    [Senate Hearing 111-757]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 111-757

                       WORLD AT RISK: THE WEAPONS OF MASS
                           DESTRUCTION PREVENTION AND
                            PREPAREDNESS ACT OF 2009

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

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                   HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                                     of the

                         ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

                                   __________

           Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

                           Printed for the use of the
            Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

                      U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
    53-840                    WASHINGTON : 2010
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office,
    http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center, U.S. Government Printing Office. Phone 202�09512�091800, or 866�09512�091800 (toll-free). E-mail, gpo@custhelp.com.

            COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                   JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
    CARL LEVIN, Michigan                 SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
    DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii              TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
    THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
    MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas              GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
    MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana          JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
    CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri           LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
    JON TESTER, Montana                  ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
    ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
    MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado

                      Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
                         Kevin J. Landy, Chief Counsel
                          Gordon N. Lederman, Counsel
                  Aaron M. Firoved, Professional Staff Member
         Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
       Robert L. Strayer, Minority Director for Homeland Security Affairs
                    Asha a. Mathew, Minority Senior Counsel
                      Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
             Patricia R. Hogan, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
                        Laura W. Kilbride, Hearing Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                     ------
    Opening statements:
                                                                       Page
        Senator Lieberman............................................     1
        Senator Collins..............................................     4
        Senator Akaka................................................    19
        Senator McCaskill............................................    22
    Prepared statements:
        Senator Lieberman............................................    33
        Senator Collins..............................................    35
        Senator Bennet...............................................    38

                                   WITNESSES
                          Tuesday, September 22, 2009

    Hon. Bob Graham, Chairman, Commission on the Prevention of
      Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism........     6
    Hon. Jim Talent, Vice Chairman, Commission on the Prevention of
      Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism........    10
    Gregory D. Kutz, Managing Director, Forensic Audits and Special
      Investigations, U.S. Government Accountability Office..........    12

                         Alphabetical List of Witnesses

    Graham, Hon. Bob:
        Testimony....................................................     6
        Joint prepared statement with Mr. Talent.....................    39
    Kutz, Gregory D.:
        Testimony....................................................    12
        Prepared statement...........................................    50
    Talent, Hon. Jim:
        Testimony....................................................    10
        Joint prepared statement with Mr. Graham.....................    39

                                    APPENDIX

    Letter submitted by Senator Graham from the Business Executives
      for National Security (BENS), dated September 17, 2009.........    66
    Chart submitted by Mr. Kutz......................................    70
    Letter from American Society for Microbiology (ASM), dated
      September 18, 2009.............................................    71
    Letter from Galveston National Laboratory (GNL), dated September
      18, 2009.......................................................    77
    Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from Mr. Kutz.    83

                       WORLD AT RISK: THE WEAPONS OF MASS
                           DESTRUCTION PREVENTION AND
                            PREPAREDNESS ACT OF 2009

                                  ----------

                          TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

                                         U.S. Senate,
                               Committee on Homeland Security
                                      and Governmental Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
    room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I.
    Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, Pryor, McCaskill,
    Bennet, and Collins.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN

        Chairman Lieberman. Good morning and the hearing will come
    to order. Today, we are going to hear testimony on legislation
    that Senator Collins and I introduced earlier this month to
    prevent and prepare to respond to attacks against our homeland
    by weapons of mass destruction (WMD), particularly biological
    weapons.
        Our legislation has a focus on heightening security at
    laboratories that handle the world's most dangerous pathogens,
    dangerous because they are those that can most easily be
    weaponized. But, of course, the legislation is more
    comprehensive. It is as comprehensive as the Commission report
    was and as our own Committee's deliberations on this subject
    warrant.
        In December of last year, then-Director of National
    Intelligence (DNI) Mike McConnell publicly stated his
    conclusion that a WMD terrorist attack is more likely than not
    to occur somewhere in the world between now and 2013--that is
    obviously within the next 4 years--and that a biological attack
    is much more likely than a nuclear or chemical attack.
        The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass
    Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, chaired by our former
    colleagues, Senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent, reached a
    similar conclusion and went well beyond in what I believe was
    an extraordinary piece of work documenting the problem and
    making very significant recommendations.
        The fact is from all this that it is hard not to conclude
    that we are still not properly prepared to counter the threat
    of a weapons of mass destruction attack against the United
    States and particularly the bioterrorist threat, despite
    measures taken after the 2001 anthrax attacks. In sum, and as
    the Graham-Talent Commission concluded, we are a Nation and
    world at risk.
        For anyone who thinks that in the work of this Committee
    and in discussions that go on in our homeland security
    community that we are being overly zealous, that we are perhaps
    imagining threats to America that don't really exist, one need
    only follow the media coverage over the last several days of
    the investigation and now apprehension of these people here in
    this country. People who apparently were directly connected to
    al-Qaeda and apparently were planning very significant attacks
    within our country again, apparently within the greater New
    York City area.
        So the threat is real. It goes back to, if there is a
    capital of world Islamist terrorism, it is in the mountainous
    areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan and spreads in different
    cells throughout Pakistan. They continue to want to do us harm.
        What the Commission's report convinced me again is that if
    they want to do us harm, one way they can manage to do it with
    devastation is through a biological attack, and that is why the
    legislation that Senator Collins and I have introduced based on
    the Commission report, we think is so critically important to
    the homeland security of the people of the United States of
    America.
        This legislation, which we call the Weapons of Mass
    Destruction Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2009, S. 1649,
    would provide a multi-layered approach across the full spectrum
    of prevention, preparedness, and response to this threat. Our
    legislation, as I mentioned, implements the Commission's
    recommendations and our Committee's conclusions from our
    ongoing investigation into the Nation's defense against a WMD
    attack.
        I want to briefly describe some key elements of the
    legislation and their origin in the Graham-Talent Commission
    report and our Committee's work.
        First, this bill would identify and categorize the most
    dangerous pathogens, that is, those that are easiest, that have
    the greatest potential to be turned into weapons to be used in
    a biological terrorist attack, and that therefore require
    improved security, a heightened level of security at the
    laboratories that handle them. We think that our approach
    ensures that we focus our security efforts where they are
    needed most and not burden the wider range of scientific
    research unnecessarily.
        Our Committee's interest in laboratory security was
    informed greatly by the Commission's report and the
    commissioners' testimony before our Committee last December.
    The report cited findings on inadequate security at our
    Nation's laboratories and concluded, ``when it comes to
    materials of bioterrorism, America's vulnerability may well
    begin at home.'' Through this legislation, we seek to close
    this vulnerability.
        Second, our bill would build the culture of preparedness as
    called for by the Commission by requiring a national strategy
    for dispensing antibiotics and other medicines to the public to
    respond to a biological attack. We would also expand the use of
    the Postal Service in the distribution of these
    countermeasures. Right now, we are spending billions of dollars
    to stockpile these supplies, and those are very important
    investments, but our Committee has found that we lack an
    adequate plan for distributing those supplies and
    countermeasures, quickly and efficiently if an attack occurs.
    The bill would also provide medical kits to emergency
    responders so that they can protect themselves in order to be
    able to protect us in responding quickly to a WMD attack.
        Third, our bill acts on the Commission's call for improved
    public information. It would put in place specific
    communication plans to inform the public of what to do during
    the critical moments after an attack, and we have learned from
    testimony before the Committee that communications to the
    public can have an extraordinary effect on diminishing the
    number of victims of a WMD attack.
        Our bill also requires the development of pre-scripted,
    adaptable messages, as recommended by the Commission, so that
    appropriate information can be disseminated swiftly. Such
    information would include the direction of a deadly radioactive
    or biological plume and instructions about whether it is better
    to shelter in place, stay in your home, stay in your worksite,
    or to evacuate quickly, and we think that kind of information
    could save thousands of lives.
        Fourth, the legislation would direct the Secretary of State
    to build an international biosecurity coalition by providing
    training and assistance to other countries in laboratory
    security and global disease surveillance.
        Finally, the legislation would also require the Director of
    National Intelligence to improve intelligence on WMD and
    terrorism, particularly by increasing his hiring of scientists
    and improving foreign language capabilities.
        Senator Graham, Senator Talent, you and your fellow
    commissioners and your staff have done a great service for our
    country in this report and that is why we look forward so much
    to hearing your views regarding the legislation that has
    resulted from it.
        I am also pleased to welcome again a return appearance by
    Greg Kutz, Managing Director for Forensic Audits and Special
    Investigations at the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
    Mr. Kutz and his team have spent the past 2 years investigating
    the state of security at our Nation's five most elite
    laboratories, that is, the laboratories that handle the world's
    most dangerous pathogens. In a 2008 report, and then in a
    follow-up report released a couple of months ago, GAO draws a
    disconcerting picture of the poor security regulations
    governing these laboratories and of the state of physical
    security at these laboratories, which Mr. Kutz will describe
    for us and which energize even more our consideration of this
    legislation and remedial action.
        Bottom line, we have to be direct and honest with the
    American people about the risk facing this country from a
    weapon of mass destruction attack by a terrorist organization.
    As the Graham-Talent Commission noted, ``America's margin of
    safety is shrinking, not growing.''
        Senator Collins and I are hopeful and believe that our
    Weapons of Mass Destruction Prevention and Preparedness Act of
    2009, S. 1649, will close many of the existing gaps and thereby
    grow our margin of safety.
        Senator Collins.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS

        Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        As the Chairman has indicated, the recent arrest of a
    terrorism suspect in Colorado is a sobering reminder of the
    continued threat to our Nation. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist
    organizations have publicly declared their intention to acquire
    and use weapons of mass destruction against the United States.
        Just last week, another media report highlighted how
    terrorists might join forces with global drug traffickers in
    order to take advantage of the traffickers' vast networks of
    tunnels, black markets, technology, and human intelligence. The
    terrorists have noted the ease with which traffickers smuggle
    illegal drugs across our borders. In the words of a former U.S.
    Embassy official in Afghanistan, ``When you get to the point
    where you can smuggle tons of drugs through one border, then
    you certainly have the capacity to smuggle in weapons of mass
    destruction or agents.''
        Clearly, this threat is real, urgent, and evolving. On
    September 8, the Chairman and I introduced legislation to help
    counter this threat. Our bill would improve our Nation's
    ability to prevent and respond to WMD attacks. It would enact
    many of the recommendations of the Commission on the Prevention
    of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, the
    Commission that the Chairman and I helped to establish in 2007.
        I am certainly pleased to see once again the leaders of
    that Commission, our former colleagues, Senators Bob Graham and
    Jim Talent, here today. Their report warns us that it is more
    likely than not that a weapons of mass destruction will be used
    in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of
    2013. We have repeated that warning a lot in our public
    statements, but I think we cannot say it often enough to convey
    to the public how urgent action is. The Commission's report is
    a call to action. Our bill is the answer.
        The Commission's findings reinforce the urgency felt by
    this Committee during our many hearings regarding the terrorist
    threat to our Nation. We have examined many deadly threats
    targeting the American people, and to respond to these threats,
    our Committee has led numerous reform efforts since the
    terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Our work has
    strengthened intelligence gathering efforts, tightened security
    at our ports and chemical facilities, and vastly improved our
    emergency preparedness.
        Nevertheless, the Commission's report provides a chilling
    reminder that the terrorists have been active, too. Nuclear
    proliferation and advances in biotechnology are giving
    terrorists new methods and new means to commit mass murder, so
    we, in turn, must continue our efforts to identify risks and to
    increase security.
        As the Commission's report explains, the most likely WMD
    threat to the United States is a biological weapon. It is
    easier to develop and disseminate bioweapons and gain access to
    lethal pathogens. Furthermore, terrorists know that a bioweapon
    can be a stealth attack. We may not immediately recognize that
    such an attack has even occurred until hundreds of people have
    been sickened or even died.
        Despite this threat, some of the world's most dangerous
    pathogens are not secure, and that includes pathogens housed in
    biological laboratories right here in the United States. The
    GAO's alarming report shows that there are deficiencies in
    basic perimeter security at facilities that house the world's
    most dangerous biological agents, diseases such as the Ebola
    virus and smallpox. The GAO also pointed out that lab
    regulation, for the most part, relies on self-policing.
        The fact is that thousands of people right here in our
    country have access to the most dangerous pathogens. More than
    400 research facilities and nearly 15,000 individuals are on
    the Select Agent List, an authorization to handle the most
    deadly pathogens. We needn't look far. The Federal Bureau of
    Investigation (FBI) has determined that a cleared scientist at
    a regulated research lab most likely carried out the 2001
    anthrax attacks.
        To counter this threat, we must increase the security at
    biological laboratories, and our bill seeks to accomplish that
    goal by identifying those pathogens that terrorists are most
    likely to use and increasing the security standards at the labs
    that handle them. A negotiated rulemaking with Federal agencies
    and research institutions at the table would develop these
    standards. This collaboration would ensure that the regulations
    that make our Nation's biological labs more secure do not have
    the unintended consequence of deterring legitimate research. In
    addition, we provide a 4-year grant program to help fund the
    security enhancements.
        Let me just mention one other part of our bill that I think
    is very important, and then since the Chairman has outlined the
    rest, I will just submit the remainder of my statement.
        The Commission also found that the Federal Government is
    unaware of some research facilities that handle less strictly
    controlled but still dangerous pathogens. To close that gap,
    our bill would require registration of those labs and facility
    security requirements that would be tiered based on the risk
    that terrorists might use a particular pathogen from a
    biological lab. That is the kind of approach that we used
    successfully in our chemical facility law, where we had a
    tiered approach with greater mandates for security to apply to
    the most high-risk facilities.
        Again, I look forward to hearing the testimony of our
    witnesses today and I am eager for us to move forward and
    advance this bill to the full Senate. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Collins.
        Senator Graham, Senator Talent, thank you. I am very
    pleased that your Commission, in some sense, took a good lesson
    from the 9/11 Commission--and to some extent so did Congress
    because we provided appropriations to continue your work
    because in some ways this is the most important chapter because
    unless something is done with your report, it is not going to
    matter much. So your capacity and that of your staff to
    continue to be involved in informing and advocating about this
    problem and a solution to it is gratefully appreciated.
        Senator Graham, welcome back. Good to see you.

     TESTIMONY OF HON. BOB GRAHAM,\1\ CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON THE
      PREVENTION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION PROLIFERATION AND
                               TERRORISM

        Mr. Graham. Thank you very much, Chairman Lieberman,
    Senator Collins, other Members of the Committee. We very much
    appreciate this opportunity to discuss a critically important
    dimension of our report, securing against a biological weapon
    of mass destruction.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The joint prepared statement of Mr. Graham and Mr. Talent
    appears in the Appendix on page 39.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I wish to say to all the Members of this Committee that it
    is our intent to issue an interim progress report next month as
    to how far we have proceeded. There are some critical words in
    that 2013 statement, which is that if we continue at the same
    pace, it is more likely than not that a WMD attack will occur
    somewhere in the world by the end of 2013, and that attack will
    be biological rather than nuclear. We have the opportunity to
    change the probabilities based on action. The reality is, our
    report was issued approximately 10 months ago. Ten months of
    our limited time to reach a position where we can reduce the
    vulnerability of the American people have now passed and we
    will be reporting as to whether we think we have used those 10
    months prudently. We expect to have a final report early in
    2010, prior to the ending of this Commission, which will be in
    February 2010.
        I can give you, I hope, the happy news that we anticipate
    that this Committee is going to get very good grades in our
    progress report. In fact, by far, you have been the most
    energetic Committee in the Congress relative to dealing with
    this critical and urgent issue, for which we are deeply
    appreciative.
        I would also like to thank Senator Akaka for his recent
    introduction of the Energy Development Program Implementation
    Act of 2009, which puts in place an Alternative Energy Peace
    Corps as was called for 31 years ago by the Nuclear
    Nonproliferation Act of 1978. We wish to also alert Senator
    Akaka that he is likely to get a good grade in our interim
    progress report.
        As we review our recommendations, while we feel positive
    about what is happening in this Committee, one of our major
    concerns continues to be, as it was with the 9/11 Commission
    and other previous commissions, the question of congressional
    reform. ``A World At Risk'' offers a recommendation which
    reads, ``Congress should reform its oversight, both
    structurally and substantively, to better address intelligence,
    homeland security, and cross-cutting 21st Century national
    security missions.''
        Today is a good example of why we made that recommendation.
    Today, in addition to this Committee, there are two other
    committees of Congress holding hearings on this very subject of
    laboratory security. When the Department of Homeland Security
    was formed, there were 86 different committees and
    subcommittees overseeing the new Department. Today, that number
    has been reduced from 86 to 82. There are signs of the
    continued dysfunction of congressional oversight identified not
    only by our Commission, but by a series of citizens'
    commissions. Congress has been appropriately forceful in
    demanding reform in the Executive Branch. We believe it is time
    to include the House and Senate in this process.
        And you should be pleased that our action plan, one of our
    action steps under congressional reform is that the Senate and
    House Homeland Security Committees should be empowered as the
    sole authorizing oversight committees for the Department of
    Homeland Security and all agencies under that Department's
    jurisdiction. I would hope that objective would be achieved and
    thus place the full responsibility where we believe it should
    be, with this Committee and your counterpart in the House.
        I use the word ``urgency.'' We think there are three clocks
    ticking. One, the Chairman has already discussed, and that is
    the 2013 clock. In addition to that preface, that assuming
    things stay as they are, that it is more likely than not that
    there will be a weapon of mass destruction used on earth before
    2013, but that probability, which we found in December 2008 to
    be somewhat greater than 50-50, can go up if time is wasted and
    is not followed by effective action.
        As Senator Collins said, our adversaries are not sitting in
    the stands waiting to see what we do. The reason that we have
    been falling behind is because as much effort as we have made
    to increase our security, it has not been as great as the
    effort our adversaries have made in order to penetrate that
    security. We think that relationship continues, and therefore,
    the probability of a weapon of mass destruction may be greater
    today than it was 10 months ago.
        But 2013 is not the only clock. There also is a 2010 clock.
    It is a nuclear clock. Every 5 years, the signatories to the
    Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement meet to review what has
    happened in the last 5 years and to plan for the next 5 years.
    We think that the meeting that is going to occur in 2010 is of
    special importance. We have made a number of recommendations to
    improve our security against a nuclear attack. Most of those
    recommendations require executive action. The Congress has
    devoted a great deal of attention through things such as the
    Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to increasing
    our security on the nuclear side.
        The other clock, the third clock, is the 2011 clock. There
    will be a similar meeting in 2011 reviewing the 1972 Biological
    Weapons Convention. We have made recommendations of what the
    United States should be prepared to do at that conference. One
    of our action items is the United States should reaffirm the
    critical importance of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention
    to international peace and security by proposing a new action
    plan for achieving universal adherence and effective national
    implementation to be adopted at the next review conference in
    2011.
        The relevance of that to this Committee's action is that if
    the United States is going to present itself as being the world
    leader on issues of control of biological weapons, we need to
    be the gold standard of such actions on a universal basis. This
    legislation and appropriate implementation, we believe, would
    give us that status. So we think it is critical that this
    legislation be passed and then a sufficient amount of time
    provided for implementation, so that when we get to the 2011
    conference, we will hold the moral, legal, and policy high
    ground to encourage other countries to follow our example.
        So those are the three clocks that we think dominate this
    discussion.
        Now turning specifically to the biological threat, we see
    our adversary as having a continued energized will to use
    biological weapons and increasing capabilities to do so. These
    characteristics of the biological threat include, first, the
    fact that the development and dispersing of biological weapons
    is not expensive. In fact, it is getting cheaper and
    scientifically easier.
        Second, a biological weapon could rival or exceed the
    damage caused by an improvised nuclear device (IED).
        And third, there are fewer hurdles to creating an effective
    bioweapon than a nuclear device. Virtually all dangerous
    pathogens are available in nature. The equipment needed to
    produce a large quantity from a small seedstock and then
    weaponize the materials is readily available today on the
    Internet. The most effective delivery methods are well known in
    the pharmaceutical, agriculture, and insect control industries.
        This is not speculation. Al-Qaeda was well down the road to
    producing such weapons prior to September 11, 2001. Due to the
    ease in creating a clandestine production capability, our
    intelligence community had no knowledge of two such facilities
    in Afghanistan prior to their capture by U.S. troops.
    Facilities with more sophisticated equipment than those found
    could be in operation today, again without our knowledge.
        I would like today to focus on two of the titles in your
    legislation, Title I and V. Senator Talent will discuss the
    other titles. Title I, Enhanced Biosecurity Measures in U.S.
    Laboratories, responds to our recommendation in ``World at
    Risk.'' Certain principles animated the section of our report
    dealing with laboratory security. We are concerned about the
    proliferation of high containment labs, which were not only
    unregulated, but often unknown to the government. And just this
    week, the Government Accountability Office has issued yet
    another report entitled, ``High Containment Laboratories:
    National Strategy for Oversight Is Needed.'' We have been at
    this business at least since the anthrax attack in October
    2001, 8 years ago, and still a national strategy is not
    available.
        The fragmentation of government oversight among agencies,
    the need for a thorough review and update of the Select Agent
    programs, and the importance of regulating labs in a way that
    did not discourage robust scientific research in the United
    States are all reasons why we give the issue that you have
    labeled as Title I such primacy.
        Enhanced biosecurity measures should improve security,
    streamline oversight, and focus our resources on the real
    risks. By correctly applying risk management principles, the
    United States can increase security without impeding science or
    critical U.S. industries.
        The legislation calls for the establishment of Tier I
    pathogens, which would be those that could be most readily
    weaponized and which would receive the most rigorous level of
    review. We would also recommend that there be a Tier II and
    III, each of which would represent a somewhat declining level
    of risk with an appropriate level of regulation relating to
    that risk.
        Title V of the legislation deals with the issue of citizen
    involvement. We believe that it is critically important that
    the American people feel a greater sense of engagement in this
    issue. We strongly believe that a well informed, organized, and
    mobilized citizenry has long been one of our Nation's greatest
    resources. An engaged citizenry, in fact, is the foundation for
    national resilience in the event of a natural disaster or a WMD
    attack.
        I recently visited with intelligence, military, law
    enforcement, and parliamentary officials in the United Kingdom
    and they unanimously said there had never been a WMD or other
    terrorist plot in the United Kingdom which had been broken
    without significant citizen involvement. We believe there are
    models to be followed.
        I will present for the record a letter from the Business
    Executives for National Security (BENS),\1\ a nonpartisan
    organization with a 27-year history of facilitating public-
    private collaboration. This includes 7 years of building
    security and resilience-focused partnerships at the State and
    local level. This organization has been active in many places
    in the country. It has been particularly effective in its work
    in Iowa, which occurred approximately 18 months before the very
    devastating floods of last year, and while that was natural,
    not a manmade disaster, the benefits of having developed such a
    private-public partnership were in evidence.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The letter submitted by Mr. Graham appears in the Appendix on
    page 66.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        In conclusion, we commend you for introducing this
    extremely important piece of legislation and we look forward to
    participating in a robust discussion on Capitol Hill and with
    the Administration and the stakeholders as we move towards
    passage and implementation.
        We stand ready to help where we can to promote this very
    important stride for our national security. Thank you.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Graham. That
    was very helpful testimony. I particularly appreciate the three
    clocks that are ticking because you help us put our work on
    this in the context of ongoing events that have dates that are
    associated with them.
        I don't want to take a lot of time on this, but I also
    appreciate your going back to the question of congressional
    reform of the handling of homeland security issues. Senator
    Collins and I, and this Committee, are proud of the work that
    we did with the House on the 9/11 Commission Report because we
    really put into legislation almost every one of the
    recommendations that the 9/11 Commission made to do everything
    we could to avoid another September 11, 2001.
        But the one that we suffered a total and embarrassing
    failure on was the attempt to reform us. We are very good at
    reforming the Executive Branch, but this gets into turf battles
    here. I appreciate your mentioning it. At some point, you and
    Senator Talent and Members of the Committee ought to talk about
    how we could try this again.
        We appreciate that you say that the Homeland Security
    Committee should clearly have jurisdiction here, but it is
    really the question that Tom Ridge first raised, which was he
    was spending too much of his time as Secretary of Homeland
    Security going to too many committees and subcommittees and
    they were redundant. It wasn't that he was avoiding oversight.
        So, anyway, I appreciate your mentioning it. Hope springs
    eternal. Senator Collins and I are both very stubborn people
    and we are not going to give up on this, so you encourage us to
    be even more stubborn.
        Senator Talent, thanks for being here. Thanks for all your
    work, and we welcome your testimony now.

     TESTIMONY OF HON. JIM TALENT,\1\ VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON
    THE PREVENTION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION PROLIFERATION AND
                               TERRORISM

        Mr. Talent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and just a follow-up
    on that. Not only does the redundant oversight consume too much
    of the executive's time, but as we point out in the report,
    oversight done properly can be hugely helpful. This Committee
    is a perfect example of that. But you can't do it properly when
    you have dozens and dozens of different committees doing it. So
    we would not only stop doing something that is interfering with
    the Executive Branch, but Congress could really play an even
    more effective role if we got the oversight correct.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The joint prepared statement of Mr. Talent and Mr. Graham
    appears in the Appendix on page 39.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I have a written statement which I will submit for the
    record and then just make a few comments.
        Chairman Lieberman. Good.
        Mr. Talent. I have to echo and want to echo what Senator
    Graham said about this Committee's work. The biggest enemy I
    think we confront in this is inertia, and to defeat inertia, it
    takes tremendous leadership and perseverance--stubbornness I
    think you just called it--and this Committee has shown that
    kind of perseverance from the day we issued the report. And
    really, in fairness, although everybody has been supportive--I
    don't think anybody on the Hill has not supported our report--
    but you are the only ones who have done that, which is the
    reason why we are here with this bill today. So I want to
    congratulate you on that.
        I think part of the reason is that the Committee
    understands and keeps in front of it the strategic nature of
    this threat. I find in the public and even within government,
    it is just so easy to slip into the idea that because the
    enemy, or the people that we are opposing in this, don't
    represent a first world economy, don't even have a nation-
    state, that therefore they can't really be that dangerous.
        But I think they have a more accurate strategic view of the
    world than we do. They understand that the world is a matrix of
    systems that are very important to not just the quality of
    life, but the ability of the average American, and person
    throughout the world to live, and that those systems are easy
    to attack particularly using asymmetric weapons. They
    understand the concept of asymmetric weapons very well.
        That is one of the reasons why what the intelligence
    community was telling us, what the expert opinions, the actual
    evidence we saw, the development of this threat to me was so
    plausible because it is logical for them to be trying to get
    weapons of mass destruction given their strategic view of the
    world. I would be, in a way, surprised if they weren't trying
    to do so. And you all know we have evidence that they think it
    is a priority for them.
        So this Committee gets that. I think part of our job is to
    try and make certain everybody else does.
        The other thing that is so important is to understand that
    we have to do something, even at the risk that doing something
    may produce some side effects that we didn't intend, rather
    than do nothing out of fear of the side effects. We have to
    move forward. If we don't do something--I mean, the current
    trajectory of risk does not favor us, so we have to disturb the
    inertia and move forward, and you all understand that. And
    also, it is across a broad front. It isn't any one thing. It is
    a series of incremental things that need to be done at the same
    time, and I think the bill represents that and I am very
    strongly supportive of it and appreciative of your leadership.
        Just a few individual comments with the time that I have,
    and this is reflected in my statement. The bill addresses the
    issue of how we distribute medical countermeasures, which is
    hugely important. I think the bill is going to help achieve
    progress in that area. But I just want to remind the Committee,
    we have to have the medical countermeasures to distribute, as
    well. In essence, we have to have the vaccines and the
    antibiotics to distribute or the distribution system doesn't do
    us any good.
        There are a couple of programs that have been established
    to accomplish that, Biomedical Advanced Research and
    Development Authority (BARDA) and Project BioShield, to
    encourage investment or to provide for government investment in
    the development of these vaccines. We want to point out that
    the Office of Management and Budget (OPM) seems to have gotten
    it into its institutional head to try and cut those programs. I
    understand that they are there to watch the budget, and that is
    a good thing, but those programs are hugely necessary and I
    would ask the Committee to watch for it, and those of you who
    are also appropriators to particularly watch for that.
        And I will just add one thing. There is a pretty direct and
    proven connection between funding development of vaccines and
    actual vaccines. The scientific community knows how to produce
    vaccines for these kinds of pathogens if they have the money to
    do it. So we really will get something for this investment. We
    will get the vaccines and anthrax and the medical
    countermeasures, etc.
        Second, I really want to applaud the Committee for taking
    on the workforce issue in the bill, how we can plus-up the
    personnel we have who have language skills, who have knowledge
    of nuclear issues and biological issues. We found all
    throughout the government people sounding the warning that we
    don't have enough of those people already. Unfortunately, there
    is a cohort of people in the government about 5 years away from
    retirement who possess a lot of the knowledge that we have, and
    we really have got to find people to take their place and we
    are not replacing them.
        And again, I think a big part of the problem, Mr. Chairman,
    is the fear of doing something because we have these security
    regulations in place so that we are so worried about hiring
    somebody who might be off in some respect that we don't hire
    anybody. We have to--particularly with language skills. It
    takes years and years in many cases to process people through
    security so that we can hire someone. Well, people aren't going
    to wait around necessarily for years to get hired. So this is
    an issue that needs to be addressed and the bill addresses
    that.
        I am particularly pleased at how the bill addresses the
    issue of citizen awareness and response, which I think is a
    huge untapped resource in this whole field, though not
    completely untapped. You all, I am sure, have talked with the
    authorities in New York City, for example, where they do a much
    better job of this. There is a lot of awareness there. The
    public is cooperating. That just adds to our ability to deal
    with this.
        I really like the medical kits idea that you have put in
    here and I hope there is a way, and believe there is a way, to
    work with that so the general public can begin accessing it, as
    well. I think it is a hugely important idea that you have.
        And finally, I will just close with one thing. The Chairman
    mentioned that there are people who tend to discount the danger
    of a biological attack. The Department of Defense, as you all
    know, had biological weapons programs in the 1950s and 1960s. I
    think it ended in the Nixon Administration. President Nixon
    just decided we weren't going to pursue them anymore. And they
    did a number of important tests on the efficacy of bioweapons,
    and this is using 1950s and 1960s technology. I just suggest if
    the Committee has not had a brief on those, ask the Department
    of Defense--I don't think they have ever studied them and put
    it all together in one brief, but it is a real eye-opener.
        It was effective even then. And people who think that this
    is not a weapon that this will be effective against civilian
    populations just need to look at those studies and what we
    ourselves were doing. Now, as a battlefield weapon, it is
    questionable, because a lot of them don't take effect quickly
    enough in battlefield terms. But as a way of attacking civilian
    populations, it is extremely plausible and very effective, and
    I am grateful that you have a strong omnibus bill to deal with
    it.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Talent. Very
    helpful testimony.
        Mr. Kutz, welcome back. Thanks for all your service. A
    somewhat different look at this problem, but directly relevant,
    and we welcome your testimony now.

     TESTIMONY OF GREGORY D. KUTZ,\1\ MANAGING DIRECTOR, FORENSIC
          AUDITS AND SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. GOVERNMENT
                         ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

        Mr. Kutz. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank
    you for the opportunity to discuss biosafety laboratories.
    Today's testimony highlights the results of our assessment of
    perimeter security for Level 4 labs. My testimony has two
    parts. First, I will discuss our findings, and second, I will
    discuss our recommendation.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Kutz appears in the Appendix on
    page 50.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        First, we found significant differences in perimeter
    security at the Nation's five Level 4 labs. These labs handle
    the world's most dangerous agents and toxins that cause
    incurable and deadly disease. As requested by the Centers for
    Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), our report and my
    testimony do not specifically name these labs.
        The poster board which is on my right,\1\ and for Senator
    Bennet, you should have this in your packet since you can't
    see, if you have got it----
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The chart referenced by Mr. Kutz appears in the Appendix on
    page 66.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Senator Bennet. I have it. Thank you.
        Mr. Kutz. The poster board here on my right shows the
    results of our assessment of controls at these five labs. The
    black circles indicate the controls in place during our 2008
    assessment. As you can see, three of these five labs had all or
    nearly all of the 15 key controls that we evaluated.
    Specifically, what we refer to as Lab B had all 15 controls in
    place, while Lab A had 14 and Lab D had 13.
        The presence of multiple layers of security at these three
    labs reduces the risk of unauthorized access to the labs.
    Examples of controls in place at all three of the labs include:
    A blast stand-off area between the labs and perimeter barriers;
    barriers to prevent vehicles from approaching; a command and
    control center; roving arm guard patrols; and x-ray screening
    at building entrances.
        The poster board also shows that in stark contrast to these
    three labs, the other two labs had little to no perimeter
    security. Specifically, what is shown as Lab C had only three
    of the 15 controls in place, while Lab E had four. Examples of
    controls that these two labs did not have in place include: A
    blast stand-off area between the lab and perimeter barriers;
    barriers to prevent vehicles from approaching; a command and
    control center; x-ray screening at building entrances; and
    vehicle screening.
        Moving on to my second point, based on our 2008 assessment,
    we recommended that CDC take actions to enhance perimeter
    security at these Level 4 labs. CDC agreed that perimeter
    security was important, but noted that the differences you see
    in security here were the result of risk-based planning. They
    also questioned whether the 15 controls that we looked at were
    relevant and appropriate for these labs. One year later, in
    response to our second report, CDC told us that they will
    consider our recommendations in developing future security
    plans.
        We understand the perimeter security is only one piece of
    the overall security picture and that a comprehensive approach
    to Select Agent security should be taken. However, it is
    discouraging that CDC would question the relevance of basic
    controls, such as blast stand-off areas, intrusion detection
    systems, x-ray screening at building entrances, and visitor and
    vehicle screening.
        Despite CDC's limited actions in the last year, three of
    these labs have enhanced their perimeter security. For example,
    as shown by the red circles on the poster board, Lab C now has
    a command and control center, camera coverage of exterior lab
    entrances, and visitor screening. Other initiatives underway at
    this lab would leave them with eight of the 15 controls in
    place and two others partially in place.
        Also, as you can see, Lab E made improvements and now has
    six of the 15 controls in place. Further, Lab D recently
    informed us that they have made improvements and have all 15 of
    the controls in place.
        In conclusion, we are encouraged that three of these labs
    have made improvements in perimeter security in the last year.
    We believe that an active and layered system of security can
    prevent unauthorized access to these labs. This is particularly
    important as several new Level 4 labs are either operating
    today or will be in the near future.
        Mr. Chairman, this ends my statement and I look forward to
    your questions.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Kutz. That was your normal
    good job from you. We will do 7-minute rounds of questions.
        Let me start with you, just to follow up what you have
    said. This is very disappointing, that two of the five labs
    with the most dangerous pathogens, meaning that they are the
    most likely to be weaponized, even on their own, still have
    great gaps in their security. I am particularly disappointed in
    what you say is the nonchalant attitude--I am characterizing it
    that way--of the Centers for Disease Control about this. First,
    how do you explain that reaction by CDC?
        Mr. Kutz. I can't explain the reaction by CDC with respect
    to perimeter security because I believe that these controls we
    are talking about are fairly basic and I think most security
    experts would agree that they would reduce the risk of
    unauthorized attacks on these labs So I can't explain that.
        I can explain the differences, to some extent. If you look
    at, for example, I think Lab B there, they have additional
    requirements outside of the CDC for security at those labs. So
    the actual base requirements that all three met, look at that,
    all three met the baseline requirements, which is hard to
    believe. But actually, these other labs, like Lab A and B, had
    other requirements from the Department of Defense (DOD), the
    National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Department of
    Health and Human Services (HHS). So what you saw there were
    more stringent requirements from other parts of the Federal
    Government than for the Select Agent program.
        Chairman Lieberman. So Lab C and Lab E were the only two of
    the five that were only part of the Select Agent program under
    CDC?
        Mr. Kutz. Yes, Lab C and Lab E.
        Chairman Lieberman. And those were the ones that are really
    lacking. Well, I will state my own intention, and maybe the
    Committee can do it, to express our displeasure to CDC about
    this state of affairs, because these two labs, which have very
    dangerous pathogens in them, are at risk, and when they are at
    risk, so are we.
        Let me go to Senator Graham and Senator Talent and ask a
    few baseline questions. We are particularly focusing, and I
    think for good reason, based on your report, on security at the
    laboratories. But let me step back and ask you to answer a
    question I know you considered. Accepting your premise that a
    WMD attack is probable somewhere in the world in the next 4
    years and that it is more likely to be biological than nuclear,
    I am going to mention three ways in which the components for
    such an attack against the United States could be brought
    together.
        One obviously is to manufacture the actual biological agent
    for attack elsewhere in the world. As you said, Senator Graham,
    we know that there were two active laboratories in Afghanistan
    that al-Qaeda was running.
        A second, I suppose, would be to, going to Mr. Kutz's
    point, to steal pathogens from an existing laboratory
    supervised by the government, well or not so well, and take it
    somewhere else, to a secret location, and develop it into a
    weapon.
        And the third--of course, this is the case we had with
    anthrax, where the Department of Justice determined in 2008
    that Army biological researcher Bruce Ivins was the sole
    perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks--is for somebody within
    the labs to be compromised, I mean, basically to be doing
    conversion to weapons within the labs.
        We are focused here on the security of the labs. I want you
    to talk a little bit about your evaluation and the Commission's
    of the probabilities here, or is it impossible to do that? From
    which of the three courses I have mentioned is it most likely
    that a terrorist intending to do a biological attack against
    the United States would get the biological materials?
        Mr. Graham. The Commission did not attempt to make such an
    assessment. I will be sufficiently either indiscrete or
    courageous to try to do so. I would suggest it is the third
    option. That is the only one to which we have been exposed.
    That is, a scientist inside the lab----
        Chairman Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Graham [continuing]. Who had passed a plethora of
    security background checks and then takes this material. He
    weaponized them in a crude manner such that they could be sent
    through the mail and ended up killing five people and creating
    significant disruption in our lives, including those of us who
    worked in these buildings.
        Chairman Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Graham. So I think, while all three of those are
    potentials that need to be protected against, of the three, the
    more likely is the one that has already occurred, which is the
    rogue scientist.
        Chairman Lieberman. I appreciate your directness in that,
    and that is the evidence we have. So not to say that there is
    any sole path to this. Obviously, better perimeter security
    would not impact that individual or would not stop that
    individual. And, of course, in the case of Mr. Ivins,
    presumably, he went through all the personal security checks.
    What more can we do to deter or discover that kind of
    exploitation of the system for anti-American purposes?
        Mr. Graham. Well, as you know, the Department of Homeland
    Security has a program which is specifically targeted at the
    rogue scientist. That in itself has been a source of some
    controversy because it has resulted in what many would describe
    as an overly bureaucratic and delayed process to get people
    cleared to work in our scientific laboratories.
        While security is our principal concern, we are not unaware
    of the fact that the vast majority of what goes on in these
    laboratories is very positive, contributing to our health.
    Therefore, we don't want to make these centers of creativity
    and innovation so entangled with restraints that they can't
    carry out their basic mission.
        I wish, Mr. Chairman, I could give you five specific things
    that we could do to increase the confidence in the individuals
    who are working in the laboratories. I can't do so, but I think
    the kind of recommendations that you are making for
    comprehensive oversight of these facilities, while this report
    focuses on the physical aspect, that comprehensiveness of
    oversight is also needed for the personnel issues, that would
    lead us to some thoughtful and constructive proposals to avoid
    another Bruce Ivins.
        Chairman Lieberman. I appreciate that answer. Senator
    Talent.
        Mr. Talent. Yes. I would add a couple things, Mr. Chairman.
    I agree with Senator Graham, by the way, that if I had to
    guess, that they would get it from a lab, because as we
    emphasized in the report, they will likely try to recruit
    bioscientists, life scientists, and the people that they are
    going to try and recruit are going to be the people who are
    active in the field, which means they are working someplace.
    And it just seems to me logical that the first thing such a
    person would try and do is to see if they could get the
    material from the lab where they are working. So I think that
    is a string of assumptions, but I think they are reasonably
    plausible.
        I would say three things that we can do, agreeing with what
    Senator Graham said--but what the bill is doing is hugely
    important. I mean, for the first time, we are going to have
    comprehensive rulemaking in which all the various agencies are
    involved.
        Chairman Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Talent. That is going to promote, I hope--I think this
    is very important--a culture of cooperation within the private
    scientific community and the agencies who are responsible for
    this. So they are going to begin talking, not that they are not
    now, there is a task force, I know, but more systematically and
    formally really talking about this, and you are going to see
    better regulation and better procedures growing out of that,
    almost in an evolutionary way. I think it is one of the
    geniuses of the bill.
        And I hope what that does, then, is create within the
    scientific community a real acceptance of the need for an
    enhanced culture of security. I think there is still
    resistance----
        Chairman Lieberman. Sure.
        Mr. Talent [continuing]. But a sense of, look, we really do
    have to be aware about what the person next to us is doing
    because that is how you get somebody like Ivins. If somebody is
    next to him saying--now, it is hard, because as they pointed
    out, you can just put your pencil down and get a pathogen, and
    this is hard, but I think these are incremental steps that will
    help.
        And then I do want to point out again the importance of
    having an effective system for producing and distributing
    countermeasures, because the better we are at responding, the
    more we tend to deter an attack. The Chairman and I made a
    decision when we started up the Commission that we would focus
    on prevention rather than remediation because you can't do
    everything, but this is an area where the two are linked
    because the better you remediate, the more likely you are to
    prevent.
        Chairman Lieberman. Correct. That is a form of deterrence.
    I appreciate your answer. It seems to me, also, in this matter,
    we are dealing again with a tension that we have dealt with
    from the beginning of America, which is between security and
    liberty. This is in a very specific way. Obviously, we don't
    want to discourage the extraordinary advances that come from
    the liberty of research and innovation, but on the other hand,
    we have got to create surveillance monitoring and measures to
    try to ferret out anybody who has gone astray and gone wild.
        I do think that the idea that we share, and it is in the
    bill, of tiering the regulation is important and perhaps sends
    a message to the scientific community, too. We are trying to
    isolate here for the most intense scrutiny the relatively small
    number of labs where the highest risk pathogens are, the ones
    that can be turned most easily into the most devastating
    weapons, and, frankly, to let up a little on surveillance at a
    lot of the other labs where the experts judge that the risk of
    conversion to weapons is less serious, and I think that may be
    a good balance as we go forward.
        Yes, Mr. Graham.
        Mr. Graham. Mr. Chairman, if I could just offer a couple of
    rays of hope, there has been a fairly distinct divide between
    the nuclear scientists and the biological scientists. The
    nuclear scientists largely came in existence after the first
    two nuclear weapons were actually utilized and, therefore,
    there has been from the beginning this culture of security. It
    was clear that the mushroom cloud was a potential outgrowth of
    nuclear technology and, therefore, security was an assumed part
    of the scientific community. We have had no similar iconic
    figure for the biological side. So we can take some lessons
    from how the nuclear scientists have managed this joint issue
    of innovation and creativity versus appropriate security and
    maybe apply those lessons to the biological.
        Chairman Lieberman. Good point.
        Mr. Graham. A second thing, some of the most scientifically
    committed universities in this country, over 20, have now
    formed a coalition to work precisely on this issue of the
    culture of security within our university setting, and I
    commend those institutions for their initiative. I hope that
    what they are doing will not only be successful in the member
    institutions, but will help set a standard for other higher
    education institutions that are engaged in this work, as we
    have seen recently, sadly, from your alma mater----
        Chairman Lieberman. Yes.
        Mr. Graham [continuing]. The potential of consequences of
    inappropriate action by people in these laboratories.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Graham. Senator
    Collins.
        Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Kutz, Senator Graham's last comment is actually a good
    lead-in to a series of questions that I want to ask you because
    he talks about that nuclear scientists have a culture of
    security. That is their focus and that has not always been the
    case with scientists who are dealing with biological agents.
        I suspect that the cultural differences are also reflected
    in the regulators. I don't think that it is a coincidence that
    labs that were doing work for DOD had higher security than labs
    that were under the sole jurisdiction of the CDC. Did you find
    in dealing with the CDC that there was more focus on biosafety
    than on security?
        Mr. Kutz. Yes, there was more of a focus on safety, which
    isn't a bad focus, by the way, but there were no people that
    had actual security backgrounds that were doing the oversight
    and that were going out and approving the actual plans for
    security at these five Level 4 labs. So that clearly was
    something that we noted.
        Senator Collins. And indeed, it is my understanding that
    the 15 standards that you used as an assessment were developed
    by the GAO, is that correct? In other words, did the CDC have a
    similar set of mandatory standards that needed to be met?
        Mr. Kutz. No. Theirs were more guidelines and they were
    much easier to meet. Ours were more stringent, more specific,
    and ours were more consistent with what you saw from DOD, for
    example.
        Senator Collins. And when your report was issued a year ago
    and found such serious deficiencies in two of the labs that
    answered to the CDC, did the CDC order security improvements at
    the two labs?
        Mr. Kutz. No. They tried to explain that what we saw was
    actually part of a plan that was resulted from risk-based
    analysis. So they tried to actually rationalize or justify it
    rather than say that something needed to be done.
        So as I mentioned, the three labs that have made
    improvements since then, they did it all on their own. There
    was no government assistance with respect to that. It was the
    labs themselves.
        Senator Collins. That is really worrisome to me. It seems
    to me that when you went to the CDC a year ago and showed such
    glaring deficiencies in just basic security measures, that the
    agency should have acted immediately. And are you telling us
    that the improvements that were made, such as they are, were
    initiated by the labs themselves, not as a result of any order
    or even direction by the CDC?
        Mr. Kutz. Correct. The six red dots you see on that board
    were all self-initiated by Labs C and E, and as I mentioned,
    Lab D also went from having 13 to 15, and that was on their
    own.
        Senator Collins. And I think that demonstrates why it is so
    important that the Department of Homeland Security be involved
    in the regulation, because that Department, as one of the
    Commissioners, Robin Cleveland, mentioned to us previously, has
    as a focus and a mission of homeland security. It is startling
    to me that you could present the regulator with the report
    showing such serious problems and no action was taken, but that
    is what happened.
        Mr. Kutz. That is correct. That is what happened.
        Senator Collins. Thank you.
        Senator Talent and Senator Graham, I want you both to
    respond to this issue. We have talked a lot this morning about
    the worry that terrorists could gain access to pathogens at
    these biolabs and we have talked about the possibility of the
    rogue scientist. But isn't there also a concern that these labs
    may contain specialized equipment and technology that could be
    valuable to terrorists in weaponizing a pathogen? In other
    words, it is not just the people. It is not just the biological
    agents. It is the specialized equipment, as well, is it not?
    Senator Graham.
        Mr. Graham. It is, and one of the many strengths of your
    legislation is to recognize that and begin the process of
    registering and providing some control over this equipment. It
    goes beyond equipment which is capable of weaponizing. It also
    relates to equipment which can actually be used to produce
    pathogens. Most of these high-risk pathogens occur in nature.
    Anthrax, for instance, is the product of decaying cattle,
    primarily. The word ``anthrax'' is a Russian word that means
    Siberian boil, because the first place anthrax was discovered
    was dead cows in Siberia. But there are other pathogens which
    are now being man-created and the equipment to do so is also a
    security risk. Your legislation would provide for some
    registration and control over who has access to that equipment.
        Senator Collins. Thank you. Mr. Talent.
        Mr. Talent. I really agree. I think it is one of the major
    steps forward in the bill, is the provision of the registration
    authority and the focus not just on the pathogen, but on the
    equipment that could be misused. Right now, if the lab is not
    handling something on the Select Agent list, then the
    government just does not know anything about them. We do not
    know who is out there, and that, to me, is irresponsible.
        And I think it should be done in a way--and this is very
    important, we believe--that whoever is directing that lab who
    is now going to have to register because of the equipment
    doesn't think of it as this is another dumb government thing I
    have to do. I will just fill this out as quickly as I can, send
    it in, and hope they never contact me again and hope I never
    have to do anything ever again having to do with this subject.
        I hope that this is done in such a way--and you all, by
    providing for negotiated kind of rulemaking, I hope will
    achieve that--where that person says, you know what? Maybe this
    is something I need to not just comply with in the most bare
    minimum way possible but take an interest in. Maybe I need to
    start reading some industry things about this and be a little
    more concerned and circulate something to my employees about
    this because this is something I need to care about. That is
    the attitude we want out there, and the way to get it is the
    cooperative kind of rulemaking which you provide for in the
    legislation.
        Senator Collins. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Collins.
        Senator Akaka, and then Senator McCaskill.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA

        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
    thank you very much for holding this hearing and I want to add
    my welcome to Senator Graham, Senator Talent, and Mr. Kutz as
    you give your testimony and commitment to increasing our
    ability to counter WMD threats to our national security.
        I am pleased that President Obama has implemented some of
    the Commission's recommendations. He has appointed a
    coordinator for WMD Terrorism and Proliferation, and mandated
    greater integration between the National Security Council and
    the Homeland Security Council. And still more can be done. It
    is important that we continue to focus on the greatest threats
    to our national security. We should remember that the
    Commission warned that the terrorists' use of WMD somewhere in
    the world is more likely than not by the end of 2013.
        All levels of government, along with the private sector and
    individual citizens, really need to work in concert to provide
    capabilities and readiness to prevent catastrophic attacks and
    to limit the consequences if such attacks occur. Senators
    Lieberman and Collins have taken a strong leadership role in
    introducing the Weapons of Mass Destruction Prevention and
    Preparedness Act and I look forward to working with them on
    this bill.
        Senator Graham, I recently introduced the Energy
    Development Program Implementation Act, which would put in
    place a mechanism to implement Title V of the Nuclear
    Nonproliferation Act of 1978. Under my bill, the United States
    would work with developing nations to foster non-nuclear
    alternative energy sources, which would provide economic and
    environmental benefits and also reduce the risk of nuclear
    technology ending up in the wrong hands.
        Your Commission's World at Risk report recommended
    implementing this program. You also recommend actions by the
    Executive Branch. Are there other recommendations about nuclear
    proliferation and terrorism from your report that this
    Committee should consider?
        Mr. Graham. Yes. We are in what has been referred to as a
    nuclear renaissance. After 30 or 40 years in which there was
    relatively little development of new nuclear capabilities,
    particularly for civilian purposes, suddenly, a number of
    countries, including the United States, are either considering
    expanding our current base of nuclear capability and some
    countries which have never had nuclear before are expressing
    interest.
        The fact that the Congress is now considering a number of
    what are referred to as 1-2-3 agreements, which are the
    agreements required by the Atomic Energy Act for the United
    States to cooperate in civilian nuclear with a foreign country,
    is itself illustrative of this nuclear renaissance.
        It does pose some significant challenges. Let me just
    mention a few. One, the countries that have never had nuclear
    power before, therefore, have no system of regulatory standards
    or enforcement capabilities, either for safety or security. It
    is going to be a particular responsibility of the international
    community, particularly the International Atomic Energy Agency
    (IAEA), which is the regulating institution for the
    Nonproliferation Treaty, to see that those new entrants into
    the nuclear club do so under safe and secure circumstances. We
    have a number of recommendations for strengthening the
    authorities of the IAEA for this and other purposes.
        Second, in our report, we suggest that the United States
    should be economically neutral on the expansion of nuclear
    power for civilian purposes, specifically, that we should not
    subsidize nuclear expansion in foreign countries. If a foreign
    country decides based on its own analysis that nuclear is an
    appropriate part of its energy construct, we should honor that,
    but we shouldn't subsidize it, thereby creating incentives for
    further expansion of nuclear with the almost inevitable
    expansion of the potential of diversion of that nuclear to
    military purposes.
        Senator Akaka. For too long, the Federal Government has not
    invested enough in supporting foreign language competency, as
    was mentioned earlier. This week, the Government Accountability
    Office will be releasing a report about serious proficiency
    gaps in languages critical to our national security at the
    State Department.
        Earlier this year, I introduced the National Foreign
    Language Coordination Act to put in place a national strategy
    for foreign languages because Americans need to understand
    other languages and cultures to ensure our national and
    economic security. I am encouraged that the bill we are
    considering today has a provision for an intelligence community
    language capability strategy.
        Do you believe this provision is sufficient, or is a
    broader national strategy for foreign languages needed?
        Mr. Talent. I think the provision in the bill is a really
    good step, Senator, and this is one of these areas where I
    think there is a limit to what Congress can do. This really
    requires vigor and energy in the executive, somebody taking
    this and running with it and taking the responsibility for
    making certain decisions.
        Part of it is that we don't have the skills out there. Part
    of it is that we are not vigorously pursuing the people who
    have the language skills. And part of it is that we have set up
    requirements that really discourage those people from joining
    up. I mean, somebody who has the kind of language skills and
    cultural knowledge, for example, of Iran probably has had some
    connection to Iran. So if that is a disqualifier from a
    security standpoint, then you are never going to be able to
    recruit anybody.
        And so there are huge, national communities around the
    country that want to help out, that have people who know how to
    help out, and we are not letting them help out. I just think it
    is going to take somebody high enough up to make a decision to
    say, look, we are going to start accessing these people. If
    there is some fallout or some baggage, I will bear it. Let us
    just go and do it. I don't think that decision has yet been
    made, but I don't know what you all can do other than what you
    are doing in this bill. They are going to have to take it up
    and run with it. You can do oversight and keep pushing, but
    this is an executive thing, I believe.
        Mr. Graham. Yesterday, I attended a briefing and the
    conditions of the briefing are such that I can't say who was
    the principal presenter, but I can say it was a very high
    person in our U.S. military, and he made the observation that
    in dealing with the kind of warfare that we are engaged in in
    Afghanistan, that intelligence is the very pointy end of the
    spear. You are trying to isolate the bad people from the
    civilians, because if you don't, you will end up harming
    civilians and therefore severely damaging your ability to carry
    out the mission. Intelligence is the key to being able to make
    that and a set of other good judgments.
        He went on to say that good intelligence is predicated on
    knowledge, that you can't provide good intelligence if you
    don't have a knowledge of the history and culture of the area
    in which you are operating, if you don't have a knowledge of
    the language that the people speak, or if you don't have some
    understanding of the demographic composition of the area in
    which you are operating.
        So I think what you are pointing to is we are going to
    build up the knowledge base which will then make it possible to
    have superior intelligence capabilities. So I commend you for
    your prescience in identifying this as an important national
    security issue.
        Senator Akaka. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Akaka. Thanks for those
    thoughtful questions. Thanks for the legislation you
    introduced.
        Senator McCaskill, let me thank you for two things. First,
    for deciding to cosponsor the legislation that Senator Collins
    and I have introduced to prevent a WMD attack, and second,
    thank you for the work you did in 2006 to free up Jim Talent so
    he could do the great service he has done for our country as
    Co-Chair of this Commission. [Laughter.]
        Mr. Talent. I retain a few mixed emotions about that.
    [Laughter.]
        Chairman Lieberman. You look pretty good. You look pretty
    happy.
        Mr. Talent. I am grateful for Senator McCaskill's presence
    here and wonder if she took the late flight in. I didn't see
    you on it----
        Senator McCaskill. No. Actually, I did the 4:30 alarm this
    morning. I rolled in on the early flight.
        Mr. Talent. Yes. Your two choices of coming in from
    Missouri to make a Tuesday morning hearing are not either one
    of them very palatable.
        Chairman Lieberman. So there are opportunities for service
    after the Senate and you have done that in an exemplary
    fashion. Senator McCaskill.
        Senator McCaskill. And Senator Lieberman, let me just say,
    to follow up on your comments, I think he is doing such great
    work there, I think it is very important he continue in that
    work for the long haul. [Laughter.]
        Chairman Lieberman. Got it.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL

        Senator McCaskill. I want to thank both Senator Graham and
    Senator Talent for their work in this area. I think that both
    of you understand this place very well and you understand what
    works and what does not. I think you are being very kind to use
    the word ``inertia,'' Senator Talent, because I think it is a
    little worse than inertia. We don't have a whole lot of people
    at the press table over there today. We don't have the best
    attendance that we would hope for in this Committee hearing
    this morning.
        And partially that is about the attention span of this
    place and what drives it. Right now, we are in the midst of a
    very heated and drawn battle over health care reform, and in
    those moments, it is really hard to get people's attention
    around here on anything else.
        I think the bill that has been introduced, which I am
    pleased to be able to cosponsor with Senator Collins and
    Senator Lieberman is incredibly important to the security of
    this Nation and I stand ready to do whatever I can to fight the
    fact that no one is giving it much attention right now, talking
    about this important topic. If this hearing had occurred in
    2002, we would have had a line outside. But now, it has drifted
    away from the front of people's consideration and therefore we
    are going to have more difficulty getting it across the finish
    line. But I know with the leadership of this Committee,
    particularly our Chairman and Ranking Member, we can do it.
        Let me ask you, Mr. Kutz, without going into specifically
    where the labs are located, was there any connection between
    the perimeter security that GAO found, between those labs that
    were government-owned and those that were privately-owned?
        Mr. Kutz. The two labs that had the weakest security were
    not-for-profit and university, so they were private. Two of the
    best were government operated and owned.
        Senator McCaskill. And is the sixth biosafety Level 4 lab
    that has just recently become operational, is that a private or
    is that a government? Do you guys know?
        Mr. Kutz. I know it is in Montana. I don't know which.
        Senator McCaskill. The reason I ask that is it seems to me
    that, as much as I don't like it in some instances, it would be
    fairly simple, maybe, to amend our bill to talk about funding
    from the government being contingent upon this perimeter
    security being present----
        Chairman Lieberman. That is a good idea.
        Senator McCaskill [continuing]. And any other--because I am
    sure all of these labs, whether it is in the efforts that you
    all referred to in terms of government funding, of trying to
    get the BARDA and the BioShield that Senator Talent referred to
    in terms of investment in the vaccination, that we ought to be
    able to hook up the contingency of public money with the
    requirement of these securities, and I will try to follow up
    for that.
        It is interesting that you both agree that our most likely
    problem is going to be with a rogue scientist and, therefore,
    that would seem to dictate incredibly aggressive screening
    procedures and an incredibly aggressive mental health screening
    and all of that. On the other hand, Senator Talent, you said
    that part of our problem is our fear in taking that risk is
    paralyzing our ability to get good people in the door that we
    desperately need for their scientific acumen and backgrounds.
    And you said just, I think, a few minutes ago that the
    Executive Branch is going to need to take the lead on this.
        Do you think there is anything else that we can do in
    Congress or you can do in your Committee to give the Executive
    Branch cover, because if it is about a political risk----
        Mr. Talent. Yes. It is interesting that you said that word,
    because I was just thinking that one of the things that
    Congress could do, and almost informally, is approach the key
    decision makers and say, look, if you feel you need to take
    some responsibility for saying, we are going to hire somebody
    who has language skills and complete the security review--hire
    them on a preliminary basis and complete the security review so
    we can get them in the door, we are going to protect you. We
    are not going to hang you up for making that kind of a
    decision. I think that might happen.
        The key here, though, is that the bill is designed to get
    everybody at the same table and talking about this so what will
    emerge from there is the right balance that I don't think you
    can prescriptively in a bill say. And you can go wrong in
    either direction.
        I mean, Fort Detrick, in response to the Ivins case,
    imposed such strong security measures that they have stopped
    doing any research.
        Senator McCaskill. Right.
        Mr. Talent. Well, that is not a good result, and neither is
    a good result to have labs that are saying, well, we are going
    to ignore what the GAO is telling us. We don't want to have x-
    ray machines. I mean, I don't get why you couldn't have x-ray
    machines.
        So I think what the bill is aiming at is to create a
    cooperative process where reasonable people are getting
    together and recognizing that even if they come from the
    scientific community, security is important. Even if they come
    from the security community, science is important.
        It gives me a chance to just propose--you had an addition
    you suggested, Senator. I think if you created some kind of a
    council on lab security and said you want the representatives
    from the key nonprofits and the agencies, and they have to get
    together on a regular basis and they have to talk, and then you
    all oversaw that, I think that would be useful as an
    integrator, as a way of creating that kind of community of
    interest across institutional lines that we are trying to get
    at. That, I think, would be helpful, Senator.
        Senator McCaskill. Is there anything else, Senator Graham
    or Senator Talent, that we have not included in this bill that
    you think needs to be included?
        Mr. Graham. Well, I think the basic structure of this bill
    is not to fall in the trap of being overly prescriptive. This
    is a rapidly evolving area of science. The issues that are
    probably going to be our biggest challenge 20 years from now,
    we can't even conceptualize today. What you are doing is you
    are setting in place a series of institutions that will have
    the capacity over time to respond to emerging threats. There
    may be some details that we could discuss, but I think the
    basic approach of this as a matter of good public
    administration is sound and therefore we give it our strong
    support.
        Mr. Talent. The model is what you did in this Committee
    with the intelligence community. That, to me, is the model,
    where you set in motion forces within the intelligence
    community that have caused them to work together, and, in fact,
    that is one of the really good news stories of the last 3 or 4
    years. The increase in our intelligence capabilities is, I
    think, directly as a result of what you all did in that bill.
        Senator McCaskill. If I could, we are going to have a
    hearing on another topic that you all have obviously talked
    about in your assignment, and I know that, Senator Talent, you
    have written about it. We are going to have a hearing, I think,
    in the Armed Services Committee on Thursday on missile defense.
    I would like, Senator Talent, just to ask you your reaction to
    Secretary Gates's recommendation that we rely on the SM-3s in
    the short run with switching our emphasis in the long run to
    improved technology that would not be reflected in what had
    been planned by the Bush Administration----
        Mr. Talent. For Czech Republic and Poland.
        Senator McCaskill [continuing]. For Czech Republic and
    Poland.
        Mr. Talent. And I am happy to do that, Senator. I think we
    should both say this is--we are taking off our hats now, our
    Commission hats, because this is something we didn't feel was
    part of our mandate, missile defense, and we didn't get into
    it, and deliberately so. And Senator Graham and I have talked a
    lot about this individually. He may have slightly or greatly
    different views.
        I didn't like it, the decision, for a number of reasons.
    Part of it is missile defense, I think, the ground-based
    interceptors, we know will work. We were far along in that
    process. It is the less expensive and the quicker way of doing
    it. The intelligence assessment that the Iranians may be moving
    more slowly than we think, I think is questionable, and in any
    event, I don't want to take that chance. And this is a subject
    where I would like to see redundancy rather than choosing one
    from another. And then there are serious foreign policy
    implications, as well.
        So it was not something I liked to see happen, but I say
    that as a private individual and maybe as a commentator on
    foreign policy in general, not as the vice chairman of the
    Commission.
        Senator McCaskill. Thank you.
        Mr. Graham. As Senator Talent has said, we are taking off
    our Commission hats, where we were very collegial and our
    report had the unanimous support of all of the nine members of
    the Commission. I have had some concerns about the concept of
    missile defense in the context that our stated national policy
    is that if a country uses a nuclear weapon against the United
    States or an ally, the result of that will be massive
    retaliation. If a reasonable country feels that we are serious
    about that, you would think that they would be extremely
    reticent to use such a weapon against the United States,
    particularly reticent to use it in a form that has their
    signature all over it.
        I have sat in a signals intelligence facility thousands of
    miles away from the site and seen a foreign government launch
    its missiles. We have the capability of monitoring missiles all
    over the world and would know within seconds of launch who was
    responsible. There are many other ways today that a state which
    wanted to deliver a nuclear weapon against the United States
    could do so without putting its signature on it, such as
    delivering it in a cargo container. That is why I think seaport
    security is, among other reasons, such an important element. So
    I think it is a defense against an increasingly unlikely event.
        Second, we state in our report the importance of the U.S.-
    Russian relationship. Between us, we control about 95 percent
    of the nuclear weapons in the world. There is no relationship
    that is more important to restraining the proliferation of
    nuclear weapons than that between the United States and Russia.
    We are two big, powerful countries and we will periodically
    have disagreements, but we need to try to manage our
    relationship in the context of the primacy of avoiding
    contributing to a nuclear conflagration.
        So the fact that this was such a sensitive thing to the
    Russians, and understandably so--if they had facilities like
    this located in Cuba, we know how we would react--we knew what,
    in fact, we did do back in the early 1960s--were the benefits
    to us in terms of our defense against nuclear weapons worth the
    risk to our relationship with the Russians that the sites in
    the Czech Republic and Poland represented? I personally think
    not, so I believe that we have made a wise decision and that
    the overall security of the country is heightened.
        Some of the test of that will be what do we do now with
    this new approach that Secretary Gates is discussing of a
    different way to defend ourselves against missiles and how we
    use maybe some of the resources that we would have spent there
    to do a better job of defending those places such as our
    seaports, which I think are much more likely to be the gateway
    to get a nuclear weapon into the United States than by
    launching it with a missile that has your name written on the
    side of it.
        Senator McCaskill. Well, I am glad I was able to get this
    bipartisan agreement to divide opinion here before we finished.
    [Laughter.]
        Thank you very much for your indulgence on that question.
    They are both very knowledgeable and I wanted to get both of
    their takes on it. Thank you.
        Chairman Lieberman. I am glad you did. It was helpful.
    Thank you.
        We are going to do a second round, quickly, of 5 minutes.
    We have got a vote at noon.
        Let me focus here on another part of your Commission report
    and of the bill. I think you have done a great service in
    focusing on the development of a robust response capability to
    a bioterrorist attack as one of the best things we can do to
    deter such attack, as we said before.
        I would also say, parenthetically, as we are geared up now
    to deal with the H1N1 pandemic and its potential spread in our
    country that whatever we do to set up systems to respond to a
    bioterrorist attack will also enable us to use those same
    systems to respond to an epidemic or a pandemic or an outbreak
    of disease of one kind or another.
        Let me ask you a baseline question as to where we are now,
    which is whether you think any of our major metropolitan areas
    today are ready to get antibiotics or countermeasures out to
    people at risk within a reasonable amount of time, or really a
    necessary amount of time, after a biological weapon attack. I
    gather some people have the standard of 48 hours. Of course,
    that seems like a long time to me, 2 days. So the question is,
    are any of our major metropolitan areas really ready to
    dispense the countermeasures that people will need to minimize
    the impact of a biological attack?
        Mr. Graham. Probably not, at least, I am not aware of any.
    And it is a more complicated problem than the act of dispersing
    the medications. One is knowing that you are under attack.
        Chairman Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Graham. There are probably, within a 50-mile radius of
    where we sit today, 75 hospitals. If each one of those 75 had
    three people show up with symptoms that might be associated
    with a lethal pathogen, they might conclude that it was an
    aberration. It is only when you aggregate three times 75 that
    you begin to appreciate that this is not just a random
    incident, that we are under attack, and then begin the
    processes that are necessary.
        I am, frankly, not aware of anyplace that has a fully
    coordinated means by which that could be done within the time
    frame necessary to then start the process of getting
    medications out to people.
        The reason that we think that in the area of biological
    that prevention equals preparation to respond to the attack is
    that there, you do have the potential of making biological--
    they are still a weapon of destruction, but you might be able
    to eliminate the middle word, ``mass.'' If you are able to
    respond sufficiently, you can contain the effect of a
    biological attack. With a nuclear attack, tens or hundreds of
    thousands of people are going to be killed and there is no way
    to reduce that number.
        We also, in some discussions with our intelligence
    agencies, in their assessment of the mentality of our
    adversary, that our adversary, once they come into possession
    of the capability of a biological attack, are probably going to
    use that fairly quickly. They are not in the business of
    stockpiling materials for some future attack, like maybe the
    North Koreans are trying to do with their nuclear capability.
    So they will want to use it quickly.
        They will assess a range of targets, both in the United
    States and worldwide, and are likely to use it against the
    target that they think will result in the highest kill rate. So
    if you have prepared yourself and your adversary is aware of
    the preparation that you have done, you are probably going to
    be down the pecking order in the likelihood that you will be
    the site selected to target that to be used soon after
    acquisition of a biological weapon. So that is why we think
    that one of the most important deterrents in the biological
    area is how well you are prepared to deal with the event
    itself.
        Mr. Talent. Mr. Chairman, I should say I just snuck around
    and asked the staff, and they tell me that there are models out
    there that are pretty far advanced. I don't think anybody feels
    like they are as prepared as they want to be, but the Postal
    Service with its model has been working with localities. I
    think our statement says Seattle, Philadelphia, and Boston.
    They have been pleased about the tests that they have run
    there. So I think we are making progress----
        Chairman Lieberman. This is on the ability of those
    communities to respond quickly.
        Mr. Talent. The overwhelming point that we kept getting,
    and it makes great sense, is that whatever the Federal
    Government does, it has to adopt an attitude of working with
    the local authorities and let them adjust to what they think
    they need to do. And this is, of course, how first responders
    are--they have all these kinds of sharing and partnership
    agreements locally and mutual support agreements and we have to
    make that work for us rather than DHS saying, this is how you
    will do it everywhere, because that won't work.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thanks to both of you. That is why we
    have a separate title on what the Federal Government can do to
    incentivize and support, rather than demand that response
    capability, because that ultimately, as you said, both of you,
    very convincingly, is the best deterrent we can have. Senator
    Collins.
        Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Just following up on that point, we have done a lot of work
    with State and local governments, and with our private sector
    partners to improve the response because obviously if you are a
    terrorist and you think a community is unable to respond, that
    gives you even more of an incentive to choose a particular
    method of attack.
        But there is also some discouraging news in that area.
    Earlier this month, the Inspector General (IG) for the
    Department of Health and Human Services released a report that
    looked at the ability of local communities to effectively and
    efficiently distribute medical countermeasures in the event of
    a pandemic flu. Well, obviously that possibility is here right
    now.
        The IG examined 10 localities and found that most of them
    had not completed planning for countermeasures distribution and
    dispensing. They found, for example, that there weren't formal
    agreements that had been worked out between the local hospitals
    and the communities, and that they failed to identify
    alternative sources of staffing to cope with the absentee rate
    that would be associated with a pandemic.
        That really concerns me, that this many years have passed
    and we still don't have the measures and the planning in place.
    Could you both comment a little more on what specifically you
    think that we need to be doing in this area? I will start with
    you, Senator Talent, since you addressed this in your opening
    comments.
        Mr. Talent. Sure. What you said doesn't surprise me, and I
    think it is consistent with what Senator Graham and I were
    saying. I am not confident that any place in the country is
    where it needs to be or really close to where it needs to be.
    Now, there are some areas that are ahead of others and I think
    we can look at what they are doing and try and model.
        But what you said and what the IG said is perfectly
    consistent with what we found, that we are not ready in this
    area. It is, I don't want to say inviting attack, but it is an
    avenue of deterrence of which we are not taking advantage. And
    I think it goes back to what Senator Lieberman opened up the
    hearing with, which is how do you create an ongoing sense of
    urgency within this government and local governments, as well.
        Senator Graham has talked about the fact that we, as a
    Commission are looking at doing this, providing a citizen
    check-list--you may want to talk about this, Senator Graham--
    for how folks can check up on what their local government is
    doing. What are the 10 things your local government should be
    doing? And I think that will be helpful.
        But everything that we can continue to do to raise the
    awareness that this is really a possibility and, in fact, will
    become a probability--it is the insidious nature of terrorism.
    It is one of the reasons it is an effective form of conflict
    against first world countries. It is shadowy, it is beneath the
    surface, and so we just tend to forget that it is there until
    they jump up and attack us, and how do you promote that in a
    society where people are doing what we want them to do? They
    are off with their families and their jobs and doing good
    things and they are not waking up every morning worrying about
    this, and I really don't want them to, but I do want a stronger
    sense of urgency, and I think you put your finger on one of the
    real difficulties.
        Senator Collins. Thank you. Senator Graham.
        Mr. Graham. Just to pick up on what Senator Talent said,
    one of the things that our Commission has done during this
    second phase of our life, the post-report phase, is we have
    commissioned various studies. One of those has been with Texas
    A&M University, which has a Center for Homeland Security, to
    develop a Guide for Citizens. If, let us say, you are a citizen
    of Camden, Maine, and you want to know how well prepared is
    Camden in the event of either a natural or a terrorist-caused
    biological incident in your community, how would you as a
    citizen find out? Well, what we hope to give to citizens is a
    list of the right questions to answer and some idea of the
    metrics to be used in evaluating the answers that you get so
    that there can be an informed citizenry, if necessary, pushing
    its governmental agencies to higher standards of action in
    order to protect the people of that specific community.
        Senator Collins. Thank you. Thank you all for your
    testimony.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Collins. Senator
    Akaka.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Graham, in March, you testified at a hearing I held
    to examine the creation of a National Security Service
    Workforce. It seems that personnel plays a huge part in what we
    are trying to do. You articulated the Commission's findings and
    recommendations regarding workforce challenges in the area of
    national security, particularly in the intelligence community.
        I have been considering legislation alongside other Members
    of this Committee to strengthen the national security
    workforce. My question to you is, how might this Committee
    encourage the development of national security professionals
    government-wide?
        Mr. Graham. Well, if I could focus, as I did in March, on
    the specific area of the intelligence community, although I
    believe the principles are applicable elsewhere, in my
    judgment, one of the most effective role models of developing
    human capital is the military's Reserve Officer Training Corps
    (ROTC) program. Over half the commissioned officers in every
    branch of the United States military comes through a ROTC
    program.
        The program has the opportunity that, let us say, if the
    Navy is looking 10 years down the road and they say,
    anticipating some new technology, we are going to need more
    officers with a particular set of scientific knowledge, they
    can begin to adjust their selection process of persons who will
    be entering the Navy ROTC to prioritize students who are going
    to be studying in the areas where they will acquire that
    knowledge. So it has a flexibility and a responsiveness to both
    current and anticipated conditions.
        Second, it has the requirement that people commit to a
    certain number of years of service as a consequence of
    receiving the Federal assistance in securing their education.
    So there is a reliability that you can depend on the fact that
    you will have a certain number of years of service from these
    individuals.
        Third, it tends to promote a concept that the military has
    been emphasizing and which we believe our intelligence agencies
    need to further emphasize, and that is jointness, that people
    who get to know each other as students, whether they end up in
    the Army infantry or the armor or other specific area of the
    Army, they are going to have had a common shared experience
    during their ROTC years.
        So I think that is a model, and let me say, there is a
    provision in the intelligence authorization bill that will move
    towards establishing such a program for the intelligence
    agencies. I would recommend it to your attention, and at such
    time, I hope that as you consider and vote on the future
    intelligence authorization bill with that provision, that you
    will be supportive.
        Senator Akaka. Before my time runs out, this question goes
    to either Senator Graham or Senator Talent. I took a particular
    interest in the Commission's recommendations to strengthen
    United States public diplomacy efforts. Last September, I held
    a hearing on public diplomacy reform and found that despite the
    existence of a strategic plan, there was little support for it
    across the government. This is an area where improvement is
    needed.
        Would you please elaborate on the Commission's
    recommendations for developing a new public diplomacy strategy
    and how it could reduce the risks associated with bioterrorism
    and the misuse of technology? Senator Talent.
        Mr. Talent. It is the last question and you have introduced
    a really important subject, and I am grateful to you for your
    leadership on this. Senator Graham and I have talked a lot
    about this. We talked a lot about it at the Commission,
    particularly in the context of our recommendations regarding
    Pakistan.
        We could not agree with you more. I mean, it is obvious. We
    have now seen this across a number of administrations. We saw
    it in Bosnia, saw it in Iraq, and we are seeing it now in
    Afghanistan, that our government needs the capability to do
    what you call public diplomacy, what Secretary of Defense
    Robert Gates has called smart power or soft power, a range of
    capabilities that are primarily civilian in nature that will
    assist us, either assist the military or operate outside the
    military context, and they include the ability to effectively
    communicate America's intentions.
        And we have a President who is popular abroad. He goes and
    gives speeches. That is a very good thing. But we have all run
    in campaigns here. You can't just give a speech and then expect
    that the message is going to--you have to follow it up with a
    kind of campaign that effectively communicates your intentions.
    We don't have that capability organically as a government. We
    just don't, not to mention the ability to systematically build
    local economic and democratic grassroots institutions that we
    have seen we need that ability over and over and over again and
    we don't have it. And all that is connected up with the public
    diplomacy piece.
        So I will just say I think we need an effort across the
    civilian agencies, led by the Secretary of State--we say this
    in the report--similar to what the military did over a
    generation ago with the Goldwater-Nichols Act, what you all are
    causing the intelligence community to do, where they canvas
    what the requirements are for this community as a whole,
    inventory the capabilities they have, and then have a concerted
    plan for developing the necessary capabilities, and it will
    mean working together and sharing culture.
        But I agree with you. They haven't really started, and I
    don't--it would be a great subject--I guess you need the
    Foreign Affairs Committee and some of the others to do it, but
    this is an area where Congress, I think, if you really show an
    interest over time, they will have to respond, and otherwise, I
    am concerned that it isn't going to happen. But kudos to you
    for continuing to push it, Senator.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Akaka.
        I agree with you, Senator Talent, for the kudos to Senator
    Akaka. He has been really noble in this pursuit.
        I will say, and I appreciate the reference to the
    intelligence community. In the briefings that we have received
    on this ongoing terrorist plot here in the United States,
    Colorado, New York, apart from being unsettled by the clearest
    evidence we have received in a long time of an attempt that is
    at least connected to al-Qaeda and Afghanistan and Pakistan,
    but the remarkable cooperation among law enforcement agencies
    of the United States and intelligence agencies, both global and
    domestic has been really quite reassuring.
        This has been a very productive morning for our Committee.
    I thank you very much for your continuing efforts, Senator
    Graham, Senator Talent, and Mr. Kutz.
        This Committee has a sense of urgency about this. We take
    this legislation that we have introduced very seriously.
    Incidentally, not only Senator McCaskill has joined, but
    Senator Bob Bennet of Utah has come on as a cosponsor. Senator
    Collins and I intend to mark this bill up at a business meeting
    of our Committee next month. So we are going to really move it
    quickly. I suppose that is a notice to anybody out there who
    has any input they want to give our Committee before we go to
    markup that we intend to move this with speed, because that is
    what the reality of our world requires.
        We will keep the record of this hearing open for 10 days
    for any additional statements or questions that anybody might
    have.
        Senator Collins, would you like to say anything in
    conclusion?
        Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just again want
    to thank our witnesses for all of their work--they have all
    been working on it for quite some time--and to assure you of
    our determination to get the kinds of reforms that we all
    believe are needed signed into law.
        Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much.
        The hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

                                  ----------

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.001

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.002

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.003

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.004

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.005

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.006

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.007

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.008

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.009

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.010

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.011

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.012

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.013

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.014

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.015

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.016

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.017

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.018

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.019

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.020

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.021

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.022

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.023

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.024

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.025

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.026

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.027

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.028

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.029

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.030

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.031

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.032

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.033

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.034

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.035

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.036

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.037

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.038

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.039

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.040

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.041

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.042

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.043

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.044

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.045

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.046

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.047

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.048

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.049

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.050

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.051

    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3840.052