They want. Sure. Im head of federal public policy. You you have not heard of it before, website that thats people to businesses in places. Currently currently about a hundred and 42 million unique monthly visitors and 32 countries start 11 years ago. And as a part of that process connecting people it has also become a site for aggregating and assigning ratings. So for example we are here in washington dc right now. I think that the rayburn cafeteria has about a two star rating on yelp. Yeah. So whether it is restaurants or dry cleaners or plumbers or businesses in general or places in general they have a yelp page generally speaking and ratings that are there. And and it does not just apply for yelp. You have sites like trip advisor for travel and hotels and things around the world. You have a sock stock a site that has come up for doctors and finding out the best doctors the mighty around you. Google does it as well. Even facebook as well. If you go on to a business page you will see ratings for businesses, and people leave opinions. So really the rise of social media platforms and the internet there has also been the rise of the review culture that yelp has been of the front of which is where individuals have had the ability and opportunity to share their opinion, to share their factbased experience with the particular business or particular place and they do it really for the greater sort of community service, for the good. Why do i go i go on to yelp and rate a particular business . Its not because im receiving compensation but because i want to let everyone else on the internet, my neighbors and others know the experience that i have their. In the past you might ask a neighbor, ask your friend, use wordofmouth, use wordofmouth, means of figuring out what is the best of what is around you. Now thankfully we have the internet so we can get this broader more ire it experience out of it and to make better purchasing decisions or just make better decisions in general. But along with that obviously when you have a platform and the internet in general which is really this bastion of free speech where you can go and sort of express your opinions and the First Amendment or under just in general but is protected by the First Amendment you are occasionally going to have the circumstances at times where people will not necessarily tell the truth. It might not be a fast paced experience, but in general under those circumstances platforms like yelp, trip advisor, amazon, so amazon, so many others already have within their terms of Service Mechanisms and tools that allow those type of statements and reviews to either be flagged or for Business Owners to respond. Really the way that the platform works it helps to ensure especially in the case of yelp that it is an honest firsthand experience now, a lot of people might think also that review platforms are places where people kind of go to complain to my go to just leave a bad experience. But at least in the case of yelp we have found that about 75 percent or so are actually three stars and above. So you know you might think in your head going to go there and really didnt have business that didnt give me good service, but often times is people that are going just to share their experience with the greater internet society. So i i say all that because you do at times unfortunately have instances where Business Owners or individuals have not agreed with the statements that have been made. It was mentioned from the standpoint of the city paper. Well look at the internet platforms as basically obviously online digital media. The continuation. And unfortunately my some Business Owners have decided to go the route where individuals have decided to go the route by threatening or attempting to sue people based off of whether its a yelp review or trip advisor review or sock stock opinion and the fact of the matter is that most of the time these are individuals firsthand experiences or opinions. I went here. I experienced this. Maybe it was a bad experience. You say it was a a bad experience but generally is still your firsthand opinion unfortunately you have this group of individuals that sometimes decides to use litigation as a response rather than actually trying to engage and better customer service. That is what we sort of saw happening. It has continued to happen. And what we worry about obviously and why we have been a big supporter of anti legislation is that while we know and as kevin said before, most of these lawsuits, the people that are out there trying for to threatening to sue or are Going Forward and suing someone and falling under this mental, they dont necessarily expected to go to trial. They dont even necessarily expect to win. With the hope with the hope is that you would rather remove your review and never speak either ill or anything at all about that company again rather than a spend thousands of dollars of the tens of thousands of dollars to actually defend your statement in court. You might think about man, is my review of the cafeteria really worth maybe its not a good case because its a government owned entity. But, you know if we were talking about was a good 18th st. Lounge. My review of 18th street lounge worth you know, potentially thousands of dollars in litigation and defending it . Unfortunately most people most of the time if you are an average citizen i just decided to share that opinion will say no has probably not. I would i would rather take it down and have to go through that process. And one community obviously feel that is wrong because you have the right to share the opinion. Youre opinion. Youre honest, factbased opinion commanded is protected by the First Amendment. That is the first. And then we also are concerned about the overall effect because even if it does not is not you if you are not the one experiencing that suit or threat directly, you tell your friends about it, say to someone else i got threatened with a lawsuit based off of my review of restaurant. Then it poisons the internet ecosystem as a whole. You know we all look at the internet as really being this bastion of freedom of speech where you can go and share your opinion share your you know, experiences. And so we in particular worry about slap suits really infringing upon your ability and that experience clicks actually its funny. Hard to mike to mike especially since you have not been able to speak yet but we talked a lot about people whom i stop i stop and think before they Say Something in the fact that anti slap helps you continue with that thought. But what about the times you dont even stop to think . How many of you dont actually have to show hand, hand not your hand silently so angry at something that you joined a twitter and grant. You dont even think. My flight was delayed again. You suck, insert airline name here. Your Cable Company your guy was supposed to be here five, six. You know youve done it. You you know youve done it. You have all done it, and you have not even thought. Probably protected. A lot of the stuff is protected. It is not the plan majority. The probably not going to sue you, what if they did . I. I jenny rest mucin here representing the American Association for justice. Some justice. Some of you probably know it but if you dont we are the Worlds Largest trial bar formed in 1947. We are committed to ensuring that committed to ensuring all people individuals, consumers families, patients coworkers have access to all reports in order to enforce the rights. So are talking about slabs and how to define a slap i agree with i agree with much of what theyre saying. I want to highlight two points that i think you should think about because this is important. One cop meritless lawsuit. The person bringing person bringing them has no expectation that they will win in court every they are bringing it to bully and harassment silence. And that is wrong. Youll have a right a right to bring frivolous things in a court of law. Second is that usually except but larger media defendants usually there is a disparity and resources between the two parties. The person bringing the slap as tremendous resources. They can make frivolous filings in a court of law because they can pay for them. Whereas the them. Whereas the david in the situation, the smaller litigant that is a serious economic threat to them. Those two points are important, and i stress them because and how we define a slap lawsuit those two points get lost. I am here today. I will be presenting an opposing view on a a bill that was introduced, the speaks react because i disagree that there is concern and something should be addressed but i but i disagree with the way the slap is defined. We have serious concerns that as it is defined broadly it will be applied to lawsuits that you do not intended to apply to. Such cases as whistleblower whistleblower law or civil rights lawsuits or security lawsuits a lot of lawsuits that arise out of statements that are by nobodys imagination something you would consider a slap lawsuit. Thats a great segue to talking about the state of legislation. We have 28 states and washington and a territory or two that have their own anti slap legislation but they are different in each state. State. Some of them are broad and some are quite narrow. And then and then we have this new federal legislation which we have had in the past. I would like to here from the panelists how this is different from passed legislation them how it differs from the state legislation, what is the purpose of introducing at the federal level. Goahead. I will start off a little bit. From our from our standpoint there is the need for federal anti slap legislation because given the sort of nature of the internet in general you can often times have circumstances where you have parties in different jurisdictions. That is often obviously something that would necessitate itself more to the federal side rather than the state. And also because of the differences in the nature of the state laws that are in place. 20 as you mentioned 28 states with an antislap on the books. Some are really the books. Some are really good like the state of california. The state of texas. They have really good antislap law, and i believe that the speaks react itself was actually modeled on those two pieces of legislation. Then you have states like new york state that does not have a very good anti slap law relatively narrow in scope. The same in pennsylvania. What you sometimes end up have happening there is form shopping. Basically if you are a party looking to sue someone make a slap motion based off of yakima make a slap motion you look to see either if you can find a state without an antislap law or one that has a relatively weak one. And so from a yelp standpoint in particular when youre looking at statements made on the internet having a federal standard at least baseline standard for when it comes the First Amendment antislap protection we think is crucial to ensuring that the speech and statements you make online are protected. Just to pick up on a a couple points, and one more example of a state law that has recently been change that is narrow in florida which only applies to lawsuits brought by government officials against a private individual which has been broadened to give more protection you have other states out there. You mentioned stronger and weaker and maryland has a week a week anti slap law. Virginia has none. Dc has one that has recently been held to not apply when youre in a federal court proceeding. You have this big gap. I am a defendant to read dan snyder decides to sue is a resident of virginia and do it in federal court because its not just dc. Now that the federal court cannot apply the antislap anti slap law there is a huge loophole undercutting state law. That is why we need this legislation to fill in the other states that dont have them and also fill in the protections that exist in some states. This is actually relevant in our case. The suit was initially filed in new york which as you heard did not have as good a law as dc for anti slap. And in the case was moved to dc. I felt much more like i had a club in my hand when the suit was moved to dc because there was an anti slap law here to help protect against these frivolous lawsuits. We talk about what the states are doing mina 28 states that have some kind of slap law. They all very and that echoes the. That there is not consensus on how to define a a slap lawsuit. Some are very narrow like pennsylvania that only applies to environmental issues. Some are quite broad. But even california has this language in the statute that it must be an expression made in furtherance of your constitutional right to potential. Any kind of change. Something that i think is really extraordinary. The speaks react has to have a removal provision term of statebased claims filed in state court. He when there is not diversity jurisdiction. So its one thing to have a rule to apply to this diversity of citizenship. Its quite another to tell states where taking these cases out of your state court and putting them in federal court. Our constitution is based on a system of a system of federalism. Our framers not specifically authorize things they left for the state. All these dates have different slap statutes. Some have decided to not slap slap, some have ruled them to be unconstitutional. Others have tried to dressed very narrow statutes. What happens if you pass this big broad federal bill that removes cases the federal court . They are effectively preempted because you can remove them to federal court there is. Theres no longer a statute that applies to them. So that is very troubling to us. The issue of tort law, and all law and also the case with you here medical malpractice, defamation all exists because of state law. There law. There is no federal tort law. At the state cause of action the speaks react to changes that because its something that belongs in federal court. In addition what i want to say is and then i want to jump in for a minute. Yeah. Others this problem. When you look at what states are doing what they have decided to do including the states that have ruled it to be unconstitutional what are the unintended consequences of putting abroad, federal bill that cramps all of those . That is where our organization comes in. There are significant concerns that the bill will apply to the cases i just listed of individuals, not the goliath bringing first 25 frivolous lawsuits but the david who is going after the goliath in a whistleblower action employment discrimination action action, those kind of cases are the ones we want to help protect. I know. A lot of people probably want to comment. Great. Yeah. Great. Yeah. I will jump in and response. I think that we fundamentally differ already in regard to she described it as being overly broad. There are specific exemptions that are already within the bill and particular limitations whether dealing with commercial parties dealing with statements that are made about governmental actors, statements that involve state or federal and then also those that are made about environmental and other areas. The bill itself is really we think, narrowly tailored in the scope and regard to the conversation. Obviously conversation. Obviously when youre talking about the question of what is a slap suit there are a lot of things that could be deemed or considered slap suits, but that is because it ultimately comes back to one particular area that we have been talking about the constitution and your First Amendment right to speak and to be protected in regard to what you say. If youre making a factbased statement if you are sharing your opinion in a manner that is not defamatory you know, im not going to go down the road of what is defamation because its pretty clear on the federal level and the states what the standard of defamation is. What we are talking about here is whether or not if youre in an area that does not have an uptodate law on the books because really it is just the fact that antislap law in general is not kept pace with the speed of the internet, how far along we are in regard to how communication happens how people express their opinion online and in many instances state laws of not caught up. Even within those 28 states there are differences. The other 22 states the real question is that, you know how we are not talking about all of those claims being immediately moved to federal court and being on the onus of federal judges. It would allow for removal. Basically say, youre in california. California has a great antislap a great anti slap law. Why would you bother filing a claim in federal court in that instance if its a state based matter . But if you are in arkansas where there is not an antislap law that you are being hit with something that is on its face a slap suit then this then this would allow for the opportunity of removal with the answer that question. Question. If its something that going through and looking at it when you file your pleading and you say what has happened and you know, as a defendant you make this motion and a very expedited process you can figure out, okay this is a slap a slap suit. A judge can figure that out and throw it out or at least on that. And then because of the fact that a slap suit was filed against you and you have had to spend thousands of dollars if not tens of thousands of dollars attorneys fees then at least, you know, have the other party pay that off or provide some sort of compensation so that you are not left with your speech having been threatened, with your time having been taken away and the tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys fees afterward. That is why we feel that this is really important and why in particular we support this and dont think that it is overly broad. We think that when you were talking about what a slap suit is basically a meritless lawsuit that infringes upon your First Amendment right to free speech, the fact of the matter is a lot of speech happens on the internet. Dont get me wrong but it should receive the same protection as somewhat someone like amy received or the city paper received because what they did was in print. I would like to followup on that was something i dont think we have been clear on the effect of the special motion to dismiss. It is not we have, you know we need to be clear. It is not as simple as im the defendant. Ive been served with what i believe is a frivolous lawsuit and i file my i file my motion to dismiss and this goes away. If i can show specifically the bill allows me as the defendant to file a special motion in this mess if i have made an oral or written statement or other expression in connection with an official proceeding or about a matter of public concern and there are certain exemptions. That exemptions. That is similar to the California Law where you talked about a statement made in furthering the rights of the petition which are at the core of the First Amendment. So what i do as a defendants show that i have made this type of statement. That is statement. That is my first response, but that is not the end of the case. I dont when there. What happens is now the plaintiff still gets his or her in spite of the apple. Apple. The difference now is the standard has risen. Now they risen. Now they have to show that the lawsuit in question you know they have to show that the claim is likely to succeed on merit. It is harder. I think so. Clearly it is about the. Is, they are not kicked out of court. This is important to remember. What it does if on the defendant and i make a statement and i am suit and statement and i am suit and otherwise i back down, thats a big burden. Now the burden shifts to the person bringing the lawsuit that would otherwise restrict my constitutional right to free speech command we do this all the time. As the core as the core of the number one biggest First Amendment lawsuit. Say it with me, New York Times versus sullivan was all about shifting the balance were one side of the other recognizing that certain truths might we want the truth to come out and inevitably we will hear falsehoods. The opposite decision is, we want to keep the fall set out. We are going to an effect keeps all the truth out. The balance burden shifting which is what i think this bill does. I agree it shifts burden, this bill. The question is are you only burdening people who bring slap law suits and the answer is no. Youre burdening people who have legitimate were the lawsuits are now have to fight these motions. The most illustrative is the use of the slap statute gone bad. Im sure people in this room have seen the hbo documentary going clear. There was a woman featured if you remember. Do you remember . She bought a lawsuit against the church of scientology. If you are a legal geek like me you look at what happened this is what happened. She brought she brought a very legitimate harassment lawsuit against the church of scientology. She was never a member or so she could bring a a lawsuit. The church has used texas is anti slap statute to cripple your case. Even in cases where she could meet this burden this much higher burden of proving that she has legitimate case the judge agree with her and ruled against the church of scientology. Her case has been on appeal for over a year. She never had she never had a chance of discovery the basic element of building or factual case. If the speak free act was law not only would she have the burden but her case could have been removed in federal court and likely would have been because it would have given the church of scientology the right to remove that case to federal court where im sure her appeal process would be even longer than the state of texas just because of judicial vacancies and overburdening of the federal court. When you think about it it is shifting the burden. That is exactly the. When we say he should not strengthen the Constitutional Rights of some by violating the Constitutional Rights of others, and that is why the Washington State Supreme Court struck down its slap statute saying that their statute is unconstitutional. I will read a read a great quote from that. Basically saying that the Legislature May enact anti slap legislation to prevent litigants from abusing the judicial process by filing frivolous lawsuits for improper purchases. We agree. The constitutional conundrum is that it seeks to protect one group of citizen Constitutional Rights of expression of petition by coming off another constitutional civil rights of petition a jury trial. Congress cannot pass a law that protects one at the expense of another. Youre right to petition for a real grievance and youre right to a civil jury trial. You think its unconstitutional . Clicks yes. Clicks you want this . I recognize its a broad bill. No doubt about it. The issue i think you are making with regard to the appeal is one of Andrew Lockridge which is provided in statute. That allows someone to go to court, to go on appeal which exists in a lot of First Amendment lawsuits and has for years. Move on a a motion for Summary Judgment and i can immediately go to court and is a reason for that as well i have a defendant on an anti slap if i have to vent immediately go discovery even though i think the key First Amendment issue of my having been slapped has been answer the wrong way. Of course the penalty is on me. The plaintiff, you make these decisions all the time its a different position to be in versus making the choice yourself. That otherwise being drawn and enforced in the court court with the fight out of you i would like to bring this back and followup. And amys case you knew who was getting sued. On the internet you often have people hiding behind usernames for some kind of anonymizing screen. What happens in that case, does the bill address that those people have the right to anonymity and where to platforms the play. I will try to respond. In regard to Washington State specifically you have to look at that decision by the state Supreme Court and the Washington State microcosm responding specifically to the Washington State constitution and what was specified there and that there were issues of concern in regard to how the bill of been drafted to being conforming to the Washington State constitution. And again, we disagree with the jam the. Of that applying of the federal level. We dont think that they have the same raised concerns. In regard to infringing upon the rights of individuals to make these type of petitions and claims, lets put this more in the morning the context or at least what i think is context. If you are suing someone for defamation, generally speaking you are either a business of some kind or youre probably a public figure. That is normally 25 these are are the types of people that we are typically talking about that are filing these type of suits. Is is it eliminating their ability to file this type of suit . The already established this bill is not. It raises certain procedural and procedural processes in regard to the substantive question of whether or not youre violating the persons First Amendment right. Generally at the end of the day were talking about either a business or someone with the Resources Available to use them to intimidate you with a meritless lawsuit. On the other end i have i think like 12 people are so on this page. For example a woman katie and from chicago who wrote a review on a window Shade Company and then ended up getting a slap suit or sake you bringing it had a a negative experience was a back auto trading and got slap suit filed against him or lease goldberg who was sued by Beverly Hills dentist about negative yelp experience. So what do these people have in common . That they wrote about their experience. Were talking about instances and dealings with the dentist and dealings with the dr. s office excuse me, dealings with an auto company, window Shade Company. It goes to the topic that you can have slap suits that deal with the deal with a breath of different issues but ultimately it comes back to that sort of First Amendment question of whether or not your speech is being infringed upon. To your question, miranda and regard to anonymity yelp fundamentally believes that your and we think it has been proven time again in court that individuals have the right to anonymity in regard to statements from a factbased statements or experiences that they make about a particular person think more business or you know especially on the internet. And where this comes in the play lets say you had a bad experience with a dr. Or maybe your a man and went to a dr. About man things or woman and you went to a gynecologist and whatnot. You had a bad experience and you want to share that experience a sensitive matter an area of medicine so you dont want to attach a name to it. Yelp as a platform and others allow you to have that anonymity and what the build is in particular is it allows us to protect that anonymity and then at the very least the plaintiff for the party take the steps of present for preventing evidence to show that it is necessary. We do with the case those along these lines. The Carpet Cleaning company filed a motion to get yelp to root breach the anonymity of seven individuals who posted negative reviews about the business. We fought it. Honestly we lost the first two times in virginia in the state course because of the quirkiness of virginia law. The laws not being up to date within the state and threatening the anonymity. And that meeting one out side of the job randomly. Real firsthand experiences and we had to take it to the Supreme Court of virginia and ultimately we did not win on substantive grounds. We did when. Going to the anonymity of the users. To prove or to get the access to that persons information but at least there are processes in place to provide your i was greater protections. Or want to echo point. This idea from a a david versus goliath and that these two are meritless nothing in the speak react limit the scope. Nothing limits it. So i think that that is something to consider. We are talking about anonymous reviews. Im guessing the head of the speak for you that you are talking about some of the personally identifiable information we didnt have any opposition the provision. Thats clear. We were concerned about the scope of this bill how it is designed to quickly and with prejudice get rid of lawsuits and that the scope is so broad that you are capturing cases that you are not meaning to. A legitimate harassment lawsuit that she is now having to spend tons of resources and appellate counsel on to try to fight what is essentially a meritless slap motion. We promise to get you out quickly. Ten minutes. Would like to open up to questions. We should have a roving have a roving mic. In the white jacket. High. Katie bogdan. Can you give us can you quantify how big, how many lawsuits there are . How many, you know, have a increased . Give us some sort of trend line of how big of a problem this is becoming . Thanks. Quantify how big the problem is. I have some statistics only for california. I am going to admit right now i will review my notes. There notes. There is no way i was remembering all the. Between 2005 in 2010 the Judicial Council notes parties recorded 2881 antislap motions in trial court throughout california 81 anti slap motions in trial court throughout california were roughly 481 motions per year. An appeal an appeal was filed in only 375 cases. Put another put another way nearly 90 percent of the cases no appeals while. And that is sort of given that there were about 6. 2 million civil filings and superior courts during that time the 2881 the 2,881 constitutes about i dont know,. 046 percent of all lawsuits. And thats just california. I think thats a good question. I that is for california. We dont know. This bill is a federal bill. We dont know anything about how many of these lawsuits are being filed in other states and federal court. Is. Is a good question to ask for before we pass legislation thats going to circumvent the rules enabling that and also expand the jurisdiction of federal court. How big of a problem is this goahead quakes one thing to keep in mind is that a slap that is filed in court and that is moving forward is generally the last step of the process that were talking about here. It is not that you immediately say you are going to file a slap suit and and file it against the person who wrote a review or made a statement. You generally let it linger and have your attorney basically go through this whole intimidation process to try to get the statement retracted or to get the review removed before you actually has the plaintiff even bother filing in federal court. When you look at that number that number isnt really indicative of the overall threat and the Chilling Effect is having. And in this world that is constantly changing, i find slap very critical to our society. You know, the ability to speak and the ability to speak freely and for individuals to have opinions and to not be threatened and the Chilling Effect which you can imagine taking place fairly quickly unless we come together and say, you know, you are not allowed to threatened to sue me because i wrote about your carpet company. You know those seven individuals probably arent going to be posting many more reviews. So i think that we have an opportunity now to take a look at communication and allow people their opinions. Not only media organizations but individuals. That is that is where i see the import of what were looking at. Also, just to provide a little bit of context because we are having a very good and thoughtful conversation about antislap, slap suits in general and also about the speak free act and the but in regard to the speak free act in particular, while the aha has expressed concerns about the bill there was recently a letter that was sent to congress to the Judiciary Committee that had about 35 different organizations and groups in support, and these are folks like yelp, trip advisor benefits glassdoor. Com, groups such as public knowledge, the center for democracy and technology, the our street institute, freedom works, folks on the left and the right and even the National Association of broadcasters that said that they support the speak free act and that they want the bill to move forward in congress. And even that is specifically in regard to the speak react. On on the issue of federal anti slap legislation there are even more companies and organizations that have said they support the federal anti slap legislation. And even on the state level as well that have been promoting it organizations like the npa going around supporting state anti slap bills in different jurisdictions as well. So when you look at this bill and this issue, it is one that has united groups that traditionally have been on the opposite side of the debate here in congress. I. I want to reiterate that. On the issue of supporting slap legislation, who is in support and who is against many of the state affiliates have supported slap legislation at the state level. I dont think not to say i dont want my testimony to be taken as there is no solution, turn around and go home. The devil is in the details and you are getting into a careful balance of Constitutional Rights. I think this discussion should have a lot of creative thinking and any solution should be narrowly tailored and carefully crafted to make sure that it affects slap lawsuits and nothing but slap lawsuits. Hi. My name is quinn martin. This question is primarily for kevin. Kevin. On ask you whether you think adopting the english rule the turn of companies for filing a slap lawsuits. Am sure it will be a deterrent, but i also think of that would be perhaps a truly overbroad solution to the problem. I mean, it should be clear now that we do not all agree. We agree on the concept but not the details. One of the differences is that i do not think this is necessarily overbroad. I do not think it goes too far. I am sure there will be instances where people are caught up in a slap situation and the little guy really does lose out even where the anti slap statute exists. Im sure that will happen. It will be unfortunate and i do think that on the whole we would look to preserve freespeech rights with a broad speak free act and thereby protect more people because there have clearly been a number of people that have been subjected to slap suits. You have given one example. We could come back with our own. It goes back to what i said about the balancing. We both agree that there is a balancing that must be done. He balance everyones rights were just on were just on different sides, but i think that adopting fullscale would be too far. I want to chime in quickly. I i want to make sure to get this. In their. It is important, especially in regards what was discussed earlier. You mentioned in texas the church of scientology and then filing an anti slap motion and having it really tied up at the appellate level of discovery. It is my understanding that with the speak free act that there is actually language in the bill as well that if you are the defendant and you frivolously file an anti slap motion that you would still be forced to pay some sort of fee or restitution. That is what i was going to get at. Does allow the judge to impose that. Now i see what you are saying. Would saying. Would you adopt the fact that the losing party pays. And it does exist in the speak react and i do not think it is not that it is always going to be a full attorneys fees or that it will be in every case but it does create that right which is extremely valuable more so as a deterrent and simply saying the case will be accelerated and kicked out more quickly. I think this is a good point. Is it enough to deter true slappers or true people who are abusing the court system. The problem system. The problem is it stirs the david but not the goliath. The goliath has the money to pay sanctions, to pay the other sides attorneys fees. Does not prevent them which is what youre trying to get at. Has a Chilling Effect on david for particularly those that are presenting novel theories under law. There is a time in our country when brown versus board was considered novel and they one. That does not mean that have they lost that they should pay someone elses attorneys fees. I think imposing that kind of english rule on our american system what is it have a significant Chilling Effect. They created a ton of side litigation on the satellite issue. Someone would file a motion and then you immediately file another. In response saying this is frivolous that theyre calling me frivolous. It got out of hand. The federal judges asked congress to change it back to the original american role. I think that is an excellent question. This threat that you have to pay and other attorneys fees is significant but it is significant to the davids, davids, not the goliaths witches who which is it were trying to prevent, the goliath for going after reporters and yelp reviewers from people who really do not have the resources to fight someone on a court of law. Clicks speaking of goliaths, i want to give one more example and i realize are almost out of time. But it helps to go to the heart of why you need federal antislap legislation, and it involves the state of nevada. So nevada for about a year and a half has had a really good anti slap law on the books or had one. And a resident in nevada and hopefully he does not listen to this or hear this because then i will i will have to hire one of you guys steve one, steve when lost a lawsuit, a defamation suit in california on march 4. Dont exactly quote me but i want to say around march 4 based off of an antislap motion. Anti slap motion. He lost it in the state of california. And then about three weeks later around march 2021 in the state of nevada there was a bill introduced in the state legislature to get the antislap law that anti slap law that nevada had have about less than two years. And who was it supported by fully . Who was aback by . It was backed by wayne industries, steve once company. And so this bill was introduced. And in less than three weeks afterwards already passed the nevada state senate. It passed the senate. Over in the nevada house. Companies like yelp and trip advisor and others were scrambling. A lot of those sort of First Amendment freedom of speech groups were scrambling in the state to try to help throw this slow the process. What was otherwise going to be a bill that would got the rights of nevadas speak freely online. And thankfully eventually we were able to work toward a compromise, but still a the core of the law, but it kind of goes to the. Of when you have this when youre talking about goliaths and you have a billionaire casino mogul who literally goes and works to get the law of the state changed in order to protect the interest of people like him this really goes to say that if you can have that much of a fluctuation in regard to legislation that will impact the ability of people to speak freely online and to share their opinions why you need a federal minimum standard command that is what the speak react does. I know we are right at time. I want to re fame it the discussion. And by doing so bring it back to where we started. You talked about in terms of willie attorneys fees be a deterrent from bringing the suit . We will this hurt them . No. That is not the point. The. Is Daniel Snyder saying indeed the cost of litigation will presumably quickly outstrip the asset value. He thinks the city paper will roll over in the face of having to pay litigation fees. Guess what now they dont. If they believe they have a merited case and are going to win and to get their attorneys fees back they are willing to go to court and fight and that is the way you have to look at it, the penalty is not on the person suing for the benefit comes back. The deterrent effect is that you are pushing on them hitting them wont make an impact at all. Thank you. On behalf of behalf of the congressional internet caucus on the Advisory Committee really great discussion. The twitter information is on the programs. Number of organizations have reports floating around about this issue and we encourage you to look into it further and come to our events for the rest of the month of july. [applauding] [inaudible conversations] on monday wrote to the white house coverage is democratic president ial candidate Hillary Clinton talking about her economic agenda at the new school in new york city. Live coverage at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. And later Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker official announcement that he is entering the 2016 president ial race. You can you can watch live at 6 15 p. M. Eastern time. Conservative pollster and author of the sophie vote on the trends in Technology Come of the millennial generation, and how the Political Parties are vying for this increasingly crucial voting block. Take a look at where peoples eyeballs are going these days. It used to be folks were focused on the television. Political advertising became heavily focused on ads. Technology has changed so that if you walk into a room of 20 yearolds but 60 yearolds what are they looking at . Their phones. For folks in the political world who wants to want to reach the next generation or just reach into the future understand what the future of political advertising will look like emma candy crush or whatever the latest game is. Candy crush may be fading in popularity there is always something new, finding ways to get your message in front of people is really important. Sunday night at 8 00 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspan q a. And newly discovered strain of bird flu has caused a spike in egg prices. The Senate Homeland Security Committee held a hearing on the outbreak and what is being done to avoid a new outbreak this fall. Senator ron johnson chairs this twohour hearing. [inaudible conversations] good morning. This area is called the order. I want to first thank the witnesses for taking the time to come here this morning. The time you have taken to provide very thoughtful and important testimony. This this hearing is really about the recent outbreak of Avian Influenza bird flu that has plagued really primarily the upper midwest although we have a map here. Unfortunately we dont have a chart but it has been sprinkled out west, a little bit further east fortunately it has not gone up and down the eastern seaboard yet, but this is a serious issue. We have a Mission Statement from the committee, to enhance the economic and National Security of the country. This is an economic issue and a serious one. I asked for unanimous consent offer my written Opening Statement for the record. I want to just cover some quick statute because i think we may be interrupted by votes a little later. In terms of how this is going to affect our economy there are 300 million egg laying chickens, over 40 million of them have been affected by this and destroyed. A 13. 3 percent of the egg laying population. 200 million turkeys raised every year. 8 million have had to be euthanized. That is that is estimated to be about a billion dollar impact on to our economy. Fortunately we have not seen a new outbreak its since about midjune. The migratory the migration is over but it will starting in the fall. We are extremely concerned about what will happen when we have the Migratory Bird pattern once again. The purpose of this hearing really is to examine our initial reaction to the outbreak the spring and also ask and really explore what our reactions will be kamal we will further limit damage for additional outbreaks so that i hate i hate to say it pretty probable in the fall including we dont want to alarm anybody but we all heard about bird flu potentially mutating from animals to human beings which is why we have a a pretty good panel here to discuss that and try and minimize the concern but also to provide assurance that we will be monitoring that and do everything we can. We have a real good panel of people from the department of agriculture represented from the centers for disease control, the jail kemal professor from sen. Carpers home state and state and senator carper will introduce professor galpin. We have a victim not a direct victim. You are human, but somebody from the state of wisconsin who lost his entire egg laying flock of 200,000 chickens. Scott snyder is here to describe what he has gone through and his appreciation for the usda and also just the frustrations in terms of getting compensated in a timely manner. That that is part of the hearing. This is an important hearing totally appropriate for this committee. With committee. With that, i will turn it over to the Ranking Member. So far delaware has dodged the bullet and lets hope that remains the case. Not always dodged a bullet. So far we have been lucky. Better to be smart lucky than smart. I want to welcome the gentleman from delaware. I want to thank you and your staff. We look forward to hearing from each of you. You. As some of you in the room now the issue of Avian Influenza is important to our country to all of us. The peninsula which includes parts of delaware, maryland virginia, usually important. We raise more chickens in Sussex County delaware. The Third Largest county in america and we raise more chickens that in any county in america. Big part of the economy. About 80 percent as poultry. So it is hugely important. My hope important. My hope is we come away from this hearing more confident the strength and the importance of americas poultry industry and be better prepared to respond any further outbreaks should they occur. I think some of you know. The poultry know. The poultry industry is an integral part of our National Economy supporting over 1 million jobs nationwide and about 350 billion in 350 billion in total Economic Activity every year. Some of the industry, tied to production which are colleagues know well. Other parts of the industry focus on the kind of chickens we. Marvelous the word on the peninsula. We call the chickens we eat boilers. I boilers. I dont know what you call them where you come from. Some of you know the birthplace of the boiler industry actually comes from Sussex County delaware. A big county that we are proud of. The industry brought to delaware about 3 billion in Economic Activity last year. We export our chickens all over the world. The pacific, Transpacific Trade Partnership attempting to negotiate and probably have a chance to vote up or down pushed to sell chickens and the canada. Pose a 200 percent tariff. Their sacrifices have made a difference seven also like to recognize the Public Health officials for their hard work of the friends and academia and also h. R. Nodded time to rest on laurels or packed ourselves on the back in real need to remain on high alert especially true as they come in from migratory season produce a better opportunity to understand the threats to help us examine the steps people are taking to make sure new cases do not spring up. Also to identify a lessons learned. My response as well as breast best practices and especially interested to hear about measures we have taken to further contain the virus we need to Work Together to stop the spread of the Avian Influenza we must act with a sense of urgency with people all over the world to make sure turkeys are safe to eat it is this a matter. Well have experts around the country that dealt with these issues with the laser focus with continued hard work and coordination to solve the problem together. Please raise your right hand. Du promise to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth so help you god . Please be seated. Our first witness dr. Clifford is the chief veterinarian officer with the Plant Health Inspection service to provide leadership for Animal Health nationwide serving at usda since 1987 in a variety of positions. 80 for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the United States department of agriculture. Those founded u. S. Poultry farms have slowed considerably it has been a little over three weeks for iowa and over four weeks for the state of minnesota. Months ago to start the process of repopulate date with poultry Largest Health emergency in our countrys history while Encouraging Development the impact of this outbreak is still felt throughout our industry and training partners have restricted exports and then reemerging in the fall is significant. Our help hearts go out to the producers and employees i ensure u. S. Has the usda fullest attention to get them back on their feet. The leading efforts to assist producers as we look to the fall we look to the challenge so working around the clock on the response. With 180 million in payments to producers to control the spread of the disease to help them recover the usda has committed over 500 million an amount more than half to respond aggressively to the outbreak we can and will request additional funds if we need you to assess that epidemiology in conjunction with partners wild birds brought this to the United States in the 2014 we saw a point source introduction of the we cannot pinpoint a single practice that the epidemiological report to suggest by a security was a factor. For us to think more comprehensively. We have a shared interest to eradicate the disease to get it back on its feet. We met with state officials to ensure we have a highlevel to deal with their reemergence impossible spread in the fall and we encourage partners to review the existing Avian Influenza Response Plans to understand what we expected what actions we will need them to take should the disease strike. The with said depopulation plans for composting of birds. The experience in the midwest shows the biggest roadblock to receive them process dead birds. For our part were hiring more than 450 additional employees including technicians and medical officers also a vaccine strategy should we decide to address the of brick we will have those in place also with increase surveillance radiate to identify a the virus as quickly as possible to stamp it out. But the meeting in des moines iowa will help to insure our collective pile security is more stringent than we are as prepared as we can be for the fall. Thanks for their cooperation in this process their efforts are appreciated to help us plan for the fall. This concludes my testimony. At our next witness is currently the director for periodization and respiratory diseases with the cdc a position they have held since 2005 she is says insistent in the Public Health service then joined the cdc in 1980 as an Epidemic Intelligence Services officer. I am here to discuss the of impact from the influenza outbreak and the cdc actions to prepare for human infections it is a formidable adversary the virus in each case represents the potential for a bit timid. Strong collaboration with domestic and International Partnerships are critical to identify and monetary and respond to viruses of concern by the aba and influenza virus currently circulating cdc continues to assess the risk of these viruses for the general public as low however people with close or prolonged contact with infected birds are likely at greater risk of infection this includes poultry workers of those responding to the current outbreak. Although there are no reported cases to date cdc is taking action to insure we have the systems and tools in place to protect Public Health have guidance for testing and treatment and Worker Protection and dingy gray be posted guidance on testing for those who may be infected. And posted guidance for those exposed to those viruses and hhs amended the antiviral drug to be available for use in response to the current domestic outbreak. Riposted Worker Protection with the use of personal protective equipment and we recommend pp for those in direct contact going into buildings with a sick or dead bird species or litter from infected poultry. Recommended ppe is properly fitted safety goggles goggles, disposable gloves and boots and inappropriate respirator as well as disposable flew with resisted coveralls we have protocol in place in the event of a suspected case. State Health Departments are asked to investigate potential human cases and notify us within 24 hours of identifying a person under investigation. For monitoring the health of workers for signs and symptoms that occur within 10 days of their last exposure. Also with the Public Health labs using the kits that we develop and distribute to carry out genetic analysis which do not show any markers previously associated with increased severity. We have ongoing studies in animals including my san ferrets to evaluate the severity of these viruses. Seasonal flu vaccines dont protect against Avian Influenza so should a back seat become necessary. A collaboration between the cdc and the usda is critical during the current outbreak we have coordinated messaging and collaboration i of the analysis of the vaccine virus and the cdc expert with the usda incident command unit for this response. Want to emphasize the importance of collaboration and our Strong Partner network from threats with the strong of capacity at the federal, state, and local level our investment a survey listing communication and prepared this helps to protect future outbreaks with strong collaboration rePublic Health with the Health System and the Global Partnership to protect from Infectious Disease we were with said who to strengthen global capacity to perform lab testing to respond to the pandemic it more rapid detection bolster the nation is prepared this the Current Situation has enormous impact on farmers and agricultural communities. But fortunately it has not yet led to human infections this is just one challenge opposes to our economy we must continue the effort to prevent the consequence is that these pros here and around the world. Thank you. We have the director from the gao to leave the light wave Emergency Management National Preparedness with protection issues accompanied by the gao researchers from those issues. Thankyou other members of the committee we appreciate the opportunity to testify they give for the introduction and i handle national prepared this issues and to be safety for agriculture true answer any questions that i can have a bite to discuss some recommendations but with the bio defense work as it pertains to the outbreak of highly pathogenic a beautiful when said in the midwest will we have 95 rated their response to the current outbreak but we plan to use this year. We have reported on efforts to such outbreaks we also have reported that the highest level with the surveillance and defense efforts all the way down to specific efforts like food and agriculture. It is important to note it is a huge and complex effort with Cooperation Among different federal agencies government and private sector of our work has shown preparing for emergencies whether Natural Disaster or a tax requires careful planning to better know who is responsible for doing what and how we will coordinate and what resources we need. One key area is bio surveillance at the federal, state, and local level. That is a collection and analysis and interpretation of data for humans and animals in the Agriculture Sector is a challenge because it requires working across the ridges department of health and Human Services all have a separate mission and authority but have common goals to respond to the outbreaks it is so important because they dictate the actions taken in the event of a real emergency for example, we found there was no National Strategy or a focal point lead to develop a surveillance capabilities recommended the Homeland Security council developed a strategy to designate a full point they issued a strategy however that hedges not yet identified the investment needs and priorities which is an element we thought was critical to prioritize resources such as bio surveillance. Drilling down the findings are very similar the president issued Common Security directive number nine to better coordinate the responsibilities and efforts of food surveillance the homeless and Security Department is responsible for coordinating efforts across all federal agencies like hhs however well and has made some effort has not filled that role fully and in addition it has undeveloped a departmentalized strategy for all requirements we recommended that they do so and they said they intended to that has stalled the effort so far. So we reported to prepare to the outbreak to what we are facing now to make several recommendations in the recommended to identify that capabilities they would need with federal state entities to respond to the al grey can develop a Response Plan to identify responsibilities and resource needs the states develop their own Response Plan and conduct exercises to test these Response Plans no day implemented all of these now they are being tested during a real life outbreak with some challenges such as the disposal issue so we will monitor these efforts and look at this specific response later this year this concludes my prepared remarks. I think we will have senator curve for introduce the next witness. With Research Activities to participate in international of reach tuesday that efforts a poultry industry and why aid expert joined today by his wife of 35 years joined by the 11 children and 37 grandchildren and the audience. [laughter] part of that is true. [laughter] but when asked why a passage to help the family they said we eat a lot of chicken. [laughter] is a good thing we dont swear you with. [laughter] never let the truth get in the way of a good story. It is the great pleasure and an honor to be with you today. So the region that includes the Eastern Shore counties of maryland and virginia experienced the outbreak firsthand 2004 we were very very fortunate to have a successful outcome because of the various planning and rapid implementation of the regional Response Plan by a command system. Were very fortunate to have many outstanding experts in the Poultry Health field again within academia i want to emphasize within the Poultry Companies we are blessed to have those individuals work handinhand with us with members of the state in the federal government but only three farmers were positive in the incident which is remarkable given the high density of poultry and farms in the region the al, it those of cancer and other fatal diseases are time dependent and recognition is critical but of my cancer the situation is a bit more complex because that fibrous is highly contagious and it will multiplied to an enormous concentrations it poultry and spread through the air and through the movement of infected poultry , human carriers and contaminated Farm Equipment. All Farm Equipment procedures must stop immediately and they busted the vial security plan part of the emergency plan new york infected fox must be depopulated within 24 hours following the identification of the virus this is important to end animal suffering and to stop the shed of the virus into the environment that poses a significant threat in transmission there are several areas i went into more detail what we to boca for the future but i will briefly refer to them here to develop and implement by a security programs to help farmers to to respond and buy a security is the term that describes every day and the emergency deceases to prevent and control disease and probably the single greatest weapon that we have against Avian Influenza but unfortunately by a security is not consistently applied by all for farmers and Poultry Companies three also need to a few aspects of the current emergency Response Plan to respond more quickly and more rapidly to read incident and we can get into that later. Number three provide an Insurance Program for poultry farmers who contractors Poultry Companies to mention indemnifications paid it is very important by for farmers who were contract farmers they may or may not received the indemnification so there is a need for a new program. And there are discussions under way and we should look into this area seriously. Vaccination requires careful consideration and it was mentioned and earlier about developing vaccines and now i talk more specifically for poultry but there are limitations they have limited efficacy even under the best conditions we need more research to make them more effective than the vaccination is the slippery slope and we need to determine whether or not we will go down this road with the effect on trade and the fact that they are effective can push the of virus lastly there is a growing body of evidence that terrestrial wild birds may play a role and the transmission of Avian Influenza of reno waterfalls are the Main Reservoir where it resides on a longterm basis and we have heard earlier they are the primary source we have known this for years so why are these birds port important that they do support by rivers replication the cages carry the virus many times you will cfa insurer us bear in the poultry house of the toothache the senators for their kind invitation to be here today also Robert Bradley to reach out to me about this opportunity. Thank you. End it is unfortunate we have Scott Schneider here because you lost your flock block if youre losing money in the process the order of nature link forms unfortunately to of hundred thousand chicken farm was the first one hit that then ravaged others across the midwest were glad you could come here to provide testimony sperry chairman a Ranking Member and members of the committee thank you for inviting me to discuss the impact of highly pathogenic by and poultry producers i appreciate the opportunity to be a part of a comprehensive solution to recur for from the future spread of the diseases of the current outbreak for, a flock of 200,000 to more than produce a product it said my family and paid my bills and enabled me to help my employees pay their bills and we have always played by the rules to ensure pristine conditions for members and employees and i have done my part to keep the industry competitive but as producers know all too well strictly following regulations does not protect against a i my flock has been reduced to zero in face of the outbreak my shortterm prospects are grim middle and long term are challenging especially with future threats although containing a vial security efforts are admirable survival of my family farm depends upon meaningful protection against future outbreaks it will cost a minimum of 500,000 in revenue before the year is over that is a sizable blow for any operational most imaginable for a small producer such as myself my farm will be completely out of production for least four months to generate no new revenue no calling for a gradual depopulation i will build a back toward the pre infection best case i and facing an eight months with zero or heavily reduced revenue and surviving with life savings. In addition to the direct loss of revenue refunding payments for some of the cost for containment efforts until the usda is able to reimburse me of course, my farm is one of the many operations devastated today more than 48 million birds have been affected in 20 different states ai has killed more birds than any other at this point the current outbreak has set in the tory back by more than a decade prior to the current outbreak there ruth 300,000,008 laying hens over the past six months about 35 million have been lost mhz american aid supplies driving up prices as indicated by a 4. 1 reduction for 2015 it has led to the importation of shell eggs from europe an extreme situation that seldom is seated never industry consumers are also hurt to seasickness increases with dry and liquid aids it is of 70 for the prices in u. S. Consumers could pay 8 billion more to buy a switches an increase of 75 from last year the importance of the response efforts cannot be overstated no word can my gratitude of the partners thus far their resources baja are integral but the teams that i have worked with are highly professional and courteous than they have the best intentions with a true desire to help and i appreciate that very much. Despite progress the sheer bureaucracy doing business with the government that do not act with government bodies every day i do not have administrative staff to keep up with the workplace and san compliance agreements and a rotating staff inherited a recovery process. It is frustrating and training. But we must push on to work within the framework established for the benefit of those like me in the landscape a Response Plan of true eradication must be comprehensive. Via security are indispensable parts of the plan but not enough. We need to stop the aim the fact the usda is considering the use of a vaccine it is encouraging. For producers like we it is difficult to imagine investing time and money to repopulate the flock without the availability of the effective vaccine. This is made even more true in the face of bird migration which prince to reintroduce of. Over the country without the targeted safe vaccine the path forward is far from clear. I am proud to be an american aid producer and an industry to see thousands of jobs if there is one message that the threat of ai can take that away in one fell swoop they give for your time and the opportunity to talk with you today. Thank you for your testimony. Sorry for your loss. But you share my perspective with the federal work force do dedicate that is the good thing of frustrated by the problems you encounter what they try to follow. You are a contract producer . You run the operation. When we met yesterday you described the indemnification rasas the actual chicken and owners it took for six weeks . But there is no Business Interruption you cannot buy this of the open market to have this indemnification . There is the problem through operational losses as well as trying to recover to read make your farm. Can you describe coming to have spent and a juror frustration . This situation i run into is that will be fronting close to 150,000 with the population and clean up before i can repopulate for good is difficult to come up with that type of cash when it comes to the format usda will require to identify which are recoverable for the end every day i become more concerned some of those may be forgotten or not covered than that is more money on top of what i am losing. So your operation comedy venues start generating revenue anytime soon or nothing . When mr. To repopulate it is incremental and then we will add the flocks about 35,000 every month. You buy those as a delaying chickens right off the bat . Correct. You will start generating revenue. Direct. Dr. Clifford with the Insurance Market onsite or research to the adobe gore to. To me this is a Pretty Simple claim to adjudicate the chickens. It is federal law they have to be destroyed in the indemnification that we verify it is ai and chickens are destroyed i know why the government coated check the odors of the chickens why does that take between four and six weeks . With regard to indemnification we can do that within one week or less but what we require is a flock plan to be signed with co pay indemnity and tell then it is the strategy and plan for that location specific to that location with regards to buy a security to ensure we do as much as they can to prevent real infection if there is no oh flock plan and they are reinfected we will do not we will not pay that a second time so there are things that we can do together to make that a lot quicker process my heart goes out to scott some of these are complex so one thing we do is decide one person to that facility to help them get through these. Tel long did it take usda to inspect the flock . Usda needs to wait until the presumptive positive is confirmed by the laboratory and i was before they can do anything. So maybe it was sought thursday and saturday evening it was confirmed by the National Laboratory in ames, iowa dead on that monday we had people. How was the flock destroyed . Cusack chickens dying. They die quickly. And then they destroyed the clock the following thursday or friday. You said that process should be 24 hours that is the big gap there is a fair amount of continuous improvement. Their goal of 48 hours. And that is an important one is the process the presumptive positive made by a local or Regional Laboratory is that mouthful the highly regarded member system can based out of a messiah lot. The confirmation must come from the National Laboratory in ames before it is a done deal. So if they restructure the process sometimes they have to incubate if you could design a structure what is the best case with their current structure to redesign . Once they are submitted with the molecular test to be completed within hours and then to be said to this central lab for testing at the local it is presumptive but to be sent by overnight delivery may be another 24 hours before they could take action in terms of initiating flock population. So how often do you have that initial resolve . Are there other instances . Could we rely on the initial results like a flock of chickens . These are basically laboratories that many times accredited laboratories with high quality staff proclaimed giving you a little more background for those who run the molecular test have a the proficiency panels from usda talk about highly qualified laboratories. So the point is we could improve the model to destroy that flock of chickens within your guidelines over 70s the likelihood that they will not be contained. There is a real top priority i have plenty of their questions but i will turn it over. Colleagues are coming and going we serve on four or five committees and there are other hearings going on as well. Senator tester has asked for my time and i will yield to him. I appreciate that. Dr. Clifford is there a vaccine . And how costeffective is said . If i may, there is not know well matched back Seat Available so we are working on them for the fall but usually with the cost of the vaccine. So were still researching . There is work and going that we will have those by the fall. They give for raising cage three chickens i am also involved of agriculture of a different kind but i want to figure out where were going with grains read by insurance is is part of the Disaster Program for with the usda . That is important to earn no. We by and share with is heavily subsidized. So what can you do to be sure will not come back . Directory have to follow the protocols to clean and depopulate and disinfect. Are there other elements . Then you are required that 21 day rest period that you do sampling that they do testing. You are in the middle of the process . And you destroy the chickens or usda . It is reimbursable expense. But you actually do the job . It depends if there is the contract or we can as the farm. We assisted the contract it company. To talk about foot and mouth disease how serious is that . It is very serious. But we are free of foot and mouth. Case of a true open up brazil and uruguay and argentina they are not flipped and mouth free countries. Do you talk before you open trade with other countries that have a highly contagious disease . Did you talk to his office . No. Okay. Why would i talk to his office about disease mitigation . Theyre not better in areas we do risk assessment. That is fine. My brother is a veterinarian so dont take this person of. But the fact is that why did reopen trade with countries that have fled to and mouth disease . Because of vaccination they have not had an active outbreak for years. Did regions. All of them in the entire country there has not been a verified case of foot and mouth disease in south america over two years period why is your grey not considered certified . Because they still vaccinate. You can ship boneless beef safely if you vaccinates and you are free and we have been doing that for years we didnt from argentina years before they had the additional case. Go the other direction. So if we had foot and mouth that would not hurt the export business . Of course, a wide. Weve base trayvon Risk Mitigation we dont vaccinate for foot and mouth disease nor will we unless we get it. But they faxon they routinely to make sure they dont have it. What do these days north america will probably be the first continent free of foot and mouth disease over the next 54 ted years. My concern is that it stays that way but i am thinking you leave will be in better shape. But that is not correct. I said boldest beef. From areas of the world that have fled and mouth. Here is my concern. You are the doctor. I just raised them but what happens if we get that in this country . It would have the effects of the experts exports you believe transferring that is zero . I said it is extremely low risk. 10 . A lot lower than that. Less than 1 . As close to zero as you can without saying zeros. Perfect. Thank you very rich. Thank you chairman johnson and their Ranking Member to the Witnesses Today and i as we met in the air for Cultural Committee today discuss the issues we do want to recognize someone today a good to join you today. Iowa was hit extremely hard. We have a little map period and you cannot see iowa to well because of the of the millions and millions of birds effective in destroyed twothirds were from iowa. Sold poultry and turkey have been affected quite heavily is a big concern for a number of months and the Economic Impact to i a weld will be about 1 billion. Very significant. So i sympathize with you as a number of a producers have gone through the exact savings. It is not only devastating for the producers but their employees and the communities that are supported by these producers thank you for being here today. Dr. Clifford i would like to visit about the vaccination and process. Is the usda working on that process . If you could explain where we are with that. Groups will support that and some will not relent to insure we are working with trade partners as well that would be helpful. What were doing is developing a vaccine bank to go out to Ask Companies to bid indri have several better in process to develop vaccines and we believe we will have of vaccine Bank Available this fall may be late fall depending on the companys ability to get that manufactured. A tool in the toolbox that we really need to have if we decided is the right thing to do any particular situation so working on the protocol to our training partners to encourage them with these conditions to not shut off trade in and if we are successful that will help us to utilize the tool because right now if we use that they will shut us off potentially we will lose threeyear 4 billion additionally in trade. Not a partial shot off but the entire country. That is why we have the turkeys production you want to use those and you want to use those layers or the cage free birds parker you have the groups that dont want to use it because of the impacts of retry to balance all of this getting our training partners to support the use of a limited way where it makes sense a an example would be the turkey flocked in minnesota that has a close proximity to a lot of lake said potential waterfall. I appreciate that. And doctor, you had mentioned therein is the Indemnity Fund but some are not seeing the funds flowing in their direction and so do you know, of a mechanism we could follow those dollars . We want to make sure if the growers are entitled to a portion of the indemnity payment that they are receiving that. Is there a mechanism to ring gauge for followup . A little bit out of my area but working with the latest local trade association, speaking with the director i think he would be of better resource but for contract growers there are many contract growers in this country where they provided that he than ventilation and the facilities to grow them but the birds themselves belonged to a paltry company and then the indemnity goes to the company some will then share the fun to with the contract growers so it is a contract grower issue in the manchin and the interest and current proceedings thinking about moving forward with the Insurance Program that they could purchase where the fund would go directly to them rather than the company. You break up an excellent question and i am not sure i am the best to redress that. Thank you for raising the issue. And mr. Currie works with Emergency Management perhaps as we discussed the idea was it did have plans in place. Have a number of places but even the best laid plans, we had an uprising that said how do we know our birds are not hit by the virus . It was the great concern with the people of iowa that we are not affecting additional forms out there. Even the best laid plans may not go as intended the thank you for being here today. Senator peters . Thank you for your testimony this is a an issue that is somewhat frightening to head the poultry industry so quickly as so many die to have a massive impact on a production and with other producer as well and how the by threats are so a significant and michigan became the trustee for state to confirm a case recently i believe some peace is where it showed up bin where it started. But that is my question how closely are you working with fish and Wildlife Service or in the wild bird to impacting the farming sector do work with them . What are you doing . We do. We work directly with the Wildlife Services division leads the effort to work directly with the state department of National Resources and fish and wildlife and other entities regarding wild bird surveillance we have been doing battle longtime. We began doing more jeeringly the occurrence of years ago in a shell when it was a human health issue and we increased surveillance. That became less of a concern we did a lot of testing and monitoring. Then we reduce the level of monitoring because of a the threat so we have increased that and we have plans out there available that includes fish and wildlife and Wildlife Services to go across all four flyways to take examples up north in the Bering Strait area to see what is happening right now today