio defense strategy to align all existing policies and programs across the federal government, and the biden administration is said to be refining that strategy now. in many ways we either made no headway or took a steps. we participated in exercises that demonstrated over and over again that a large-scale biological event would overcome the government and nation quickly, but we did not take decisive action to ensure those lessons became lessons learned. many of the assets we have in place today are in adequate to meet the biological threat. we do not believe the department of formant security's by watch program will be able to detect biological attacks on our country effectively. last year we issued a report to

describe our concerns and make recommendations as to what could be done to achieve the vision for the bio watch program. it has been painful watching dhs try over and over again like sisyphus to create an effective system that serves the needs of the nation. i suggest you that my teen years is long enough for things to have gone on the way they have with this program. we recommend that you either shut it down or replace it with a program that works the way you wanted to. taxpayers deserve no less and the good people working in the department of homeland security deserve some relief. i want to applaud the bio defense efforts of fema, the coast guard, ice, or contribute to defendant nation against

biological threats. they deserve your awareness, oversight, and support. as you examine the department's office i urge the committee to clarify its goal. the legislation like specificity and it 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 bio defense. i would like to thank the hudson institute for serving as our sponsor, our donors for supporting the work of the commission and congressional staff for their tireless efforts to address this important topic. thank you. >> thank you. our final witness is an associate dean at texas a&m university and chair of the national science advisory board for bio security.

is responsible for coordinating a program by collaborating with national and international experts to pursue groundbreaking health solutions. she brings 36 years of public service in bio defense, a high consequence emerging infectious diseases and global health security. he has 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. >> thank you, it is an honor to be here. i am honored to appear before you today for this hearing addressing gaps in america's by security preparedness. i am general parker. today the views and opinions i have are my own.

they are informed by serving an executive leadership positions in dod as well as at dhs. covid has exposed the stark reality that ignoble virus can emerge anywhere and spread around the world in weeks with devastating consequences. we knew what pandemic was coming but it was difficult to predict when and what. i submit we were more prepared before sars2 emerge in critics would ignore. after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 congress authorized new programs and appropriated new funds as threats evolved.

we were better prepared than we would have been before sars two emerged had not been for the long support of congress and the work of many dedicated career professionals in government at all levels of industry, academia, and ngos. for example the accelerated development of safe covid-19 vaccine's would not have been possible without prior congressional support. this enabled the executive branch to establish new programs and therapeutics research, development, manufacturing and regulatory science. this came with painful lessons learned, but progress was made.

ows successful in crisis because leaders took charge, each assuming ownership and accountability while they established a strict chain of command, empowered their subordinates and put in place procedures to protect operational integrity. fda provided a regulatory pathway, industry stepped up to the challenge, and congress provided appropriations. together sympathy was established with countless moving parts, diverse expertise and a clear conductor. looking back on the response it is clear we remain dangerously vulnerable to the next by security crisis whether it natural, deliberate, or accidental. the executive branch and scientists have debated the appropriate level of attention to defend against our logical threats were over two decades. some must've fight someone

thought it was a theoretical debate. looking for the next crisis is too late. the national enterprise, which includes states and private sector partners is essential for success. that will require an effective centralized leadership structure. we must overcome a fragmented system. without an effective leadership structure that bridges the seams in the federal bureaucracy even the best of leaders at all levels will not be able to drive effective coordination, collaboration and communication across the preparedness continuum during peacetime nor during a crisis. the ability is along recognize cap.

thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. i look forward to answer any questions you have, including some of the questions that are not in my opening remarks regarding dhs organizational challenges. >> thank you, dr. parker. the gao and bipartisan commission have made numerous recommendations that could improve our by the security posture in the united states. i would like to ask my first question to mr. curry than to dr. george. if each of you could give me and the committee your number one recommendation that remains open will better prepare our nation to respond to biological threats and give us that number one recommendation and why it is your number one recommendation.

mr. curry, we will start with you, then dr. george. >> two years after the pandemic started the number one recommendation is following up on lessons learned. before covid the problem is we had to gaps identified but we do not have a mechanism of accountability to figure out who was supposed to close them and any follow-up and if we do not do that after covid lessons learned will be an absolute waste. for me that is the number one thing we need to focus on, and whatever actions those might be. new roles and responsibilities identified and clarified as well. that would require the help of congress. >> dr. george. >> you asked about the

recommendations that we have already made as opposed to other recommendations that we might make, i will tell you our number one recommendation is to shut down the bio watch programs and replace those programs with useful technology that actually works. our mission went and looked at other technologies. these technologies exist, and the two wmd -- cwmd office is not asked them to perhaps modify the technology for use in terms of bio detection. there is no reason to keep this limping along the way it is. you should check on that program and replace it with a viable technology. >> authorization for the cwmd

office was going to expire in 2023 unless congress take some sort of action. this committee will have to consider whether its current structure allows dhs to effectively prepare for and combat security threats. this includes examining whether aspects of the office should be moved to other parts of dhs to ensure it can effectively carry out its mission. dr. george, if the office is given more time, tools and resources to develop a comprehensive strategy to combat security threats do you believe that that would address the challenges, or would it be more effective for this committee to revisit the decision to consolidate the office of health affairs and the domestic nuclear detection office?

>> i believe the committee should revisit this decision. the consolidation of the departments' nuclear detection capabilities and a slew of other wmd related activities in this office just simply as not worked out particularly well. there were a lot of decisions that were made that were not addressed by statute or legislation. the legislation just asks that should also mean reading chemical and biological. that is too inadequate. you should know none of the committees on the house side and the senate side took up

legislation asked about it. there is no guidance for the department of homeland security to understand where congress was trying to go with it. i would absolutely recommend taking a look at various elements of this office, and i would send all of those elements back to the rest of the department down to the operational components and over to other parts of the headquarters elements. the port monitors should go to the people who are securing the ports. if you want to keep the bio watch detectors after replacing them with better technology than you should send those to the secret service that handles special security events and perhaps to cisa because they are in charge of critical infrastructure. the material threat determinations conducted by the department are for the most part conducted by the science and

technology director. i could go on, but you see where i'm going. i think if you did that and you returned the intelligence element, the people taken out of the office and set over to the wmd office, 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 will have a stronger department and bio defense program to what we have right now. >> thank you, a very comprehensive answer. dr. parker, where should the chief officer reside? >> thank you. in my written testimony i have a description of the early days of

the establishment of chief medical officer and gives you background of why initially it was established close to the secretary. we were established -- it was established in a time when we were at the bioterrorism threat. hurricane katrina happened and almost every disaster natural or intentional the department is going to face is going to have a mutual -- huge medical and public health implication. the secretary need to have someone close to the position to advise on public health applications -- applications of an intentional or natural disaster. i firmly believe that what transpired back in the day when i was at dhs and hhs is where the chief medical officer ought to be today.

in an advisory role there is no reason to encumber the chief medical officer with an acquisition program. think about some of the models in the department of defense, how the secretary is to run the health care system but as advisor to the secretary and all indications across services when it comes to medicine and public health. i think there is a similar model and it would be a big assistance to the secretary. >> thank you. ranking member portman. >> first, thank you for what you said at the outset. all three of you have been sounding the alarm and today you can give us more specifics. i was curious and listening to your responses about not just

how to make the structure more accountable and simpler but also improve the technology. one initial question i had, you said some of our adversaries have active bioweapon programs. what do our adversaries and allies do to protect their citizens? as the nation been able to analyze comparatively what other countries do? >> when you were talking about the four countries i mentioned it is difficult for the intelligence community to find out what they're doing. russia and china are interesting billions into their bio economy, and part of doing that is

investment in protective technologies, vaccines, personal protective equipment and anything that will bring the economic aspect up to the next level. they are investing at a rate much greater than what we are investing at in the united states. it will put us at an economic disadvantage but also a protective disadvantage. >> does that relate to buy a watch and monitors as well? >> i do not know. >> how about our european allies or japan or south korea, other countries where we would have access to exactly what they are doing? >> i would say especially in

europe, our european allies and other countries are working on bio detection, but i think their approaches are different from ours. i think that 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 we are using that same technology. europeans have not done that. they have gone through their cycles over and over and improved. nobody says they have got the absolute solution that will work 100% of the time, but they're working on technology that is getting us closer to that. i believe we can get that information from our allies if we asked. >> you are indicating they are

ahead of us in terms of the technology. let me ask a basic question i think a lot of people watching today might be interested in. why didn't we detect covid-19? it was not until january that we actually felt like we had discovered this coveted virus when in fact it is been around for a few months. director curry, you could start on that. >> thank you. there are a lot of opinions, but the point you bring up his surveillance, which is getting the world for biological threat so we can get them as quickly as

possible. this is been a huge challenge across agencies in the bio defense enterprise, and this is something that we have pointed out that multiple agencies have tried to pursue their own surveillance. usda has one. they have all been pursued separately, some have not been successful and they have not been integrated together. part of the problem is fragmentation and lack of integration. during covid we have created new systems to monitor covid and get down to the private sector in hospitals and pharmacies and things like that. we need to look at what we created and not just get rid of it. we need to use that to develop new surveillance systems. >> airports as an example i have

not been implemented. let me give you the precise dates. the first covid-19 case the cdc confirm was on january 21, 2020. recent studies suggest it was undetected in the country a couple of months previous to that. >> it really comes down to the need to re-envision bio surveillance. the data analytics, it is phenomenal now, today we can unpack and go down to the zip code level and understand what is happening as far as cases, hospitalizations, debts. we did not have that ability before covid. we stumbled out of the gate with

laboratory diagnostics and we need to address those things in the future. we have to focus on animal health, plant health, we have to think of a one health solution. we have a national bio surveillance strategy. maybe it was 2012, 2013, it was some years ago. but i do not believe we had a very good implementation plan of that strategy. covid-19 is telling us we need to re-envision it would bio surveillance means and how we can take advantage of lessons observed and turn them into lessons learned. it is inexcusable the dates you mentioned that now retrospectively we believe it may have been in the united states before january. we have got to fix those things in the future so laboratories can pick them up. >> it could have made a huge

difference. just quickly, do you think we have adequate surveillance capability for biotech -- bio attacks. >> no. >> no. >> no. >> senator, you are recognized for your questions. >> thank you, mr. chair. i appreciate dr. burke -- dr. parker, you mentioned how quickly we pounced on covid, the existence of a strategy, the existence of a plan, whether or not the plan was implement it on a timely basis is a worthwhile

discussion. they do not operate in a vacuum, and i will leave it at that. first question i want to raise as a senator who represents part of our national lab infrastructure, the labs in general are critical to our ability to counter weapons of mass destruction. the mission includes work at biology, engineering and physical sciences to address national challenges in bio security and public health -- i would like to ask you to view some initial thoughts on the

importance of progress between dhs and other government entities including national labs and how you do the part of developing as this committee considers the future of these efforts. we will start with dr. george. >> thank you, senator. those kinds of partnerships are critical but they need to be focused as well. the national labs, nasa, darpa, all of these science oriented, mission oriented entities can be utilized and worked with in a number of ways. in this case we are talking about basic science, the science of the endeavor. when we are 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 science and technology office to be conducting those partnerships? i submit to you if this is a basic science issue we are talking about, 19 years of the office trying to engage and sometimes not engaging with national labs is enough. they're probably never should have been doing it. it chewed up in the science and technology director. livermore produced the first bio watch detector anyhow. i am confident that the national labs and other science and technology organizations throughout the country could address this if given the opportunity. >> thanks. i made a big fan of the national lab.

i think livermore national lab and other national labs have an incredibly important part to play here, and one reason why they are so effective is that they can get into deep science but they approach it from an operational perspective. that is one of the things that is unique. anything we can do to encourage the re-engagement into the transformative sides needed for detection, diagnostics and surveillance and data informatics needs to be encouraged and take advantage of that unique scientific expertise that our national labs and specific bit livermore that has an orientation. >> a follow-up question for dr.

parker. robust and timely data has become a tool ineffective government responses. covid proved of a lack of timely data unfortunately, when it came to covid, it 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 we had a full and complete picture of the pandemic. in some cases, states did not report or collect whether it was racial data or other da da that would have been illuminating until we were well into the pandemic. can you describe our current capabilities or lack thereof to track data that will allow us to identify and neutralize biological threats?

we ventured into this under senator portman's questions. anything more precise? >> i can share some personal -- observations when i had a front line during the covid response. it took several months before the data analytics and the ability to have a comprehensive view down to the zip code level of hospitalizations, death, 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. that was six months into covid. we have 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've got to do this. it's hard. the data is owned by many different organizations. this is not an easy challenge. we've got to figure out how do we keep those pipes off when there's a crisis that can be

turned on instantaneously to get the situational awareness that's needed. >> never would have imagined a day when the general public is tracking cases, deaths and hospitalization rates and the distinct between hospitalization icu, scratched the surface on this variant versus that variant by zip code. mr. chair, i mow my time is just about up. i have one more topic i am eager to get mr. curry's thoughts on. it's this. as we know, covid-19 has exposed significant inequities in our health care system as well as pandemic response n. particular, the pandemic has highlighted the racial and income disparities in our approach to public health. hospitalizations and emergency department visits were significantly higher among minority populations while vaccination rates lagged in

those very same units. this was the case across the country. there is clear etched the stark contrast between these with resources faring better during emergencies versus communities, families, individuals without sufficient resources. so as we think about ensuring our biodefense response and how we can build on the lessons learned during the covid pandemic i think it is critical that we are intentional about addressing and unique needs of minority and other vulnerable populations for example, some residents do not have access to row liable high-speed internet or communities whose primary or preferred language is not english. linguistic barriers have long been recognized as contributing fact or the health disparities. so mr. curry, how can the government better plan to address these racial and other

disparities in biothreat responses? and what recommendations would you have for the committee about how we not repeat the covid experience and do better in the future? >> thank you, senator. i think the first step is recognizing the issue, recognizing the problem. i think the administration has put out executive orders last year on focusing federal programs better on racial equity and other equity issues. that's one step. but another thing -- i will just 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, or disaster assistance programs, is that there is really not a lot of date or wasn't a lot of data on how these programs impact certain populations, certain parts of the country, kurl versus urban. and that created a lot of questions about how effective they were and makes it difficult for the federal government to target resources as well. i think that's a first step we have to take to get better at this. >> all right. thank you very much.

i look forward to following up with you. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, senator. i need to step away to perform briefly in armed service committee. the ranking member will take the gavel. >> i have a number of questions looking for quick answers just to help us figure out a better way to fragmentation that's currently out there that we have heard today in terms of responding to biothreats and also trying to figure out a better what's working and what's not working in the current sl. -- current system. let me start with academia and maybe dr. parker is the best person to answer this. since that's where you reside now. does dhs and do other entities 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 priorities have evolved over time. and what i've observed is biosecurity has been kind of down rated 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 emeritus status today. >> it sounds like that could be revamped like it was after the anthrax attacks and other incidents. >> correct. 123450 -- >> i guess one thing that'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? nbic is part of twmd, which is part of dhs, and cdc, which 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 synthesizing that information, it is not real 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 is the place 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 detection 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 speak 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 to see 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 detectors. 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. >> yeah. okay. 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 non-bio threat capabilities nor does it establish coordination with nonfederal agencies. how can the federal government ensure that its nonfederal partners have the ability to collect and defect information on potential biological threats?

and how can we better coordinate 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 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 are 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 coordination 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 be able to turn those date information pipes on so we can have that coordination between the appropriate federal and state and local authorities and the private sector partners.

>> yeah. i mean, we are a 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 biosecurity 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 area of the country or specific smaller population. 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 strategic national stockpile act. it already passed the house. we will continue 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 build 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 for 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 must work to make sure communities in my 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. while dhs and usda have

experience in pieio security, they're smaller departments and fewer resources than the department of defense. considering the resources of the d.o.d., 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 a public health emergency in the past. so we are 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. >> thank you. next, i'll turn to dr. parker. your work shows how important it is for congress 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 to the continued threat of the virus, 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 interagency 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 we have to have buy-in then 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 is important, takes support from congress. this is going to be important. it's going to be authorization and appropriations. and then 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 and focus at dhs regarding biosecurity. 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 with more authority and 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 -- 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, the commission believes 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 a need 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 detection programs have certainly struggled to define their mission and to carry out those missions. a major part of the dhs counter bioterrorism budget goes to biowatch. 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, what programs, 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 re-envision 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, aerosol 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 that can detect that we have been attacked by something like that. 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 it was make sure that we could integrate intelligence information into this animal health information. that's going to be a critical part that we do this as well. look at 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 want to deploy 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 reach 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 interagency problems too, because it will require coordination for dhs to do that effectively. >> thank you. mr. currie, my next question 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

-- to try to have that kind 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 programmatic 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 that have happened 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 with 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 and 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 cwmd office and guide our oversight actions in that process. 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,

who is the 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 questions for the record. this hearing is now adjourned. []

>> thank you again for your testimony. [ indiscernible ]

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