Transcripts For CSPAN2 Joint House Hearing On Biological Security 20240712

Covid19 and other biological threats facing the u. S. Good morning. Welcome to the hearing [inaudible] emerging threats and capabilities. In a moment in accordance with house rules and relations the host will mute all participants other than german [inaudible] and all participants are asked to keep themselves muted when not actively engaging in the discussion which should help limit echoes and other asruptions. When the yield back i do not renumber to retweet themselves others will doo so to limitit efforts and background audio background audio. Members and witnesses are responsible for unwitting himself anytime they wish to w e heard. It may take a few seconds for your microphone to be t unmated. If you are on the computer you can view the timer by reaching your personal view in the upper right corner of your screen for the active speaker and you can also pin the timer by right clicking or hovering your cursor over the timer and pressing that contact icon. With that, we are ready to begin. Chairman, please come down from five so that the system displays our video and then please pause for five additional while the recordings begin and then start the preceding. Five, four, three, two, one. This joint subcommittee hearing with the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on asia, the specific and non than House Armed Services committee on intelligence and emerging threats and capabilities will oume to order food without objection the chair isla authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any point and all members will have five days to cement statements, extraneous materials and questions for the record. H,bject to link limitation in the rules to insert something into the record haversack emain either subcommittee first. As a reminder to members please keep your video function on at all times even when you are not recognized by the chair print members are responsible for muting and on meeting themselves please member to mute yourself after we finish speaking print consistent with h raz 965 and the accompanying regulations staff will only mute members and witnesses at their appropriate they are not under recognition to eliminate background noise. We have a quorum and will now reckon eyes myself for opening remarks and i will then be followed by the acting Ranking Member mr. Perry and chairmanan and then Ranking Member stuff on it. I will then reckon eyes members in order of seniority alternating between democrats and republicans in Foreign Affairs and Armed Services members. Before we get started and before i my Opening Statement i think it would be remiss for us not to mention the president and the first lady and note they are in our thoughts and prayers and hope for a speedy recovery. And also the tens of thousands of americans for the test positive every day for this virus. They are in our thoughts and does underscore that this is a virus and this is a virus that did it doesnt know if your democrat or republican or what god we worship or our country of origin but its a virus. It does underscore the importance of this topic that we are talking about today that it does underscore the naturally occurring events and what bad actors may see as they see about like this that really has brought the entire world to its knees and certainly has wreaked economic habit internationally. I want to thank the witnesses for being here today and the department of defense and the state department again underscores the importance and my focus in those subcommittee chairman and under the guise of nonproliferations what were seeing right now iswe the real vulnerability to biologic threats and just to put that into context we not had an Aircraft Carrier brought to his knee by kinetic or anything like that but an Aircraft Carrier was brought to port because of the virus and that really does underscore what i worry about and when i think about this i think about it a couple different ways and its difficult to obtain Nuclear Technology but we dedicate hundreds of personnel and International Organizations like the iaea and others to reduce the Nuclear Threat and that is totally appropriate. We want to make sure Nuclear Technology and weaponry doesnt end up in the hands of bad actors and if i put my doctor and scientist hat on the availability of technologies to alter viruses into genetic editing and the capabilities are rapidly increasing and that is something that keeps me awake at night. Again, we know there are bad actors out there and certainly post 911 manyha of us saw anthrx and other threats we worry about smallpox and so forth and that is something that i think in a bipartisan way Congress Working with the administration should think about what are the things that we have to do to move ahead and i look forward to the witness testimony and there are several areas that i think aboue some and will be curious about from the witnesses. As we defeat covid19 we spent the billions of dollars and build the infrastructure to defeat this virus may also think we should strategically be thinking about how we use those resources to also prepare us for bio surveillance and to be ready for the next weather naturally occurring virus or biologic threat but also think about how we have those dual use capabilities as we build the infrastructure to do bio surveillance for manmade threats. As we move forward we dont where we got the biological, the bwc but i think we need stronger multilateral organizations with likeminded allies that we can work with and i would be curious how the dod and state or thing about those multilateral institutions and then lastly when i think about, you know, the ethics of gene editing where that is going in the technology we really havent created the standards and norms that this is appropriate for advancing science but is dangerous and probably ought not to be playing around with jeans in this particular way in creating those standards and norms and what that would look like and again thats appropriate place for the Scientific Community congress and working with the administration and standards in place and the International Community so again, our thoughts and prayers are with the president and first lady and those thousands of americans and i would be remiss if i did not if my doctor had on for a second as we entered the fall and winter thats do what we can to keep everyone safe. Lets wear face coverings and lets continue to practice physical distancing and continue to wash our hands and practice good hygiene and lets avoid large indoor gatherings that we have seen where we do active super spreading events and the most important thing that we can do right now is as we enter the fall is go out there and get your flu shot. Please, get your flu shot. With that let me recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes. Thank you, chairman. Thank you to our distinguished channel for offering your counsel today. The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the potential for increased bio security threats and what can happen when irresponsible actors disregard International Agreements for the sake of self prevention. The strongen International Bio security regime only works when its constituent members agree to make it work. We need to assess the shortcomings of u. S. Multilateral engagements and determine where improvements need to be made and the 2005 International Health regulations went into force in 2007 and called on all nations to be compliant by 2012 but however by 2012 only about 2 of all countries were compliant and even today most countries have still not complied with the 2005 regulation. ThiS Administration has taken the significant amount of criticism for questioning that u. S. Engagement into institutions like the World Health Organization. Let me be clear, the World Health Organizations complicity in spreading the coronavirus should not be rewarded with the United States indifference to its failures. The who strong affiliation with the Global Health security agenda also raises significant questions about gh as a longterm efficacy. There is an obvious issue of a lack of enforcement in the International Community in Different Levels of investment and bio security lends itself to a permanent condition of moral hazard where select communities like the United States are compensating for the lack of investment from other states. Despite our best efforts to stymie the threat of bio threat there is only so much we can do alone. Keep programs like the state Department Bio security Engagement Program cannot use funds in countries like china, cuba, iran, north korea, sudan or syria and despite the fact that several of these countries have experimented with biological weapons and are likely candidates for future offenses and countries like north korea have a clearly offensive biological weapons Weapon Program with no end in sight. How do we confront the fact that we have an unreliable International Biological weapons control regime and most are more important, the measuring success against the spread of bio threats and what exactly does success look like when china dominates several key institutions. As it stands china has provided a gift to nonstate actors that wishes harm and they have shown us in the world the impact of potential bio weapon can have on the American Economy as well as our society. Threats to our way of life have multiplied exponentially as a result of the coronavirus in this timely hearing will be confronting that uncomfortable truth. I am also grateful to have our witnesses before us today as they speak more about Synthetic Biology and gene manipulation. We need to find out more about the National Security implications that Synthetic Biology can give to the United States in spite of the fact that several countries are working with extremely hazardous pathogens or correction, subpart laboratory settings. With all that being said i do also want my prayers and best wishes to the first family to hope hicks and anyone affected by the virus, whether they have contracted it or whether it iste occurred in the family members loved ones are communities and we are all dealing with it one way or the other. I certainly think the chairman for the time and i yield the balance. Thank you, mr. Perry. Let me know recognize the chairman of the intelligence capability, chairman. Thank you. I want to begin by also acknowledging and saying that the first lady in the first family my thoughts and prayers and our thoughts and prayers and the people around the president S Administration may also be experiencing the effects of the virus and we pray they all have a quick and old recovery. Mr. Chairman, i want to thank our colleaguesgu House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on asia specific pacific and nonproliferation, particularly you chairman and Ranking Member and i know mr. Perry and i want to thank you all for hosting this timely during hearing on bio security and i recognize Ranking Member as well as my colleagues on the subcommittee intelligence and capability. This is a topic which as we have seen over late is vital to our Nation Security and im pleased that we are holding this very important during hearing. Emerging biological such as gene sequencing and gene editing and the Synthetic Biology are rapidly changing the scope and scale of biological threats and could we do to increase with biological weapons and adding to the challenge biological threats are easier to create than other weapons of mass destruction used in concert Cyber Weapons enable a roadmap to inflict major damage on the military power. Just last month the republic of georges House Ministry suffered a cyber attack in the database that stored medical documents and national covid19 pandemic and Management Information and we know Russian Hackers have targeted organizations involved in covid19 research and vaccine development, including those in the u. S. , uk and canada. These attacks and the current Global Pandemic on disk lord the input of collective Scientific Research preparedness and security across the interagency and with our allies and the national egg and Economic Security in a time when the United States struggling to respond to the spread of a novel highly infectious pathogen we must ensure the interagency is working together to respond to the current pandemic in advance a collective effort by the security across the range of threats. The Defense Reduction Agency through its execution of the department of defense Threat Reduction biological Threat Reduction program and its technical reach back analysis has been receiving report requests for preparedness and detection including providing biosafety, bio security and bio surveillance in aid protections and diagnose reporting related to the covid19 outbreak. Many good examples of the bgi rp local professionals in countries like [inaudible] and jordan and thailand that diagnose and confirm the first cases of covid19 in the country and yet, in the face of two known and emerging biological threats and the impact it could have on a National Security and as a pandemic that could arguably present single biggest threat to our country with starting to spread across the globe and the budget request was written to the hill in february with a 36 cutt to cooperative that reduction funding from last year as an active level and at a time when the United States struggling to respond to the threat of a highly virus and we are alarmed by the permit significant reduction in budget request and mission of detecting and confronting biological threats to the United States. Thankfully the house has acted National Defense Organization Act added back 135 million to the ctr program and 89 million of that with additional funding with biological Engagement Program. Additionally the farm in a defense chemical and biological Defense Program was primed to be to partner in the fight against covid19 and medical Program Funds and manages efforts to develop medical measures vaccines, therapeutics and pre treatments with physical programs manages efforts to develop surveillance and detection and diagnostics, personal protective equipment and decontamination systems. To prepare against potential ga bdp buildats see expertise capabilities to address novel pathogens making it an ideal programge to deal wh the emergence of Novel Coronavirus but we are interested in hearing today whether the program was quickly andd efficiently directed to and despite the national to the covid19 pandemic. These are challenging times and we need to double down on these programs and we need to make sure that we are, in fact, the next biological or chemical event that could effect the country and make sure we have all the tools and resources we need in place to respond effectively to our country and perhaps the world. We look forward to a more about the many efforts of both departments today and what we can do to help ensure your organizations having the resources needed to prepare for the emerging threats today and tomorrow and how we can ensure the departments are ready to act swiftly and decisively as the next crisis. I join in the hopes and thanking all of you and thank our witnesses for joining as today and i yield back. Thank you. Now let me recognize the member of the intelligence and emerging threats subcommittee of the Armed Services committee, Ranking Member stefanik. Thank you, chairman. I also want to cannot echo my colleagues in behalf of the 21st Congressional District of new york our thoughts and prayers are with the first family, all the murky people event impacted by the covid virus. I would like to express my appreciation to you, chairman and Ranking Member as well as my colleague mr. Perry for hosting this hearing and thank you for the members of the suit to subcommittees bid thank you for the witness for the farm and a defense for being here today. The issue of buyer security is one of most National Importance for it as a state while the department of defense faces urgent challenges daily we can never afford to lose sight of the critical Important Mission of countering weapons of mass destruction and in particular biological threats. The unpredictable nature of these threats makes that we require to adapt our approach and reiterate our response but we must learn from the Current Crisis and adjust our strategy to more effectively and proactively detect and respond to the next event. This will surely not be the last biological crisis this nation and the news faces. Im particularly interested in how your organization and the federal government at large can more effectively use new data sets and Artificial Intelligence to truly modernize our bio surveillance efforts. We must mature our capacity to anticipate and monitor when and where a biological event may occur and model how a pathogen, either naturally occurring or manmade, is likely to spread. Its obviously must be a global effort in the partnership that permits a defense and department of state have developed will be critical Early Warning begins to inform our collective domestic response. Programs like the cooperative. Reduction specifically the biological Threat Reduction program are essential to maintaining our global footprints in the building of the relationship to protect our Forward Deployed Service Members and national interests. The current cova crisis has served as an affirmation that biological threats require a whole of government response, not just the due departmentwi represented here today but inclusive of health and Human Services only in security in our state and local officials. The strength of the partnership between your organization and the quality of these relationships you developed with foreign partners and domestic agencies will underpin the effectiveness of our future bio security effort and thank you again to our witnesses and i yield back to the chair. Thank you, Ranking Member stefanik. Before i introduce the witnesses i ask unanimous consent that non Committee Members, if any, be allowed to participate in todays hearing after all Committee Members have had an opportunity to ask questions but is there an objection . Without objection non Committee Members will be recognized at the appropriate time. Let me now go ahead into juice our witnesses paid first as Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for countering weapons of mass destruction about mr. David laughter. He oversees all cw md policy issues at the department and this includes preventing the proliferation of wmd related materials and defense cooperative Risk Reduction threats and Chemical Biological radiological and nuclear defense. Next we will hear from the director of defense threat Reduction Agency mr. Oxford. He leads dtr eight mission to safeguard the u. S. And its allies from weapons of mass destruction. It spearheads the defense Department Biological Threat Reduction program. From the state department we will first hear from acting assistant secretary and the bureau of oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, mr. Jonathan moore paid finally, we will hear from the Deputy Assistant secretary for Nonproliferation Program at the interNational Security and nonproliferation, mr. Philip. He currently oversees a range of state farm and Nonproliferation Programs including threat t reduction and export control programs with work to reduce and i will not recognize each witness for five minutes and without objection youre prepared written statements will be made part of the record and i will first call on mr. Lassiter for his first. Good morning, chairman. Acting Ranking Member perry. I too want to extend my thoughts and prayers to the president and first lady. Your microphone is it on . Spirit yes, sir. Its on. Can you hear me better now . I want to also extend my thoughts and prayers to the president and first lady and all those impacted by covid19. Thank you for the opportunity to present on behalf of the varmint of defense and highlight some of the critical work were doing to counter biological threats. I also want to acknowledge dods sincere appreciation for the continued support that congressa lends or Threat Reduction. As Deputy Assistant secretary defense for countering weapons of mass destruction i had the privilege to work alongside my colleagues here today. Our Strong Partnership enables the broad u. S. Government effort to reduce threats, including biological threats worldwide. Duties bio Threat Mission aligns with the objectives and National Security and Defense Strategies as well as secretary espers priorities, namely to increase the legality of the u. S. Military, build alliances and improve dod deficiency deficiency. We also draw guidance from strategies such as the bio discerns strategy in Global Health security strategy. Dods focus on protecting the health and readiness of u. S. Forces, countering the destabilizing effects of outbreaks on u. S. Interests and ensuring dod remains focused on priority defensive objectives to meet Emergency Needs during an outbreak makes us a complementary tool in the u. S. Threat reductionpl arsenal. We work daily to ensure dod position to address the full range of wmd threats to include the constantly changing biological Threat Landscape. The shifting dynamic includes naturally occurring outbreaks and accidental or deliberate lease of biological agents. Threats posed by state and nonstate actors in international and the messick instances and concerns for existing emergency technologies and covid19s global reach and destabilizing influence has further altered the Threat Landscape potentially inspiring the various actors to replicate covids impact through deliberate use of biological agent. My team develop strategic guidance for cw md activities, standing to prevent, detect and respond continuum and mitigate the impacts of such thoughts regardless of origin. We work closely with other dod stakeholders and coordinate through groups such as our unity of effort council and the covid taxid force. Dod also works with key interagency and International Partners as we develop priorities for countering biological threats. These partnerships allow us to leverage each others capabilities and lessen the security burden on dod. Cooling resources and working towards common objectives is vital to ensure the greatest Threat Reduction impacts are achieved. Since 2004 cdrs biological Threat Reduction program has provided equipment and training to over 30 countries to improve the viability to detect, diagnose and report biological entities. In a current environment we know that partner nations have leverage previously provided ctr edcapabilities to bolster their abilities to detect and diagnose covid19. To close over to thank the subcommittees again and i look forward to your questions. Thank you, mr. Lassiter. I will not recognize mr. Oxford for his Opening Statement. Chairman, Ranking Member, im mr. Perrys standing in this morning for distinct members of the subcommittee thank you for pur continued support to dg ra and im proud to appear to you today with my colleagues from both dod as well as the state department to update you on our collective efforts to protect the u. S. National interests in a rapidly evolving global sized threat environment. It is not honored to represent the workforce in this commitment to our mission and strong relationships with our partners here today makes our organization successful. Today we find ourselves in unprecedented times as we respond to the Global Pandemic. N as we reflect on the loss of over 200,000 of our fellow citizens we must think about the future Threat Landscape or gene entity and dna sequencing and Synthetic Biology for adversaries the opportunity to capitalize on the observed Lessons Learned from our response. And they potentially could launch future attacks with little warning or retribution. As we capture our Lessons Learned from covid19 event we have to accept the fact that others will also be learning and that the very nature of the biological Threat Landscape has changed forever. One of the lessons we learned over the course of the last six months is that partner nations have benefited greatly by the training and equipping they received through the dod, program specifically btr b. Facilitates the reporting by diseases caused by dangerous patterns whether deliberately released or naturally occurring including diseases such as covid19. Btr p works with over 30 foreign partners to reduce biological threats by enhancing their bio security, biosafety and bio surveillance and the ongoing covid pandemic is demonstrated as a Global Community that Health Security is a critical part of National Security. Countries need an effective bio Surveillance System to detect, diagnose and report outbreaks of dangerous pathogens. U. S. Relies on file Surveillance Systems to provide Early Warning of outbreak before it reaches the homeland. Recent example of the btr p success in responding to t the pandemic in partnership with usaid, btr p efforts enable local officials in thailand to detect the first case of a Novel Coronavirus outside of china on 13 january 2020 only days after its initial discovery in wuhan, china paid within a month of the request from the u. S. A master fischer and morocco btr be transferred a supply of ppe to the National Institute of health and hygiene and morocco in the agreement went directly to protect moroccos frontliney healthcare workers in the fight against covid. Ambassador fischer stated the Equipment Transfer as part of over 70 years of close cooperation between dpr e and the government of morocco. This partnerships focus is on saving lives and mitigating threats to ensure the National Security of both countries. Our report to date morocco supported 126,000 cases with 2200 deaths. Georgia btr pete trained scientists in the richard liver center divided a testing capability for covid and this enable georgia to implement austing to control outbreak for the center was lauded by the jordan governments as being interval in controlling the covid outbreak. Georgia reported 7100 cases with only 46 deaths. Btr p continuesad to receive orn partner requests for support related to covid and as of september 18 btr p has fulfilled over 40 requests for making the countries plus the African Union to these controls. In summary by building a partner nation capacity and capabilities has built the sense of National Pride and increases their willingness to work with the u. S. And other ways. They provide partners with better self sustaining solutions in the u. S. Demonstrates that we are the partner of choice rather than our strategic competitors. These Partnerships Act as force multipliers in the competition for influence and reinforced the strategic messaging the u. S. And the nation interest in mind. Thank you for your time and i look forward to your questions. And q. I will not recognize or more for his Opening Statement. Good morning, chairman. Ranking members to phonic and other esteemed members of the house. It is honored to be here with you today together with my distinguished collies from the state farm and the deferment of defense as well as dp ra and i look forward to discussing how our bureau, the bureau of oceans environment International Environmental and Scientific Affairs plays a role in this process and our normal portfolio ranges from the depths of the ocean to the vastness of space and we also hosted spirit mr. Moore, could you have the microphone closer. We also host the International Host and bio defense and that is the capacity in which i am here today. I will focus my remarks on our efforts to prevent the detect response to outbreaks. Covid19 has an impact on the impact one the first lady and million americans highlights the importance of u. S. Leadership to advance Global Health security and pandemic preparedness. Th this is crucial to stopping outbreaks at their source in protecting u. S. Health and safety and promoting Economic Prosperity and defending National Security interests. Our team at oas is working through and on covid19 and together with interagency partners in advancing u. S. Government priorities through diplomacy. Beyond covid19 oes combats and other range of Public Health threats including ebola, influenza, dengue, polio and microbial resistance. The covid19 pandemic is a Global Challenge of the farm in a state remains committed to working closely with our partners as part of a collective Global Response. We are using all our means to slow and stop the pandemic and u. S. Diplomacy has two primary areas of effort, promoting transparent information sharing and surveillance and encouraging a multisectoral approach to Global Security capacity including other nations, nongovernmental organizations, International Organizations and the private sector. We deeply appreciate Congress Appropriation of over 1. 6 billion u. S. Dollars and covid19 supplemental funding to the state department and the u. S. Agency for National Development and we have used these funds to provide a broad range of assistants specifically aimed helping governments, International Organizations and nongovernmental organizations fight the pandemic. Assistance is strengthening lives, improving the quality and cleanliness of facilities and laboratory disease response and capacity and more than 120 countries as long as humanitarian economic support to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. Additionally the United States has invested more than 10 million to bring safe and effective vaccines to the Global Market faster. Oes helps messaging [inaudible] as the first to know about the coronavirus the chinese, and his party has a special responsibility to inform the rest of the world about this threat and instead they withheld information and censored medical professionals scientific and journalists and the ccp has since used the pandemic to further its geopolitical agenda by highlighting its donations of mask and other supplies to restate the narrative and distract from its role in this aisis. Both russia and the ccp has made grandiose irresponsible claims about the creation of the vaccines raising serious questions about quality and advocacy that we are addressing through active public diplomacy. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is familiar as it is true if we prioritize how security investments and we can contain outbreaks before they become pandemics and mitigate impacts. Oes plays a key role in pandemic prevention including through support for the Global Health security agenda in ghs eight which is still a work in progress is a partnership of nearly 70 nations and International Organizations and nongovernmental stakeholders that uses a whole of government multisectoral approach to address outbreaks. Oes annually coordinates u. S. Expert implementation agencies to prevent carefully targeted programming and priority countries to make global has agreed improvements along specific metrics. Its approach to combating outbreaks is affected in the United States 2017 National Security strategy, 2018 National Bio Defense strategy and a 2019 Global Health security strategy. Leadership has been fully engaged in coordinating and or agencies helping Partner Companies protect and respond to a range of Infectious Disease threats at the worst. These are just a few examples of cs wide range of engagement on Infectious Disease risks which are crucial to counter biological threats and we greatly appreciate your interest and look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. Let me not recognize the mr. [inaudible] for his Opening Statements. Good morning. We appreciate the leadership youve shown on these important issues and thank you for inviting me here today to share rthow the department of state bureau of interNational Security and nonproliferation or isn works to address some of the most urgent and challenging c biological threats to u. S. H National Security. Im honored to appear before you alongside my colleague from the oceans and the International Environmental and Scientific Affairs bureau and bite my colleagues for the garment of defense. Through diplomatic efforts and foreign assistance programs the interNational Security and Nonproliferation Bureau works to prevent rogue states, other malign actors from using weapons of mass destruction. InterNational Security and Nonproliferation Bureau has been working hard for nearly 20 years to addressss challenges by posed by the full spectrum of those threats whether deliberately spread, acted soundly released or naturally occurring. The covid19 pandemic is a grim reminder of how much damage a single pathogen can cause the u. S. National and internationalt security through diplomacy are interNational Security and Nonproliferation Bureau strengthens multilateral framework including the biological Weapons Convention in the australia group. I know the chairman made remarks on this very issue. This year as the president of the g7 we are leading the International Community in oning significant progress biological issues, including issuing g7 statements on the international covid19 pandemic and response. Similarly, in the Global Partnership we have led efforts to launch a dedicated bio security Capacity Building initiative. For decades isn has invested significant resources in the combating the full range of wmd and related Delivery System threats, including over four and 50 million over the past 15 years toward mitigating biological threats. We have a long and rich history of bio security capacityor building where we have trained thousands of foreign partners on bio security in over 50 countries. These w threat was investments long visited the investment of the pandemic and they are contributing to swelling the spread. We recognize early on the threat to the pandemic posed to our interNational Security and we began to quickly incorporate covid19 topics in our training leveraging remote and Distance Learning platforms to deliver critically needed help in a timely manner. F programming an additional 18 million via our non liberation find towards controlling this pandemic and preventing future biological events as well as adding additional experts to our efforts and explaining the representative noted moments ago that there are limitations to our authority and i will note that we did propose the Broader Authority to prevent these limita tolo coordinate their mutually reinforcing efforts. And looking to the future we are also working hard to keep pace with the rapidly evolving changes in biotechnology and i know several of the members indicated a concern about this very issue. Let me assure you the full range of u. S. National security departments and agencies are focusing on and analyzing these efforts. Our interNational Security and Nonproliferation Bureaus using our diplomatic and Capacity Building tools to prevent the application of dualuse technologies to do harm such as the development of biological weapons. For w example chairman bera notd the importance of standards and norms to address this issue and we are indeed working in this area and have had multilateral dialogues on this very issue. In conclusion we are very proud of the work we do to combat Infectious Disease threats using our diplomatic and foreign assistance tools in support of u. S. National security. We deeply appreciate the support of the congress to provide us with the necessary resources to carry out our Threat Reduction mission and we recognize that our work is far from over. Thank you chairman bera chairman langevin and members of the committee. I look forward to your questions. Thank you for your testimony mr. Doliff. I will not recognize members and pursuant to house rule time you lose for the purposes of the witnesses. Because of a hybrid format of this hearing i will recognize members by committee seniority alternating between democrats and republicans. If you miss your turn please let our staff know when we will circle back to you. If you secret mission you must then meet your microphone. Ill start by recognizing myself for five minutes. Mr. Oxford and mr. Doliff talked about advances in technology and is a doctor i look over at what theyve been able to continue with biologics, conditions and cancers that we would have to treat palatable he. We actually have there at these and precision medicines that often cure these cancers and other ailments. In the vast majority of scientists are suing in using those technologies for the advancement of the common good but i also know those same gene editing techniques and so forth can certainly be used as well as an importantly the scientist that may be looking for a cure may inadvertently create something thats unintentionally mr. Doliff you touched on as i said to my Opening Statement how do we create these norms and standards for ethical use of this technology in a multilateral way and also working with their corporate sector as well because obviously our pharmaceutical sector and others are looking for novel therapies and right now i get the sense that there really is and maybendard norm you could start off mr. Doliff. I will do this in a multilateral way. Thank you chairman bera or raising these questions but i take your point medical technology is indeed advancing very quickly especially in some parts of the sector and we faced this challenge acrosstheboard with technologies. Almost all technologies have applications as you point out for enormous good and can cause substantial harm. We have been working on the issue of norms and standards for over a decade and what we have done is tried to work through amongst other instrumentalities on the National Academies in cooperation with the National Academies and other countries. We have engaged in other International Organizations to try to address the subject and we have also worked in partnership with other governments. We have included working with the corporate sector and for example we work closely with partners in india and in those outreach and trainings that we deal in india we include oat the government such your and the corporate sector as well as ngos as we try to build biosecurity including building norms. I think building norms is always challenging and its probably at least as challenging at the moment in the midst of the pandemic but i get the chairmans point that this is a particular important area and will continue to increase their efforts in this area. Mr. Moore touched on the brilliance we are guided in Global Health funding and the supplemental and no doubt as we look to defeat this virus both domestically through Vaccine Distribution and Development Also globally may maybe ill look at some ofe the dod or if you want to answer that if we are spending that how can we do it in a strategic way that allows us to start doubling the surveillance tools and what should those tools look like and what is the best practice. Maybe mr. Lasseter. I would have on the biotechnology front that we view it as w a promise in apparel scenario so they are a whole lot of problems. The u. S. Bioeconomy strong and we must keep it very strong. From a vaccine standpoint as you add its vitally important that we continue to work as an interagency together. We have also got to provide information across International Organizations those that were mentioned previously. But its incumbent upon us to share the information so we work with our partners and allies. We expect dependable clear information to come back and thats vital. We are not sharing information and if we are doing it effectively in quarterly we run the risk of having more severe outbreaks as the Technology Advances and the globalized economyhe increases. Thank you mr. Chairman. As an implement an organization we are in a position to help train and educate but i point out in the biological threat world its really hard to distinguish between a nationstate and nonnationstate in a proxy to determine who was responsible for the actions be getting norms is a much more complicated issue and in the past we had mostly nationstates too worried about this. Now we have a much bigger Playing Field to try to figure out it and that complicates not only norms and standards but attribution and accountability for those kinds of things. I think its a an awful goal but its much more complicated thing controversial moving forward. I see my time is up and let me recognize the Ranking Member mr. Perry. Thanks again mr. Chairman and to our panel thank you. Mr. Oxford just mentioned some of the nonstate actors that i talked about in some of the nonstate in state actors so as you know in 2018 russia, Russian Agency agencies the soviet developed nova check novichok in the United Kingdom and early this year was used against again opposition figure alexei navalny. I wonder its hard to prove, right . We are pretty sure but its hard to prove kind of like the coronavirus. And the Wuhan Institute of her all at it. We have some pretty strong opinions about it but its hard to prove. How can we are how can the International Community enforce accountability for state actors who do such things . Mr. Thats a really tough question as you know what we are just getting to the accountability and thats why i mention accountability my previous comment. A lot of this can be denied. The actual Scientific Evidence wasnt necessarily shared immediately with us. People would have been provided some examples so we were able to do the assessments so is mr. Lasseter said a lot of information sharing as we come together as allies to put the blame where its necessary but its a veryme hard problem given we havent enough time and effort in this country on bioactivation. Liesman years on nuclear attribution but we havent any time am ill attribution. Watching what happenedtc to d now navalny and others quite honestly we tend to think that happens over there so to speak but the uk is obviously a close friend of an allied and i find that exceptional exceptionally concerning and i dont know if you had an open source and did you have anything to add mr. Lasseter . I would just say a chemical weapon in the further use and acceptability across the world has to be proven in this director oxford said there is a significant effort being put into s this particular incident across the u. S. Government and across the International Community so efforts are underway to at least work on the International Norm response. I would say you mentioned threat and the biological threat perspective although much information we required a higher level. We can say that Russia State Department has saidd theres no way to confirm their adherence to the biological Weapons Convention. Im pretty certain that china does not appear to it from an article i and article iing perspective so it grows and grows and concern and with the help of congress and across the interagency its vital to get after these groups. I appreciate it and i know its difficult and thats why we are here so we appreciate your efforts in this regard and any help that we can offer. On the nonstate actors side do you have anything from her recently arrested canadian woman crossing into United States andi mailing mailing the president of the United States and the sheriff of texas a letter containing ricin. We have seen similar things in the past but we have also seen islamic gas attack in Northern Iraq in 2015 and 2016. When i was in iraq this stuff was fairly prevalent so it should be no surprise how they found out. In those two incidences im just wondering what the status of the illicit chemical weapons or bioweapons trade or the availability of things like ricin and how you guys are working with either overseas counterparts or among each other to maybe not even overseas but across the border. What are you guys doing with those c weve been able to take most of the chemical expertise off of the battlefield. They try to reuse resurrected periodically but its a matter of expertise where ricin has never gotten to weaponsgrade so maybe we have dodged a bullet that there is a need to look across the spectrum in the terrorist groups that have this intention they just havent had the expertise and we need to make sure we dont get that expertise. Mr. Doliff. If i could add to that little bit on the diplomatic side we have worked closely with the International Partners against this particular thread and we have programmatic elements were getting key states to address specific states with nonstate threats. We have diplomatic efforts and we have integrated our concerns by wmd and broader diplomatic discussions about counterterrorism. Aboutegard to question trade we do strengthen international controls on chemical and biological precursors but i will say in general i believe the evidence is that much of these efforts uses chemicals and precursors procured within a state so we will continue to tighten up in that area but most of it appears homegrown. Thank you. My time has expired. I yield. Let me recognize chairman langevin. Thank you mr. Chairman. Can you hear me okay . Yes we can. Very good. Thank you mr. Chairman and i want to thank their witnesses for the hard work you are doing on behalf of the country that i want to go back to the concerns i have about the significant cuts to the Reduction Program so compared to the 2020 level the cooperation for threat was cut and within that program the cooperative biological engagement effort was cuts the most by 55 million. Given the pandemic in which they find themselves where allowed by this department of defense is significant cuts to this mission of detecting biological threats in the United States. Director oxford this is ani program that economists clearly support. What additional work would we be able to perform if congress is in fact able to restore the funding to the fy20 active level and especially what other work would you be able to do under the bio Threat Reduction program which was cut the most and to mr. Lasseter i want to know how the departments respective of the importance of the biological Threat Reduction Program Evolves over the last six months of the pandemic and how the department serve to support the covid19 fight. Thank you mr. Chairman. Again based on the hashmark we lookd the programs and we be a list or activities in 22 countries with the entire mark and 15 of those would be well within their dtrt program. We would provide the committee with specific examples plus wed be able to restore activities on original basis with eucom and centcom as well as africom so wed be able to restore the original and this is in this area which gives us broader coverage across those reasons in question. We wouldnt be a list or restore activities for 15 countries as well as those regions i mentioned. We look at appropriations but thats our intent to restore that funding. Mr. Lasseter on the question of months the pandemic and how it evolved. Spec mr. Chairman if i could add we do want to give appreciation for the longstanding support that this committee, these committees pardon me and both sides of the of both sides of the aisle have given towards proper Threat Reduction program and i would say this. The biological Threat Reduction program has been operating for over 16 years in 30 countries doing great work. As far as the last 16 months the dod effort obviously the internationalrt effort usaid yes sir and from the dod perspective managed the stability of humanitarian office. They manage it over the course of the last six months and 100 million in dod support to over 100 countries produce to relate specifically to dtrt in most of the support is historical in nature so a lot of the training a lot of the lab support has been over the course of these 16 years as willing partner so that work in that information is what is most vital and i can say specifically for dtrt and direct funding in response to covid is around 7 million. Much of it is ppe but a lot of it is training in it goes back to the historical relationships of these countries where we providee robust training information flow so that its been oatka making sure a these partner countries know they have to reach back resource and that we can and director oxford steam can provide that information to those partner nations. Direct or oxford let me go back to you. We appreciate your fruits to move forward on the scope and fight. You tell us about the work that you have been doing to help with the covid r d effort for the bioDefense Program funding. Daca early on was using its r d funding early on to meet the challenging crisis. Can you describe have youve been because of the Port Authority . A lot of people make comparisons to our response to ebola versus the covid threat. Via bolla pathogen was declared a threat passage and icdc which allow dod to extend its resources against the threat to covid19 is considered a pandemic in the disease and prevents us from using biodefensece program money but e have used her expertise in several ways. Using cares act money weve been able to benefit from that we have a proam a underway thats looking at the Rapid Assessment of the impermanent. In this case using learnable technologies looking at identifying the onset does of symptoms and it would give us advance notice of illness would be on the way 48 hours. Then projected. Our expertise has been applied but not specifically to through this funding. My time has expired but you should be able to use those r d funds at a time like this and we will work with you to make sure that happens. Thank you mr. Chairman. I yield back let me recognize my good friend the gentleman from washington mr. Larson. Thank you mr. Chairman. The first question i think is probably for mr. Oxford. I was just wondering i if you cn help us understand with regards toth the biological threat kindf what that role is for response and then what that role is in terms of contributing to the future thinking about what to do. Are you strictly responding to requests where you have a role in planning ahead and proliferating that information about what to do . Thank you mr. Larson. We played two roles in the program. We are not in the response rope at the covid environment is mr. Lasseter said the years were good done a years work has been done and they were able to rapidly respond to capabilities with test kits and those kinds of things. On iraq there were 199 Trained Laboratory technicians that we train to the ctr program so if 100,000 with the ppe we were able able to give them a situation where they could start doing the response. We are not in the Response Program but we are able to benefit from what we have done over a decade or so work with them. We are on the cuttingedge on research and development that we are looking forward to as we made reference to things like synthetic bio. We fully understand the Technical Expertise and the various ways how it can be used for it on the flipside we are for the advantage we might gain by understanding synthetic bioby making detect theres the better. We do have that in the Technology Program that we operate. Mr. Lasseter on that point, two questions. One is in your written testimony you talk about how you are organized and incorporation with the department of defense r d research and engineering. Can you discuss that a little bit in the second for mr. Lasseter and mr. Oxford the combination of where merging technologies meet and in mr. Lasseters written Technology Drone technology and dissemination of biological and if you can touch him that can touch on that in this is something we should be thinking thinking about in the future . I appreciate the questions very much. Its very important. We are spending quite a bit of time and resources acrosss the department. I mentioned research and engineering. They are vital to the efforts to ensure we have Going Forward what we need and what our warfighters need to fight and when. As director oxford noted the cam bioDefense Program is vital in that pit with respect to some of these technologies they are concerning. The department is right size and fitted to respond to so the way we are organized across the cwnd enterprise quite robust number of organizations that use you can imagine from the joint staff from our policy perspective the combatant command services so we come together fairly regularly in an effort that i think would be highlighted as the cwnd unity of effort counsel, threestar level council. Director oxford and i participate in that and in that forum where able to slow these issues up for discussion and decision. Its an area that we can get information across the department and make decisions at the highest level. We think thatme is vital to some of these issues that you highlight. Obviously in this setting its hard to get into these issues and i know you recognize that but we are resource properly and right size to those threats. If i could followup on a part of that. You dont run Dods Research and engineering. Thats under division is pretty high up in the pentagon. Has r d come to recognize it as a higher priority or is this something youve had the battle out with research and engineering in their list of priorities that they are they t have . I speak fairly regularly with dr. Michelle rosen covers these issues but as you recognize a lot of tremendous talent across the Intelligence Community flows on a daily basis is not an hourly basis so if we need to flex thats one thing mr. Oxford director oxfords organization did. We need to adjusts to go after threat we can do that but we have the interest in the support of congress in doing so. We welcome giving you the sword and more partly the interest in doing so. Thanks so much. Thank you. Let me recognize the gentleman from the commonwealth of massachusetts mr. Keating. Thank you mr. Chairman. I think our witnesses. As a member of oath Armed Services and Foreign Affairs i want to thank you both for having this joint hearing but i want to address you know the sharing mentioned by the witnesses before as a nation is critical. I want to ask as the covid19 pandemic progressed in military intelligence followed it and that escalation from a timeframe what kinds of levels of alerts occurred in januar and february during a period. Was there a change in the level of alerts on military intelligence during that period and did occur in january and february or before february . Thank you sir for that question. What i can tell you in february secretary as for our identified three priorities to combat covid. First to protect our people and second to maintain Mission Readiness and three, to ensure that we are supporting the whole of government effort. With that came to lease internally within dod Different Health protections levels and so pretty early as you will probably recall in march as relates to the department of defense we were putting h. B. Come situations that reduce the number of folks present at their jobs so with that information before it does happen i think we pointed out all of us here today the information flow is vital and while the Intelligence Community does and can collect information he it gets without the policymakers to include congress. There must be a flow of information across the entire globe and it must happen from all parties and all countries. We cant expect just the United States. Was there a level of alert to correspond with that . As early as february. Sir in february, in march was when i believe id have to go back to the exact date but thats when the h. B. Come changed over the course of those months before information was continuing to flow andco the proper resources applied to analyze. But was there a change to a level 1 alert in february . That would have been the first time in our history that a pandemic race itself to that level. Had that occurred . Snacks or two i can tell you the exact date. I need to go back and get that and provide that information to you inin a committee setting. Lets assume that it might have. Would you transfer that information immediately to our state agencies and their agencies of state, state department and congress . Sir as you know the Intelligence Community is quite large and so all the organizations today have an intelligence portion to them so that information is shared across the Intelligence Community. Te i say that information generally is shared across the Intelligence Community and so we do that on daily basis and we flow information back and forth. My concern is congress was not notified in a timely fashion to those changes so if you could get back to the Respective Committee and tie down that date and what the significance was because its my understanding in terms of being publicly accessible that there was a change. Its myth understanding that it was historic in terms of the first time aes pandemic was addressedof with that level of change and im concerned about the sharing of information which was slowsl to congress and whetr was also slow to our state Department Agencies or relevant agencies and agency appearing before the committee here today. Because indeed if we are going t do this and he said his witnesses placing importance on sharing that information is my concern that was not being done in timely fashion so to give back to it i would appreciate that in with that mr. Chairman i yield back. Thank you mr. Keating. Let me recognize my good friend from the state of california mr. Sherman. Thank you. There has been discussion i believe that the first Ranking Member to the quote complicity of the w. H. O. W. H. O. Is the coordinating organization. Its not an intel organization. It has no way to know whether what china is saying is complete and sure and transparent or not. You know who does have an intel organization, the United States government and our intelligence is designed to know when china is not telling the truth. In fact the president was informed that this was breaking out in wuhan far more than the ntinese government indicated creed he chose to ignore that intelligence just as he seems to have ignored much to the unfortunate harm to himself and his wife, ignored the best advice on how to avoid getting this, disease and unfortunately misled millions of americans as well into not wearing masks. We spend many hundreds of billions of dollars defending ourselves from kinetic threats and very little on defending ourselves from anything else. We did not have Civil Defense design for eitherr a deliberate or naturally occurring plague. We did not have stock piles of ppe. We did not have the education. We did not have the ventilators although we quickly made some and we did not have the capacity to do tracing. This all in spite of the fact that the National Security strategy recognized biological incidents in 2017, the potential to cause catastrophic loss of life and growing as a result of a liberal attack ads and our natural outbreak which raises the question and i know we are not in a classified setting, what iss the administrations operating assumptions or likelihood or how would we assign percentage likelihoods to the possibilities as to how this plagues began . We are told perhaps ite came fm the wet market and it may have come from the wuhan lab which might have been engaged in entirely peaceful at tiffanys and had a tragic release. It could have come from a wuhan lab that was engaged in military divvies but had an unintentional release and least likely theyll least likely of all could have come deliberately from wuhan. Do we have any operatingas assumptionsra or are all of thoe possible or highly unlikely . Where does the administration take us withon this . Being cute congressman sherman. Its an important question. I think we as an International Community but obviously the u. S. Government is still one we are working on right now presently respond to this crisis. You are saying anyone of those possibilities is possible and u. S. Government doesnt have much of an opinion on which is the cause and to the other witnesses agree . Congressman sherman thank you for the question. You have mentioned for possible scenarios and certainly in discussions in an open forum there is there are varying levels of responsibility could what we do know is that virus described as covid19 was described in Academic Research that was published several years ago including the peoples of republic of china identified as existing enamels. It is a disease of animal origin but as you say sir that the idea that it was engineered is probably dismissed by then and i would ask normally when theres a catastrophe the first thing anybody does is close the barn door. China has said that this has come from a wet market and they are wet markets all over china. Has there have been any massive change in how exotic animals are sold for human consumption throughout china . Thats an extremely important point and something i would defer to you to the wildlife trafficking is a huge problem. The peoples republic of china continues to be the largest market. Has there have been a big change from early 2019 to now late 2020 and how these markets operate . The that there . The that theres not been a fundamental permit change in blocking illegal wildlife trade including in wet markets. Its practice in other countries as well and we are working to end it. Yo thank you. Let me now recognize the gentleman from michigan mr. Levin. Thank you so much mr. Chairman for convening this importantg hearing. Its no secret that the covid19 pandemic was allowed to spiral out of control in the United States. The news york times reported reported around the same case as when new york city cases were skyrocketing back in march. The whole world can see whats happening including those who wish to do harm to our country so let mer pose this question o mr. Oxford and mr. Sub moore. You believe therell be heightened interest in state and nonstate actors in developing and employing weapons and if yes how will the departments of state and prepare for that possibility. I apologize sir the transmission was little imprecise. What exact question would you like me to respond to sir . Sorry about that. My question is do you think there will be a heightened interest on the part of state and nonstate actors in developing and improving bioweapons and if yes how will the departments of state and defense prepare for that possibility . With regard to the development of dialogical weapons i think that would be better addressed by my colleague from the isn bureau. Okay. This is a difficult question to address in an unclassified context. I guess what i can say is that we continually review these issues. We had a discussion two days ago with our colleagues who are experts on thesegu issues. I take your point that the pandemic as ite testified to, poses a substantial, enormous challenge to interNational Security and it must inherently be the case that our adversaries whether they are terrorists or states will take that into account in considering how to evolve their weapons system. But me look at the other question. In january 2017 the cdcs presence in china has decreased from 47 personnel to 14. The National Science foundationn and usaid also closed their offices during this time and on top of that the department of agriculture transferred the manager of the animal Monitoring Program out of china in 2018. Over the past four years we have gotten rid of a bunch of people who it seems to me would have been helpful to happen place as covid19 was emerging. At the very least i think it would be helpful to have reliable sources of information about what was really happening on the ground. Mr. Oxford and mr. Moore in general why does the u. S. Have experts like epidemiologist stationed in other countries and how does this help defend us against biological threats . Again from the Defense Department perspective especially thens implementing organizations we are not responsible for where cdc and others operate overseas so id have to yield to the state department or go back to the other departments that do those kinds of things. Lets hear the state perspective. Thank you sir. We would be pleased to offer more detail and a timeline of who was assigned under the authority in beijing and what time . The context to our individual agencies sending staff there or reducing their staff there has a lot to do with both their needs their budgets and the viability of the work they can actually do. One of the constraints we face with regards to the peoples republic of china is we still have not received all of the data we would need to receive an initial samples of the virus that had been sought since the beginning of the pandemic and even the end of last year. That is extremely problematic as is though work of the peoples republic of china to address the World Health Organization the Public Health emergency of international concern. When that topic came up for discussion at the w. H. O. In geneva with regard to the specific agencies with apologies id have to take that question. T mr. Chairman outside saying that its extremely problematic for us to talk about what the should do when we withdraw from it i think its extremely problematic for us to reduce our capability on scientific and diplomatic and Public Health expertise in china and around the world during a Global Pandemic. And with great thanks i yield back mr. Chairman. Thank you gentlemen and the chair recognizes ms. Spanberger for five minutes. I think ms. Spanberger is having some technical issues. Im told that they are our members in the room right now so i would suggest is it chairman beras land a comeback after voting or should we recess now . Im waiting to hear back from committee staff. Mr. Chairman this has representative la rosa nine the only member in the room right now and representative bera is voting and im trying to get staff to answeraf your question about his return. D what i will do is i will ask another question that i have and until we get that clarified i will yield to her but in the meantime let me go to mr. Lasseter. So we heard that there might have been direction to not spend Defense Program funding on the covid19 fight which troubles me even though the pro guard specializes in developing and that seems therapeutic in. Treatments. What do you need from us to ensure you have the authorities and the resources needed if in fact theres a rise in the challenge of the threat both today and tomorrow and in the work you could be doing now to help the country in the covid19 fight that you dont currently have the ability to do. Thank you mr. Chairman. For your first question or your statement there is no Department Probation off conclusion and tht can bite Defense Program the primary focus on the statute of requirements to develop and deliver capabilities that ensure the warfighters ability to fight and win in the biological or chemical contaminated area. The interagency is a combination of subject matter expertise and leveraging existing contracts with delivery of capabilities as an example system with testing an evaluation from helping to create detection diagnostics and methods to investigating vaccines. The chem bioDefense Program continues to collaborate with the whole of government industry and academia. Its important to note that the chem bioDefense Program is a Research Development Acquisition Program and not necessarily a response capability but i will say to your followup question congress has been exceptionally helpful to the federal Reduction Program. Historically as i referenced last numberover the of years so the support is really continued support for the program. We appreciate the information flow between our department and i think i can say the same for the state department and the betweenf our staffs its exceptional and we look forward to continuing that communication. Thank you sir. I know additional authorities said youre asking for right now that would enhance your work quick. That they get the moment we are good. I know that our staffs have communicated historically and i hope that they can continue to do that and if we do identify an issue or an authority that is necessary we will be certain to bring that to you in yourr team. Okay, thank you. That concludes my questions rightfo now. Has anyone from the minority returned and has ms. Spanberger returned . Mr. Chairman this is representative of larson and im the only one in the room. I will yield to ms. Spanberger if she has returned. I understand that she is not on. Can you hear me mr. Ranking member . Member . Esight have been up here you are recognized for five minutes. Excellent. Thank you very much for the witnesses for being here. I appreciate your time and your presence. I have a question about staffing related issues. As a former cia Police Officer im aware of the importance of tracking threats threats and im a spare parts to biological security as well. We have to get in front of violence are gone to security threats before they do significantf damage like what e have seen with covid19 and we have to work about art or so no matter where a threat arises we can contain it. Then offices in charge of preventing responded to the threat to the threats are and are staffed hard to get ahead of that problem. I open this up to all members of the problem previous National Security agencies have long suffered from high rates of vacancies in the past two years and given how long federal hiring can take they are likely to see the ripple effects from this for years. Are they limited staffing affecting your work currently and in your view how will they reform hiring practices to ramp up the needed testing more quickly . And a specific callout on their your offices have trouble finding and recruiting staff with the specialized skills that need to focus on reducing biological security threats and i opened up to the panelists. Thank you congresswoman spanberger. Its an ageold question implying the right staff but i can say from the cwm be prospectively enough and immensely immensely talented team full of professionals from career civilians to uniformed personnel to government contractors. He would be hard to speak across the entire department and me personally doing that but i can. Tell you we obviously always are on the lookout for talent so we will continue to do thatnt and continue if we can find talent to bring them in the doors. I will defer to my other colleagues. Ms. Bamberger from from a district 20 whew we offer highly technical orientation similar to the career fields your firmza to put a recruitment strategy is healthy in a retention rates are healthy but we continue to look for additional talented necessary. So far activation rates, our rates are steady so i think and the chem biodefense area that we operated as well as R D Organization our health and welfare of the R D Community is very sound. Thank you. At ms. Spanberger on behalf of the oes pereira and the state department the state Department Police are part of an outstanding very active and extremely expert team of Civil Service longterm colleagues and Foreign Service colleagues on usually twoyear assignments. Im pleased to say in recent months weve been able to add to our staffing and bring on permanently an number of colleagues including fellows from the Record Association of the advance of science. We have a longstanding partnership. The team is doing an outstanding job of dealing with covid on the homefront and of course working on it professionally. Thank you. I think i echo the remarks of i my colleagues. I think vacancies have not had a substantial challenge in our department on this issue. As i testified we have also been increasing our staff. We have added experts using the special authorities that the department is provided in this regard and we have added to the staffing and the offices that deal with biological issues. Is think in general we dont he staffing challenges. We havee a Great Partnership ad fellowships to bring us Technical Expertise but i think recruiting technical specialist is sometimes a challenge and that is probably the one area where at times it has been a bit of a challenge for us. Thank you very much for sharing that and i hope the committee can be involved in making sure you can recruit the staffing members as necessary. If youll indulge me it will reflect to up my followup question is. By show of hands to your teams participate and wargame exercises to train and prepare potential biological Security Risk for easing this awkward circumstance with virtual if you could just raise your hand if you do because my followup question depends very much on if its divided. So i see two and two from here, three, okay. Im curious then with the majority view participating in wargames do you and your colleagues draw from the modeling and the assimilation analysis to think through what quickly changing threats could look like and how to respond . Are you using this for a biological threat and what if from these exercises more recently as a relates to covid19 and my time is limited so if one of you want to take this one i welcome you all to choose who is next. Congresswoman one of the things we do to sustain capability over seas as we do exercises. Are clear just to make sure there were remains readiness in the standards theyve been trained to brits one of the ways you start to transfer the responsibilities of the ctr program to those nations could doercises and training are one of the key aspects of an the understanding retention is there. Thank you very much and mr. Chairman thanks for the extra time. I yield back create. Thank you ms. Spanberger. Seeing that there are no additional members who have questions and its always difficult im in the most virtual hybrid format. Im going to give a closing statement in see if chairman langevin would like to give a closing answer. Tu actually it closing question. The issue of the pandemic preparedness thinking about how we use the natural occurring technologies that are out there social media search words google etc. And all of a sudden you see a jump in people searching incidents of fever and flulike symptoms etc. And some of it can beat Early Warning system comes for us to pay close attention. I know wireless thermometers etc. Thinking about them in the midst of the pandemic but also what are the Warning Systems for naturally occurring threats . I dont know if folks can talk about how we should be thinking about that. Us chairman bera its an exceptional question and alloftheabove approach. We have all talked today about the information sharing grid thats absolutely vital in its fundamental if we are going to ensure that we are protecting interdicting but specifically on this issue detecting threats and flowing that information at this point globally. Its working with their interagency colleagues which we do on a daily basis here and its also working with their International Friends and partners. I know as phillip doliff mentions the Global Partnerships is a perfect organization. The Global Health security agenda is another effort that can provide information flow to dozens of countries around the world. The alloftheabove approach is necessary and it has to acquire information flow. Mr. Chairman as you recall in one of my earlier answers i talked about a regional approach. When we started the ctr program masa nationstates is a thick one program, one country pay the regional approach allows for this information sharing across the regional boundaries so it enhances the overall protection within regions as opposed to just looking at this solely by country so it really does help in a broader understanding. I thank the chairman raises a very good point that we have a whole set of emerging tools that can greatlyly add to information sharing and biosurveillance. We learned during the pandemic how to expand the toolsets that we have two additional tools. For example in uganda and in africa there are a whole set of cell phonebased tools that we have not previously used to the degree we use now so we are trying to take advantage of the whole new toolset that is out there and i think the chairman noted that there is great infrastructure being built to deal with this pandemic and there is new technologies that are being integrated in the bio surveillance. This is a good example of how we need to build other capabilities entered data flows to capture all the information thats available. I certainly want to thank all of our where this is further service to our country and again make sure everyone is safe and we will get through this. Letsth get through this and the more resilient in stronger way in the way that we can protect against theic next pandemic or future by alfred put a note chairman langevin is still on if youd like to offer a closing statement. Mr. Chairman thank you for your joint collaboration and putting his hearing together. Certainly it was an important hearing and the time we are in right now. I want to thank our witnesses and the work of youros portfolis whether weapons of mask destruction or other witnesses obviously the essential capabilities that you bringli to the table that are important to the nation and indeed the world. We have to make sure we are properly resourced and have the plans and procedures in place to respondd effectively and rest assured therell be some future event and we want to make sure we are responding with the speed and agility that is necessary to keep people healthy. With that i thank you for what you are doing and i know members may have additional questions. I asked that they respond in writing. With that i have no further questions and further questions and i will yield back mr. Chairman. Thank you chairman langevin and our thoughts and prayers are with everybody around the world who is impacted by covid19 and certainly with our our president and the first lady and the first family and with that again i want to thank the witnesses for being here this morning and his hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]. [inaudible conversation]. [inaudible conversation] coming up tonight ateight eastern House Intelligence Committee hearing on stopping the spread of online misinformation. About this information on socialmedia and what social media is in the government can do about the problem. Tv on cspan2 has taught nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Saturday at 5 pm eastern Jennifer Townes on her book big dirty money which looks at the repercussions average americans face when the rich break the law in order to accumulate more wealth. And at 11 50 5 pm in his book the spymaster Chris Whipple talks to former cia directors to provide an inside look at the intelligence organizations operation and on sunday at 9 pm eastern on after words political commentator kansas owens on why black americans should vote republican in her book blackout. Shes interviewed by max schlack. Watch book tv this weekend on cspan2. The council on Foreign Relations boasts a discussion on the groups recent report on the Global Response to covid19 and how best to prepare for future pandemics. Will hear from former health and Human Services director Sylvia Burwell and the Homeland Security adviser in the white house. Welcome to todays council on Foreign Relations report. The independent task force on preparing for the next pandemic but of course we will be talking about the one that we are currently experiencing area and i am Lulu Garcia Navarro and ill be presiding over todays