Chair calling this meeting to order. Please be seated. Good gracious. It should be us standing for you. You should all be aware of several things. One, even though there is not a Committee Room of people that you can see that is full, we are zooming this to a majority of the Commerce Committee, which is a large committee. There is a Staff Member for every Commerce Committee member, and every senator watching, not to mention millions watching at home. [laughter] or not. I should give fair warning, this is my first Committee Hearing that i get to chair as the chair of the Space And Science subcommittee of the Commerce Committee. So you will have to take your own risks with that. When they told me i was going to get to chair this committee, my communications staff, i should not say it, but i was over the moon. [laughter] this is important not only to colorado, it is something i have had a passionate interest in for a long time. It is ironic this first meeting is on Space Trash, which soun
Chair calling this meeting to order. Please be seated. Good gracious. It should be us standing for you. You should all be aware of several things. One, even though there is not a Committee Room of people that you can see that is full, we are zooming this to a majority of the Commerce Committee, which is a large committee. There is a Staff Member for every Commerce Committee member, and every senator watching, not to mention millions watching at home. [laughter] or not. I should give fair warning, this is my first Committee Hearing that i get to chair as the chair of the Space And Science subcommittee of the Commerce Committee. So you will have to take your own risks with that. When they told me i was going to get to chair this committee, my communications staff, i should not say it, but i was over the moon. [laughter] this is important not only to colorado, it is something i have had a passionate interest in for a long time. It is ironic this first meeting is on Space Trash, which soun
We are here today to discuss the state of the united States Department of Homeland Security countering weapons of mass Destruction Office. This september marks the 20th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack u. S. Soil. Since that time, there have been general agreement that we as a nation must be prepared to address terrorism and attacks on our country regardless of the mode of attack. This means being prepared for low probability, high consequence attacks involving chemicals, biological, radiological, or nuclear materials. As we emerge from an extreme the tragic year where covid19 took the lives of over 600,000 americans, it does not take a lot of imagination to envision the damage that a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear attack could do to our country. In addition to the immediate Health And Safety consequences, such an attack could affect our critical infrastructure and destabilize large swaths of the country. For its part, dhs, it falls to the office to not only preve
[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] call this meeting to order. Please be seated with good graces. In my opiniond it should be as standing for you. You should all be aware, while several things, one that even though theres not a full committee room, you can see we are assuming this to i think the majority of Commerce Committee which you can see is a large committee, are looking and i think every step but theres a Staff Member from every congress committee, not to mention millions at home. [laughing] or not. I also should give fair warning that this is my first Committee Hearing that i get to chair as the chair of the Space And Science subcommittee, the Commerce Committee, so you have to take your own risks with that. When they told me i was going to get to chair this committee, my communications staff, i should not say this, but i was the moon. [laughing] this is something thats important not only to colorado, something ive had a Passion And In
The chair is authorized to declare the subcommittee in recess at any point. We are here today to discuss the state of the united States Department of Homeland Security countering weapons of mass Destruction Office. This september marks the 20th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack u. S. Soil. Since that time, there have been general agreement that we as a nation must be prepared to address terrorism and attacks on our country regardless of the mode of attack. This means being prepared for low probability, high consequence attacks involving chemicals, biological, radiological, or nuclear materials. As we emerge from an extreme the tragic year where covid19 took the lives of over 600,000 americans, it does not take a lot of imagination to envision the damage that a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear attack could do to our country. In addition to the immediate Health And Safety consequences, such an attack could affect our critical infrastructure and destabilize large swaths