Republican House E&C Committee members seek details on COVID-19 surveillance efforts

Republican members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committee on Aug. 12 requested information about how the federal government is working to improve surveillance of COVID-19 in the United States. 

Specifically, the E&C Committee lawmakers asked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Robert Redfield and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler about their agencies’ COVID-19 surveillance efforts, including the use of wastewater as a surveillance tool.

E&C Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR); E&C Health Subcommittee Ranking Member Michael Burgess (R-TX); and E&C Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee Ranking Member John Shimkus (R-IL) wrote that the committee is interested in learning more about if, and how, both the CDC and the EPA are examining, developing and utilizing wastewater as a surveillance tool for COVID-19 to improve the nation’s COVID-19 surveillance efforts.

The representatives also want to know about their efforts to work with other agencies, private companies, academia, or other researchers already doing similar work on wastewater surveillance, according to the separate letters sent to the CDC and EPA.

Employing wastewater surveillance, if found useful, is a recommendation from the first pillar covering testing and surveillance in the E&C Committee Republicans’ Second Wave Preparedness Project, which notes that wastewater surveillance has previously been utilized to detect opioid abuse and polio in certain areas. 

Employing this surveillance tool could help communities better understand as early as possible whether asymptomatic cases may be present while also helping save supplies, according to the members.

Rep. Walden, Rep. Shimkus, and Rep. Burgess also requested that Redfield and Wheeler each make arrangements to provide E&C Committee staff with a briefing on the topic by Aug. 26.