To express the sense of the Senate regarding the need to conduct a comprehensive investigation to determine the origins of COVID-19, and for other purposes.

SA 1973. Mr. MARSHALL submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
to amendment SA 1502 proposed by Mr. Schumer to the bill S. 1260, to
establish a new Directorate for Technology and Innovation in the
National Science Foundation, to establish a regional technology hub
program, to require a strategy and report on economic security,
science, research, innovation, manufacturing, and job creation, to
establish a critical supply chain resiliency program, and for other
purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. ____. FINDINGS AND SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING AN
INVESTIGATION TO DETERMINE THE ORIGINS OF
COVID-19.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) COVID-19 has taken the lives of over 3,000,000
individuals around the world.
(2) Understanding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic is
essential to addressing our vulnerabilities and preventing
future crises.
(3) In May 2020, the World Health Assembly did not
authorize the type of comprehensive investigation into the
origins of COVID-19 that was required, and instead passed a
significantly limited compromise resolution, with Chinese
government support, which did not explicitly include in its
scope the possibility of a research-related accident.
(4) The 2020 World Health Assembly resolution and its terms
of reference, which were negotiated privately between the
World Health Organization (in this section referred to as
``WHO'') and Chinese authorities, handed the Chinese
government control over the joint-study process by giving the
Chinese government veto power over which international
experts were allowed to participate in the joint study and by
agreeing that most primary research would be carried out by
Chinese teams without ensuring broad access to primary data
by international experts.
(5) As a result of these terms, the significant structural,
procedural, and analytical shortcomings of the joint study,
and the severe restrictions imposed by Chinese authorities,
the WHO-convened joint study into the origins of COVID-19 was
prevented from giving a balanced consideration of the
multiple theories of the origin of COVID-19.
(6) Only 4 of the 313 pages of the joint-study team report
and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory
accident, and no thorough examination of the lab incident
hypothesis was carried out by the joint-study team.
(7) Some of the international experts on the joint-study
team stated that they lacked the means and resources to
properly investigate the research-related accident
hypothesis, and they were neither able nor meant to do such a
full investigation but instead were acting as a ``study
review group''.
(8) WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
commented on March 30, 2021, the day the joint-study report
was released, ``I do not believe that [the joint-study
team's] assessment [of a possible lab incident] was extensive
enough. Further data and studies will be needed to reach more
robust conclusions . . . potentially with additional missions
involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy.''.

[[Page S3382]]

(9) The WHO Director-General further commented, ``As far as
WHO is concerned all hypotheses remain on the table . . . We
have not yet found the source of the virus, and we must
continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as
we do . . . It is clear that we need more research across a
range of areas, which will entail further field visits.''.
(10) The March 30, 2021 Joint Statement on the WHO-convened
COVID-19 Origins Study by the United States and 13 other
countries recognized the severe shortcomings of the joint-
study process and called for ``a transparent and independent
analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue
influence.''.
(11) In spite of the devastation the COVID-19 pandemic has
caused in the United States and around the world, no process
currently exists to ensure a comprehensive investigation into
the origins of COVID-19.
(12) Such an investigation is essential for ensuring this
type of crisis never happens again for the benefit of all
people, all nations, and future generations.
(b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate
that--
(1) a comprehensive scientific and forensic investigation
to determine the origins of COVID-19 must be conducted
immediately, with full and unrestricted access to all
relevant records, samples, and personnel, particularly in
China, and that such investigation must fully explore all
possible origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, including an
exclusively ``natural'' zoonosis in the wild, human
contamination in an animal farm, and a research-related
accident;
(2) the United States delegation to the World Health
Assembly should do everything in its power, in concert with
allies and partners around the world, to ensure that a full
and unrestricted international scientific and forensic
investigation into the origins of COVID-19, with full access
to all relevant records, samples, and personnel in China,
will be authorized by the World Health Assembly and
implemented with extreme urgency; and
(3) if the Chinese government does not, by the end of the
2021 World Health Assembly, indicate its full support for a
comprehensive investigation to determine the origins of
COVID-19 with unrestricted access to all relevant records,
samples, and personnel in China, then the United States
Government should immediately begin planning a parallel
comprehensive and data-driven investigation into the origins
of COVID-19, in concert with willing partner governments and
experts around the world.

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