U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) led two of their Republican colleagues in calling on the Biden administration to ensure it is developing a strategy to oversee federal high-containment laboratories, and updating policies to review research involving enhanced pathogens that have the potential to create another pandemic.
The lawmakers urged the administration to prioritize improving oversight of gain-of-function research, which involves enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential; and to develop a strategy for the management, maintenance, and oversight of federal high-containment laboratories, according to a June 14 letter sent to Arati Prabhakar, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President.
By law, the administration must implement both of these provisions — which are sections 2312 and 2315 of the PREVENT Pandemics Act, a bill signed into law by President Joe Biden in December 2022 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 — by Dec. 29.
“Timely implementation of sections 2312 and 2315 is critical to enhancing our biosafety and biosecurity,” wrote Sen. Cassidy, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; Rep. Rodgers, chair of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee; and their two GOP colleagues.
Section 2312 was intended as an initial step toward addressing a Government Accountability Office recommendation that a single federal entity be charged with leading the evaluation and coordination of high-containment laboratory capacity in the U.S., while section 2315 was intended to capture OSTP’s January 2017 Recommended Policy Guidance for Departmental Development of Review Mechanisms for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight, according to their letter.
The lawmakers also requested an OSTP briefing by June 30 for their staff. “The goal of this briefing will be to learn about your progress to date in implementing these two provisions and your plan to fulfill these requirements by the statutory deadline of Dec. 29,” they wrote.