Redfield, director of the center for Disease Control and prevention and we thank you for being here this morning. Doctor redfield, to discuss the cdc and ongoing response to covid19. I also want to welcome the subcommittee members, Ranking Member congressman thomas paul andour full Committee Chair. I want to thank you to subcommittee members who are here in person as well as subcommittee members who are participating by secure video teleconference. Before i moved to my Opening Statements and because this is our first labor hhs and Education Appropriations Committee hearing with some members participating remotely, i would like to begin by offering a brief explanation of how it will work and in order to benefit those members and the public. This hearing room has been configured to maintain the recommended sixfoot social distancing between members, witnesses and other individuals in the room necessary to operate the hearing. Which we have kept to a minimum. Some members have opted to use
Vaccine development and efforts to address disparities in minority communities. This is abouttwo hours 45 minutes. This hearing will come to order. First i would like to welcome our witness, doctor robert redfield, director of the center for Disease Control and prevention and we thank you for being here this morning. Doctor redfield, to discuss the cdc and ongoing response to covid19. I also want to welcome the subcommittee members, Ranking Member congressman thomas paul andour full Committee Chair. I want to thank you to subcommittee members who are here in person as well as subcommittee members who are participating by secure video teleconference. Before i moved to my Opening Statements and because this is our first labor hhs and Education Appropriations Committee hearing with some members participating remotely, i would like to begin by offering a brief explanation of how it will work and in order to benefit those members and the public. This hearing room has been configured to main
Condolences to the families of would two hostages one american dr. Warren weinstein and an italian, giovanni lo porto, who were tragically killed in a u. S. Counterterrorism operation. Warren and giovanni were aid workers in pakistan, devoted to improving the lives of the pakistani people. After warren was abducted by al qaeda in 2011. I directed my National Security team to do Everything Possible to find him and to bring him home safely to his family. And dedicated professionals across our government worked tirelessly to do so. We also worked closely with our italian allies on behalf of giovanni who was kidnapped in 2012. Since 9 11 our course terrorism efforts have prevent terrorist attacks and saved innocent lives, both here in america and around the world. And that determination to protect innocent life only makes the loss of these two men especially painful for all of us. Based on information and intelligence we have obtained we believe that a u. S. Counterterrorism operation targ
Sector which you talk a lot about and quite passionate about. The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership tpp, what could that mean for expanded access to suddenly plentiful American Energy for our partners . How do we use energy as National Security tool . This may come back to you, caroline, because many of our allies would like an Energy Charter which is not on also they would like to have finance but thats another issue. Should an Energy Charter be in this . Is the u. S. Open to that . First caroline and then to you. I think that the way we use energy and the way we see energy in the future has to be a global approach. It cant just i cringe a little bit when i hear the term that energy is we have ours and everybody else is kind of on their own. I think that the difference between the russian president s position, which tends to use energy as a weapon, and ours is completely different. Should be completely different. We can use energy and our good fortune in energy and technology
Warner merger as a win for consumers. Why . Guest well because i firmly believe that if comcast were allowed to buy Time Warner Cable, that they would have been too big a company, they would have been anticompetitive, not in the public interests. It would have led to higher prices for consumers less choice. And if its even possible with these two companies, worse service. Host is it because of the size of the company . Guest yeah. Well size and what parts of the market they have, they have about 30 of cable between them and about 57 of internet broadband, highspeed internet broadband. Thats just too big. And i had a lot of content providers, networks come to me and say they were opposed to this deal, but they were itll just give you some idea of what happens when you get this big, they were afraid to say so, to be public, because they feared retribution. Host did comcast come to you . Did they try to influence your opinion . Guest they did not. But i think they see ive been against the