Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act conference report. It has been nearly 8 months since the deadly anthrax attacks, and authorities still have not determined who is responsible. However, it appears very likely that the highly concentrated form of anthrax did not originate from overseas, but rather may have come from an American laboratory.
In addition to unsecured anthrax, we have other challenges involving national, State and local health care workers and first responders, to make sure they are equipped with the tools they need to fight bioterrorism threats, and we also have food security issues to consider, as well as a potentially vulnerable water supply.
Today we are taking a major step forward in addressing some of these issues. In particular I am pleased that the bill contains provisions similar to those included in legislation that I introduced last fall with Senator Feinstein.
Our bill, the Deadly Biological Control Act, will require that the Department of Health and Human Services maintain and regularly update a list of deadly biological agents, viruses and bacteria that poses severe threat to public health and safety. It requires every laboratory that possesses any of these select agents to be government-certified after proving that they will be used strictly for legitimate research purposes and that sufficient measures are in place to safely handle and dispose of those agents while ensuring protection against unlawful access.
Finally, lab employees would have to register with the Department of Health and Human Services and pass through a criminal background check. These provisions are critical because under current law, laboratories that acquired anthrax and other deadly agents prior to 1997 were not required to register with the government unless they were shipping the agent to another lab, as a result of the thousands of laboratories nationwide which stock deadly biological agents, viruses, and bacteria without uniform security standards or proper Federal oversight. Under these lax security conditions, a rogue employee or outside terrorist group could easily gain access to some of the most dangerous pathogens on Earth.
I applaud the leadership of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) as they work with the Senate conferees to bring this bill to the floor, and I urge my colleagues to support this important conference report.