And i am proud of you. I know you are currently residing in florida but you are a true puerto rican. I know you are fighting for equality, and that is the solution. The democratic thing to do the right thing to do economically and financially for puerto rico insofar as the immediate crisis is concerned. Congress could give puerto rico a tool that is not available in puerto rico, and that is chapter nine of the bankruptcy code. It allows companies to reorganize themselves under the protection of the bankruptcy court, so that they can meet their payment obligations. It allows them to restructure in an organized and legal way. That is why i am fighting for that in congress. But the permanent solution would be to allow puerto rico to join the union. Pay federal taxes. But at the same time, get the same benefits from the federal government. Then puerto rico would prosper with that kind of profit status. There would be a transition, but we would have no Political Risk and we would drive the sick thrive the same way to states have thrive in the union. Host one last call from atlantic city, democrat. Caller hello. First of all id like to pay homage and respect to the 65th infantry reserve. They actually volunteered for world war i. These people are not mandatory to fight our wars. They fight in our cause. We have the same cause. That is number one. Number two, mr. Pedro i believe you are not going to be a little pay this debt. I believe your banks will collapse, and i believe puerto rico will become a science experiment. Are you prepared for this . Guest i did on but do not agree with this assessment. I believe puerto rico has a bright future. On an immediate basis we are facing a fiscal crisis, and we have a lot of debt. It basically amounts to the level of our economy. That is high. But we can manage. We can make sure that we keep innovation for development, that our authorities are reorganized but we do not keep breathing rates would to be terrible for economic development. At the same time we can streamline our government and make sure that we live within our means. Puerto rico as i said, has a lot of potential. Many doctors from puerto rico are wellknown. That is the biggest resource our stem professionals. Our beauty, our location. Our culture. We can do much better than we have. We just need the u. S. Government is to treat a fairly. Allow us to prosper. It was equality and we will host on the debt issue governors schumer senator schumer and blumenthal are warning that if puerto rico is not allowed to restructure its debt it could trigger a humanitarian crisis. What sort a few military crisis . Guest it would be chaotic if you do not have the legal structure to adjust your debt when need be. They are referring to mass migration, more than we have. In the past, we have lost a 250,000 people in just five or six years. If it continues at this level puerto rico will be seriously downsized, even more so. It is going to be very hard to make it viable. We want american citizens who resided puerto rico to stay there. They would rather live in puerto rico than anywhere in the states. But because the economy is lagging, its not working. The system is not working. That is why we need to change it. That is what they are referring to. I hope the chapter nine deal i introduced in the house, etc. Blumenthal and schumer introduced in the senate will get its day in congress and it will become law. It will deftly help puerto rico. Host pedro pierluisi, thank you very muc the Defense Department says live anthrax was sent to 192 laboratories, more than double the number reported in june and the list includes 50 states and seven foreign countries. The house energy and subcommittee is two hours and 10 minutes long. Good morning. Welcome to our hearing once again dealing with anthrax. The subcommittee examines continuing concerns over the federal select Agent Program. At the grounds that occurred at a tenyear timeframe. Its like deja vu all over again. Last year we held a similar hearing on an incident that potentially exposed dozens of researchers due to the fact that established the seizures were not followed. The director testified that we will take every step possible to prevent any future incidents and months after a hearing in after white house ordered safety stand down and a sweep of all federal labs come and the cdc revealed that there had been a transfer of a bola and this is all deeply troubling. Despite the growing number of red flags these incidents keep happening and we have learned that an army lab has shipped this across the globe. At least 192 labs have received shipments of live anthrax. And the stability testing used to validate and ensure that these were inactivated failed to detect the live anthrax spores. What is most troubling is that they use this potentially deadly process for years. As i said this is completely unacceptable. The dangerous safety lapses are threatening the Nation Security and Public Health and the committee hopes learn today what is being done to prevent future safety lapses and will this be any different. Last week the department of defense released a report following an internal review surrounding a light shipments of anthrax and according to its report the dod was unable to definitively determine the root causes for how and why they shipped live anthrax. Yet in the report the department acknowledged that all its labs routinely operate outside the validated experimental data. So in other words it seems that the department of defense labs have been irradiating larger numbers of spores and they cannot guarantee the activation of those numbers especially at the doses of radiation given. This begs a lot of questions beginning with why for so long. Who is responsible for making the decisions about which process to use including how many spores and at what level to radiation. And then as they are reevaluated and what is the cdcs role in developing these processes. According to a recent headline the cdc has announced that it will conduct another review as to how it regulates safety and security. And what we have is a lax culture of safety they said that this was a wakeup call, but it appears that they have hit the Snooze Button once again, what it is or it take to change it and when. None of us wants to be here a year from now disgustingness in heaven for bed a loss of life. The u. S. Government Accountability Office conducted a comprehensive comprehensive work on the oversight of high Containment Labs and the gal has been issuing recommendations calling for a governmentwide strategy for high Containment Labs and the need for National Standards for designing and a and commissioning. Yet these recommendations have not been implemented. Which is one of the reasons were here again today to discuss another safety lapse that threatens National Security and the Public Health. Id like to thank our witnesses were testifying here and i look forward to hearing your testimony and learning from you. Please be candid and straightforward as we try to find ways to improve the safety and procedures in our labs. This committee, the subcommittee, is not going to relent on the oversight of compliance with select Agency Regulations and will further explore the possibility of an independent agency to oversee these labs. And i recognize the Ranking Member from colorado for five minutes. Naked. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We have been hearing 2,072,092,000 and thousand 14 and now 2015. So you might as well mark your calendar now. Part of that is important because the federal government needs to work on obtaining Public Health risks but the work itself contains risks and thats why we do have to continue our oversight. Last years hearing on this transfer, i talked about the high Containment Lab that we had in fort collins which some years ago we have identified a terrible lapse and i was able to work with my former republican colleague bob schaffer from that district to get a new lab bill and im proud of that work but we have to continue to be able to assure constituents that similar facilities across the country are providing no risk to workers or the broader community. As you have said frankly the details of this incident do not inspire confidence. We are talking about a longterm series of inadvertent shipments and live anthrax from this ground in utah which is cozily one of the most sophisticated facilities in the world. This incident only came to light in the month of may because a private company contacted them after discovering what they thought was an activated anthrax that was actually live. Since that time we have learned that 86 laboratories and is then transferred this to an additional 106 laps in the absolutely received this for over a decade, miraculously nobody seemed to have fallen ill as a result of this series of incidents, but like you mr. Chairman, im concerned that this activity was going on for so long before one lab raised questions for the department to take action. And im even eager to hear answers as to how this is allowed to happen in the first place and what they are doing to ensure it never happens again and they found that theres insufficient scientific literature to develop this for the inactivation of the force. It is therefore relying on procedures that did not permanently or completely sterilized this. This is not my area of expertise but it seems troubling on its face. How have we conducted research on this dangerous pathogen for the past decade without clearly understanding how to inactivated. We need to conduct a serious examination of whether we used similarly questionable protocols for other select agents and he has included this from his lap. This seems like an important first step, but i want to know how that affects the research lab and furthermore i want clarification as to how to we have 200 separate labs all across the country working with anthrax, do we need to have 200 labs working with anthrax or as a possible that we should limit the number of labs and therefore limit the risk while still being able to do this important research. I want to hear today about whether the breakdowns are indicative of problems even across the high Containment Lab and they must be held to the highest standards. In this recently raised questions as to whether we can handle select agents. And improper shipments and we are just going on borrowed time. I hope all of you have answers today about what we are really doing to make serious changes to the system and include the recommendations that the gao has made. I would also like to hear from our witnesses about the role that congress should make in making sure the program operate safely and with that i yield back. Does anyone wish to make any comments . The cdc article, i would like to have you looked at it for the record. And i think it is relevant to todays hearings. I now recognize mr. Cohen for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I hope today we can get to the bottom of what happened and what resulted in live anthrax being shipped 192 labs in all 50 states and seven foreign countries. [inaudible] i am deeply relieved that no one has fallen ill as a result and im hopeful that this will remain the case as we continue to track all of the labs are perceived ease and the personnel that handled them, this incident also raises questions about the safety of high Containment Laboratories across the country. Every day hundreds of labs as well as academic institutions and private companies handle dangerous pathogens with this program these labs perform an important work and they play a Critical Role in biodefense by conducting research to improve our defenses against biological attacks and strengthening our Public Health response capabilities. They are required to abide by a set of regulations with what they pose. They are required to restrict access to those individuals who have undergone Security Risk assessment and cement physical security safeguards and Incident Response planning. They must also ensure that Laboratory Work includes safety and security measures. They are also subject to registration and inspections by the cdc division of select agents and there are Civil Penalties associated with the protocols in possession and misuse subject to severe criminal penalties. This includes highly toxic genic avian flu as to whether we need to strengthen our federal oversight when it comes to working with dangerous pathogens. And what are they doing to prevent similar situations i look forward to hearing about the findings and recommendations from the review and how they can be used to enhance safety and security at all of our nations high Containment Laboratorlaborator ies. I also want to note that the gao has an important body of work and i look forward to hearing from them about the recommendation and Safety Measures across high Containment Labs. Im glad that nobody appears to have suffered any injury because of this latest into them. But the next time this may be from something more dangerous such as highly infectious pathogens. So i hope you can learn from this latest incident and we will take seriously the important recommendations made by recent and ongoing investigations by the gao and others who make this program safe. Obviously we look forward to the discussion and how we can improve oversight and what this committee can do to facilitate that process. I again thank the chairman and the Ranking Member as we proceed and i yield back my time. The gentleman yields back. We will go to our witnesses. As you are aware we are doing so and it has had the ability to take testimony under oath. The chair then advises you that do any of you deserve to advise that council today. Do you swear that the testimony that you give is the truth and nothing but the truth . All of our witnesses have answered and so now youre under oath and subject to the penalties of the United States code. You may now give a five minute summary of your written statement, Pay Attention to the lights here and we will start with you for five minutes. Thank you chairman Ranking Member. [inaudible] the Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for chemical and biological defense. The use of activated or dead anthrax is part of the dod programs in doing this with a development and testing of Protection Systems and Production Equipment and diagnostic and contamination capabilities your first learned of this under consideration on may 22 2015 when the centers for Disease Control and prevention was alerted by a private company sparking growth of live anthrax and a sample that was activated in utah. The cdc immediately began an investigation working with the dod laboratories and state officials and the fbi. And the same batch have been notified and expected to stop working with the samples, also the laboratories to produce this were directed to stop producing and shipping and working with any anthrax other than purposes related to this matter. This includes other batches containing live spores and on june 2 the department of defense notified all known recipients whether it was confirmed to contain live anthrax or not. Theres no there is no known or suspected cases among workers at any of the laboratories of producer was viewed inactivated anthrax and theres no known risk of General Health with this Laboratory Work and the workers themselves. Thirtyone u. S. Citizens, 23 dod were placed on prophylactics and this was completed yesterday. Returning to the subject of the laboratory that produced and activated the anthrax come on may 29 at that the kerry secretary of defense directed that the for laboratories test all previous anthrax that was in their inventory to identify any live spores. The testing is now complete and the results are as follows. Since 2003 they are radiated a total of 149 batches of live anthrax spores. Of the 96 samples that were available to test, 17 tested positive and that includes samples that contained live spores. This includes an additional 106 labs receiving secondary transfers for some of the directors of the lab. This brings the total to 192 and three territories of on puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands area recently completed review resulted in several key findings including but the primary systemic issue is the lack of specific validated standards to guide the development of protocols and processes and Quality Assurance measures. The resulting recommendations are grouped into three broad categories being enhanced Quality Control programming and establish testing protocols that are based on relevant data and improved Program Management department is ensuring that this doesnt occur again and this includes the moratorium that will continue. The top priority is the safety of all involved and we remain committed to complete transparency of information as we go forward. They give her the opportunity and i welcome your questions. Before you speak, i just want to note that we havent had a chance to review a lot of the testimony because it wasnt until 9 00 oclock last night and the Committee Rules we asked me for 48 hours. So we didnt have time to review it. So when we get the testimony its difficult for us to review it and i dont want to think that they are trying to frustrate our purpose here but i want to indicate to you if you could pass the word on for future testimony that we want that 48 hour limit to adhere to. So would like to hear from you for five minutes and we thank you. Thank you. Distinguish members of the subcommittee, we want to thank you for this opportunity to test