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 DefenseOrganization 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