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tv   Hearing on Biosecurity Preparedness  CSPAN  March 12, 2022 2:59am-4:30am EST

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coverage on our video app c-span now. >> a look at u.s. bio security
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preparedness, health care and national security representatives testify before the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. this is just under 90 minutes. [indiscernible chatter] >> the committee will come to
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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
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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,
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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,
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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>> 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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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 --
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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
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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.
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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
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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 can cause harm and start responses to biological incidents. both agencies reported issues to track to ensure we had a full picture of the pandemic. in some cases states did not
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collect 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 that would allow us to more quickly identify and neutralize biological threats. -- threats? >> i can share some personal observations. it took several months before data analytics and the ability to have a comprehensive view down to the zip code level, it was not until hospitals started being able to tap the data from the hospital system that we began to get at. we have got to be able to take those lessons learned as we go forward and not let those systems be atrophied.
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we have got to do this. it is hard. the data is owned by many different organizations, so this is not an easy challenge. we've got to figure out how we keep pipes open when there is a crisis that can be turned on instantaneously so we can get what is needed. >> imagine a day when the general public is tracking cases and deaths and hospitalization rates, icus, ventilators, positivity rates. we have not even scratched the surface on the subvariant or that vary. -- variant. i have one other topic. covid-19 has exposed significant inequities in our health care system as well as pandemic response. it highlighted racial and income disparities in public health.
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hospitalizations and emergency department visits were significantly and persistently higher among minority populations while vaccination rates right in those very same communities. this is the case across the country. there is clear evidence of a contrast between those with resources faring better during emergencies versus communities, families, individuals without sufficient resources. if you think about how we can build on lessons learned during the pandemic, i think it is critical we are intentional about addressing equity and the unique needs of minority and other vulnerable populations. some residents do not have ask to reliable high-speed internet or for those whose primary or preferred english is not
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english. went with superiors have long been recognized as a factor. how can the government better plan to address these racial and other disparities in the responses and what recommendations do you have for the committee on how we not repeat covert experience and do better in the future? >> i think the first step is recognizing the issue, recognizing the problem. the administration put out executive orders last year on focusing federal programs on equity issues. i will go back to the data. part of the problem we saw at the beginning of covid and we see this and other disasters is that there really is not a lot of data on how these programs impact certain populations, certain parts of the country, rural versus urban, and that
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created questions about how effective they were and it makes it difficult for the federal government to target resources as well. >> thank you, i look forward to following up. >> i need to step away to attend briefly and armed services committee. >> a number of questions, i'm looking for questions just to help us be able to figure out a better way to move forward in terms of the fragmentation currently out there that we have heard about today in responding to bio threats and also tried to figure out what is working and what is not in the current system. let me start with regard to a question about academia, and maybe dr. parker, you are the
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best person to answer this. does dhs and do other entities that have bio security programs effectively leverage u.s. research at universities? is there a good relationship? >> i will make this short. early in the life of dhs there was a of the university center of excellence, and that has been an effective program to engage academia. the threats have evolved and priorities have evolved over time, and what i have observed is bio security as been downgraded. in the early days there were 2, 3 centers focused on agricultural security and food security. >> it sounds like they could be revamped perhaps as it was after
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the anthrax attacks and other incidents. i think that is one thing missing in the current system is having a formalized way to access some of our great advantages as a country, our research universities. we talked about how countries are ahead of us in terms of surveillance. we have a huge advantage in terms of using u.s. research capability. there was another group we have not talked about today in detail, the national by the integration center -- bio security integration center. is it needed? is it helpful? it is part of dhs and you also have cdc, which seems to be a similar responsibility. talk to us about nbic.
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>> we have reported on it several times over the last decade and what we found significantly as they have struggled to meet their mandate providing broad surveillance. heart of that as they do not have access to the data they need to produce the kind of real-time information you would need to make decisions. the other thing we heard from as partners particularly at the federal level and state level since they use publicly available information is not new or novel to people that need to make decisions in this arena. another concern i have, there are four different surveillance efforts across the big departments, common security, defense, hhs, all separate, they
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do not work together. that shows you the lack of coordination across this enterprise. it is very difficult to make the decision of which one should go and which should stay because there was no one at a top level that can make that decision. >> i think this has been brought up by all three of you in one way or another that there is too much fragmentation and not enough accountability to have four agencies effectively trying to achieve the same mission and perhaps not sharing information between themselves. there is an opportunity for us in terms of reorganization. the problem that i saved, and i do not want to get into anything that is classified, we have surveillance capability in urban centers and this information is publicly available.
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i will not name the city's -- cities, but it is not comprehensive and everybody knows that. if you look at the biological threats we face today is not comprehensive. that goes to the technology issue. that was why i asked earlier what other countries are doing and whether academia is fully engaged, because it seems we have an opportunity to have utter technology. -- better technology. can you address that in the appropriate way. we do not want to give our adversaries information. >> said her, i think -- senator, i think you are absolutely right. comprehensive coverage of the entire country. what that would require is drawing information, data from a variety of different sources.
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it is ok that we do not have bio watch and every single jurisdiction throughout the country but we have it in the number that we do have it in that information should be coming into a place and combined with information we are getting from nbic, cdc and so forth. that was the original vision. as chris said earlier the department does not have access to that information. the other side of that coin as far as this body is concerned is congress did not mandate that all other departments and agencies provide that information in the first place. this is going on the way it is. >> there are obviously two great opportunities here. one would be to require information to be consolidated in one place. the second is, and this was
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discussed earlier in terms of academic contribution here, that we have the capability to collect and assess data that we have never had before, we did not have frankly after anthrax and other biological threats that led us to come up with a national system. we have the capability that we have never had before and massive amounts of data being analyzed quickly and being able to produce something that is meaningful that can be disseminated to the appropriate agencies and departments. is that accurate? >> i think we have the capability as the nation, we do not have the data cap -- and also give ability in the homeland security. you have to decide to make that kind of investment in that part of dhs or somewhere else in the government if you choose. we can get there, it will just require some more money and upgrading that capability.
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>> my time is expired, i will turn it to the new chair of this committee. >> thank you very much, i want thank you senator portman and senator peters -- for holding this hearing and i want to thank the witnesses for your testimony and providing your expertise on this important issue. because i have been in and out, i may be a little bit repetitive and apologies in advance. i want to start with a question to you dr. george, to detect biological threats the department of homeland security has mainly focused on detecting airborne. however they have only been able to detect biological agents from a limited known biological threats. it leads to a critical blind spot. especially since disease
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outbreaks and unknown diseases are likely to -- the readiness as i understand it of that technology is years away. dr. george, can you speak to what a successful bio detection program looks like and how current federal programs for short. >> a successful bio detection program has a number of different kinds of detectors within it and spread throughout the united states, at least for our nation. it is fine to have the bio watch detectors if you can get the equipment to the point where it is detecting what it is supposed to. you are absolute right, we are facing so many other threats than just a handful threats that bio watch was to pick up on. you also need other pieces of agreement. for example, you could have particle factors that are not --
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detectors that are not looking for specific agents, but see how many particles are in a specific room or area and note that suddenly we are seeing a whole bunch of something or virus in one place. what is that? send the other to somebody else to take a look. we also have, there are handheld detectors, all kinds of detectors. there are detectors you put inside, or outside, we need a vast amount of those spread out all over the place and gathering information. if you look at how we detect disease anyway, whether we have a detector or not, we are always drawing on a number of pieces of information. there is something going on in china, someone is in the hospital now, this seems to be unexplained, medicare has something to explain, cvs is reporting that everybody is running into get certain
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medications and so forth. that is how we would put together such a system. >> collecting a cross-section of data, each of which that is signaling a point and doing it in a broad range of areas. this is a question to mr. curry and dr. parker, one way we can detect biological threats is screening patients in hospitals and other health care facilities. there was a discussion with senator portman on the issue of what kind of data that we have. as i understand, much of the data would be collected by nonfederal entities. federal agencies would need to be closely correlating with them. as the government cabability office reports, it does not assess nonfederal bio defense capabilities nor does it establish a mechanism for nonfederal entities. mr. curry and dr. parker come
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how the federal government ensure that its nonfederal partners have the capabilities to detect and collect information about potential biological threats and how can congress act to better coordinate the efforts? i will start a mr. curry and them will go to dr. parker. >> thank you, i could not ink of a better example of a lesson learned from covid -- ink of better lesson learned from covid-19 then coordination. we saw this with issues related to the strategic national stockpile, and how supplies are distributed throughout the country, different from every state. perfectly encapsulating the challenge. the thing that we can do, dr. parker made a great point, you have these lessons learned from covid. we have developed monitoring, tracking, coronation mechanisms, these need to be formalized post-covid for the future.
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that may require, because the issue causes jurisdictions and federal departments that would likely require legislation and other actions to do that part -- formally. >> i will just add on a couple of examples. i know that in hhs i have observed the covid response the establishment of the supply chain control tower that was able to give visibility to the supply chains and focus and anticipate where supplies would be short. that evolved into the health care control tower that would anticipate where there would be shortages in a hospital somewhere in the united states and ships could be made in coordination with the federal government and private sector so they could be working in unison. we need to figure out how we can tap those lessons observed and turn them into lessons learned. and may not be something practiced on a day-to-day basis,
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when there is a crisis we need be able to turn that data pipe on so we can have the coordination between the appropriate federal, state, local authorities and private sector partners. >> we need to be able to apply that when we talk about data sharing as well. to mr. curry, the strategic national stockpile should be a critical tool to responding to bio security incidents by quickly dividing supplies to aid in response. what are the most significant challenges when it comes to mounting -- managing the strategic national stockpile? >> sense covid and really well before covid, we have had a number of concerns about the stockpile. before covid we were concerned about the way it was funded sporadically and what that might mean in terms of readiness to handle an event like this. in the past it was used to handle more localized events
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like h1 and one. where you to target specific areas of the country or smaller populations. with covid we needed nationwide and was not ready. one of the biggest challenges we have identified is the lack of understanding at all levels of government, including the federal partnership with how this stockpile is distributed and procured. procurement was an important piece, because you cannot keep enough rings on stock or in a warehouse to deploy -- things on stock or in warehouse to deploy throughout the country and we were not able to do that. >> given these challenges, i am committed to working with my colleagues on this committee and the health and education labor and pension committee to pass as we have in the bipartisan bill, it already past the house, we
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will continue to work to see if we can get it on the senate side. i think this is an opportunity for us to really make progress and build up the kind of stockpile that would help. i hope there is not another crisis like the one we are going through right now. we need to be prepared for it, to be sure. i am well over my time and i will be recognizing senator sinema who will be joining us shortly. >> thank you madam chairman and they tried witnesses today. the testimony is worrisome, the threat of a biological event in the united states must be taken seriously, we need to work together to liberally and in a bipartisan manner to ensure the safety of our community. in my state of arizona, and those all across the nation are protected against both accidental and intentional events. my first question is for mr. curry, your testimony focused on what has happened since 2016,
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seems like is not had the largest role, while there is expertise and bio security, there are -- they are smaller bargains with fewer resources than the dod. should we look at ways for the dod to take on larger roles and if so, what would that entail? >> thank you for the question. it is a great point, dod has decades and decades of experience in bio security that they have had to do to prepare for a war and to protect war fighters. i agree there are tremendous number of lessons learned, research, efforts from the department of defense that can be learned by the domestic agencies at the department of homeland security and the usda. i will say this, while the technology, i think, would be helpful in coronation would be great, applying these technologies in the homeland is actually one of the biggest challenges.
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while basic research is part of the solution, when you apply this technology to train stations and subway stations and crowded places in the country, it is very very different in terms of the way it needs to work. for example, you cannot have false alarms. that does not work if you have to evacuate a subway station. it is a very technically complicated issue here in the homeland. i agree with you that the dod has a big role to play. >> thank you, various agencies are focused on separate pieces of the bio defense initiative, given the urgency needed for the response to an emergency, do you believe the federal workforce is prepared to respond to an attack, if not are there specific tech -- steps congress should take that we rehire and retain staff. >> i think we are better off
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today than early 2020 and late between 19 -- 2019. most workforces are accustomed to having this is part of their missions. even those that did not think they would have a role they health emergency in the past. i believe we should continue to focus on preparing for this effort. >> thank you, i will turn to dr. parker, your work shows how important it is for congress to communicate and work together. you often note that covid fatigue grades additional risk -- creates additional risk, because the certain that our nation will face bio challenges in the future. given what we've learned from the pandemic, and the reaction of americans, what steps can we take to close existing bio security -- that need immediately -- immediate attention. >> we need to address some of
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the federal inner agency seems -- seams and figure out how to better manage the seams between different agencies. it will need strong leadership, perhaps cochaired by the national security council. we need to have a strategic vision and goal and buy in from our state and local leaders. emergency management, public health, and buy-in from industry partners and university partners, and ngos. it starts in with a good strategic plan to get by and, leadership at the highest levels of the government, support from congress is important and there will be authorizations and appropriations. there will be buy-in all the way through. good dialogue, from leaders to
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engage with their partners and stakeholders, it is a two way conversation. it is 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 addressed the lack of leadership and focus regarding bio security. much of the analysis is about difficulty working across inner agencies. do you believe the country should be safer if we created one independent agencies solely focused on this bio security or should be providing more authority and accountability or another option? >> who you want to go first? >> go at -- ahead. >> i think creating an inner -- an agency would be a mistake. eight independent agencies in
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one institution have 1 -- responsibilities for by the fence, i think across the board, including homeland security, all those response abilities should be addressed by congress. there should be additional legislation if needed, and all of the entities need to be coordinated. i do not think we need to pull all of that out into one independent agency. perhaps we need an entity that will be able to coordinate across the entire government. we recommended that the vice president of united state be put in charge of all bio defense with the deputy national security advisor supporting the effort. i still believe that is the way to go. the commission believes it is the way to go. you have so many departments and agencies involved. i think of you create another agency, we would have to give them some massive, massive authority to be able to tell anybody else what to do, even to
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get information from them. i do not think that would work very well. >> i agree with dr. george, another way to think about it is the true strength and the potential of our national preparedness enterprise is that we have diversity in the diversity by the various department and agencies that have their own strengths, authorities, and the lane that they work in. they have expertise that we need to bring into the fight for bio security, prayer -- fairness in response. how do we are all the strength and expertise across the inner agencies? that is what we need to do. marshall the strength and working with our state and local partners particular in urgency management and public health. >> madam chair, i know that my time is expired, i have one quick question for dr. george.
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you specifically mentioned to me cleaning up current statutory directive, like to submit a question to the director -- record that you give us specific recommendations for changes so that we can make necessary updates. is that somebody can provide? >> yes senator. >> i yield back. >> oh, i apologize. >> no worries, we have been playing a little bit of physical chairs here. i have heard some testimony today from all of our witnesses that the dhs bio surveillance and detection programs have certainly struggled to define their mission and carry out those missions. a major part of the bioterrorism counter budget goes to buy a watch -- biowatch. my question to you mr. parker,
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you have been part of it for decades and -- both in and out of government. you have said that his time to transition bio watch was there his better technological solutions. can you talk about the technologies, i would appreciate it, and also what programs, capabilities, technology would you suggest that dhs focus on? >> i think dr. george is already made some very good comments about the status of bio watch and what we should be doing with it. my comment about it is time to transition biowatch -- we need to transition what bio surveillance is and what dhs role is in national bio surveillance strategy. at the end of the day i do believe we will need environmental detectors, aerosol detectors like bio watch with improved technology. we do not need them everywhere,
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but we do need them from -- for some threats. there is a reason why in the past i testified, when i was still in government service that the top three threats were anthrax. we better have some aerosol collector devices that can detect that we may have been attacked by some like that. we need to have a bot -- comprehensive bio surveillance strategy and implementation plan that brings the best of the cdc and usda, department of interior for wildlife surveillance as well. in the original vision, make sure that we integrate intelligence information into the health information. that will be a critical part that we do this as well. back to biowatch we will have to invest in some science technologies and research to make sure we come up with the best tools.
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i might disagree with dr. georgia little bit, i would not want to be the federal official that says let's turn it off and then three months later we experience the aerosol release of anthrax. we have to look at the trade-offs and determine what are the highest priority threats and one of the highest priority location though he may want to deploy? the technology that we have with the biowatch detectors and focus on the research and develop meant that we can bring along transformative technologies. we on a look at new approaches. covid-19 taught us a lot about wastewater surveillance. i think that is a ripe area for homeland security to look at what are some strategies we could do for these novel surveillance approaches. wastewater surveillance is one of such examples. the department has reached, through its different
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components, that there are opportunities for novel and immediate surveillance activities that could be explored if we open up the mind to new way of thinking about how we can do it. we need to fix our federal inner agency problems to enable that. it would require interagency coordination for dhs to do that effectively. thank you. >> mr. curry my next question is for you. the gao report, reviewing the national bio defense strategy found out there are no clear details, processes, roles, response abilities for joint decision-making including how to find opportunities to leverage joint resource decisions. the geo, as you know made for priority recommendations, all them unfortunately remain open. if you could spend some time talking about the ways you believe the federal government failed in implementing the bio
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defense strategy from 2018. >> thank you sir, the good news is that we have a strategy and the committee was developed to have that correlation. what we have not seen yet is the execution on some of the top decision-making and coordination across the department. dr. george talked about this when they recommended that the vice president be responsible for the function. i believe one key here is that there has to be an entity or a way to look across the bio defense enterprise and make resource and other decisions. that has not happened. oh ab would have to play big role at that. it is difficult to prioritize programs, for example let's invest in bio watch and not hhs's public infrastructure health surveillance and restructure, because i cannot tell each other what to do. that issue has not been sorted
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out. because he strategy was implement it before covid, we have not had the chance to see it play out in the budgeting process to see if they're making those kinds of decisions. i think we still need to get there, the structure under the strategy -- i do not think this treasury have will not get there eventually, but i do believe we need help. >> one area of particular concern to me within dhs, the cwmds the workforce morale is extremely low. in 2019 it was ranked the lowest among all sub agencies and the federal government and only slightly improved in 2022. improvement is good, those only a slightly improvement, they were facing interest problems. in recent years -- attrition problems in recent years.
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what would be your top recommendation to this committee as to how we might improve morale within the office? >> morel, certainly whenever you hear about morel issues within the organizations it is something that is concerning. i was encouraged to hear that there are some improvements. so perhaps there is -- it is on the right track. anytime there are issues in the is important to understand the root causes and all of the organizational changes that have happened over the last several years, change is always hard on people, that sometimes it is not surprising when you have real issues when there is organizational change. it requires leadership working really closely with people so that they are part of the change, change agents as the organization of all from its current state to the next state.
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finding the root cause is very important and making sure that the workforce has a voice. that everybody is being treated with respect and dignity is always very very important in organizational rall and organizational mission effectiveness. -- morality organizational mission effectiveness. >> are like to think our witnesses, this is incredibly important discussion that when a and today, will have more discussion and that it months and weeks at -- years had. -- ahead. it is certainly clear that we need to do a much better job preparing for future biological incidents. your testimony and all the testimony will help inform the committee in reorganizing and reauthorizing, perhaps the cwmd office and guide our oversight in actions of the process. i would like to thank ranking
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member portman in holding this hearing with me and working together to address these threats and improve the homeland security for our nation. i would like to note that unfortunately dr. alex karzai, the former chief medical officer and the former chief secretary of -- was invited but was unable to testify today because of some personal circumstances. however he was able to submit his written testimony, which we appreciate and i ask unanimous consent that the testimony be placed into the official record of the hearing. the record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days until 5 p.m. on march 4, 2022 or a submission of statements and questions for the record. this hearing is now adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]
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