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Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack - Mark-Up of Committee Prints
March 14, 2006
Statement of Representative John Linder, Chairman
The Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack is meeting today to consider three committee prints that will be introduced as free-standing legislation following this mark-up. I would like to inform Members that the legislation introduced will include any amendments approved by the Subcommittee today.
The first print before us, which authorizes the establishment of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office within DHS, addresses an issue that this Subcommittee has worked on since the beginning of last year.
Last April, this Subcommittee held two hearings on the Department of Homeland Security’s nuclear detection efforts. Those hearings were followed by a joint hearing in June with the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology on the effectiveness of available technology for nuclear material detection. In addition, this Subcommittee traveled to Nevada just two months ago to witness first hand the Department’s nuclear detection technology testing facilities.
Vayl Oxford, the Acting Director of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, testified before this Subcommittee last June that “no single detection layer alone can prevent a terrorist from importing nuclear or radiological material with the intent to harm the Nation. Therefore, in partnering with other government agencies and the private sector, we must create a well coordinated, robust layered defense with built-in redundancies.”
On April 13, 2005, DHS Secretary Chertoff informed the Committee of his intent to establish a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office within the Department. Two days later, this office was established by President Bush through Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14.
As Secretary Chertoff indicated, DNDO “will serve as the primary entity in the United States government to develop a global nuclear detection architecture.” The DNDO will be responsible for the domestic portion of this architecture, but implementing this global system will require close coordination with the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the intelligence community.
We have learned in our hearings that existing technologies are often not up to task. For this reason the print includes support for a “transformational” research and development program aimed at achieving major improvements in performance, cost, or ease of use. Success in this area will have a lasting impact on our national security.
While DNDO has already received congressional support through the FY2006 appropriations process and is recognized by the President in his FY2007 budget request, it was not included when Congress created the Department through the Homeland Security Act. We hope to address that issue today.
The second measure under consideration shifts our focus to the need for medical countermeasures for dangerous chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (“CBRN”) agents.
Under Project BioShield, which was enacted to encourage the development of CBRN countermeasures, the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for conducting Material Threat Assessments and issuing Material Threat Determinations on specific agents presenting “material threats” to the Nation. These determinations are a prerequisite for the Department of Health and Human Services to procure countermeasures under BioShield. Without the determinations, the Department of Health and Human Services has no idea what agent to buy for, what type of countermeasure is appropriate – a vaccine or a post-exposure treatment, or how many doses to buy of an appropriate countermeasure, thus halting the procurement process.
Currently, Material Threat Assessments can take up to eight months. Because the acquisition process hinges on completion of these threat assessments, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that if we proceed at the same rate and conduct Material Threat Assessments on all agents on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Category A, B, and C lists sequentially, it will take us years to complete. As we all know, we have neither the time nor the money to continue the process in this fashion.
Furthermore, this approach only lends itself to acquiring one drug for one bug or even three drugs for one bug. That is why we need to use existing risk assessments to accelerate this process.
Risk assessments consider threat, vulnerability, and consequences, indicating which agents are high risk, which are low risk, and which fall somewhere in between. In addition, we must group agents in a manner that prioritizes the development of broad-spectrum countermeasures, where appropriate, to more effectively utilize the Federal government’s resources for CBRN defense.
Finally, the Subcommittee will consider a measure to require the Department’s Science and Technology Directorate to issue an annual report to Congress on its activities, programs, and portfolios. Current law requires the Department of Defense to provide Congress with regular reports on its biological and chemical programs. The same should be expected of the Department of Homeland Security.
This report will give Congress much needed transparency to the activities of the S&T; Directorate. Given the current lack of information provided by the Department, it is extremely difficult to evaluate the annual budget of the S&T; Directorate. As Congress is tasked with the responsibility of funding the operations of the Federal government, it should be provided with a more complete assessment of the Directorate’s investments, accomplishments, visions, and corresponding technical goals and objectives of its programs.
At the first meeting of this Subcommittee last March, I reminded us all that the prevention of another terrorist event is of the utmost importance to the security and economic well-being of our nation. Ultimately, it will fall on this government to overlook the usual bureaucratic barriers between competing Federal agencies in the area of homeland security. Our failure to do so could have catastrophic ramifications. As such, I look forward to moving ahead with these proposals, and hope that the members of this Subcommittee will join me in this effort.
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