WASHINGTON -- A key U.S. Senate committee yesterday delayed the vote on legislation aimed at strengthening security at the country's biological research facilities (see GSN, Oct. 22).
(Oct. 29) -
A scientist works in a high-security disease research facility in Atlanta, Ga., in 1995. A U.S. Senate panel has postponed a vote on a bill intended to bolster security at the nation's biodefense laboratories (U.S. Centers for Disease Control/Getty Images).
The Homeland Security and Government Affairs put off for at least a week the mark-up of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2009 to allow the Obama administration additional time to comment on the bill, said panel Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.).
The legislation -- sponsored by Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), the committee's ranking member -- would require the Homeland Security Department to issue security regulations for laboratories. It would divide the government's list of select agents and toxins into three tiers, compelling facilities that handle the eight to 10 most harmful pathogens to institute the highest security (see GSN, Sept. 9).
The measure also calls for a national strategy for dispensing medical countermeasures to the public before and after a biological attack.
Collins estimated the bill would affect some 400 U.S. research facilities and the nearly 15,000 individuals authorized to handle deadly pathogens.
The legislation is based largely on the recommendations of the congressionally mandated Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Last December, the panel found that an attack involving a weapon of mass destruction is likely to occur somewhere in the world by 2013 in the absence of significant security improvements. The analysis also stated that a biological strike was more likely to occur than a nuclear attack because of the prevalence of deadly pathogens and materials.
The commission last week issued an interim report that concluded the United States has not done enough to mitigate the threat of bioterrorism.
Committee member Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said yesterday it would be a "mistake" to take up the bill because several agencies -- including the Homeland Security and Defense departments and the National Security Council -- had not weighed in on the proposals.
"The bill is moving very quickly even though the issue [of laboratory security] has been around a long time," he said, adding the bill was introduced just last month.
Levin noted that the legislation does not line up completely with the proposals of the WMD commission. He cited the panel's suggestion that the Health and Human Services Department be the lead agency to overhaul laboratory security. The Lieberman-Collins proposal would give that authority to Homeland Security.
Staff from the National Intelligence Director's Office also expressed concerns about possible confusion created by the proposed tier system for select agents, according to Levin.
Lieberman said he and Collins had approached the entities Levin mentioned about the legislation but had yet to receive sufficient responses. He noted he had been attempting since August for a reply from the National Security Council.
Levin also criticized the bill for requiring laboratories to implement personnel reliability programs to evaluate whether an individual is trustworthy enough to work with sensitive material or technology. The programs -- already employed by the Defense and Energy departments, among other agencies -- can include psychological screening, polygraph testing and credit checks.
He cited a recent report by the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, that found there is no "silver bullet" to prevent a would-be bioterrorist from finding a job at a U.S. disease research laboratory (see GSN, Sept. 30).
Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio) also urged a delay in voting on the bill until the findings of the Working Group on Strengthening the Biosecurity of the United States are published. That group was established in January through an executive order by then-President George W. Bush to look at strategies to bolster security at laboratories conducting research with dangerous diseases (see GSN, Oct. 7).
Voinovich said the panel's recommendations should be available in the next three weeks.
Collins decried the number of government and independent studies that have examined laboratory security since 2007.
"I've become convinced that those studies have become an excuse to avoid acting and rather than waiting for more studies it is time for us to act," she said.
Collins urged action on the measure because the Obama administration has said it would not formulate "concrete legislative proposals until at least next summer." She predicted it would take 18 months before the Senate received a biosecurity bill from the White House and at least three years before any potential regulations from that legislation would be in place.
That would place the nation significantly closer to the 2013 deadline given by the WMD commission, Collins noted.
Lieberman said both he and Collins received phone calls Tuesday night from John Brennan, U.S. President Barack Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism. The Connecticut lawmaker dubbed the timing of the calls "noteworthy."
Brennan pledged greater consultation on the measure between his staff and that of the committee, according to Lieberman.
Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) admitted she was a "little nervous" about allowing more time for administration agencies to consider the issue, or holding additional hearings, because such deliberations could devolve into a protection of "turf."
"Things don't get done until we're about to do something," she said.
The panel unanimously adopted an amendment introduced by McCaskill that would prevent biodefense facilities from performing research on deadly agents if the laboratory violates security requirements. It was one of a handful of additions made to the bill yesterday.
Lieberman said he expected the mark-up of the proposed legislation to take place next week.