    [Senate Hearing 108-491]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 108-491

               AGROTERRORISM: THE THREAT TO AMERICA'S BREADBASKET

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                              GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                          ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               NOVEMBER 19, 2003

                                   __________

          Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

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                       COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                       SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
    TED STEVENS, Alaska                  JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
    GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio            CARL LEVIN, Michigan
    NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota              DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
    ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania          RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
    ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah              THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
    PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois        MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
    JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire        FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
    RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama           MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

               Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                  Tim Raducha-Grace, Professional Staff Member
          Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
                       Beth M. Grossman, Minority Counsel
                          Amy B. Newhouse, Chief Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                     ------
    Opening statements:
                                                                       Page
        Senator Collins..............................................     1
        Senator Akaka................................................     3
        Senator Lautenberg...........................................     8
        Senator Durbin...............................................    25

                                   WITNESSES
                          Wednesday, November 19, 2003

    Hon. James M. Talent, a U.S. Senator from the State of Missouri..     5
    Thomas McGinn, NCDA&CS, North Carolina Assistant State
      Veterinarian, Department of Agriculture........................     9
    Peter Chalk, Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation, Santa Barbara
      Office.........................................................    14
    Colleen O'Keefe, D.V.M., M.S., Illinois Department of Agriculture    17
    Hon. Penrose Albright, Assistant Secretary for Science and
      Technology, Department of Homeland Security....................    32
    Lester M. Crawford, D.V.M., Ph.D., Deputy Commissioner, Food and
      Drug Administration............................................    37
    Charles Lambert, Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and
      Regulatory Programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
      accompanied by Merle Pierson, Deputy Under Secretary for Food
      Safety, U.S. Department of Agriculture.........................    39

                        Alphabetical List of Wistnesses

    Albright, Penrose:
        Testimony....................................................    32
        Prepared Statement...........................................    88
    Chalk, Peter:
        Testimony....................................................    14
        Prepared Statement...........................................    73
    Crawford, Lester M., D.V.M., Ph.D.:
        Testimony....................................................    37
        Prepared Statement...........................................    96
    Lambert, Charles:
        Testimony....................................................    39
        Prepared Statement...........................................   117
    McGinn, Thomas, NCDA&CS:
        Testimony....................................................     9
        Prepared Statement with an atachment.........................    58
    O'Keefe, Colleen, D.V.M., M.S.:
        Testimony....................................................    17
        Prepared Statement...........................................    83
    Talent, Hon. James M.:
        Testimony....................................................     5
        Prepared Statement...........................................    53

                                    APPENDIX

    ``Executive Summary--Stripe Rust of Wheat,'' by Dr. H.F.
      Schwartz, Colorado State University, 11/18/03..................   128
    ``Bioterrorism--A Threat to Agriculture and the Food Supply,''
      Lawrence J. Dyckman, Director, Natural Resources and
      Environment, prepared statement................................   130
    Questions and Responses for the Record submitted by Senator Akaka
      for:
        Dr. Peter Chalk..............................................   147
        Dr. Penrose Albright.........................................   151
        Dr. Lester Crawford, from Amit K. Sachdev, Associate
          Commissioner for Legislation, Food and Drug Administration,
          Department of Health and Human Services....................   153
        Dr. Charles Lambert..........................................   156
    Chart submitted by Chairman Collins entitled ``Terrorists'
      Interest in Agroterrorism''....................................   160
    Chart submitted by Chairman Collins entitled ``30 Agencies
      Involved in Possible Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreak''.........   161
    ``The Midwest Alliance for Agroterrorism Countermeasures,'' by
      Abner W. Womack, University of Missouri, Co-Director of the
      Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, prepared
      statement......................................................   162

               AGROTERRORISM: THE THREAT TO AMERICA'S BREADBASKET

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2003

                                           U.S. Senate,
                             Committee on Governmental Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in
    room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M.
    Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Collins, Akaka, Durbin, and Lautenberg.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS

        Chairman Collins. Good morning. The Committee will come to
    order.
        Today, the Governmental Affairs Committee will examine the
    vulnerability of America's agriculture and food industry to
    terrorist attacks, what our Nation must do to defend against
    agroterrorism, and how prepared we are to respond to such an
    attack.
        In the war on terrorism, the fields and pastures of
    America's farmland might seem at first to have nothing in
    common with the towers of the World Trade Center or our busy
    seaports. In fact, however, they are merely different
    manifestations of the same high priority target, the American
    economy. Even as he celebrated the toppling of the pillars of
    our economic power in the videotape released shortly after
    September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden urged his followers to hit
    hard the American economy at its heart and core.
        Nothing is more at the heart and core of our economy than
    our agriculture and food industry. It is a $1 trillion economic
    sector that creates one-sixth of our gross national product.
    One in eight Americans works in this sector. It is a sprawling
    industry that encompasses a half-billion acres of croplands,
    thousands of feedlots, countless processing plants, warehouses,
    research facilities, and factories for ingredients, ready-to-
    eat foods, and packaging, as well as the distribution network
    that brings food from around the Nation and around the world
    into the neighborhood markets and restaurants via virtually
    every mode of transportation.
        Hundreds of pages of U.S. agricultural documents recovered
    from the al Qaeda caves in Afghanistan early last year are a
    strong indication that terrorists recognize that our
    agriculture and food industry provides tempting targets.
    According to a new RAND Corporation report, which will be
    released at today's hearing, the industry's size, scope, and
    productivity, combined with our lack of preparedness, offer a
    great many points of attack. Among our witnesses today will be
    the report's author, Dr. Peter Chalk, a noted expert in
    biowarfare.
        Al Qaeda's interest in agriculture is not limited to
    studying documents. These killers have practical, hands-on
    knowledge. A CIA report released in May confirmed that the
    September 11 hijackers expressed interest in crop dusting
    aircraft, an effective and remarkably simple way to spread
    biological agents, including plant and animal diseases, over
    large areas.
        We have also learned from the CIA that Osama bin Laden
    himself has considerable knowledge of agriculture. He
    controlled sunflower and corn markets in the Sudan in the mid-
    1990's and may have used his farms to train terrorist
    operatives.\1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Chart entitled ``Terrorists' Interest in Agroterrorism,''
    appears in the Appendix on page 160.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        This horrific page is from The Poisoner's Handbook, an
    underground pamphlet published here in the United States that
    provides detailed instructions on how to make powerful plant,
    animal, and human poisons from easily obtained ingredients and
    how to disseminate them. It was found in Afghanistan in the
    hands of a group known to support al Qaeda.
        Last spring, a Saudi cleric who supports al Qaeda and has
    since been arrested issued a fatwa, a religious ruling, that
    justified the use of chemical and biological weapons, including
    weapons that destroy tillage and stock.
        To appreciate the potential impact of agroterrorism,
    consider the economic and social impacts of naturally occurring
    events of agricultural disease outbreaks. Here are just three
    examples.
        The 1997 outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Taiwan had
    an immediate cost to farmers of $4 billion. The estimated cost
    to date of trade embargoes is $15 billion. The 2001 outbreak of
    foot and mouth disease in Great Britain cost $1.6 billion in
    compensation to farmers. The lost revenue to tourism, a
    manifestation of the psychological impact, is estimated at $4
    billion.
        The 2002 outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease in California
    led to huge economic losses for poultry farmers and the
    quarantine of 46,000 square miles. Included in this area was
    the U.S. Army National Training Center at Fort Irwin.
        But to call these three cases naturally occurring ignores
    an important point. Each was caused by human error, by
    carelessness, by a lapse in security. In Taiwan, it was one
    infected pig imported from Hong Kong. In Britain, it was one
    batch of infected feed at one farm. In California, it was one
    infected rooster smuggled across the border from Mexico. The
    ease with which terrorists could replicate these events is
    alarming.
        Since September 11, we have done much to make our Nation
    more secure. Nevertheless, much of America remains unprotected.
    A vital sector remains largely unguarded and an attack could be
    devastating.
        As we will hear today, an attack upon just one segment of
    the food supply could cripple our economy, require geographic
    quarantines, cause massive social upheaval, and, of course,
    produce illness and death.
        To prevent a future attack, we must first understand the
    danger. The RAND report describes the threats and
    vulnerabilities and explores the likely outcomes of a possible
    agroterrorist attack. It is a call to action.
        Understanding current Federal efforts to prevent and
    respond to a terrorist attack will help us understand what we
    need to do to better address our vulnerabilities. Therefore, we
    will also hear testimony today from representatives of the
    Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration,
    and the Department of Homeland Security, who will outline
    existing efforts and capabilities as well as what we must do to
    deter, detect, and respond effectively in the event of an
    attack.
        As the chart to my left shows,\1\ should there be an
    attack, more than 30 agencies may be involved. This is an
    example of the 30 agencies that would be involved in the event
    of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. We must make sure
    that the efforts of these 30 agencies are effectively
    coordinated and that the Federal Government has a plan. After
    all, the impact of an ineffective Federal response could be
    devastating.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Chart entitled ``30 Agencies Involved in Possible Foot and
    Mouth Disease Outbreak,'' appears in the Appendix on page 161.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        According to the National Defense University, even a
    limited outbreak of foot and mouth disease on just ten farms
    could have a $2 billion financial impact and wide-ranging
    effects on society, including the impairment of military
    deployment and readiness. These simulations are based upon the
    research of Dr. Thomas McGinn, who will also testify before us
    today.
        Congress has not held a hearing devoted to agroterrorism
    since 1999, 2 years before the September 11 attacks on our
    Nation. That is not to say that no work has been done on this
    issue since that time. In addition to the work of the Federal
    departments and agencies represented today, Senator Roberts,
    who held the 1999 hearing, worked with me to help write the
    food safety provisions included in the Bioterrorism Act.
    Senator Durbin has worked hard to raise awareness of food
    safety vulnerabilities. And my distinguished colleague Senator
    Akaka, perhaps more than any other Senator, has worked toward
    legislative solutions to our Nation's vulnerabilities to
    possible agroterrorist attacks. Our first witness today,
    Senator Talent, has also been an outstanding leader in this
    effort as the chair of the Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee
    on Marketing, Inspection, and Product Promotion.
        I look forward to working with Senator Talent as well as
    with the Members of this Committee to make sure that this
    aspect of homeland security receives the attention and the
    resources it deserves. We must join together on a bipartisan
    basis to address this growing threat before it reaches our
    soil.
        I would now turn to Senator Akaka for his opening
    statement. Senator Akaka.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA

        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I also
    want to welcome Senator Talent and to tell him that I will be
    willing to work with him on this issue.
        Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, for scheduling this
    hearing today which is so important to our country.
    Agroterrorism is an important subject that receives too little
    attention. Perhaps it is easier to talk about terrorists
    attacking people than about terrorists attacking animals or
    grain production. Unfortunately, the two threats cannot be
    separated. To attack the Nation's food supply is to attack all
    of us directly.
        After September 11, the President placed agriculture on the
    list of critical infrastructures that need to be protected from
    a terrorist attack. Since then, USDA has moved to improve its
    preparedness, prevention, and response efforts in the event of
    an agroterrorist attack.
        We are being warned that America must do more to protect
    the U.S. agricultural resources. Despite the warnings about the
    vulnerability, as expressed by the Chairman, of this important
    sector of our country, our response has been woefully
    inadequate.
        The Partnership for Public Service recently issued a study
    that examined the Federal Government's ability to defend
    against a bioterrorist attack. The Partnership report found
    that Federal agencies responsible for safeguarding our
    agriculture would face crushing burdens if our food and water
    supplies were contaminated.
        The General Accounting Office issued three reports in the
    past year examining food processing security, foot and mouth
    disease, and mad cow disease. The GAO report and others suggest
    that we have a long way to go to prevent and prepare for an
    attack on our agriculture.
        An unclassified CIA report released this month warns that
    advances in biotechnology have the potential to create a much
    more dangerous biological warfare threat. We must be mindful
    that any techniques that can be used to develop new bioweapons
    can be applied to developing threats to our agriculture.
        The vulnerability of America's agriculture has long
    concerned me. When I served on the House Agriculture
    Appropriations Subcommittee, I supported the USDA's Animal and
    Plant Health Inspection Service, which plays a critical role in
    protecting our borders and farms from agricultural pests and
    diseases, a critical mission for my home State of Hawaii.
        As a U.S. Senator, I continue to be concerned about this
    problem. In the 107th Congress, I introduced legislation to
    enhance agricultural security in the United States.
    Unfortunately, that bill was not considered during the last
    Congress and I again introduced legislation to address the
    shortcomings in agricultural security preparedness. My two
    bills, S. 427, the Agriculture Security Assistance Act, and S.
    430, the Agriculture Security Preparedness Act, focus on the
    need to increase coordination in confronting the threat to
    America's agriculture industry.
        The two measures provide for better funding and better
    coordinated response and defense to an agroterrorism attack.
    The first bill is primarily aimed at assisting States and
    communities in responding to threats to the agriculture
    industry. The legislation authorizes funds for communities and
    States to increase their ability to handle a crisis. It also
    encourages animal health professionals to participate in
    community emergency planning activities to assist farmers in
    strengthening their defenses against a terrorist threat.
        The second measure will enable better interagency
    coordination within the Federal Government. The legislation
    establishes senior-level liaisons in the Departments of
    Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to coordinate
    with the USDA on agricultural disease, emergency management,
    and response. Also, the bill requires DHS and USDA to work with
    the Department of Transportation to address the risks
    associated with transporting animals, plants, and people
    between and around farms.
        No one disputes the saying that an ounce of prevention is
    worth a pound of cure. The Nation's capability to counter
    agroterrorism is increasing. However, the central importance of
    agriculture to our country suggests greater efforts are needed.
        The consequences of a lack of preparedness could be quite
    high. My two bills will help our Nation act now so that a
    future agroterrorist attack can be avoided or quickly responded
    to before the damage to lives or livestock is too great.
        I look forward to our witnesses this morning and look
    forward to a productive discussion. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
        I know that our first witness is on a very tight schedule
    this morning so I am going to call upon him for his statement
    and then come back and turn to Senator Lautenberg for his
    opening remarks, if that is acceptable to the Senator from New
    Jersey.
        Senator Lautenberg. Yes.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        It is with great pleasure that I now introduce my esteemed
    colleague, Senator Jim Talent of Missouri. Senator Talent is
    the Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on
    Marketing, Inspection, and Product Promotion, which has
    jurisdiction over the Department of Agriculture's Animal and
    Plant Health Inspection Service. He represents a leading State
    in agriculture production and his commitment and leadership in
    protecting our Nation's food supply is a real asset not only to
    his State, but to our entire Nation. Senator Talent, we are
    glad to have you here today.

     TESTIMONY OF HON. JAMES M. TALENT,\1\ A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
                           STATE OF MISSOURI

        Senator Talent. I am very grateful to be here. Thank you,
    and the Ranking Member Senator Akaka, and thanks to Senator
    Lautenberg also for allowing me to go first. In return, I am
    going to be as brief as I can be.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Talent appears in the
    Appendix on page 53.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I want to start off by thanking you for holding this
    hearing. We really are past due, I think, in holding another
    hearing on this important issue. We need to raise the
    visibility of the question of food security. Contrary to what
    some of us believe, without thinking about it, food doesn't
    come from a grocery store. It comes from the ranches in the
    West. It comes from the farms in the Midwest. It comes from the
    potato farms in Maine, Madam Chairman, and it is vulnerable to
    attack at all different levels of the production chain.
        I want to thank you for allowing me to address the
    Committee. I am the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the
    Agriculture Committee that has jurisdiction over marketing,
    inspection, and product promotion, and therefore over this
    issue.
        I do think it is important at the outset of the hearing,
    and since I am the first witness, maybe I can do it, to provide
    some notes of reassurance to consumers. We do have the safest
    and the most abundant and the most affordable food supply in
    the world. That was true before September 11. I think it is
    still true.
        But what we are all recognizing here is that a system that
    was designed to protect against incompetence or unintentional
    mistakes that might allow pests or disease into the system is
    not necessarily designed as well as it should be to protect
    against an intentional attack. We have begun that transition in
    the last several years, but we need to make certain that we
    complete it and complete it as soon as possible because the
    stakes, as you have pointed out, Madam Chairman, are huge.
        Apart from the threat to safety, which is, of course, the
    No. 1 thing, the diseases introduced in the system can and have
    affected people.
        There is also a tremendous threat to the economy, and one
    gets the sense that is really what the terrorists are after.
    They want to spread fear and a lack of confidence in the food
    system. Agriculture sales account for 13 percent of the GNP.
    They are nearly one-sixth of all jobs in the United States. Of
    course, in the Midwest, where I am from, they loom as an even
    greater proportion of the economy in Missouri and the States
    around Missouri, and you have detailed, I think very well,
    Madam Chairman, what happens when there is an outbreak of some
    kind of food-related disease.
        Canada's beef prices have declined 50 percent since BSE was
    discovered there. You have talked about the effect of swine
    fever in the Netherlands, foot and mouth disease in Taiwan,
    foot and mouth disease in the European Union. We all know the
    impact of BSE in Britain, and not just on the beef business
    there, but also on the tourist business.
        And this is why it is so crucial to Missouri, Madam
    Chairman, because our two biggest parts of the economy are
    agriculture, agribusiness, and tourism. An outbreak of BSE or
    FMD or something like that in Missouri or anywhere near it
    would have a devastating impact, or could have a devastating
    impact on the economy, depending on how prepared we are and how
    quickly we act, and that is really what the hearing is about.
        The experts in this, and you are going to have them here, I
    am not going to try and anticipate what they are going to say,
    but they talk about the importance of things like geography. We
    all know that livestock in particular tends to be raised in
    close quarters. There are certain parts of the country that are
    responsible for most of the livestock production and so the
    diseases tend to spread quickly because the animals are close
    together.
        That emphasizes the importance of timing. We need to
    anticipate where this is most likely to occur. We need to have
    protocols in place so that we have confidence, we detect these
    diseases quickly and respond as quickly as possible. It took
    the Europeans 2 weeks to discover FMD in their domestic
    livestock and that is too much.
        The producers, as you know, Madam Chairman, are already
    cooperating. It is their job to stay in touch with their herds
    and their cattle and their pork. They know what is going on
    there and they will participate and are participating in
    protocols with public health agencies, with veterinarians, with
    law enforcement, so we can count on them, anyway, to do their
    part of the work.
        What strategy should we use? I can't emphasize enough in
    your deliberations, Madam Chairman, and we are going to do this
    in the Agriculture Committee, the importance of cooperation and
    partnerships and established protocols. That graph that you put
    up is really a pretty damning graph. There are all these
    agencies that are involved in it. That is probably too many. At
    the very least, we have to be certain that they have protocols
    in place, they know how they are to work together to prevent
    this and respond quickly if and when it happens. We don't want
    this to be some kind of fire drill, when the alarm goes off,
    where they are all running around doing the same thing, and I
    am certain that is what your hearing will look into.
        I want to, in closing, point out some of the good work that
    we are doing in Missouri. I have written testimony I would like
    to submit for the record if I could, Madam Chairman----
        Chairman Collins. Without objection.
        Senator Talent [continuing]. By Dr. Ab Womack, who is the
    Co-Director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research
    Institute at the University of Missouri.\1\ If there is
    anything, and there is a lot going on good in agriculture in
    Missouri, Ab Womack knows about it. I would encourage you,
    Madam Chairman and staff, to consider him a ready resource if
    you want advice about this.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Prepared statement by Dr. Ab Womack appears in the Appendix on
    page 162.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        We have established an alliance at the University of
    Missouri and we are already partnering with producers, with
    life sciences--we have a lot of life science research centers
    in Missouri anyway--public health agencies, law enforcement,
    becoming a kind of center for developing protocols to deal with
    this and prevent it and address it quickly if and when it
    occurs, and hopeful of being able to work at the university
    with the Department of Homeland Security in the future to try
    and prevent this.
        We have a big stake in Missouri, a big stake in the
    Midwest, but everybody in the country does. I am glad you are
    holding this hearing to raise the visibility and the importance
    of this and I am sure a lot of good is going to come out of it.
        Thank you again. I thank again my friend from New Jersey
    for allowing me to go first.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you very much for your testimony. I
    know I speak for all the Members of this Committee when I say
    that we look forward to working with you on solutions.
        Senator Talent. I have talked with Senator Cochran and he
    is, of course, extremely interested in this and I expect we can
    move ahead together on it. Thank you.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        Senator Lautenberg. Madam Chairman, before Senator Talent
    leaves, I received my basic training in Missouri, in the Ozark
    Mountains, and as I dug a foxhole there with mighty strokes of
    a very sharp pickaxe, I couldn't get anywhere and I am
    delighted to hear that Missouri has something else besides
    that. [Laughter.]
        Senator Talent. Well, Senator, you were undoubtedly in Fort
    Leonard Wood, and if you dig at Fort Leonard Wood, you will hit
    rock. It is one of the reasons the Army has established that.
    It sort of beefs up our recruits. [Laughter.]
        But you go a little further south and east and you get to
    the foothills, some of the best farmland in the country, and
    then you go north and west. We have a lot of interesting places
    in Missouri. I am glad you were there, Senator. Come any time.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator, and Senator
    Lautenberg, thank you for your courtesy in letting our witness
    proceed before your opening remarks.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG

        Senator Lautenberg. I was pleased to do that, Madam
    Chairman, because I am grateful that you are examining this
    subject, that we have a chance to take a look at it today.
        In the last few years, we have worked so hard to reduce the
    country's vulnerability to terrorist attacks, and it is a
    paradox when you think about it, that we now are moving to
    organically-produced products because we want to rid ourselves
    even of the slightest taint of a chemical or materials that
    might interfere with the purity of the product. And here we
    are, recognizing how vulnerable we all are to an attack on our
    agriculture, on our food supply.
        Unfortunately, our food chain from production to processing
    to distribution and consumption presents an all too easy target
    for those who want to harm America, and few targets have the
    impact that one could conceive as that coming from our food
    supply, something unknown that takes time to discover and then
    the time involved in reaching a large group of people in a
    given area, possibly a huge group if things go as one could
    imagine.
        As one of our witnesses today, Dr. McGinn of North
    Carolina's Department of Agriculture has put it, our food
    supply provides a big bullseye to some terrorists. Though
    people may not realize it, we actually have agriculture in my
    State, despite it's being densely populated--the most densely
    populated State in the country--we are referred to as the
    ``Garden State'' and there is a reason for that. New Jersey was
    a place of wonderful gardens and food production, and even
    though we are so crowded, we still today have nearly 10,000
    farms. Most of these are family farms. They cover about 800,000
    acres, and 800,000 acres in New Jersey, when you don't have a
    lot of acreage to spare, is quite significant.
        We produce fruit, vegetables, some corn, milk, greenhouse
    and other specialty crops and we are the Nation's second
    leading producer of blueberries and the fourth leading producer
    of cranberries in the country. Agriculture contributes $800
    million a year to New Jersey's economy, and yet for 2003, we
    have received only $146,000 for plant and animal disease
    response and surveillance and the Counterterrorism Food Safety
    and Security Program.
        This compares rather poorly with other States. If you
    compare our population sizes, this sum by no means represents a
    proportionate ratio.
        So given the size of our industry and our proximity to some
    of the biggest most vulnerable markets in the country, the
    poultry food safety funding that we receive is of concern to
    all of us in New Jersey. One of the things I would like to
    hear, Madam Chairman, this morning is how we assess threats to
    our food safety, how we allocated Federal resources to respond
    to these threats.
        Again, I congratulate you for holding this hearing. It is
    more than overdue. I will be anxious to hear what the witnesses
    have to say and look forward to the outcome of this hearing.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
        I would now like to call our second panel of witnesses
    forward. Our witnesses on this panel will provide an overview
    of agroterrorism by outlining the range of threats to our food
    chain, the vulnerability terrorists could exploit, and the
    economic, social, and public health consequences of such an
    attack.
        Dr. Tom McGinn is the North Carolina Department of
    Agriculture's Assistant State Veterinarian and its Director of
    Emergency Preparedness. Dr. McGinn has worked with the National
    Defense University on computer simulations that illustrate the
    effects of attacks on various segments of the agriculture and
    food industry.
        Dr. Peter Chalk is a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation
    and is the author of a new report that I mentioned in my
    opening statement that is entitled, ``Hitting America's Soft
    Underbelly.'' It offers an enlightening assessment of our
    exposure to agroterrorism and makes several important policy
    recommendations.
        Colleen O'Keefe joins us from the Illinois Department of
    Agriculture, where she is Division Manager of Food Safety and
    Animal Protection. Ms. O'Keefe will describe the Partnership
    for Security in Agriculture, an initiative among eight
    Midwestern States to develop a response plan.
        I want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today,
    and Dr. McGinn, we will start with your testimony. I understand
    that you have a PowerPoint presentation that you are going to
    use.

        TESTIMONY OF THOMAS McGINN, NCDA&CS,\1\ NORTH CAROLINA
                       DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

        Dr. McGinn. Thank you. I just also want to add that I am
    the President of the State Animal Response Team for North
    Carolina. That is 42 organizations in a public-private
    partnership to respond to any animal in any disaster anywhere
    in North Carolina using the Incident Command System. So it is a
    public-private partnership on our State level and also on our
    country level. I am also Deputy Team Leader for VMAT-3, which
    is part of the National Disaster Medical System. So I am
    deployed both for State and national animal disasters.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. McGinn with an attachment appears
    in the Appendix on page 58.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Chairman Collins. You have a lot of experience and that is
    one reason we were so eager to have you testify this morning.
        Dr. McGinn. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be with
    you today.
        I would like to start out by saying that the intentional
    use of a weapon of mass destruction against agriculture is
    agroterrorism, and what I would like to share with you today is
    how agriculture is both the perfect target and the perfect
    weapon. I am going to share with you some simulations that
    demonstrate the need for us to harness the resources and the
    energies of all aspects of government as well as public and
    private partnerships and the citizens of our country for the
    protection of our food.
        I mentioned that agriculture is the perfect weapon. It is
    easily obtained. It is easily creating fear. It has collateral
    destruction, will destroy our food, and the persons that would
    actually use a biological event against terrorists are not
    harmed by it. It has been around since the beginning of
    history. The history of biological warfare says that warring
    nations seek to destroy the food producing capability of their
    enemies. So you can see why it would be a perfect weapon.
        You have already mentioned that it is a perfect target. It
    is the largest single sector in our U.S. economy and it
    contributes $12 billion to the balance of trade.
        Also, information discovered from Afghanistan illustrates
    that al Qaeda is interested in using these weapons against us.
        My next slide will be a simulation that demonstrates the
    intentional introduction of foot and mouth disease into
    multiple locations in our country. In the lower left corner,
    you will see the days as they go forward and the States that
    are infected during each day, and then you will see the arrows
    that will go across the slide, indicating the spread of the
    disease. So you see Day One is the first day of infection. What
    you will see here is that by Day Five, we are already in 23
    States, and that Day Five is the first day that the disease is
    detected. So it is subclinical. It cannot be seen until Day
    Five and then it is in 23 States.
        By Day Eight, it is in 29 States, and then we would
    probably be in a position where there will be a national stop
    movement declared. The national stop movement would result
    ultimately in an estimated destruction of over 23 million
    animals.
        This disease also is infectious to meat and dairy products,
    so not only would the stopping of the movement of animals
    occur, but also then there would have to be restrictions on the
    movement of food, as well.
        So imagine what would be going on at this point in time as
    this sort of scenario occurs and the capabilities of these 30
    organizations to respond to something that is already in 20 to
    30 States before we have the capability of detecting it with
    current technologies. Imagine if such a disease was also a
    zoonotic disease, a disease that could affect humans, as well,
    and the kinds of concerns and frustrations that we would be
    experiencing and the effects on our economy that would occur.
        With this scenario, every day that can be saved,
    particularly early on, is a reduction in millions of lost
    animals and billions of dollars saved to our economy. So the
    earlier we can detect this and the quicker we can respond, the
    more effective we would be at preventing this kind of a
    destruction.
        If you look at the model I just shared with you and
    calculated the number of people that would be needed to respond
    to such an emergency, what we have done is sat down and added
    up all the people for decon, for permitting, for treatment, and
    for disposal of animals, for feeding and all these sorts of
    things, and come up with a total number of over 700,000 people
    would be needed at the maximum number of people at the greatest
    level of outbreak in our country.
        Seven-hundred-thousand people--our Nation is not prepared
    to be able to respond with that kind of response. Therefore, we
    need statutory authority that requires the training and
    exercising on the county level, the State level, and the
    national level to be able to get the organizations that you
    have shared with us earlier to be in a coordinated and
    integrated capabilities to respond to this kind of an outbreak.
        First responders, not only in the agricultural area but
    also as it relates to law enforcement, as it relates to fire,
    emergency medical services, all will be pressed into service in
    a situation like this, as well as the National Guard and the
    military.
        I also believe that this total number of people, that this
    demonstrates the need for having the ability to have State and
    county animal response teams, much like we have volunteer fire
    departments that already exist in our country.
        That was a simulation that I showed you last on an
    intentional introduction into the food production area. This is
    an intentional introduction of two pathogens into the food
    processing area. What this demonstrates, and you will see the
    days as it moves forward over on the right of this particular
    slide, on December 1, an introduction of two pathogens at the
    processing level in multiple sites. Again, it could be several
    sites or they could have actual delivery into many sites at one
    time. Obviously, the more sites they deliver to, the quicker
    these sorts of pathogens will spread throughout our country.
        This slide demonstrates the number of sick people, the
    number in the ICUs and dead people that would result from the
    distribution of infectious material from these processing
    plants into single, just into single grocery stores and
    restaurants throughout our country.
        Imagine the fear that would result from such an intentional
    introduction. Such a biological attack would create signs, both
    gastric, respiratory, and neurological. Anybody who is sick
    with any kind of a disease, whether it is flu or an allergy or
    whatever, or just a simple stomach virus, would think that they
    were infected, as well. This would overload our public health
    system and the confidence in the country's ability to respond.
    Our government's ability to respond would be called into
    question and fear would be widespread.
        We have become a Nation concerned about receiving anthrax
    in our mailboxes. Imagine what it would be like to be a Nation
    concerned about opening our refrigerators and anthrax being in
    our refrigerators, as well.
        Another method that terrorists could use would be the
    introduction of a pathogen into the quality control system.
    Imagine they just intentionally introduced it into a food
    sample or into a diagnostic laboratory. Our country would not
    even have to be infected with the disease. They just put an
    infectious material into the laboratory system and then the
    appearance of an infectious disease in our country would then
    exist.
        And imagine the confidence that we would lose, or the
    people of our country would lose, in our system even with such
    an introduction. Our inability to validate the movement of
    animals and product would cause further loss of confidence in
    the public as we would deal with these sorts of introductions
    within the quality control systems.
        Imagine people purchasing products from other countries,
    not because they had a preference for taste, but because they
    were scared that it might be infected with some substance.
        The protection of our food supply, therefore, is central to
    our culture and central to our government's stability. As
    consumers, we are looking for government agencies to speak with
    one voice. We are looking for them to actually give us the
    roles and responsibilities that they will undertake, the roles
    and responsibilities of the private sector, and then of the
    citizens themselves.
        We were looking for funding on the State level to actually
    do the sorts of things that can't be done on the national level
    to actually determine what our vulnerabilities are and how
    they, in fact, reduce some of the risk associated from what
    these simulations detect.
        Our country is looking at these 30 organizations that you
    shared to stand on the walls of a fort to protect food security
    arm in arm, not to be in the bunkhouse arguing over which
    particular agency is going to defend which section of the wall.
        Here are the issues that we are addressing tangibly in
    North Carolina. These are things that we are currently doing to
    address the concerns.
        The first one, detection and surveillance. You can see our
    education programs are critical, educating consumers, building
    resilience within the consumers as part of what we must be
    about. Instead of fear, we have got to instill confidence and
    resilience. Having an integrated human and animal alert
    system--this is something that we are pioneering in North
    Carolina with public health, emergency management, and the
    State Bureau of Investigation as well as the FBI.
        And automated remote sensing capabilities. We have got to
    be able to detect earlier these sorts of pathogens. If we can
    see them before they are clinical, then we are going to again
    save millions of lives--millions of lives in terms of animals
    and billions of dollars.
        And then containment and eradication, the ability to force
    multiply. The 700,000 people I shared with you earlier, we have
    got to train right down to the local level. These are the
    people that are going to be responding, not some group of folks
    coming in quickly from a national capability.
        Increased technology, such as vaccines. We are going to
    have to expand our vaccine capabilities, our pharmaceutical
    capabilities. The Strategic National Stockpile is a very good
    place to actually expand that capability and to roll that
    capability out, as well.
        And increase our laboratory capacity. If you take the same
    scenarios and look at what the costs are, how much laboratory
    capacity is needed, then we start to see the kinds of
    vulnerabilities that we are currently challenged to have in
    place.
        Data management, a national multi-hazard GIS geographic
    information system. We have got to be able to know where these
    farms are and where these processing facilities are and how
    they move product long before we get involved in such an
    attack. Trying to determine where these places are located
    during an attack takes weeks to months and we don't have the
    luxury, as you can see, of any days to do these sorts of
    things.
        Advancing livestock modeling capabilities. We have got to
    be able to put economic numbers associated with these models
    and we are very diligently trying to determine what kind of
    intervention strategies we need to do to return to normalcy in
    terms of production and processing, and also what are the costs
    associated with these intervention strategies.
        And finally, vulnerability assessment and risk reduction
    capabilities. We have got a food security program that is
    looking all the way from the raw ingredients through the
    producers, processing, distribution, and all the way to the
    retail and strengthening the chain, every link in that chain,
    in terms of what are the vulnerabilities. We do not know like
    we need to know what these vulnerabilities are. We do have a
    food safety culture, an excellent food safety culture in this
    country. We have got to develop a food security culture and
    this is a program that we are pioneering with AFDO, NASDA, and
    ASTHO in North Carolina.
        Continuity of operation programs are critical on the
    national level, but also right down to the processor and the
    food level.
        And then lastly, statutory terrorism training and
    exercising, much like what is done in the areas for
    radiological events. It is required. It needs to be required,
    and that would actually encourage the integration of these
    different agencies to work together.
        We need Federal guidance. We need Federal leadership and
    Federal resources. We have got to be able to do that on a
    central basis and on a decentralized basis. The integration and
    coordination is essential.
        There is funding that has been put forward in our State and
    all the other States that I have seen for law enforcement and
    for public health, for hospitals, targeted funding.
        Agriculture, as you can see from these simulations, is part
    of the critical infrastructure of our country and similar
    funding directed, targeted at the protection of our food
    security coming down through Homeland Security, ODP, through
    specific agencies with deliverables associated with that will
    ensure the consumers of our country and the confidence that
    they have had up until now will continue forward as we face the
    kinds of threats we will be facing in the future.
        Thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you
    today.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you very much, Doctor, for an
    excellent presentation. When you were showing how quickly
    disease would spread, I was reminded of the ``Dark Winter''
    exercise that tested what the spread and reaction would be to a
    deliberate contamination with smallpox. These simulations are
    very similar with the rapidity with which the disease spreads
    and the public reaction. So thank you for sharing your
    simulations.
        Dr. McGinn. It does also point out that within so many
    States, that it is a homeland security issue. It is not a State
    by State issue.
        Chairman Collins. That is a good point, as well.
        Dr. Chalk, thank you for being with us and please proceed
    with your testimony.

     TESTIMONY OF PETER CHALK, POLICY ANALYST,\1\ RAND CORPORATION

        Dr. Chalk. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for the opportunity
    to testify on this important subject.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Chalk appears in the Appendix on
    page 73.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Over the past decade, the United States has devoted
    considerable resources to upgrading homeland security in the
    context of improving our response contingencies against attacks
    against critical infrastructure in the country. While many gaps
    remain, this emphasis on preparedness and response has led to
    the development of at least nascent command structures that now
    have begun to span the ambit of potential terrorist attacks
    from conventional bombings right through to more exotic
    chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological incidents.
        Agriculture, however, is one area that has received
    relatively little attention in this regard, particularly with
    respect to accurate threat assessments and consequence
    management procedures. Indeed, the sect was only included as a
    specific component of U.S. National Counterterrorist Strategy
    following al Qaeda's attacks on September 11.
        The purpose of my testimony today is to expand the debate
    on homeland security by looking at some of the vulnerabilities
    that are inherent in agriculture and the capabilities that
    would be required to exploit those vulnerabilities.
        A few words about the importance of agriculture. It is
    absolutely essential to the economic well-being of the United
    States. Although farming directly employs less than 3 percent
    of Americans, one in eight Americans actually are employed in
    an industry that is either directly or indirectly supported by
    food production.
        Cattle and dairy farmers alone earn between $50 and $54
    billion a year through meat and dairy sales, while roughly $50
    billion a year is raised through agricultural exports. At the
    time of the 2001 attacks, agriculture constituted 9.7 percent
    of the gross domestic product of the United States, generating
    cash receipts in excess of $991 billion.
        Unfortunately, given this economic importance, agriculture,
    the inherent nature of agriculture does remain vulnerable to
    disruption and sabotage, both naturally occurring and
    deliberate. A number of factors account for this.
        Agriculture is both a large and intensive industry in the
    United States. Most dairies in the country can be expected to
    house at least 1,500 lactating cows at any one time, with the
    larger facilities housing upwards of 10,000 animals. And as we
    have heard, unlike human beings, these herds tend to be in very
    concentrated populations and are reared and bred in close
    proximity to one another. An outbreak of a contagious disease
    at any one of these facilities, particularly if it was airborne
    in character, would be very difficult to contain and could
    quite easily necessitate the wholesale eradication of all
    exposed animals, which is both technically and financially
    demanding.
        U.S. livestock has also reportedly become increasingly
    disease-prone as a result of husbandry changes that have been
    designed to elevate the volume, quality, and quantity of meat
    production or to meet the specific requirements of individual
    vendors. Biotechnic modifications have reportedly increased the
    stress levels of exposed animals, which has, in turn, lowered
    their natural tolerance to disease while at the same time
    increased the volume of bacteria that they could be expected to
    shed in the event of an infection.
        There is also insufficient farm and biosecurity
    surveillance. Farmers in the United States have tended not to
    think about a deliberate attack against their facilities, much
    less actively planned to prevent one. Farms have, as a result,
    evolved as relatively open affairs, seldom incorporating
    concerted means to prevent unauthorized access or intrusion.
        Food processing facilities also lack uniform biosecurity
    measures, particularly those that have proliferated at the
    medium to lower end of the production spectrum. Thousands of
    these facilities exist across the country, exhibiting uneven
    standards of internal quality control, questionable
    biosurveillance, and transient, largely unscreened workforces.
    Entry-exit controls are not always adequate and may not
    actually be practiced at all, and even basic measures, such as
    the padlocking of warehouses, may not be practiced.
        There is also an inefficient passive disease reporting
    system in the United States. Responsibility for the early
    identification of a disease necessarily rests with the
    agricultural producers, but this is being hampered by the lack
    of clear communication channels between producers and
    regulators and reportedly also by an unwillingness on the part
    of farmers to quickly report disease outbreaks for fear that
    this could lead to uncompensated destruction of their
    livestock.
        Finally, there is inappropriate training of veterinarians
    to recognize and treat foreign animal diseases. In part, this
    reflects the lower number of people actually entering into
    veterinarian science and also the preference choices of those
    that do, many of whom now tend to focus on domesticated animals
    because that is where the money is. Fewer and fewer people are
    actually focusing on large-scale husbandry.
        Now, although vulnerability does not equate to risk and
    there are few reported actual incidents of terrorists employing
    biological agents against agriculture, a realistic potential
    for such a contingency certainly exists. Indeed, what makes the
    vulnerabilities in agriculture so worrying is that the
    capabilities that are required to exploit those vulnerabilities
    are not significant and certainly far less significant than
    those that would be required to carry out a mass attack against
    humans using biological agents.
        At least four factors account for this. First, there are a
    large number of potential pathogens from which to choose, with
    at least 15 Class A agents being identified as having the
    ability to severely disrupt or affect animal populations. Most
    of these diseases are environmentally hardy and many are not
    routinely vaccinated against in the United States.
        Second, many foreign animal diseases cannot be transmitted
    to human beings. This means there is no requirement on the part
    of the perpetrator to have an advanced understanding of animal
    disease science nor is there any need for elaborate containment
    procedures or personal protective equipment in the preparation
    of the agent.
        Third, if the objective is human death, the farm-to-table
    food continuum offers a low-tech yet highly conducive mechanism
    for the transport and dissemination of bacteria and toxins,
    such as salmonella, E. coli, and botulism. Developments in the
    farm-to-table food continuum have greatly increased the
    potential number of entry points for these contaminants, which
    has greatly augmented the technical ease of actually carrying
    out an orchestrated foodborne attack.
        Finally, animal diseases can be quickly spread to affect
    large herds over wide geographic areas. That reflects both the
    intensive nature of farming in the United States as well as the
    increased disease susceptibility of animals. There is, in other
    words, no obstacle of weaponization. I would like to stress
    that, because weaponization is often cited as the most
    important barrier that needs to be overcome in terms of
    actually weaponizing biological agents and one of the major
    factors that has so far prevented sub-state use and escalation
    to that level.
        The ramifications of a concerted attack against the food
    chain would be far-reaching and they could quite easily extend
    beyond the immediate agricultural sector to affect other
    segments of society. We would have mass economic disruption,
    generating costs that would be expected to cross at least three
    levels. You would have direct costs associated with containment
    and eradication procedures. You would have indirect costs
    associated with losses that accrue to industries that are
    either directly or indirectly supported by agriculture, as well
    as compensation paid to farmers. Finally, there would be
    international costs in the form of protective embargoes imposed
    by major trading partners that were seeking to protect the
    viability of their own agricultural sectors.
        You would also get loss of political support and confidence
    in government. A successful bio attack against livestock would
    undoubtedly encourage people to lose safety in the confidence
    of the food supply and they could possibly lead them to
    question the effectiveness of existing bio preparedness
    measures in general. The actual mechanics of dealing with a bio
    attack against agriculture could also be a trigger for mass
    public criticism, particularly in the event of a mass
    euthanization of exposed animals.
        The United Kingdom foot and mouth disease outbreak provides
    a glaring example of just how far these effects can go. There,
    there were firebreaker operations that involved the eradication
    of non-disease-showing but susceptible animals in so-called
    firebreaker operations. That generated opposition not only
    amongst affected farmers, but animal rights advocates and
    eventually the public in general.
        Finally, you could quite easily get social effects,
    particularly if a zoonotic disease became entrenched in the
    United States and was passed from animals to humans and human
    deaths actually occurred. Terrorists could use this to their
    advantage to create an atmosphere of fear and collapse without
    actually having to carry out concerted direct attacks against
    humans and accept all that entails in terms of attracting mass
    government reprisals and potentially a loss of support.
        Despite the ease by which agricultural terrorism can be
    carried out and the potential ramifications of such a scenario,
    I don't think that it is likely to constitute a primary form of
    terrorist aggression. This is because acts, while significant,
    are delayed. They lack a single point of reference for the
    media to latch onto and to emphasize. They are probably going
    to be viewed as too dry in comparison to more conventional
    attacks, such as a bombing campaign.
        However, I think that attacks against agriculture could
    certainly emerge as a favored secondary form of terrorist
    aggression that is designed to further entrench and augment the
    general social disruption and upheaval generated by a more
    conventional terrorist bombing. The mere ability to employ
    cheap and unsophisticated means to target a State's economic
    base while at the same time possibly overwhelm its public
    management infrastructure gives agroterrorism considerable
    utility in terms of cost-benefit payoffs that would be of
    particular interest to any sub-state group that is faced with
    overcoming significant power of symmetry, such as al Qaeda.
        And I will finish off by saying that one must remember that
    bin Laden has specifically exhorted the use of biological
    agents against the United States in whatever manner possible
    and part of his strategy now is very definitely focusing on
    destroying the economic underbelly of the United States as he
    sees that as the principal anchor that is sustaining what he
    views as the demonic Western-dominated system across the globe.
        Thank you very much.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Dr. O'Keefe.

        TESTIMONY OF COLLEEN O'KEEFE, D.M.V, M.S.,\1\ ILLINOIS
                       DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

        Dr. O'Keefe. Thank you, Madam Chairman and distinguished
    Members, for inviting me. My point will be at a State level
    where we are with the region.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. O'Keefe appears in the Appendix
    on page 83.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Illinois has $7.5 billion in farm income, and $1.4 billion
    of that is livestock cash receipts. So we see agroterrorism as
    a very valid problem. With the ease of travel and the presence
    of biological agents worldwide--we have O'Hare as an
    international stop point--foreign animal disease in Illinois
    would be a major problem because it would stop the movement of
    interstate, intrastate animals, and then as our previous people
    have said, would cause great economic problem.
        And then there is the problem with consumer confidence.
    What meat products would be available would become
    prohibitively expensive and then the consumer confidence as to
    whether they would even choose to eat it.
        Presently in Illinois, we have an Emergency Animal Disease
    and Animals in Disaster Annex with our Illinois State Emergency
    Management and this allows the Department of Agriculture access
    to our other State agencies. We have a plan with the Illinois
    Department of Nuclear Safety for animals and plants in the case
    of a nuclear disaster.
        Our most current initiatives have occurred this spring when
    we are trying to get down to the first responder level, which
    is the people who will be the ones that will initially notify
    us of these outbreaks. We started with general meetings, trying
    to notify veterinarians of their roles as first responders. In
    October, we had our first informational meeting for
    veterinarians to bring them up to date on foreign animal
    diseases and to find out what their willingness will be to help
    us as a first responder.
        We will also be carrying this down to the producer level in
    the future. The training of the producers as first responders
    is something that we feel is very important. We are hoping to
    start getting emergency animal disease and animal in disaster
    plans next to the county emergency response plans and we hope
    to have regional and county veterinary response teams
    available.
        So we have a fairly general overall State process, but that
    doesn't get us to the point where we need, which is down to the
    producer and veterinary level.
        In putting together our State plan, we started this
    actually in 1998. In 2002, it was recognized that this is not a
    State issue, this is a regional issue, and then a Central
    States Animal Emergency Coordinating Council was formed through
    the effort of Illinois. The Departments of Agriculture and
    Emergency Management in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky,
    Missouri, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and the USDA came together
    to look at the issues at a regional level and in that report,
    there were several findings that came out that I think are
    important to bring out.
        The overall goal of the regional plan was to enhance
    communication. Initially, it wasn't even known how one State
    would notify another State of a possible foreign animal
    disease. It is down to that basic level. So these are issues
    that we needed to look at.
        We need to work together towards a common system of
    tracking and monitoring animal movements. Illinois alone
    imports and exports 360,000 head of swine, cattle, sheep, and
    goats per month--that is Illinois--and the rest of these
    States, you can probably multiply that by each State, and some
    States, probably Iowa, even more.
        The States with appropriate mapping technology and data
    collection are the exception rather than the rule. We need to
    have the USDA implement an electronic system to track livestock
    movements.
        The post-outbreak livestock movement protocol is critical.
    We have talked about the stoppage of infected animals to
    prevent the further infection, but at some point, we have to be
    able to facilitate the normal marketing of animals also,
    animals that are healthy and unexposed, to try to minimize the
    economic damage that will occur.
        We need to know what the government's indemnity plan would
    be before the emergency arises, and there is a disposal issue
    of animals that have been infected. This has to be done ahead
    of time because the numbers involved are huge.
        There are multiple agencies involved. No one Department of
    Agriculture can possibly cope with an infection. So we have
    private organizations and associations and all the agencies
    involved, and so training and testing is critical that we
    continue that.
        Those were the resolutions that were made. Earlier this
    year, a multi-State partnership in resource sharing has been
    organized to continue with this criteria. The partner States at
    this point are Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota,
    Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
        This partnership has the goal to determine where the State
    needs lie and what States can and should be doing together to
    strengthen our agricultural security and programs, and what
    they have done at this point is we have three work groups that
    are rapidly working. We have a State-to-Federal work group
    which is trying to strengthen our State and Federal bonds. We
    have a State-to-State work group that addresses the issue of
    interstate threat communication, joint planning and exercise,
    and livestock movement, quarantine, and crop security.
        The cooperative resource sharing group is trying to address
    services and resources that can be shared across State borders.
    We presently have an Emergency Management Assistance Compact,
    and what this does is allows for licensees from one State to
    work in another State in an emergency situation. So that is
    important, that we learn to use that to share veterinary
    emergency response teams and State animal health employees. We
    need to share our laboratory resources. We need to learn to
    share planning and educational materials.
        The State needs--while Illinois is doing really well, we
    have several critical shortages, our staffing, for one. Our
    State, and our State is not alone in this, is doing our
    emergency management with three people who are working half-
    time on this.
        Our State laboratories, both the animal disease laboratory
    and our agricultural product laboratory, are always needing
    equipment. I am sure you hear that all the time. But it is
    important that we have the most current equipment so we can
    have the most rapid diagnosis of disease possible because that
    is what makes the differences in slowing down the economic
    devastation. And we need to have equipment that will keep our
    staffs safe.
        The other thing is the State labs are not at this time
    allowed to test for foreign animal diseases and if we had an
    outbreak, the only place it is allowed to test is Plum Island,
    and that system would rapidly become overwhelmed and what would
    happen is that it would cause a delay in diagnosis and
    containment and that is a critical need that we have.
        We need help with the technology of just simply mapping
    where our livestock are, where the slaughter facilities are,
    warehouses are, this type of thing. We need to be able to look
    at the land to determine where we can set up disposal
    capabilities.
        And the other thing we need is we need to be able to
    continue training and exercising all of these groups that are
    managing together. We need to have a very good rapport with the
    Federal Government. We can't do this without Federal help, both
    on a basis of, in Illinois, we can quarantine animals but we
    cannot cause their euthanasia or the disposal of them without a
    very lengthy process, not counting the fact that we simply do
    not have the money. And so we need the Federal Government to
    step in and declare emergency so that we have the capabilities
    of getting animals disposed of to stop this disease. So working
    with the Federal Government is critical to any foreign animal
    disease and I truly hope that I never have to use any of what I
    have in plan implemented here. Thank you.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Dr. O'Keefe.
        Dr. McGinn, I want to pick up on a point that Dr. O'Keefe
    made about the tracking of livestock. From your presentation,
    it is evident that the speed with which a localized outbreak of
    foot and mouth disease could accelerate into a national
    catastrophe is truly alarming. It also is evident that it would
    be relatively easy for an agroterrorist to create such an
    outbreak and then just let it naturally spread on its own.
        It is my understanding that the phenomenon is driven in
    large part by the widespread industry practice of moving
    animals throughout the country to save on the costs throughout
    the production phase. I am told that in the beef industry, for
    example, that 80 percent of the animals pass through 2 percent
    of our feedlots. I was astounded to learn that.
        Are these movements sufficiently tracked so that livestock
    coming from farms that are infected could be identified and
    isolated? Explain a little bit more to us what the process
    would be if you discover an outbreak. You pointed out that it
    would take several days before it became evident. How difficult
    would it be to trace back to the farm where there may have been
    an intentional contamination?
        Dr. McGinn. The consumers want us to be able to do that
    instantaneously, and in order for them to have confidence in
    our ability to actually contain these contagious agents that
    move so rapidly across our country, we are going to have to
    improve our system.
        You heard Dr. O'Keefe from Illinois say that they move 300-
    plus thousand animals per month. We move, just out of our
    State, close to 200,000 head every week and millions of poultry
    every week, as well. Millions of poultry and close to 200,000
    livestock animals move out of our State each week. It is an
    incredible network, not only of live animals but also of
    products within the food chain, not unlike the Internet.
        To protect this network is going to require not just
    protection around certain facilities, but the entire network
    itself. That is why the critical infrastructure of
    transportation is also important, as well as agriculture. In
    order to be able to actually protect this network, we have to
    know where it is, and if we are spending in some of the
    exercises that I have participated in weeks trying to find the
    farms that could have actually been exposed to a disease, the
    disease is continuing to move on. You never--it is like a fire
    that is out of control. We never actually get ahead of the fire
    because we don't know where the fire is and we are always
    behind the curve trying to contain the spread of this virus.
    These viruses don't sleep at night. They move in our
    transportation networks.
        Consequently, we have got to have a national multi-hazard
    geographic information system. We have got to do this not just
    for livestock, but also every aspect of the food chain, and not
    just on the animal side--for plants, pesticides, fertilizers,
    all the areas of agriculture. We have got to look at every area
    and have all the different hazards which could possibly be
    affected identified.
        This takes some additional work at this point in time. We
    have the safest food system in the world. Terrorists are
    causing us to make it even safer and the development of this
    national capability to actually track these movements is a
    critical component of what we need.
        Chairman Collins. We talked mostly about attacks on
    livestock, but intelligence reports tell us that terrorist
    groups are also targeting the various parts of the food chain
    as potential means of spreading disease and toxins. I would
    like each of you to comment on the vulnerabilities of our food
    chain aside from the livestock issue which we have talked
    about, and we will start with you, Dr. McGinn.
        Dr. McGinn. As I was mentioning, fertilizers are used as
    bombs. Pesticides, as well, we have heard about their use as a
    terrorist activity. The plant pathogens, as well, and the
    destruction that can be done from plant pathogens is enormous.
        We have got to look at each aspect of the food chain from
    the raw ingredients through the production and processing and
    distribution up to the retail level and carefully look at the
    vulnerabilities and then put in place some vulnerability
    reduction strategies that look at it as a network or as a chain
    instead of just as an individual commodity along that chain.
        Chairman Collins. Dr. Chalk.
        Dr. Chalk. Yes. I agree that one has to look at the entire
    food production process in assessing vulnerabilities. With
    respect to crops, there are definite vulnerabilities vis-a-vis
    a seed growing stock for the subsequent growing season.
        With respect to food processing facilities, I think most of
    my attention focuses on the smallest scale production plants
    that exist across the country because it is at this point that
    biosecurity and surveillance tends to be least uniform, and in
    many of these facilities, there is not an adequate system of
    tracking the dissemination of products that actually go from
    the plant itself through the distribution chain to supermarkets
    and so forth, so that would be very difficult to actually trace
    back a contaminated product once it becomes apparent, which is
    a problem.
        The one saving grace is that these smaller facilities
    actually have a smaller cachement area. The larger food
    processing facilities, if one could actually orchestrate an
    attack within those companies, that would be the one that would
    actually have major run-on effects in terms of public health.
    But fortunately, food buyer security surveillance at those
    facilities is of a far higher standard.
        Chairman Collins. Dr. O'Keefe.
        Dr. O'Keefe. When I was preparing for this speech, my
    expertise is in animals and so I polled other members of my
    Department of Agriculture on the issues of feed, seeds, and
    fertilizer security. Our response is we have done a risk
    assessment, but that is about it, and the reason being is that
    we feel that the animal terrorism is the main thrust of what
    would be economically important, and so we have chosen to put
    our limited resources and people into that area.
        However, we recognize that this is not the only one and
    that is our next issue to look at, is attempting to come up
    with some rational plan to help with this.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Akaka.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
        Dr. McGinn, you stated in your written testimony that the
    United States, and this surprised me, lacks the capability to
    produce vaccines to combat foreign animal diseases, such as
    foot and mouth disease, and would have to rely upon Great
    Britain in this case for our vaccine supply in the event of an
    outbreak.
        I wonder, does it make sense to rely on another country for
    this vaccine? Could you describe the resources that would be
    required to develop it in the United States?
        Dr. McGinn. Senator Collins mentioned earlier Dark Winter
    and that scenario that really helped us see the need to get
    smallpox vaccine back as a way of protecting our country. If
    you look at these types of scenarios that we are sharing today,
    obviously, we have got to expand our ability to have the kinds
    of vaccines that we need to protect our food producing
    capabilities.
        Foot and mouth disease is a very complex vaccine that in
    order to be able to make it in such a way that we would have it
    on the shelf and ready to cover all different types of
    infection is a challenging thing to do. So what really needs to
    happen is looking at the different potential biological weapons
    that could be used against livestock and then determining what
    those costs would be for the development of those vaccines and
    then going ahead and targeting some dollars to accomplish the
    ability for us to be able to contain an outbreak quickly with
    the use of vaccines that could be available.
        Senator Akaka. Dr. Chalk, I know you work in California, as
    well, as here in Virginia. In your testimony, you cited the
    outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease in California chickens in
    2002. Can you walk us through the successes and failures in the
    Federal, State, and local agencies and their response to this
    outbreak?
        Dr. Chalk. Well, with respect to the poultry industry, I
    would argue that contingency measures are higher simply because
    there have been more referenced disease outbreaks at these
    facilities. There tends to be a higher awareness of the need
    for biosecurity and consideration of biosurveillance in terms
    of people coming on and leaving the premises, all of which
    tends to result in more effective recognition and rapid
    treatment, which tends to mean that although a large number of
    animals and flocks would be destroyed, that the disease itself
    doesn't spread.
        The problem is that you can't extrapolate that experience
    to the general agricultural industry at large because the
    referent examples aren't there. The referent experience isn't
    there. And I would say that if one was to equate the relative
    success of containment and eradication procedures vis-a-vis
    poultry compared to, say, swine herds or beef stocks, that the
    former would be far higher. But that is simply because it is of
    a smaller scale. You are not dealing with large-scale animals.
    And also, the visual impacts are not going to attract the same
    sort of media attention in terms of euthanization and
    eradication.
        But certainly, the problem with the poultry industry is
    that diseases that affect birds do spread very quickly and
    these populations are incredibly concentrated in nature. So it
    is highly vulnerable in that extent, but at the same time, that
    vulnerability has bred more concerted security preparedness
    measures. And certainly our experience in California when we
    have looked at the biosecurity measures at poultry farms is of
    a far higher standard. So to that extent, it is a positive, if
    you would like.
        Senator Akaka. Yes. As you can tell, I am interested in the
    communication and response in these efforts. Dr. O'Keefe, in
    your testimony, you make a series of recommendations for ways
    in which Federal agencies can aid State and local governments
    to prevent and respond to an outbreak of foreign animal
    diseases. I think you implied that the communication is not
    that great. Can you comment on your experience working with
    Federal agencies? For example, do you feel that there is
    adequate communication between the Illinois Department of
    Agriculture and the Federal agencies and that they are
    responsive to State and local needs?
        Dr. O'Keefe. The lack of communication, I think, is more on
    a State-to-State basis, just learning who we have to talk to in
    each State, because various States have different structures.
    So that is it.
        As far as working with the Federal level, the Federal
    veterinarians that we deal with in the State of Illinois have
    been exceptional as far as working with us, training with us,
    helping us set up our plans. So in that respect, it has gone
    well. Beyond that, I really couldn't comment.
        But as far as working with the Federal veterinarians, of
    course, the major problem is the shortage of the numbers
    involved and that is a problem. But we do get along fairly
    well, at least in Illinois, with our Federal veterinarians. The
    communication problem is more State-to-State in trying to get
    the right language together and who to talk to and how to
    organize, because obviously these emergencies aren't going to
    recognize State boundaries.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you for your responses, Madam
    Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lautenberg.
        Senator Lautenberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Is there not a network, a database that veterinarians, Dr.
    O'Keefe, can access for epidemic-type conditions?
        Dr. O'Keefe. If I understand you, if we see an outbreak, is
    that what you are saying?
        Senator Lautenberg. Of a highly contagious disease.
        Dr. O'Keefe. Actually, there is a protocol of notifying the
    State veterinarian here in Illinois and then the State
    veterinarian notifies the Federal veterinarian in charge.
        Senator Lautenberg. So all veterinarians, because they are
    licensed professionals, know how to----
        Dr. O'Keefe. Well, actually, that was one of the issues--
    when we did the first responder meeting--that we had to bring
    up, is that we are not taught, we haven't been taught how to--
    what do you do when you see a possible disease situation? Who
    do you call? It never has been an issue prior to this so it is
    not well----
        Senator Lautenberg. Yes.
        Dr. O'Keefe. In fact, we have made up magnets that we are
    just spreading everywhere, to producers and to veterinarians,
    that exactly give the protocols of who to call.
        Senator Lautenberg. Without oversimplifying, I mean, this
    is something certainly that looks like the first level thing to
    do----
        Dr. O'Keefe. Right. Well, that is what I said.
        Senator Lautenberg [continuing]. If you detect foot and
    mouth or swine cholera, that kind of thing, since you do have a
    professional population that is largely in touch with those
    places where you might see evidence of these diseases.
        You said, also, Dr. O'Keefe, something that I was curious
    about. Were you describing a complicated array of things that
    prevent you from euthanizing livestock?
        Dr. O'Keefe. Illinois statute says that we offer them an
    indemnity. If they choose to say--I say their cow is worth $50
    and they say their cow is worth $75, then it has to go to an
    arbitrator before we can do anything and that is how our
    statute is set up for the destruction of animals. And so,
    obviously, we don't have time for that in an outbreak
    situation.
        Senator Lautenberg. So it becomes the first stage of an
    economic issue.
        Dr. O'Keefe. Correct.
        Senator Lautenberg. And also, do you not have repositories
    where these diseased carcasses can be disposed?
        Dr. O'Keefe. No. The number of animals that you are talking
    about, if you are talking about pigs and cattle, there is no
    place that can set up for that, and that is one of the areas
    that we are presently actively pursuing, is we need to have set
    up ahead of time a method of disposal. In England, I think
    everybody saw the burning carcasses. I mean, sadly, that is one
    possibility. There are other ways. But they can't go to
    renderers because of the possibility of infection, so we have
    to come up with--and burial is another possibility. However,
    EPA may not look on burial sites as being a possibility.
        Senator Lautenberg. If we can find a place. We really
    haven't identified a fully safe repository for spent nuclear
    waste----
        Dr. O'Keefe. Well, and we don't want to transport these
    animals very far because of the infection.
        Senator Lautenberg. I remembered about a trip I took to the
    Soviet Union right after Chernobyl, months later, maybe a year,
    and I went into a supermarket, just as part of a review of what
    was taking place, and I saw signs advertising the fact that
    these items have been radiated as a result of the explosion
    there, and people bought it. They were cheaper, and they knew
    that it was cheaper in price. The same thing with meats. I was
    stunned, but when people are desperate, they do all kinds of
    things.
        I am not suggesting that we set up a system to accommodate
    that, not at all, but Dr. Chalk and also Dr. McGinn, if the
    mission was to scare us into activity, it sure scared us. Now,
    the response is the problem, because of the enormous cost that
    might be involved in preparing for these contingencies.
        You said something, Dr. Chalk, about that kind of attack
    not having the same visibility as a conventional bombing attack
    or something like that, but the amount of harm that it could do
    is far greater than anything except a nuclear bomb might do in
    one fell swoop.
        So I, frankly, sit here a little bit overwhelmed by the
    potential, that we know exists. I think there was a time,
    because Senator Collins, our Chairperson, referred to al Qaeda
    manuals that were found. Do you believe that these couple years
    later after September 11 that al Qaeda still might have that as
    a target in mind, an attack on a food supply?
        Dr. Chalk. I think there are a number of things here.
    Certainly, if one takes at face value the assertions of bin
    Laden about economic warfare, a certainly viable method of
    undermining the economic resource base of the United States is
    through agriculture. And one also has to take into account that
    even if a disease was contained, the possibilities of
    recurrences are always there, especially if something like foot
    and mouth getting out of the agricultural population into the
    wildlife population. If those sorts of scenarios happen, then
    you have got a very difficult problem.
        If we look at the U.K. experience, for instance, although
    the eradication of foot and mouth disease has been declared,
    residual outbreaks continue to take place, which is still
    having an economic impact on the country.
        The other aspect to bear in mind is that al Qaeda is very
    definitely interested in biowarfare. We know that from written
    statements. We know that from verbal statements. The problem
    with biowarfare against human beings is that it is one thing to
    want to do it. It is an entirely different thing to actually
    weaponize agents to kill large numbers of people to make a mass
    impact. You can have a psychological impact, but it is much
    more difficult to have a mass physical impact.
        With bioattacks against agriculture, the very nature of the
    fact that the animals themselves are the weapons, means you
    don't have to weaponize the agent. In addition, the mere fact
    that you can handle disease agents with little or no risk of
    latent or accidental infection, and the possibility that the
    general population may not understand that certain diseases are
    not transmissible to humans, all of these factors bear into the
    fact that attacks against agriculture are easy to do, will
    spread quickly, will definitely have an economic impact, and
    quite possibly have a very significant psychological impact--if
    one is looking at what terrorists aim to do, objective of
    disorienting society and undermining the support pillars that
    give any society strength.
        Agroterrorism in that sense is a viable option,
    particularly when you take into account its cost-benefit
    analysis. And one must remember that terrorists, like bodies of
    running water, always choose the course of least resistance.
        Senator Lautenberg. Madam Chairman, I will conclude, but I
    commend you for holding this hearing and for helping us to
    understand what the dimension of agro-terrorism could be. I
    will leave it to you to direct us how to solve this problem.
    Thank you.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator. Senator Durbin.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN

        Senator Durbin. Madam Chairman, thanks for this hearing. I
    might tell you that I think this is historic in that after
    September 11, I was asked to go to a briefing, a classified
    briefing, from our intelligence agencies about agroterrorism. I
    was the only one in the room. There weren't a lot of Senators
    clamoring to get in at that point. A lot of other things were
    on our minds. But it was frightening. I haven't spoken about it
    since publicly because of some of the concerns I have had, and
    I am glad that you are making this a public issue. We have to
    face it.
        You brought together a great panel here and another great
    panel to follow on. I want to quickly thank Dr. O'Keefe for
    being here from my home town. Her family and she have been
    friends for years and years and I thank her for joining us.
        Two things I would note here. We start off by saying to
    State and local agencies, get your act together here. Face the
    reality of food security. And yet, as you have noted at the
    outset of this hearing, we don't have our act together in
    Washington by a long shot. You have noted some 30 different
    agencies that might be involved in a possible foot and mouth
    disease outbreak. We have 13 different Federal agencies that
    are responsible for food inspection, 35 different laws, 70
    different committees and subcommittees of jurisdiction.
        We don't have our act together. We are not taking this as
    seriously as we should. The next panel will represent three of
    those Federal agencies, not all of them, but the three major
    ones, but it is an indication that we haven't really taken this
    admonition to heart here in Washington and we should.
        Let me try to explore two scenarios in the brief time that
    I have here, and let me first go to, and this is troubling in a
    respect to talk about it, but I think we have to and I think
    they have been alluded to. Virtually every agricultural State
    in the Nation has a State fair. Ours does, a huge gathering of
    people from rural areas and livestock, the best to come to be
    shown. As a youngster and as a father raising kids, we used to
    like to walk our kids, come take a look at the cows and the
    sheep and the horses and everything that is there. It was just
    a wonderful feeling. It is a great part of growing up in
    Illinois.
        And yet when you think now in terms of our discussion, this
    is an experience that we have to reassess. Dr. Chalk, you talk
    about the weaponization of foot and mouth disease and I think
    what you say is that it is doable. A person could find a way to
    spread this disease. If that is the case, let me ask you this.
    What is the incubation period for foot and mouth disease?
        Dr. Chalk. Well, Dr. McGinn was----
        Senator Durbin. Or Dr. McGinn, whoever.
        Dr. McGinn. Three to 5 days was the accepted length of
    time. That is why a terrorist could actually put it on a
    handkerchief, bring it into our country from any country that
    has foot and mouth disease in the world, just put it on a
    handkerchief, bring it in, and infect at multiple sites. We
    can't see the disease. The virus is actually spreading, but
    then in about 4 to 5 days----
        Senator Durbin. If you exposed livestock before they are
    being shipped back to the farm at a State fair, you would have
    dispersed this disease across the State. Frankly and sadly, in
    an efficient way, it would move across the State. That is a
    reality and would have a terrible damaging economic impact. How
    do we cope with that? How do we deal with that?
        Now let me go to the next area, food processing, which
    concerns me a great deal. In fact, Madam Chairman, I asked the
    General Accounting Office to do a study this year on food
    processing security. We talk about safety, but what about
    security? And what they found when it came to the security
    aspects which we have discussed here are troubling.
        They went to the two major agencies, Food and Drug
    Administration and USDA, who are represented today, and they
    concluded, the GAO, that neither agency believes it has the
    authority to regulate all aspects of security. The U.S.
    Department of Agriculture believes the statutes cannot be
    interpreted to authorize the regulation of security measures
    that are not associated with the immediate food processing
    environment. As a result, USDA does not believe it has the
    authority to require food processors to adopt measures to
    ensure security outside the premises, such as installing
    fences, or to require that food processors conduct employee
    background checks.
        So now we have moved beyond the livestock to the processing
    part of it and we don't have the current authority to deal with
    security on the ground. Instead, we deal with something known
    as voluntary guidelines, and excuse me, but I don't think that
    is good enough. It might have been good enough dealing with the
    problems of the 19th Century. It is not good enough in dealing
    with the problems of the 21st Century.
        [The prepared statement of Senator Durbin follows:]

                  OPENING PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN

        Good morning.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman for holding this hearing on a topic that
    potentially impacts the life of every American. I would also like to
    welcome one of our witnesses and a life-long resident of Illinois, Dr.
    Colleen O'Keefe from the Illinois Department of Agriculture.
        Agriculture's contribution to our Gross Domestic Product is over
    one trillion dollars per year--one sixth of our GDP. And although only
    3 percent of Americans are directly involved with farming, one out of
    eight (1/8) Americans are employed in an occupation that is directly
    supported by food and fiber production. Additionally, agricultural
    exports are the largest positive contributor to the United States'
    trade balance.
        An act of agricultural terrorism or a naturally occurring
    agricultural catastrophe would have immediate effects on our economy
    and could threaten our national security. Public health and animal
    health could be compromised and public confidence in our institutions
    would be shaken. How long these effects would last depends on our
    readiness to respond.
        We have concentrated on many aspects of national security but have
    taken much more limited action to address agricultural and food
    security. There are many steps in the process that brings food from
    farm fields to grocers' shelves and each step may be susceptible to
    tampering. Possible targets could include field crops, farm animals,
    food in the processing and distribution chain, market-ready food,
    storage facilities, wholesale and retail outlets, transportation
    systems and research institutions.
        Because of consolidation within the agricultural sector and
    vertical integration of our food production and distribution systems,
    one well-placed and well-timed attack could disrupt a considerable
    portion of our food chain.
        We should develop an integrated strategy that includes specific,
    relevant and measurable goals for preparedness, surveillance, response
    and recovery.
        We cannot assume we are prepared for agricultural catastrophes if
    we have not established clear roles for Federal, State and local
    authorities and integrated those roles into the overall homeland
    security plan.
        We cannot presume to have effective surveillance unless we develop
    adequate laboratory capacity and the ability to quickly transfer
    samples and results.
        We cannot pretend to have an adequate response unless we can
    predict patterns of disease dispersion and address economic, social,
    trade, diplomatic, legal and even military options after an outbreak.
        Communication is basic to our preparedness, surveillance, response
    and recovery, from local farmers to international trade partners. We
    must communicate effectively among and between agencies, with our trade
    partners and especially with the agricultural community that is so
    critical to our own individual well-being and the well-being of our
    entire country.
        Madam Chairman, right now there are too many variables in our
    approach to intentional or naturally occurring agricultural disasters.
    In the last Congress, I introduced legislation to combine the 13
    different Federal agencies that have jurisdiction over food safety into
    one Food Safety Administration. A single food agency would serve as an
    efficient and coherent system dedicated to securing our Nation's food
    supply and ultimately our public health and economic strength. I am
    making improvements to that legislation and plan to re-introduce it
    early in the next session.
        In closing, I would like to cite the 2002 report, ``Agricultural
    Bioterrorism: A Federal Strategy to Meet the Threat'' from the National
    Defense University. The paper concludes, ``An aggressive, well-
    coordinated effort to combat agricultural bioterrorism will strengthen
    partnerships and improve coordination among agencies and organizations
    with responsibilities, programs, and capabilities to address a
    significant national threat. Perhaps, because the threat is more
    focused and manageable than other potential threats against the
    Nation's infrastructures, an effective, well-coordinated program may
    provide a model for other counterterrorism efforts.''
        Madam Chairman, I would suggest that now is the time to build that
    model program.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman. I look forward to hearing from today's
    witnesses about their agencies' food security efforts at the State and
    national levels.

        Senator Durbin. And so I would like to ask each of you, in
    the short time remaining here, if you could comment briefly. Do
    you feel that consolidating our efforts in Washington is also
    essential to making certain that we deal with food security in
    a responsible fashion so that you in State and local venues
    have someone you can work with who really looks at the depth
    and breadth of the challenge that faces us? Dr. McGinn.
        Dr. McGinn. Absolutely. I think if you look at the
    scenarios that we have shared today and the one you just
    mentioned about the State fairs, this was in Scientific
    American that that very scenario had been discussed, and the
    Scientific American said these sorts of scenarios are out there
    and having a Federal plan that coordinates all the agencies and
    requiring these Federal agencies to come up with that plan
    within a certain length of time, and then that sets a standard
    or a set of roles and responsibilities that they would
    undertake and then, in like fashion, requiring the States to
    follow that sort of plan to be able to address these
    intentional attacks is very much necessary at this point in
    time.
        To do that takes some resources. If you look at the
    scenario with smallpox and human health, what you saw is the
    CDC grants that came forward with a tremendous amount of
    resources to the States. They focus on different areas,
    training, exercising, pharmaceuticals, communications. They
    have all these different focus areas and very much feel like
    that in order to get this coordinated effort on the national
    level and on the State level, we have got to have the plans. We
    need deadlines to get those out there, but the dollars have to
    come to both levels to actually build the capabilities,
    targeted dollars, a large number of dollars, sustainable
    dollars that had not yet been put into this whole process.
        So a plan is great, but building capability in addition to
    that plan, both of those need to be on a time line and funded
    in order to address these sorts of things.
        Senator Durbin. Thank you. Dr. Chalk or Dr. O'Keefe?
        Dr. Chalk. I absolutely agree. One needs to have a plan to
    ensure against duplication of effort, cross-jurisdictional
    jealousies, turf wars that inevitably arise in terms of
    mandates. It is all very well to have plans, but those plans
    need to be directed and coordinated in a single fashion to
    prevent the proliferation of ad hoc initiatives that seek to
    address specific contingencies in an individual basis. And as
    we have seen in various other areas of counterterrorism, that
    is not a viable way of actually dealing with this threat.
        One also has to look at the agricultural and food industry
    in a holistic fashion. As you say, it definitely does need to
    include the food production part of the industry and those
    sorts of modalities need to be factored in in terms of setting
    predetermined standards that should be instituted across the
    board. So I would fundamentally support those sorts of efforts.
        Senator Durbin. Dr. O'Keefe.
        Dr. O'Keefe. I agree with everything they said. I can't
    speak on a Federal level. That is not my expertise. But on the
    State level, we run into this all the time, whether public
    health has an issue or is it Department of Agriculture, and
    we--what our mandate is and what their mandate is are sometimes
    not the same and we can see a problem but not be able to deal
    with it and have to turn it over to another agency and there is
    a lot of time gap sometimes in getting it done. So assuming
    that they are both the same is a critical need legislatively.
        Senator Durbin. Madam Chairman, I thank you. I thank the
    panel. I would just say to you, every time I bring this issue
    up, the lobbyists get nervous and their feet start shuffling
    and they are thinking, oh my God, he is going to take away my
    job. He is talking about combining some existing agency into a
    new agency and I represent the group that is comfortable with
    an existing agency. Don't change things. Don't rock the boat.
        And the same thing is true up here on Capitol Hill with
    Members of Congress who jealously guard their jurisdiction.
    They don't want to give it up. And then you get downtown, and
    frankly, the only people who favor consolidation of food safety
    and security are either people who are not in the government or
    people retired from the government. As soon as they arrive and
    they are on the government payroll, in political positions
    usually, oh, they have just resisted night and day. We can't
    afford this anymore. Agroterrorism, I think, ought to be the
    wake-up call here, that we can do a much better job, and thank
    you for alerting us.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Durbin.
        We will do one final round of questions for this panel,
    limited to 4 minutes each.
        Dr. McGinn, one consequence that you have explored of an
    outbreak would be an impact potentially on military training
    and deployment. This consequence is something that I think most
    of us hadn't even thought of as a possible consequence of
    agroterrorism. Could you expand on your earlier comments and
    tell us a little bit about your concerns in that area and any
    suggestions you might have?
        Dr. McGinn. Gladly. In the scenario we shared earlier, you
    can see all the arrows going across all the different States,
    but within those States then what occurs is multiple
    quarantined areas that will be popping up simultaneously. You
    could have 500 to 1,000 farming facilities or processing
    facilities under quarantine at one time.
        This will create a restriction in movement that is very
    significant to the military, but also to anybody moving any
    sort of goods through, whether it is a research facility that
    has to move products, moving computers from one place to the
    next. Any sort of movements then become gummed up in the works,
    so to speak.
        So the military would be an example. They have got to be
    able to mobilize very quickly and deploy extremely quickly and
    so any sort of way that they would have to be dealing with
    these quarantined facilities would be a great challenge to
    them. They would also be restricted in where they could land
    and actually set up and stage in other countries. When other
    countries have had foot and animal diseases in their country,
    infectious organisms, we would not allow them to come and
    exercise in our country because of fear that those transports
    and those personnel might bring some of these infectious
    diseases into our country. So we have already set a precedence
    that says we don't want those sorts of diseases coming into our
    country, so we would then in like fashion if a terrorist used
    such an organism against us, then we would have a difficult
    time being able to deploy to other countries, as well.
        So this whole issue of the massive number of quarantines
    associated, as we saw in the U.K., you had people leave their
    homes with their children so they could go to school and they
    actually left where they lived for long periods in time so as
    to get outside of quarantine areas.
        So the challenge associated with any kind of biological
    event, whether it is directed at animals or directed at people,
    becomes this whole issue of restriction in movement and
    obviously it has a great impact on our ability of our military
    to do what it needs to do to protect us, as well.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. I think that helps us
    understand that the consequences of an outbreak of animal
    disease are far-reaching when it actually would have an impact
    on military readiness and the ability to deploy troops.
        Dr. O'Keefe, one of our witnesses on the next panel will
    talk about the Federal Government's efforts to train State
    officials. For example, the Department of Agriculture's APHIS
    sponsored 2-week training seminars three times in 2001 for
    veterinarians in all 50 States. Could you give us your
    assessment of Federal efforts to assist State officials through
    education and training to increase the level of preparedness?
        Dr. O'Keefe. We have at this point four trained
    veterinarians for the foreign animal disease diagnosticians,
    which is critical to the point of diagnosing quickly whether or
    not this is a risk or not.
        As far as the other levels go, when seminars have been made
    available, we have sent staff. At this point, we always need
    more training, but the level we are at right now is adequate.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Dr. Chalk, just one final
    question for you. We know that some nations, including the
    former Soviet Union, experimented extensively with crop and
    livestock diseases as weapons. Should we be concerned about the
    dissemination of that research to terrorist groups and to
    nations that sponsor terrorism, and if so, do you have any
    suggestions for how we can address that potential threat?
        Dr. Chalk. Yes, you are quite correct. The former Soviet
    Union, Iraq, and South Africa, are all countries that have--and
    the United States, for that matter--are all countries that have
    included agricultural components in their weapons of mass
    destruction biological programs.
        There is certainly a potential for that research to be
    disseminated by rogue scientists, by individuals seeking to
    make a quick buck, particularly from the Soviet Union, in
    exactly the same fashion as the concern exists vis-a-vis
    scientists who have been involved in the human side of the
    biological programs.
        I guess the fundamental way of dealing with that is to
    provide incentives for the scientists in the countries
    concerned not to do that in terms of providing viable income
    and employment opportunities and redirecting their efforts
    towards the development of sustainable vaccines to deal with
    things like foot and mouth disease. And certainly the
    technological expertise in those countries exists whereby one
    could tap into that and actually use it as a positive resource
    as opposed to a potential negative threat.
        On the State side, the one thing I would like to stress is
    that when it is argued that we are always dealing in scenarios
    when it comes to agroterrorism, I have only come up with two
    documented cases of the sub-state use of biological weapons
    deliberately as a political strategy against livestock.
        The mere fact that nation states have recognized its
    utility as a viable offensive weapon, as a form of asymmetric
    warfare, should be of concern, not only in terms of
    understanding its potential utility, but in many cases sub-
    state actors will seek to replicate what the state actor is
    doing, and that is certainly true of the terrorism method. So
    it is important that we understand the dynamics of how States
    have seen agroterrorism and we understand the potential
    dissemination of those lessons, of those implications down to
    the sub-state level.
        Luckily, though, with respect to the former Soviet Union,
    with respect to Iraq, and certainly with respect to South
    Africa, there has been a voluntary curtailment of the bio
    weapons programs in general. So that has mitigated that threat.
    But the fact is, the knowledge is out there. It is still there
    and we need to be aware of that.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Akaka.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I would like to
    ask for comments from our witnesses either now or for the
    record on my legislation, S. 427, which is the Agriculture
    Security Assistance Act, and also S. 430, which is the
    Agriculture Security Preparedness Act. These bills increase
    coordination in confronting threats in the agriculture
    industry. I crafted this to maximize the benefits for our
    country and would like for you to look at it and to make
    comments on it. That is my question, and because of time, I
    would like to have it for the record.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
        I want to thank this excellent panel for your testimony
    today. There is one final point that at least two of you raised
    that I want to highlight, and that is that an individual who is
    intent upon creating an attack of agroterrorism does not
    necessarily put himself at risk and that makes agroterrorism
    much more tempting, in many ways.
        For example, someone who is dealing with anthrax has to
    worry about contaminating himself. By contrast, someone who is
    seeking to create an outbreak of foot and mouth disease does
    not have to worry about ``catching'' the disease, and that
    seems to be the case with many of the pathogens that you have
    identified as potential vehicles for causing an agroterrorist
    attack.
        I think that makes the challenge that much more difficult
    and I want to thank you all for the work that you are doing in
    this area and for giving the panel a better understanding of
    the challenges our Nation faces. Thank you.
        I would now like to call our final panel forward. It
    consists of representatives of the Department of Homeland
    Security, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department
    of Agriculture. These are the three agencies that are most
    responsible for agroterrorism preparedness and response.
        Dr. Penrose Albright is the Assistant Secretary for Science
    and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security. The
    Science and Technology Directorate heads the Department's
    agroterrorism prevention and response efforts and oversees the
    Plum Island Animal Disease Center, our first line of defense
    against foreign animal disease.
        Dr. Lester Crawford is the Deputy Commissioner for the Food
    and Drug Administration. Two entities within the FDA, the
    Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and the Office of
    Regulatory Affairs play significant roles in FDA's efforts to
    prevent and respond to an attack upon our food supply.
        Dr. Charles Lambert is Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing
    and Regulatory Programs at the Department of Agriculture. Dr.
    Lambert's responsibilities include the management of the Animal
    and Plant Health Inspection Service, the principal Federal
    agency for preventing and responding to outbreaks of diseases
    and pests. APHIS also monitors foreign animal and plant health
    and maintains a surveillance system aimed at rapidly detecting
    and diagnosing outbreaks of exotic diseases in the United
    States. He is accompanied by Dr. Merle Pierson, Deputy Under
    Secretary for Food Safety.
        I want to thank you all for being here today and for your
    patience in waiting through the testimony of the other
    witnesses.
        Dr. Albright, it is a great pleasure to welcome you back to
    the Committee. We were very pleased to confirm you earlier this
    year and we look forward to hearing your testimony.

    TESTIMONY OF HON. PENROSE ALBRIGHT,\1\ ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
        SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

        Mr. Albright. Thank you, Chairman Collins and Senator
    Akaka. I am pleased to appear before you today to report on the
    progress the Science and Technology Directorate of the
    Department of Homeland Security is making in the areas of
    prevention, protection, response, and recovery to acts of
    agroterrorism against the American people.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Albright appears in the Appendix
    on page 88.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The Department's mission is to protect America from
    terrorist threats or strikes, including those directed at
    agriculture and food. The Science and Technology Directorate
    serves as the primary research and development arm of the
    Department of Homeland Security and its priority is to find
    technology solutions to meet pressing homeland security
    challenges.
        S&T is specifically tasked with marshaling the intellectual
    capital of the engineering and scientific communities to
    develop fresh and effective approaches to safeguard the
    American public. The Science and Technology Directorate
    collaborates with APHIS and with USDA's Agricultural Research
    Service, or ARS, on research at the Plum Island Animal Disease
    Center, which on June 1 of this year became part of the
    Department of Homeland Security as mandated by the Homeland
    Security Act.
        In its planning, the Science and Technology Directorate has
    been guided by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, current
    threat assessments, our understanding of existing capabilities
    or those that can be anticipated in the near term, and by the
    priorities outlined in the President's National Strategy for
    Homeland Security. In short, we are shaping the Directorate to
    serve as the Department's hub for research and development for
    countering the spectrum of threats against the United States
    and its people.
        The Department and the Directorate must consider and
    address a number of factors in its approach to protecting the
    agricultural infrastructure. You heard a lot of the issues from
    the prior witnesses.
        The U.S. agricultural and food system is a large nationwide
    system of production, processing, and distribution. The
    opportunities both geographically and within the system for
    intentional introduction of biological agents introduces
    considerable complexity in securing these critical components
    of the national infrastructure.
        The historical approach to keeping foreign animal diseases,
    such as foot and mouth disease, out of the continental United
    States has been to secure and protect our borders against the
    unintentional introduction of animals carrying such diseases.
    The bioterrorism event, on the other hand, would be the result
    of the intentional introduction of one or more biological
    agents at multiple locations within our borders simultaneously.
    Therefore, we have a need to clearly understand the scope and
    scale of this challenge and to develop a national strategy and
    the necessary tools to prevent, detect, respond, and recover
    from such potential events.
        Through their research and regulatory programs, the USDA
    and the Food and Drug Administration provide the foundation for
    national agricultural, animal, and plant health and for public
    health. The USDA has established programs on foreign animal
    diseases and their pathogens, diseases of domestic animals and
    their pathogens, vectors and reservoirs of animal and human
    disease pathogens, plant crop diseases and their pathogens, and
    food safety. The FDA also has a very strong research program to
    address food safety and security concerns.
        Thus, our strategy in the Science and Technology
    Directorate is designed to overlay protection from agricultural
    terrorism onto this very excellent foundation.
        Two of the four high-consequence biological scenarios that
    have been guiding the Science and Technology Directorate's
    planning for its research programs, in fact, address major
    concerns in agriculture and food, specifically, the deliberate
    introduction of foot and mouth disease into the United States
    and the results of a classified food security scenario that we
    also use in our planning purposes.
        We expect that the lessons learned from a thorough analysis
    of these initial two Department of Homeland Security biological
    scenarios will provide a valuable perspective and framework for
    our planning in collaboration with our USDA and FDA partners
    and will serve to guide the development of initial scenarios in
    agriculture and food safety.
        Let me now say a few words about one of our key concerns,
    which is foot and mouth disease. Foot and mouth disease virus
    infects cloven footed animals, such as cattle, swine, sheep,
    and deer, and is one of the most infectious biological agents
    known. It is not infectious to humans.
        The United States has been free from foot and mouth disease
    since 1929. As the isolation and manipulation of the foot and
    mouth disease virus requires fairly low to medium-range
    technology, this pathogen is a potentially high consequence if
    intentionally introduced to U.S. livestock.
        Research on the intact FMD virus is currently restricted to
    the Plum Island Animal Disease Center just off of Long Island.
    At Plum Island, the research program led by ARS and the
    diagnostic program conducted by APHIS are, in fact, unique.
    Therefore, Plum Island is recognized as a critical national
    asset that is essential for protecting the U.S. livestock that
    is vital to the Nation's economy and food supply.
        We are currently developing a collaborative strategy for
    the operations and research programs on Plum Island with our
    colleagues at APHIS and ARS and with the customers and
    stakeholders representing key industry groups. This strategic
    planning includes, first, a 60-day study of facilities and the
    security status and requirements of Plum Island; coordination
    of the Plum Island program with the National Biodefense
    Analysis and Countermeasures Center, or NBAC, that the Science
    and Technology Directorate has created at the Fort Detrick
    Biodefense Campus. NBAC is dedicated to protecting health and
    agriculture by advancing the scientific community's knowledge
    of bioterrorism events and vulnerabilities.
        We are also performing an end-to-end analysis of the R&D
    requirements for a comprehensive program on foot and mouth
    disease, including identification of research and technology
    gaps and milestones for deployment of diagnostics, vaccines,
    and antivirals over a 1-, 3-, and 5-year set of time frames,
    along with the associated needs for facilities, staffing, and
    funding required to support this research and development
    activity.
        This is just but a part of a joint DHS-USDA comprehensive
    national strategy for foreign animal disease with an emphasis
    on foot and mouth disease which must be reported to Congress in
    January as required by the fiscal year 2004 appropriations
    language.
        The joint USDA-DHS Comprehensive National Strategy for
    Foreign Animal Diseases in general includes the drafting of a
    technology development roadmap. The roadmap includes the
    identification of major technology requirements and gaps with
    major milestones during the short, mid, and long terms in the
    following areas. Development, and if cost effective, deployment
    of a prototype surveillance capability along with development
    of outbreak response plans; development at MBAC of a forensics
    capability for agroterrorism threats; development and
    characterization of a strain and sample archive for the various
    diseases at issue; development of rapid detection
    capabilities--you heard from prior witnesses the importance of
    that--and also the development of rapid and new assays; and the
    development of new adjutants, antivirals, immune stimulators,
    and novel vaccines. These activities are significant new
    investments to enhance the national capacity to respond to
    agroterrorism.
        Consistent with that roadmap, currently within the Science
    and Technology Directorate, our initiatives and activities in
    agricultural security include, as mentioned earlier, in the
    context of foot and mouth disease, we are conducting end-to-end
    systems studies to fully understand the scope and requirements
    for foreign animal disease and food security scenarios in
    general. This includes the development and exercising of model
    simulations and tabletop exercise to explore the
    epidemiological and economic consequences and tradeoffs that
    follow policy and crisis management decisions associated with
    these scenarios.
        We are developing key enabling technologies and tools, such
    as, again, rapid assays and diagnostics, to prevent, detect,
    respond, and recover from the intentional or unintentional
    introduction of biological agents into the national agriculture
    and food systems. I should say that this is part of the much
    larger effort that we are conducting that is also applying
    these technologies to human health issues, as well. They apply
    equally across the board.
        We are developing key enabling technologies and tools, such
    as a detection and surveillance system that is known as the
    Biowatch Program that is currently deployed in 31 cities across
    the Nation for human health purposes in agricultural scenarios.
        We are performing end-to-end systems studies with USDA and
    FDA on food security to specify, design, and guide development
    of detection surveillance systems at critical nodes in the food
    production systems.
        And we have awarded contracts through our recent
    solicitations with the Technical Support Working Group for new
    detection technologies for biological agents, for example,
    botulinum toxin.
        We are also conducting through the Homeland Security
    Advanced Research Projects Agency a broad agency announcement
    for more advanced capabilities in this specific arena, and we
    are also funding long-range research at our national labs
    specifically in those areas.
        We will also be establishing university-based Homeland
    Security Centers of Excellence dedicated to agriculture and
    food safety in fiscal year 2004.
        We have also heard from prior witnesses about the need for
    trained researchers in this area. We have within the Department
    of Homeland Security a scholars and fellows program that
    supports undergraduate and graduate students in areas of
    interest to homeland security. There were a number, in our
    first class of fellows and scholars, of people engaged in
    biological research and I was told prior to the hearing that
    specifically one of them is a veterinary doctor who intends to
    perform her research at Plum Island on foreign animal diseases,
    so we are adding to that capability.
        We have further collaborations with S&T. Between S&T and
    USDA include, as I mentioned earlier, a Plum Island interagency
    agreement that provides for the DHS operations and maintenance
    of the facility. Also, to make sure that we are fully
    coordinating our foreign animal disease programs in
    collaboration with ARS and APHIS and to include bioforensic
    analysis to support attribution of agroterrorism events. We are
    conducting joint R&D programs on FMD diagnostics and also
    assisting APHIS in its support for the foot and mouth disease
    vaccine bank and foreign animal disease training and
    diagnostics capabilities up at Plum Island.
        As I mentioned earlier and as required by our
    appropriations language, we are developing with USDA a national
    agricultural biosecurity research and development strategy to
    be delivered in January 2004, and, of course, under Section
    302.2 of the Homeland Security Act, we are required to develop
    a broad national strategy for homeland security research and
    development activities. And, of course, we are working closely
    with USDA and with FDA on the development of the relevant
    sections of that strategy.
        So in conclusion, the Science and Technology Directorate is
    leveraging its programmatic and research strengths and
    establishing working relationships with the key Federal
    biodefense agencies to complement the technology base and
    research capabilities available at USDA and FDA laboratories
    and also land grant universities. The collaboration between S&T
    and USDA on the operations and research programs at Plum Island
    and MBAC will continue to be a major programmatic and
    operational focus in fiscal year 2004 and beyond. The systems
    studies in fiscal year 2004 in foreign animal disease and food
    security scenarios will further define the research
    requirements for our strategy and budget in fiscal year 2005
    and beyond.
        While the Directorate has made significant early progress
    in the areas of protecting the Nation from acts of
    agroterrorism, challenges remain and we have a great deal of
    work before us. But we are confident that we are moving in the
    right direction with our current collaborative strategy with
    USDA, FDA, and other stakeholders and our plans to
    systematically fortify the vulnerabilities in agricultural
    infrastructure and protect it from threats and attacks.
        Chairman Collins, this concludes my prepared remarks and I
    will be happy to take any questions.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Dr. Crawford.

       TESTIMONY OF LESTER M. CRAWFORD, D.V.M., Ph.D.,\1\ DEPUTY
               COMMISSIONER, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION

        Dr. Crawford. Thank you. Senator Collins and Members of the
    Committee, I am Les Crawford, Deputy Commissioner of the Food
    and Drug Administration. I am pleased to be here today with my
    colleagues from Agriculture and also from Homeland Security.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Crawford appears in the Appendix
    on page 96.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        FDA appreciates the opportunity to discuss our food
    counterterrorism activities. I will first briefly describe
    FDA's food safety and security responsibilities. Then I will
    discuss FDA's ten-point program for ensuring the safety and
    security of the Nation's food supply. The plan includes FDA's
    recent actions to implement the Public Health Security and
    Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. I am told,
    Senator Collins, that you named it that, but we call it the
    Bioterrorism Act. I would like to thank you for your leadership
    role in the enactment of this landmark legislation.
        FDA's food safety and security responsibilities. First, we
    are the Federal agency that regulates 80 percent of the
    Nation's food supply, everything we eat except for meat,
    poultry, and certain egg products, which are regulated by our
    partners at USDA. Our responsibility extends to live food
    animals and animal feed.
        Food safety and food security continue to be top priorities
    for this administration. In our food safety and security
    efforts, FDA has many partners, Federal and State agencies,
    academia, and industry. We are working closely with our Federal
    partners, such as USDA, Department of Homeland Security,
    Homeland Security Council at the White House, and the
    Department of State, as well as with law enforcement and
    intelligence gathering agencies.
        I also want to emphasize our close working relationships
    with our sister public health agency, the Centers for Disease
    Control and Prevention, also the Customs and Border Protection
    Agency within the Department of Homeland Security, and with the
    Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Animal and Plant
    Health Inspection Service in USDA.
        On July 23, Commissioner McClellan of FDA issued a report
    to HHS Secretary Thompson entitled, ``Ensuring the Safety and
    Security of the Nation's Food Supply.'' The report outlines a
    comprehensive ten-point program to protect the safety and
    security of our food supply. I will briefly describe some of
    the program areas.
        First, a stronger FDA. Thanks to bipartisan Congressional
    support, the fiscal year 2002 supplemental included
    counterterrorism funds for FDA. This enabled our agency to hire
    over 800 employees, 655 of whom were hired as additional field
    personnel. Six-hundred-and-thirty-five were hired to address
    food safety and security issues, primarily at the border.
        Imports--the volume of imported food shipments has been
    rising steadily in recent years. It has increased about five-
    fold since the passage of the World Trade Organization Treaty.
    With the additional field employees, we have expanded FDA's
    presence at ports of entry, increased surveillance of imported
    foods, increased domestic inspections, and enhanced our
    laboratory analysis capacity.
        Implementation of the Bioterrorism Act. Title 3 of the
    Bioterrorism Act provided the Secretary of Health and Human
    Services with new authorities to protect the Nation's food
    supply against the threat of intentional contamination and
    other food-related emergencies. These new authorities will
    improve our ability to act quickly in responding to a
    threatened or actual terrorist attack, as well as other food-
    related emergencies.
        The agency has been working hard to implement this law
    effectively and efficiently. On October 10 of this year, we
    published two interim final regulations to implement Section
    305, Registration of Food Facilities, and Section 307, Prior
    Notice of Imported Food Shipments. We have also published
    proposed regulations to implement Section 303, the
    Administrative Detention section, and Section 306, Maintenance
    and Inspection of Records for Foods.
        The interim final rule on registration requires domestic
    and foreign facilities that manufacture or process, pack, or
    hold food for human or animal consumption in the United States
    to register with FDA. FDA will have, for the first time, a
    complete roster of foreign and domestic food facilities. In the
    event of a potential or actual terrorist incident or an
    outbreak of foodborne illness, the registration information
    will enable FDA to quickly identify and locate the facilities
    that may be affected. We expect up to 420,000 facilities to
    register under this requirement.
        The Bioterrorism Act requires facilities to register by
    December 12, 2003. FDA's electronic registration system became
    operational on October 16, giving facilities time to register
    by the statutory deadline. We wish to encourage facilities to
    go ahead and submit their registrations and not wait until the
    deadline. As of yesterday afternoon, over 55,000 facilities had
    registered. We encourage people to hurry up and do that. It is
    very easily done off our website. We have a section in the
    upper right-hand corner which enables you to do it
    electronically in about 15 minutes.
        The interim final regulation on prior notice requires the
    submission to FDA of prior notice of food, including animal
    feed, that is imported or offered for import into the United
    States. This advance information would allow FDA, working
    closely with CBP, to more effectively target inspections to
    ensure the safety of imported foods.
        I would like to mention a few of our other program
    activities, if I may. FDA has issued guidance on the security
    measures the food industry may take to minimize the risk that
    food will be subject to tampering or other malicious, criminal,
    or terrorist actions. We have conducted extensive scientific
    vulnerability assessments of different categories of food,
    determining the most serious risk of intentional contamination
    with different biological or chemical agents during various
    stages of food production and distribution.
        FDA has established an Office of Crisis Management to
    coordinate the preparedness and emergency response activities
    within FDA and with our Federal, State, and local counterparts.
    To increase laboratory surge capacity, FDA has worked in close
    collaboration with CDC and USDA FSIS to expand the laboratory
    response network by establishing the Food Emergency Response
    Network, or FERN, to include a substantial number of
    counterterrorism laboratories capable of analyzing foods for
    agents of concern. FDA has embarked on an ambitious research
    agenda throughout the agency to address potential terrorist
    threats.
        In conclusion, through the new authorities in the
    Bioterrorism Act and the measures outlined in the ten-point
    plan, we are making tremendous progress in our ability to
    ensure the safety and security of the Nation's food supply.
        I want to thank you for the opportunity to discuss FDA's
    food safety and security activities and I would be more than
    pleased to respond to any questions or comments. Thank you very
    much.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Dr. Lambert.

     TESTIMONY OF CHARLES LAMBERT, \1\ DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY FOR
         MARKETING AND REGULATORY PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
        AGRICULTURE, ACCOMPANIED BY MERLE PIERSON, DEPUTY UNDER
       SECRETARY FOR FOOD SAFETY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

        Dr. Lambert. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Mr. Akaka. Thank
    you for the opportunity to speak with you on behalf of USDA
    about agroterrorism and our efforts to prevent and respond to a
    possible attack.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Lambert appears in the Appendix
    on page 117.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Many agencies within USDA have been working to address this
    issue. Today, my comments will focus only on the work at the
    Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and at the
    Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS). APHIS is under the
    jurisdiction of Marketing and Regulatory Programs, and Dr.
    Merle Pierson will be available to answer additional questions
    and explore topics that I introduce in the food safety area.
        APHIS's mission is to protect the health and value of
    American agriculture and natural resources. To accomplish this
    mission, APHIS has a safeguarding system in place to prevent
    introductions of foreign agricultural pests and diseases. APHIS
    also has operational response mechanisms to contain and
    eradicate a pest or disease should an introduction occur.
        Since September 11, 2001, APHIS has heightened its already
    vigilant efforts to prevent foreign agricultural pests and
    diseases from entering the United States, either intentionally
    or unintentionally. APHIS has undertaken numerous measures to
    bolster its infrastructure. More than ever, APHIS is confident
    in its ability to detect and respond to the accidental or
    intentional introduction of animal and plant pests and diseases
    to ensure that America's food supply is protected and remains
    prosperous.
        Events over the past 2 years have led APHIS to increase its
    networks of partners and better share information with
    cooperators. In any emergency or situation, the better prepared
    both with information and with training everyone is the more
    effective the response will be.
        USDA realizes that there can never be enough people
    involved in safeguarding activities. We are actively working
    with stakeholder organizations, including the National
    Association of State Departments of Agriculture, U.S. Animal
    Health Association, the North American Plant Protection
    Organization, university systems, and county extension agents
    and others to maximize collective efforts to safeguard against
    potential introduction of foreign plant and animal pathogens.
        APHIS has held foreign animal disease awareness training
    seminars for State and Federal veterinarians from all 50 States
    to enhance preparedness for introduction of foreign animal
    diseases, to improve communications, and strengthen cooperative
    partnerships.
        APHIS also conducts yearly emergency preparedness satellite
    seminars to share vital information with veterinarian
    practitioners on how to identify and respond to an animal
    health emergency. More than 1,700 Federal and State veterinary
    officials and emergency planners, military representatives, and
    veterinarian college students and professors have participated.
        Working with our Federal counterparts is essential. In the
    event of an agroterror attack, the Department of Homeland
    Security and APHIS will work as partners to safeguard America's
    food and agricultural resources. DHS will lead the team of
    first responders to contain and manage the threat, while APHIS
    provides crucial scientific and diagnostic expertise. This
    expertise will be critical in managing a potential disease
    outbreak as well as assisting efforts to find those responsible
    for a terrorist attack. In preparation, APHIS has established a
    liaison at DHS responsible for ensuring that agroterrorist
    response information is included in first responder training.
        APHIS has also entered into interagency agreements with
    other government agencies so that we can benefit from open
    source intelligence gathering on potential threats to U.S.
    agriculture and participate in the evaluation of newly
    developed rapid diagnostic equipment.
        Pest and disease detection is a critical component of our
    safeguarding system. Of the 2002 homeland security supplemental
    funding, $20.6 million went to facility and equipment upgrades
    at a network of animal and plant laboratories around the
    country. This investment has enhanced our diagnostic and
    response capability.
        APHIS's safeguarding, intradiction, and trade compliance
    team is working in partnership with DHS and State and local law
    enforcement agencies to mitigate the risk of smuggled
    commodities. In addition, APHIS monitors pests and diseases
    overseas and has implemented the Offshore Pest Information
    System to monitor and document changes in distribution and
    outbreak status of specific pests and diseases in their
    countries of origin.
        APHIS currently has 64 Foreign Service officials stationed
    in 26 countries on six continents. These officials work closely
    with their foreign counterparts to collect information and help
    focus our safeguarding efforts. It is important that we remain
    prepared for the introduction of a foreign animal or plant
    disease, whether introduction is intentional or unintentional.
        One of the most important developments in increasing the
    effectiveness of our emergency response is implementation of
    the National Interagency Incident Management System to ensure
    that the entire U.S. Government has a single comprehensive
    approach to incident management. This unified approach
    facilitates coordination among various agencies and
    jurisdictions and has been used widely in the emergency
    management community, including at USDA's Forest Service when
    they are responding to fires. APHIS has already put this model
    to use with great success in combatting an outbreak of poultry
    exotic Newcastle disease in the Southwestern United States.
        APHIS also has opened a state-of-the-art emergency
    operations center which serves as the national command and
    coordination center for APHIS emergency programs. The center
    houses 40 or more personnel and operates around the clock in
    emergency.
        The Food Safety Inspection Service is the USDA agency
    responsible for ensuring that the Nation's meat, poultry, and
    egg products are safe, secure, wholesome, and accurately
    labeled. Each day, FSIS has more than 7,600 inspectors and
    veterinarians in more than 6,000 Federal meat, poultry, and egg
    product plants and at ports of entry to prevent, detect, and
    respond to food-related emergencies.
        FSIS has undertaken a number of initiatives to protect
    meat, poultry, and egg products from the potential of a
    terrorist attack. The newly created Office of Food Security and
    Emergency Preparedness serves as the centralized office within
    FSIS for food security issues. OFSEP interacts closely with
    USDA's Homeland Security Council and represents the agency on
    all food security matters throughout the Federal Government, as
    well as in State and local activities.
        FSIS collaborates and coordinates closely with its State
    partners, including the Association of Food and Drug Officials,
    the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, and
    the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture to
    ensure an effective prevention and response program.
        Both APHIS and FSIS receive threat information and written
    reports from the intelligence community to update the
    Department on terrorist attacks relative to food and
    agriculture. This intelligence allows APHIS and FSIS to
    prioritize responses based upon both perceived vulnerability
    and what is known of the terrorist threat.
        The White House Homeland Security Council has recognized
    the need for a coordinated approach to food security matters
    and has assembled an interagency food working group to consider
    policy issues related to protecting the food supply and
    minimizing it as a target for terrorist activity. The working
    group has representatives from 12 Federal agencies, including
    FSIS.
        In addition to its partnerships with the White House and
    Federal agencies, in April 2003, FSIS signed a memorandum of
    agreement with the Surgeon General and Public Health Service
    that allows more commissioned Corps officers to be detailed to
    the agency. These officers will assist in preventing foodborne
    illness and help FSIS respond to foodborne outbreaks when they
    occur, as well as assisting in the agency's homeland security
    efforts.
        In fiscal year 2003, FSIS undertook many new initiatives as
    well as strengthened its existing infrastructure to enhance the
    ability to detect any potential intentional threat to the food
    supply. FSIS has also strengthened its controls to protect the
    public from the entry of contaminated food from abroad.
        As part of FSIS initiatives to better develop its workforce
    to respond to potential terrorist attack, employee directives
    were issued last March to instruct in-plant and laboratory
    personnel on how to respond when the Homeland Security Advisory
    System threat level moves to orange or red.
        In March 2003, as Operation Iraqi Freedom began, the
    Federal Government initiated Operation Liberty Shield to
    increase security and readiness in the United States. During
    this time, FSIS implemented activities to focus efforts at
    preventing food and agroterrorism.
        FSIS, as well as FDA and APHIS, was selected to participate
    within a multi-department international trade data system in
    2004. This new initiative will establish a single automated
    system for sharing data on inspection and certification of
    products entering the United States and it will provide
    commercial enterprises with a single source for interaction
    with the various agencies that regulate imports. This new
    system will eliminate duplication, increase security, and
    reduce costs to the government.
        In fiscal year 2003, FSIS laboratories expanded their
    capability to test for non-traditional microbial, chemical, and
    radiological threat agents and increase their surge capacity.
    In addition, construction is underway on a biosecurity Level 3
    laboratory that will enable FSIS to conduct analyses on a
    larger range of potential bioterrorism agents. Construction
    should be completed in December.
        The strong working relationships that USDA has with the
    other Federal agencies and with State and local governments and
    industry, as broadly defined from the production through
    processing sector to the individual food companies, is vital to
    our efforts to safeguard U.S. agriculture. Preserving
    traditional relationships and building new ones, such as with
    DHS, will strengthen our efforts.
        I assure you that USDA remains committed to our biosecurity
    and emergency preparedness activities, to ensuring the
    continued good health and value of U.S. agriculture. Thank you,
    and I look forward to responding to your questions.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Dr. Lambert.
        Dr. McGinn painted a striking picture of how fast an
    outbreak of foot and mouth disease could spread in our country.
    In fact, I wish I could superimpose his map on top of the chart
    that I have just asked to be displayed about the number of
    agencies that possibly would be involved in a foot and mouth
    disease outbreak.
        Each of your agencies is obviously involved and are among
    the key players, but we know that more than 30 agencies
    potentially would be involved were there an outbreak of foot
    and mouth disease. That raises concerns in my mind about
    whether the Federal Government has an integrated, effective
    plan for dealing with an outbreak such as of foot and mouth
    disease or other foreign animal disease. It is my understanding
    that before the new Department of Homeland Security was
    created, that USDA was taking the lead in developing a Federal
    emergency response plan for an outbreak of foot and mouth
    disease or other highly contagious disease.
        Mr. Lambert, I would ask you first, what is the status of
    that plan?
        Dr. Lambert. First, I would like to say that the data that
    Dr. McGinn presented, we have seen. They have actually been the
    basis for simulated exercises that have been conducted. In
    September 2000, seven deputy secretaries from across the
    government, the intelligence community, and State and local
    governments conducted a simulation that was shown in Dr.
    McGinn's data, and since that time, APHIS has also conducted a
    simulated exercise that showed the multiple introductions of
    animal pathogens. Then FDA and FSIS have simulated or conducted
    an exercise on the intentional pathogen release in the food
    supply that Dr. McGinn showed.
        We do have--the FEMA exercise has been transferred to the
    Department of Homeland Security. In the event of a terrorist
    attack, they would become the first responders. APHIS would
    provide the technical expertise that we have within the
    Department in a coordinated effort to arrest and contain that
    disease.
        Chairman Collins. But are you familiar with the plan that
    USDA had begun to develop prior to the creation of the new
    Department? Did the work for that plan get transferred to DHS
    or is the Department of Agriculture still playing the lead
    role?
        Dr. Lambert. We are both working in that area. In the event
    of an outbreak, USDA would respond. We would coordinate and
    communicate closely with the Department of Homeland Security.
    If terrorist or purposeful introduction was indicated, then DHS
    would take the lead in the investigative efforts of that
    investigation with APHIS supplying the----
        Chairman Collins. Has the plan, though, been completed? Are
    you familiar with what I am referring to?
        Dr. Lambert. The plan is in place, and yes, we do have a
    response plan----
        Chairman Collins. It is completed?
        Dr. Lambert. Yes.
        Chairman Collins. OK. Dr. Albright, do you view DHS as
    being the lead agency in the event of an outbreak? My concern,
    I think, is obvious. When you have this many agencies involved,
    it just raises questions about whether there is going to be
    confusion, whether everyone understands the role played by
    individual agencies, whether anyone is coordinating the
    response as a whole, and we know from Dr. McGinn's testimony
    that time is absolutely of the essence and we can't afford any
    confusion or lost time.
        Mr. Albright. Yes. I think, first, one point that ought to
    be made is that if there was an unintentional outbreak of foot
    and mouth disease, if this was just a standard agricultural
    health and safety exercise, essentially, that chart would still
    be in play. There have been response plans in place for a very
    long time that USDA has operated that provided for a
    coordination of all these different agencies and the marshaling
    of the resources necessary to respond to an unintentional
    outbreak.
        I think what has changed, of course, what you have alluded
    to is that with the passage of the Homeland Security Act of
    2002, that we now have a new Department that is charged with
    the responsibility of coordinating and responding to the
    deliberate introduction of these kinds of pathogens or, for
    that matter, to almost anything affecting our critical
    infrastructure.
        So I think it is certainly the case that with the advent of
    the new Department, that a lot of the prior Presidential
    decision directives, for example, that were associated with the
    various coordination activities that existed prior to the
    establishment of the Department need to be revisited, and they
    have been revisited and they are being updated to reflect first
    the post-September 11 environment and to also reflect the
    statutory responsibilities of the Secretary of Homeland
    Security.
        So yes, I think it is fair to say that the Department takes
    these responsibilities seriously. We are, as Dr. Lambert
    described, we are working very closely with USDA. They are
    obviously the subject matter experts in a lot of this, and
    working closely with, for that matter, FDA and other agencies
    to develop these response plans.
        Do I believe that we necessarily--I mean, are we in a
    position yet to respond to the kinds of scenarios, for example,
    that you saw Dr. McGinn describing? I guess I can't say that
    that is necessarily the case yet. Clearly, there are
    technological issues involved. He pointed out, for example,
    that a lot of the issues surrounding such an outbreak just have
    to do with the incubation period of this and the fact that you
    have multiple sites being introduced all over the country. So
    clearly, there are tools that need to be developed and put in
    place before you could mount as effective a response as you
    would like.
        Chairman Collins. The RAND report includes six specific
    recommendations for a more aggressive and coordinated strategy
    to secure the agriculture and food sector against an
    agroterrorist attack. Specifically, the RAND report calls for,
    first, a comprehensive needs analysis to determine the
    appropriate investment requirements for the emergency
    management infrastructure; second, an increase in the number of
    State and local personnel who can identify and treat foreign
    animal diseases, such as foot and mouth; third, it calls for
    coordinated and standardized links between the U.S.
    agricultural and intelligence communities; fourth, enhancing
    the law enforcement community's ability to determine whether
    disease outbreaks are deliberate or whether they are naturally
    occurring; fifth, improving the effectiveness of disease
    reporting systems; and finally, the need for an improved
    surveillance quality control and emergency response measures at
    food processing and packing plants.
        Dr. Crawford, I would like to start with you and get the
    opinion of all the witnesses of those recommendations.
        Dr. Crawford. I think those are sound recommendations and
    we have taken them very seriously. Most of these were well
    underway before the advent of the report. However, the report
    strengthened our resolve and also gave us a good means of
    communication not only with the public, but with the Congress
    to close the gaps.
        One thing that was particularly important that I believe we
    have done successfully is to establish viable links with the
    intelligence community. That required, as you would know, all
    of us that are in authority in FDA to receive the proper
    security clearances and also to be linked up so that we could
    get daily briefings on the possibility of threats, etc. That
    has been accomplished and is working very well. We have
    certainly profited from this in our planning, and also, it is
    useful for us to have these kinds of clearances so that we can
    be involved in White House working groups and other trans-
    departmental groups that are dealing with these problems. So
    that was, I think, a very positive benefit of it.
        And the rest of it was proceeding apace. I think they were
    excellent suggestions and they have served as a benchmark for
    this ten-point program that I mentioned, actually.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Dr. Lambert, your judgment of
    these recomendations.
        Dr. Lambert. Thank you. I would concur that these are very
    sound recommendations and we are moving to implement them and
    have moved to implement them. With respect to the intelligence,
    as my comments indicated, we do both at APHIS and FSIS receive
    these intelligence reports and they serve as the basis, along
    with other information from our animal health and foreign
    officers, information officers, to help guide and focus our
    efforts.
        Chairman Collins. And Dr. Albright.
        Mr. Albright. I think they are probably consistent with
    other reports. For example, the National Academy of Sciences
    has done quite a bit of work in this area and has made
    essentially the same kinds of recommendations. We would agree
    with them.
        In terms of needs assessment, as I mentioned in my
    statement, we are focusing our efforts around specific
    scenarios that actually allow us to identify the bottlenecks
    and where we actually--what the gaps are and where we need to
    actually focus our efforts to better respond to these kinds of
    outbreaks. So yes.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Akaka.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
        Dr. Lambert, according to a recent GAO report, the Plum
    Island Animal Disease Center is taking unnecessary risks with
    the pathogen protection and is vulnerable to security breaches.
    Plum Island is the only U.S. facility capable of responding to
    an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.
        In addition, the Washington Post reported last week that
    the Federal Government had failed to meet the November 12
    deadline that requires security reviews of U.S. laboratories
    and scientists under the Public Health Security and
    Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. Reading
    that article makes me feel extremely troubled about this. What
    is USDA doing to ensure these security reviews are completed
    more quickly?
        Dr. Lambert. USDA had an outside independent agency conduct
    a security assessment at Plum Island in November 2001 and we
    worked with that independent agency to develop risk management
    approach to improve security on Plum Island. We have invested
    about $860,000 in security upgrades, even before September 11.
    Since that time, we have invested another $1.4 million of
    security countermeasures. Additional security guards were hired
    at Plum Island at a cost of nearly $1 million in fiscal year
    2002 and nearly $1.4 million in fiscal year 2004.
        So measures have been taken to strengthen security at Plum
    Island, and I would add that recently, Plum Island did pass
    inspection as a select agent location. So we feel that
    additional measures have been taken.
        Senator Akaka. Dr. Lambert, concern has been expressed by
    Members of Congress and farmers, as well, about the
    implications of the merger of the three border inspection
    agencies into what is being called the ``one face at the
    border'' initiative at the Department of Homeland Security. The
    consolidation, some feel, means that agriculture specialists
    are no longer present at primary border inspections. Officers
    with only basic agricultural training are now responsible for
    detecting suspicious animal and plant products. It seems
    questionable whether these officers have adequate training to
    know what to look for, especially since they are responsible
    for usually immigration and customs-related inspections.
        What is being done to ensure that qualified staff are
    protecting all aspects of our borders, and are they receiving
    specialized training?
        Dr. Lambert. Yes, Senator. We have heard some of the same
    concerns. Essentially, the 2,600 positions that were
    agricultural inspectors at APHIS prior to the transfer of those
    positions early this year to Homeland Security, essentially,
    those same people are there. They have agricultural training.
    They have the same basis of that training.
        We are working to continue that. APHIS has closely
    coordinated with Homeland Security to assure that we have
    people at the border that have agricultural expertise. APHIS is
    closely involved in the training of those people and in the
    policy decisions that they enact.
        Another way to look at that is that now we have nearly
    4,000 port inspectors that all have some agricultural exposure,
    as well. So we have added people from INS and Customs that can
    participate and watch for agricultural pathogens, in addition.
    So it cuts both ways. Thank you.
        Senator Akaka. Dr. Lambert, last month, the House
    Agriculture Committee approved a bill to create a disaster
    response team within USDA. The mission of the team would
    facilitate financial relief for local farmers and ranchers in
    the event of a crisis. Can you discuss what role USDA sees for
    itself in local security enhancements, such as prevention and
    detection of agricultural attack?
        Dr. Lambert. We currently at APHIS have an indemnification
    program for producers who have livestock that need to be
    euthanized due to a disease outbreak. We think that is a part
    of our emergency declaration authority and the ability to
    reimburse producers for loss. We think that is important
    because knowing that they will not suffer these losses, or
    knowing that there is a potential for indemnification, that
    producers will be more willing to report an outbreak and to do
    that in a timely manner, and that is, as has been indicated,
    very critical to our ability to get the disease contained and
    eradicated.
        Senator Akaka. Dr. Lambert, let me go back and ask you to
    clarify your response to my first question. When are the
    security reviews going to be completed for the other affected
    U.S. laboratories?
        Dr. Lambert. We have 75 provisional approvals and three
    that have been denied and we will continue to accept and review
    additional applications as they become available.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
        As I learn more about this issue, I am struck by the number
    of points at which an agroterrorist attack could occur. If you
    look at the vulnerabilities of the system, it starts at the
    farm to our feedlots, even State fairs, and processing plants.
    There are so many different points of possible attack.
        Before we can develop effective measures to improve the
    security of our farms and food supply, we need to do, it seems
    to me, a better job of identifying our vulnerabilities. I would
    like to know to what extent have your departments undertaken
    vulnerability assessments for the entire agricultural and food
    industry sector, and we will start with you, Dr. Albright.
        Mr. Albright. For the entire sector, I can't argue for the
    entire sector. We certainly have leveraged extensive efforts
    that I know USDA and FDA conducted in doing vulnerability
    assessments.
        We, too, as I mentioned earlier, have been working closely
    through the Food Security Working Group with FDA and USDA and
    through various activities conducted by the White House. As we
    look at our defense posture in general, we have been
    leveraging, as I said, existing vulnerability assessments and
    also conducting additional ones based, as I said a moment ago,
    on some of the scenarios that we have been focusing our
    attention on in order to better inform response plans,
    investments, and that sort of thing.
        So I don't think we can say we have looked at the entire
    sector, but we have certainly been looking at pieces of it.
        Chairman Collins. Dr. Crawford.
        Dr. Crawford. Yes. What we have done in collaboration with
    the two other departments represented here and also the White
    House Homeland Security Council, we have looked at the products
    that FDA regulates and we have evaluated the probabilities of
    them being used as a vehicle for terrorism in the United
    States. We have done threat and vulnerability assessments so as
    to identify those that are most likely, both in terms of the
    efficacy or effectiveness of an attack through this particular
    product, if you will, and second, the damage that could be done
    if it was used as a vehicle.
        As a result of that, we have identified those that are most
    likely. We have identified how this would be done and what we
    could do to interdict or contravene this from happening in
    terms of how FDA does its business. We have even looked forward
    to how this country might recover from such an attack.
        We have briefed these two departments on the most likely
    concerns, also the White House and other departments that have
    concerns of food safety and also terrorism, including the
    intelligence community and the science infrastructure of the
    U.S. Government. We would be pleased, and I think this should
    be done, so it is not just an offer, it is a plea, that we are
    able to give you this particular presentation, also, and
    whoever of your colleagues and of your staff that could receive
    the information because we would be very willing to--you can
    understand that I can't do that here, but if we may, we would
    like to, once you reflect on it, would like to schedule such a
    debriefing.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. I will take you up on that.
    Dr. Lambert.
        Dr. Lambert. Yes. USDA APHIS has also conducted
    vulnerability assessments in both the animal and plant side. As
    Dr. Crawford indicated, those are classified, but we would be
    willing to participate in that briefing or independently to
    inform you in the appropriate manner.
        With respect to the critical infrastructure of
    vulnerability assessment, we are coordinating closely with DHS
    to identify and define those critical infrastructures and then
    proceed with the assessment.
        Chairman Collins. Dr. Lambert, let me do a follow-up with
    you. I understand that FSIS, as opposed to APHIS--we have a lot
    of acronyms flying around here today--has completed a risk
    analysis of the food supply from farm to table, but that the
    risk assessment did not include an analysis of security
    measures at food processing and packing plants. I am told that
    the reason for that is that FSIS concluded that determined
    terrorists could overcome those security measures. That is not
    very comforting, I might add.
        The General Accounting Office has criticized this
    conclusion and I must say I tend to agree with GAO. What is the
    justification for conducting a risk assessment but essentially
    downplaying or ignoring preventative measures that food
    processors and packers are taking. Is USDA suggesting that
    processors and packers shouldn't take security measures because
    they won't be effective? I mean, that is a pretty chilling
    conclusion to draw.
        Dr. Lambert. Madam Chairman, with your permission, I would
    defer the question to my counterpart at FSIS and have him
    respond.
        Chairman Collins. Dr. Pierson.
        Dr. Pierson. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I might mention
    that the FSIS has conducted vulnerability assessments in the
    food system and, of course, identified high-risk commodities,
    threat agents, sites, etc. I join with Dr. Crawford in saying
    we would be very happy to brief you on this classified
    information that we have.
        Specifically to your concern area, we are, in fact, now
    conducting that assessment and taking those factors into
    consideration that you mentioned. We think that it is something
    that must be included in an assessment.
        Chairman Collins. But was there a conclusion reached by
    FSIS that security precautions at processing and packing plants
    would not be effective in deterring determined terrorists? This
    seemed to be GAO's criticism.
        Dr. Pierson. I think to make that as a broad criticism
    would be a little difficult to make. There certainly can be
    cracks in the system, and we, for example, do provide security
    guidelines to small and very small corporations. I might also
    mention that our 7,600 inspectors who are there daily at the
    over 6,000 plants that are in existence have special training
    in food security issues and they can be of assistance in terms
    of identifying those gaps. But definitely, we are taking
    further consideration of how we can enhance protections in the
    food processing operations.
        Chairman Collins. I will provide you with the GAO finding
    that I am referring to, but just for the record, I am going to
    quote directly from GAO's report. It is a letter that was
    included by FSIS's Administrator Gary McKee, who was responding
    to the criticism by GAO. FSIS said, ``FSIS made the assumption
    that plant security measures could be overcome by a determined
    terrorist and that certain commodities or processes could be
    more at risk than others to an attack. Security measures could
    lessen the risk, but the risk would still exist.''
        I am concerned if we are essentially writing off one point
    of vulnerability because we think the challenge is to great to
    secure these plants. I am concerned about the message that may
    send. Do you have a further comment on this letter?
        Dr. Pierson. I could comment further that what is being
    identified is worst case scenarios, too, and scenarios where
    the ``what if'' situations, what if those security measures
    were overcome, what would be the results, also.
        Chairman Collins. But, of course, worst case scenarios are
    exactly what we have to plan for.
        Dr. Pierson. That is exactly right.
        Chairman Collins. Senator Akaka.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
        I have a question for Dr. Crawford. As you are aware, over
    the past few months, there has been an outbreak of hepatitis A
    in Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and just last week in
    Pennsylvania. According to the CDC, this represents the largest
    foodborne outbreak of hepatitis A in United States history. The
    initial cases were traced back to green onions originating in
    Mexico and it is strongly suggested that the Pennsylvania
    outbreak has a similar source.
        Next month, as you mentioned in your testimony, the FDA is
    scheduled to begin enforcement of two new regulations that will
    require domestic and foreign food processing facilities to
    register with the agency. The regulations will also require the
    prior notification of any food products being imported to the
    United States. The FDA is also planning to require all
    companies involved in the food supply system to keep detailed
    records of the origin of food products that they handle.
        How would the hepatitis A outbreak have been prevented or
    handled differently had FDA's new security measures been in
    place?
        Dr. Crawford. Well, as I mentioned in my oral statement,
    the Bioterrorism Act, as we call it, does give us new
    authorities that, frankly, FDA has been seeking for many years.
    We now have the requirement to have food establishments not
    only in this country but elsewhere in the world that want to
    trade with the United States to register with us. We can
    require the registration. If they are not registered, then they
    may not do business with the United States either internally or
    externally. That, frankly, is something we have never had.
        In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, it was useful for
    the government to do an inventory of food establishments and
    other establishments that FDA regulated as we tried to grapple
    with the possibility of further terrorist attacks following the
    anthrax outbreak. At that time, we did not have the authority
    nor did we have a list of who we were having to regulate. Now,
    you may ask, how could this be? Well, that is democracy in
    action. We didn't have it.
        But because of the leadership of Senator Collins and you
    and this Committee and others, as I mentioned earlier, and
    Secretary Thompson, we now have that authority. So registration
    is something that is going to definitely happen as of December
    12.
        The other thing we can do which speaks to this problem, as
    you know, we previously had difficulty with cantaloupes coming
    from Mexico, and then during the time I was Acting
    Commissioner, we found it advisable, necessary, and in order to
    protect the public health, we banned the shipment of
    cantaloupes from Mexico. We still have that authority to do
    that. We also have the authority to debar those companies that
    send contaminated food to the United States. If we go through
    the debarment process, they may not ever ship food again to
    this country.
        We also for the first time can detain food that comes into
    the United States, which is something that we are doing with
    respect to the green onions that you mentioned.
        And then finally, we require that a country or an entity
    wanting to ship food to the United States has to give us notice
    that it is coming. Before the advent of the Bioterrorism Act,
    it was like us standing at the border like the catcher in the
    rye, trying to figure out where to deploy our resources and
    what to do with the minimal authorities we had. Now, we have
    the authority to police the food supply and we are very much at
    FDA looking forward to December 12, when we go forward and do
    this, we think, better. It not only makes us better in terms of
    bioterrorism prevention, but in essential food safety.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for that response. This
    is what we are looking for and I am glad to hear that. Thank
    you very much, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
        I want to thank this panel for their testimony and also for
    their efforts to make our food supply safer and to guard
    against an agroterrorism attack. The expertise and insight of
    all of our witnesses today have been extremely helpful to the
    Committee and shed much needed light on an aspect of homeland
    security that I believe has not received the attention that it
    deserves.
        We are all very proud of having the safest food supply in
    the world, but that doesn't mean that we are somehow immune
    from an attack on our food supply. We know that terrorists such
    as Osama bin Laden have repeatedly stated their intention to
    cause economic harm and massive social upheaval, not to mention
    deaths and illness. When you look at the low-tech nature of so
    much of the agriculture industry, it is a tempting target, a
    real invitation to those who would do us harm.
        So I think there is an awful lot of work that needs to be
    done here. I look forward to following up and appreciate the
    offer for the classified briefings, as well. But I would also
    ask each of the witnesses that we have heard from today to
    provide the Committee with any recommendations for further
    changes in laws that you may think would give you the tools
    that you need. I think the Bioterrorism Act was a great step
    forward, but I suspect as you delve further into this area with
    your planning that you are going to find that there are some
    gaps in authority.
        We have talked, for example, today about the lack of a
    system for tracking livestock easily. Those kinds of
    recommendations may just be handled through administrative
    regulations, but they also may warrant some changes in laws. So
    I would invite your participation in that process, as well.
        Finally, I want to thank Senator Akaka who has been a real
    leader in this area with the bills that he has introduced, as
    well, and I look forward to working with him.
        I would be remiss if I didn't also acknowledge the hard
    work of my staff in putting together this hearing.
        So thank you all for being here today. The record of this
    hearing will be kept open for 15 days for the submission of
    additional statements or questions and the hearing is now
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

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