[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 39 (Thursday, April 11, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2585-S2587]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. CLELAND:
  S. 2115. A bill to amend the Public Health Act to create a Center for 
Bioterrorism Preparedness within the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. CLELAND. Madam President, I rise today to introduce legislation 
to create a National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response 
within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This center will 
be the first in the Federal Government to be dedicated solely to 
protecting the Nation against the public health threats posed by 
biological, chemical, and radiological weapons attacks.
  The monumental importance of this task, compounded by the potentially 
devastating consequences of a failure to give it the national 
commitment it deserves, makes the creation of a single center that will 
focus all its energies and resources on encountering the public health 
threat of bioterrorism imperative and of the greatest urgency.
  The events of last fall made it painfully clear that we as a nation 
are not as prepared as we need to be to deal with a bioterrorist 
attack.
  The Federal response to the anthrax crisis has been variously 
characterized as fragmented, slow, confused, ineffectual--in a word, 
inadequate. This is in no way a reflection on the dedication or 
abilities of the men and women who performed so exceptionally well in 
their roles at the Federal, State, and local level in response to a 
threat none of us had encountered before. They did not let us down. If 
anything, we, the Congress of the United States, let them down through 
years of neglect of the public health sector and by failing to give 
adequate recognition sooner to the threat posed to us by bioterrorism.
  It was not until 1999 that the Department of Health and Human 
Services launched its bioterrorism initiative. The military had 
understood and taken steps to counter the threat of biological warfare 
against our troops decades earlier. But it took the civilian sector 
until 3 years ago even to begin to take seriously the threat of 
domestic terrorism.
  Today not one of us could possibly fail to understand how serious the 
threat posed by bioterrorism truly is. Some among us were the intended 
targets of last fall's bioterrorist attack. All of us keenly felt the 
threat.
  Between 1999 and 2001, we spent in this Nation a total of $730 
million on HHS's bioterrorism initiative, the lion's share of which was 
used by the CDC to bolster bioterrorism preparedness and response 
capacity of State and local health departments.
  This initiative was a good start, but it is now clear that between 
1999 and September 11, 2001, we continued to grossly underestimate the 
national commitment that would be required to counter the threat of 
bioterrorism.
  Finally, late last year, as we finished allocating funds for fiscal 
year 2002 in the wake of September 11 and the anthrax attacks, we 
boosted HHS bioterrorism spending to $3 billion, roughly a tenfold 
increase.
  Congress is often accused of being reactive instead of proactive, and 
I think that criticism is, I am sad to say, valid in this case. 
Certainly a dramatic ratcheting up to our commitment to bioterrorism 
defense was the right reaction to the events of last fall. But now we 
are presented with the opportunity, and I think the obligation, to take 
proactive steps to anticipate future threats and needs based on our 
recent experiences.
  My proposal today is just such a step, and I exhort my colleagues in 
this body and in the House to support the immediate authorization of a 
National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response.

  The CDC is on the public health front in the war against domestic 
terrorism, the tip of the spear. It is not the only weapon in our 
arsenal. The CDC joins the National Institutes of Health, the Food and 
Drug Administration, and Health Resources and Services Administration, 
the many State and local health departments, and many others on the 
front line. But the CDC is the one with the greatest responsibility in 
the event of a bioterrorist attack.
  Despite the critical nature of these responsibilities, we must 
remember how new they are to the CDC, especially relative to the CDC's 
56 years of experience addressing public health threats of a 
fundamentally different nature.
  The threat posed by bioterrorism bears a surface resemblance to that 
posed by more conventional disease outputs. But closer inspection 
reveals real substantive differences, and a recognition of these 
differences can make the difference between an effective and 
ineffective emergency response.
  The scientists and other experts at the National Center for 
Infectious Diseases and the National Center for Environmental Health 
are highly skilled in controlling and preventing disease outbreaks of a 
natural origin, but when it comes to bioterrorism, they are treading 
new ground without a compass.
  CDC's rapid response personnel, in the absence of the specialized and 
focused bioterrorism training that a national center could provide, 
will inevitably bring to bear epidemiological models and methods that, 
while exceptionally effective in approaching naturally occurring 
disease outbreaks, are poorly suited to manmade outbreaks.
  As my friend and former Senator Sam Nunn so wonderfully noted in 
testimony to Congress just months before September 11 of last year:

       A biological weapons attack cuts across categories and 
     mocks old strategies.

  We need a new approach. Under the present structure, CDC's 
bioterrorism preparedness and response efforts exist alongside and are 
dispersed among its more traditional programs. This is the prevailing 
state of affairs because HHS's bioterrorism initiative is still 
relatively new, not because it is the ideal method of organizing CDC's 
response to bioterrorism, but the time has come to give the CDC's 
bioterrorism defense efforts the focus they deserve.
  Counterbioterrorism activities at the CDC jumped from zero percent of 
the CDC's overall budget in 1998 to 4 percent in 2001 and 34 percent in 
2002.
  Each of the CDC's other major programs, none of which now even 
approaches the bioterrorism program in terms of size, has been given a 
national center with its own director, its own budget authority, and 
own accountability to Congress.
  The CDC's Bioterrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response Program, 
by contrast, is not even funded through the CDC. Its resources come 
from the external public health and social service emergency fund.
  In the Children's Health Act of 2000, we authorized a National Center 
on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, not because the CDC 
had no prior programs relating to birth defects and developmental 
disabilities, but rather because only in their own dedicated center 
could these programs receive the focus and priority they deserve.
  There is a National Center for Health Statistics, but there is right 
now no National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response. It 
seems to me that if a dedicated center is called for by the need for 
accurate health statistics, the urgent need for a comprehensive, 
effective, and focused defense against bioterrorism certainly demands 
one as well.
  Under my legislation, the National Center for Bioterrorism 
Preparedness and Response would be charged with the following 
responsibilities: training, preparing, and equipping bioterrorism 
emergency response teams, who will become the special forces of the 
Public Health Service, for the unique purpose of immediate emergency 
response to a man-made assault on the public health; overseeing, 
expanding, and improving the laboratory response network; and that is a 
mission; developing response plans for all conceivable contingencies 
involving terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction, that is 
much needed and developing protocols of coordination and communication 
between Federal, State, and local actors, as well as between different 
Federal actors, in collaboration with these entities, for each of those 
contingencies,

[[Page S2586]]

which is highly needed; maintaining, managing, and deploying the 
National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, what an important challenge that is; 
regulating and tracking the possession, use, and transfer of dangerous 
biological, chemical, and radiological agents that the Secretary of HHS 
determines pose a threat to the public health; developing and 
implementing disease surveillance systems, including a nationwide 
secure electronic network linking doctors, hospitals, public health 
departments, and the CDC, for the early detection, identification, 
collection, and monitoring of terrorist attacks involving weapons of 
mass destruction; administering grants to state and local public health 
departments for building core capacities, such as the Health 
Alert Network; and organizing and carrying out simulation exercises 
with respect to terrorist attacks involving biological, chemical, or 
radiological weapons in close coordination with other relevant federal, 
state, and local actors.

  This Center is designed specifically to complement HHS's existing 
structure for the coordination of its multi-agency counter-bioterrorism 
initiative. At present, the Director of the Office of Public Health 
Preparedness is responsible for coordinating the bioterrorism functions 
of the CDC with those of the NIH, with those of the FDA and so forth. 
The housing of all the CDC's bioterrorism functions in one dedicated 
center will facilitate the Director's coordination task by providing a 
single point of contact within the CDC for its bioterrorism defense 
efforts. When the National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and 
Response goes online, the CDC will benefit from a much more focused and 
prioritized bioterrorism mandate; the Office of Public Health 
Preparedness will benefit from a streamlining of its coordination 
duties; and the American people will benefit from a firmer, sounder, 
stronger defense against bioterrorism.
  Let me be clear that what I am proposing is not an added layer of 
bureaucracy. Most of the responsibilities that would be assigned to the 
National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response already 
accrue to the CDC in Atlanta. My legislation would gather these 
existing bioterrorism functions from their various locations throughout 
the CDC, which has 21 different buildings, I might add, and bring them 
all under one roof, one center--an elimination of bureaucratic layers, 
not an addition of a new one. There are a few new responsibilities that 
my legislation would charge to the Center that do not currently reside 
with the CDC, but I challenge anyone to claim that they constitute 
merely an added layer of bureaucracy. Where there are 
new responsibilities--for instance, the tracking and regulation not 
merely of the transfer but of the possession and use of deadly 
biological toxins--it is only in instances of national security 
imperatives of the highest order.

  In 1947, President Truman advocated and presided over the creation of 
the National Military Establishment, a new department bringing the 
Departments of War and Navy under one aegis. In 1949, the National 
Military Establishment was renamed the Department of Defense. President 
Truman recognized in the waning days of World War II that the Nation's 
military as it was then structured would be incapable of meeting future 
threats. That is important. The Department of Defense, with its unified 
command structure and cohesive focus on national defense, was his 
solution to the problem. Today, we all know how well the Department of 
Defense has served us. In the 1980s, President Reagan appointed the 
first drug czar to lend focus to what had previously been a loosely 
dispersed and consequently ineffectual war on drugs. More recently, 
President Bush created the Office of Homeland Security because he 
recognized that we need one office and one director whose sole 
responsibility is to ensure the security of our homeland. In this same 
tradition, I propose a National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness 
and Response. When a threat--be it our inability to win future wars, 
rampant drug use, or terrorist designs on our homeland--reaches 
critical proportions, our Nation has historically responded by creating 
a focal point whose sole mandate is addressing that threat. Today, I 
can say without fear of contradiction that the threat of bioterrorism 
has surpassed the critical threshold. In my view, we are therefore 
called upon by history and by our obligation to future generations to 
create a dedicated National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and 
Response.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of my legislation be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 2115

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. NATIONAL CENTER FOR BIOTERRORISM PREPAREDNESS AND 
                   RESPONSE.

       Title III of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 241 
     et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:

  ``PART R--NATIONAL CENTER FOR BIOTERRORISM PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE

     ``SEC. 399Z-1. NATIONAL CENTER FOR BIOTERRORISM PREPAREDNESS 
                   AND RESPONSE.

       ``(a) In General.--There is established within the Centers 
     for Disease Control and Prevention a center to be known as 
     the National Center for Bioterrorism Preparedness and 
     Response (referred to in this section as the `Center') that 
     shall be headed by a director appointed by the Director of 
     the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
       ``(b) Duties.--The Director of the Center shall--
       ``(1) administer grants to State and local public health 
     entities, such as health departments, academic institutions, 
     and other public health partners to upgrade public health 
     core capacities, including--
       ``(A) improving surveillance and epidemiology;
       ``(B) increasing the speed of laboratory diagnosis;
       ``(C) ensuring a well-trained public health workforce; and
       ``(D) providing timely, secure communications and 
     information systems (such as the Health Alert Network);
       ``(2) maintain, manage, and in a public health emergency 
     deploy, the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile administered by 
     the Centers for Disease Control;
       ``(3) ensure that all States have functional plans in place 
     for effective management and use of the National 
     Pharmaceutical Stockpile should it be deployed;
       ``(4) establish, in consultation with the Department of 
     Justice, the Department of Energy, and the Department of 
     Defense, a list of biological, chemical, and radiological 
     agents and toxins that could pose a severe threat to public 
     health and safety;
       ``(5) at least every 6 months review, and if necessary 
     revise, in consultation with the Department of Justice, the 
     Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense, the list 
     established in paragraph (4);
       ``(6) regulate and track the agents and toxins listed 
     pursuant to paragraph (4) by--
       ``(A) in consultation and coordination with the Department 
     of Justice, the Department of Energy, and the Department of 
     Defense--
       ``(i) establishing procedures for access to listed agents 
     and toxins, including a screening protocol to ensure that 
     individual access to listed agents and toxins is limited; and
       ``(ii) establishing safety standards and procedures for the 
     possession, use, and transfer of listed agents and toxins, 
     including reasonable security requirements for persons 
     possessing, using, or transferring listed agents, so as to 
     protect public health and safety; and
       ``(B) requiring registration for the possession, use, and 
     transfer of listed agents and toxins and maintaining a 
     national database of the location of such agents and toxins; 
     and
       ``(7) train, prepare, and equip bioterrorism emergency 
     response teams, composed of members of the Epidemic 
     Intelligence Service, who will be dispatched immediately in 
     the event of a suspected terrorist attack involving 
     biological, chemical, or radiological weapons;
       ``(8) expand and improve the Laboratory Response Network;
       ``(9) organize and carry out simulation exercises with 
     respect to terrorist attacks involving biological, chemical, 
     or radiological weapons, in coordination with State and local 
     governments for the purpose of assessing preparedness;
       ``(10) develop and implement disease surveillance measures, 
     including a nationwide electronic network linking doctors, 
     hospitals, public health departments, and the Centers for 
     Disease Control and Prevention, for the early detection, 
     identification, collection, and monitoring of terrorist 
     attacks involving biological, chemical, or radiological 
     weapons;
       ``(11) develop response plans for all conceivable 
     contingencies involving terrorist attacks with biological, 
     chemical, or radiological weapons, that specify protocols of 
     communication and coordination between Federal, State, and 
     local actors, as well as between different Federal actors, 
     and ensure that resources required to carry out the plans are 
     obtained and put into place; and
       ``(12) perform any other relevant responsibilities the 
     Secretary deems appropriate.
       ``(c) Transfers.--
       ``(1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, on the date described

[[Page S2587]]

     in paragraph (4), each program and function described in 
     paragraph (3) shall be transferred to, and administered by 
     the Center.
       ``(2) Related transfers.--Personnel employed in connection 
     with the programs and functions described in paragraph (3), 
     and amounts available for carrying out such programs and 
     functions shall be transferred to the Center. Such transfer 
     of amounts does not affect the availability of the amounts 
     with respect to the purposes for which the amounts may be 
     expended.
       ``(3) Programs and functions described.--The programs and 
     functions described in this paragraph are all programs and 
     functions that--
       ``(A) relate to bioterrorism preparedness and response; and
       ``(B) were previously dispersed among the various centers 
     that comprise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
       ``(4) Date described.--The date described in this paragraph 
     is the date that is 180 days after the date of enactment of 
     this section.''.
                                 ______