COVID–19 Origin Act of 2023

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 619, the COVID-19 Origins Act of 2023. Along with my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner), I plan to support this legislation, and I urge the House to pass it. Let me stop now to compliment Chairman Turner on the efforts he has made narrowly to bring this bill to the floor, but more generally, to make sure that the Intelligence Committee operates in the thoughtful, constructive, and bipartisan manner which it must operate in if we are to protect this Nation's national security.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the lives of more than 1.1 million Americans, and millions more have died worldwide. The American people want to know as much as we can determine about where this pandemic started and critically how we can be ready for the next deadly disease, which will come.

Determining the precise origins of a pandemic disease with high confidence is challenging under the best of circumstances. In this case, our already difficult task is that much harder because COVID originated in China.

At every juncture, the PRC Government has obfuscated and obstructed legitimate inquiries and investigations into the origins of the disease. China's approach has been deeply irresponsible and dangerous to global public health.

It is against that backdrop that in 2021 President Biden ordered a 90-day sprint by the intelligence community to analyze the origins of the virus. In

August of 2021, the IC completed its initial work, and a few months later, a declassified version of its findings was made public.

In short, the intelligence community agencies could not come to an agreement on whether the virus originated from a lab accident or from natural exposure. Some individual agencies did reach a judgment--a narrow judgment--about which path was more likely, but they could not do so with high confidence simply because we don't have enough reliable information to draw those conclusions. There is a version of the IC's classified assessment that is available to all Members through the House Security Office.

Around 18 months after the completion of the IC assessment, not much has changed. The intelligence community remains focused on this question, and I hope that we will have a breakthrough that will allow us to answer these questions once and for all, but today we are not there yet.

I believe that the IC should make as much public as they can, consistent with the overriding need to protect sources and methods. Transparency is a critical element of our democracy. The factual grounding of the IC's analysis can be an antidote to the speculation, the rumor, and the theories that grow in the absence of good information.

It is important to note that the bill provides the authority to make redactions to protect sources and methods for a good reason, and neither the chairman nor I would be supporting the bill if that were not true. I trust the intelligence community and the administration will lean forward in making public as much new information as possible without endangering our ability to collect and analyze on these issues going forward.

Now, I would mention two important things before I recognize other speakers on my side:

First, the pandemic, which is really what is at stake here. Whether COVID-19 originated from a lab leak or natural transmission at a wet market, the next pandemic disease could originate from either source, and it could come from anywhere.

In 2022, the Intelligence Committee released a declassified report looking at how the intelligence community responded to COVID-19 and made recommendations for how we can be better prepared for the next pandemic disease, wherever it may come from.

Overall, the report recommended that the intelligence community increase resources for global health security and medical intelligence, and that it needs to move away from a culture that views health security as a lesser priority than so-called traditional hard national security threats; evidence the fact that it was this that killed over a million Americans.

Furthermore, we need to promote complementary efforts between the public health and intelligence communities. Public health professionals and their counterparts in the IC must work hand-in-hand if we want to maximize the odds of identifying a novel disease at the earliest possible stage and if we want to give ourselves the best chance of determining the novel disease's origins.

Let me turn briefly to another important thing that is really at stake here. Madam Speaker, democracy is rooted in the idea that the people govern, that it is their right to determine their own political destiny. With that right comes an obligation that we don't talk about or think about nearly enough, and that obligation is to be thoughtful, informed critical thinkers about the issues of the day.

That is not who we are today. Today, we have elevated--because of our political polarization, we have elevated confirmation bias to a secular religion. Even in this conversation about the origins of the coronavirus, what you believe is indicative of where you stand on the political spectrum.

For reasons I don't understand, some of our colleagues and many Americans are running around with a theory that somehow buttresses their political legitimacy. Maybe you do that with UFOs, maybe you want to believe that there are aliens at Roswell or whatever you want to believe; that is pretty harmless. But when we are talking about a pandemic or something as serious as a disease that could kill a million Americans, that is not okay, and we have to remember our obligation to be thoughtful critical thinkers. We cannot let our political hopes override the obligations we have to be thinkers.

Madam Speaker, I tell my colleagues, the chairman and I have seen all of the classified information on this, and we don't know--we don't know the origins of the COVID pandemic. Whatever is ultimately declassified, I would hope that my colleagues and the American people would approach that information with the intellectual humility that we need to approach something as serious as a pandemic and how we behave as citizens in democracy.

We don't know.

We need to think about whether we want confirmation bias. Our tendency to select just those facts which support our preexisting positions interfere with our duty as critical thinkers in a democracy.

At the end of the day, the American people will get the system of government that they deserve, and if we don't get back to being humble about what we know to being critical thinkers, our democracy will be at risk.

I close with a quote from a great Connecticut writer and humorist, Mark Twain. He said: ``It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It is what you know for sure that just ain't so.''

I am going to join my chairman in supporting this bill, and I hope it passes in overwhelming bipartisan fashion. I hope we take that information and use it for constructive purposes in the service of saving lives and buttressing our democracy.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Bera), a member of the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, we were doing pretty well there, but behind the discussion of ducks were some pretty aggressive accusations of lying of American Government officials, dishonesty, attributions of motives, which is really what I am and I think what we are all trying to avoid here.

I will say it again. As profoundly frustrating as it is, we just don't know. We are entitled to have theories. We are citizens, after all. We shouldn't be so certain in those theories that we are willing to impugn the character and motives of other Americans, especially if those Americans are in positions of responsibility that need to be trusted in the next pandemic. So I will leave that there.

I do want to characterize and substantiate my rather frustrating observation that we just don't know--with what the intelligence community believes is the latest assessment on the origins--again, I understand this is frustrating, but facts are important.

Here it is, and this is a publicly available document: Four intelligence community elements and the National Intelligence Council assess, with low confidence, that the virus was likely caused by natural exposure to animals infected with it.

One IC element assesses, with moderate confidence, that the first human infection most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident.

Then analysts at three IC elements remain unable to coalesce around either explanation.

That is a profoundly frustrating picture of organizations whose aggregate budget is tens of billions of dollars, who draw on all kinds of expertise, and yes, who are fallible, like any human institutions are. That is where they are and, sadly, that aggregates to, we just don't know.

We are entitled to speculate. We are entitled to have theories. I would just urge caution about impugning people's motives, impugning their character based on those theories which are necessarily rooted in uncertainty.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I will reiterate my support for this bill and my gratitude to the chairman and the Republican majority for moving it quickly.

This bill, fundamentally, is about something we haven't talked a lot about today, which is transparency. Transparency is a cornerstone of our democracy because without transparency, the American people can't make the decisions that they need to make responsibly as citizens of a democracy.

I am sorry that today we heard a little bit of accusations that the truth was hidden from the American people; that taxpayer funds were misused; that Dr. Fauci had a motive to cover himself; that there was government censorship. There is not one iota of evidence for any of that.

When we say those things without evidence, what we do is we reduce the American people's faith in their government and, eventually, when their faith in their government is reduced to nothing, we lose our democracy, or we see people breaking windows downstairs to get into the government's Chambers because it has been so discredited.

But I am going to set that aside right now because this is an important, bipartisan effort to bring transparency around something that is going to be pretty frustrating for the American people because no matter what is declassified, it won't be dispositive about the origins of the coronavirus.

This is a really important first step. I hope it will clear up some of the speculation, some of the rumors that are out there; and it is emblematic of something that the chairman and I care a lot about, which is, that unless there is a really good reason to keep something classified, the American people are responsible enough to have that information.

I thank again Chairman Turner for his work on this issue, for his commitment to bipartisanship.

Madam Speaker, I urge support from the whole House for S. 619, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 199, I call up the bill (S. 619) to require the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information relating to the origin of COVID-19, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert into the Record extraneous material on S. 619.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 619, a bill that would require the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information relating to the origin of COVID-19. The House companion bill, H.R. 1376, passed unanimously out of the Intelligence Committee.

I thank Ranking Member Himes for his dedication to bipartisanship and professionalism as we work together to try to ensure that the Intelligence Committee responds to the needs of the House.

Madam Speaker, the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the country, with almost every household feeling its effects. The United States death toll from this virus has surpassed 1 million people.

Although concrete data is hard to lock down, millions of Americans are suffering from the long-term effects directly attributed to this virus.

COVID-19 has also negatively affected our communities, especially our kids. It has become increasingly clear that school-age children face major educational hurdles because of distance learning and long-term school closures.

The American public deserves answers to every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic, including how this virus was created, and specifically, whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a lab-related event.

The House Intelligence Committee which oversees our intelligence community is aware of classified information that could help inform the public why COVID-19 as a lab leak theory is not just a possibility but approaches the idea that it is likely.

The intelligence community does have more information about COVID-19 than the public is led to believe. Much of the information they have can be declassified and disseminated to the public. In fact, the bill we are discussing today would give the American public just a glimpse, albeit a very important aspect, of the classified information the intelligence community holds.

S. 619, if passed by the House and signed into law, would give the American public a unique insight as to what was happening at a biosafety level laboratory in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 and early 2020. This laboratory and who was working there might be the key to unraveling the truth.

For those concerned about declassifying COVID-19 origins information, I can assure you that the intelligence community could release this information while protecting their sources and methods of how it was collected. In fact, I believe that the intelligence community could go further than what is called for in S. 619 and release most of what it knows about COVID origins, but this is a good start.

COVID-19 ranks as one of this century's most important events. No community was spared, and every corner of the world felt its effects. Everyone deserves to know what our intelligence community knows, and S. 619 is the right step in the right direction.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my ranking member's very thoughtful comments and remarks.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garcia).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Kelly).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Stewart).

Madam Speaker, the issue of the origins of COVID are so important that our Speaker has appointed a select subcommittee on the origins of COVID. Our next speaker, Dr. Wenstrup, is the chair of that subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Murphy).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. McCormick).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger).

Madam Speaker, I have no more speakers. I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to begin by thanking my ranking member. This bill comes to the House floor from the Senate with bipartisan support in the House, and it does so as a result of the leadership of the Ranking Member, Jim Himes. I appreciate his commitment to both the declassifying of information and to the importance of this information concerning COVID- 19, and for the fact that we are working in a bipartisan manner to do so.

This will be a very strong statement from this House today that we want to know the origins of COVID-19. The American public deserves to know the

answers, and that we are moving to declassify the information that we have available.

Madam Speaker, I ask for support of S. 619, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This should be an easy vote because this is just about science. It is about understanding the origins of this virus

that created this pandemic that took at a minimum 7 million lives-- probably many more than that. It is just about science. We are not debating the geography of where this virus originated. We know that. We are debating how this novel virus evolved. This is a brand-new virus, and that should go without question.

I hope this is a strong ``yes'' vote by both Democrats and Republicans.

I think about this as a doctor and a scientist, someone who has spent a lot of my time in Congress looking at global health security, looking at pandemic preparedness. I am proud to serve on the select committee that is looking at coronavirus and the impact of this pandemic. My colleague, another physician, Dr. Wenstrup, is the chairman of that committee, and the ranking member is Dr. Raul Ruiz.

Again, I think if we can take the politics out of this, we can actually understand what happened over these past 3 years, the impact it had not just on the United States but on the entire world.

We can work together as Democrats and Republicans and hopefully the global scientific community to prevent the next pandemic. That is what this is about.

I don't know if we will ever find those origins if the Chinese Communist Party doesn't work with us. It is in their interests as well because they have suffered greatly. The Chinese people have suffered greatly from this pandemic.

They ought to allow the best scientists in the world to go to ground zero, to the hot zone, to Wuhan, and try to understand how this virus evolved.

Maybe it was a wet market. Maybe it was a lab leak. It is important for us to understand what it was because that then will allow us to address and shore up the system.

If it was a lab leak, we ought to have the highest safety standards in the world if we are doing this kind of research. We ought to look at whether we should do gain-of-function research. That is a legitimate question. There is scientific debate about that, et cetera, but if it was a lab leak, we ought to understand that.

We ought to come together as a global community and make sure we have the highest standards. If it was a wet market, if this was a naturally occurring virus that came from an animal into a human, we ought to understand that, as well. We ought to put in the safety and precautions to make sure that doesn't happen in the future.

Let's take the politics out of it. Today, we have a chance as the United States Congress to take a big vote, Democrats and Republicans, to say: Let's try to figure out what happened.

It affected all of us, and we ought to do everything we can as the United States Congress, Democrats and Republicans, and as a global scientific community to prevent this from happening again in our lifetime and, hopefully, ever again.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to vote ``yes'' on this bill. It will allow us to share information with the public because, again, this affected all of us. I hope we have a strong ``yes'' vote on the COVID origins bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 619, the COVID- 19 Origin Act of 2023. The American people deserve answers on the origins of the COVID-19 virus, a novel coronavirus that sparked a pandemic and has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide to date.

The impact of the pandemic on the American people has been catastrophic. We lost loved ones. Everyone has been touched.

Our physicians, nurses, and healthcare workers were strained beyond capacity. We had to contend with lockdowns and school closures resulting in learning loss, as well as shutdowns and job loss, and depression and suicide that spiked after these measures.

Many Americans still suffer physically, mentally, and economically from the impact of the virus and the measures taken during the pandemic.

This bill will provide some sunlight for the American people, scientists, and physicians. I am honored to be one of seven physicians on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, as Dr. Bera referenced earlier.

In order for us to be able to predict, prepare, protect, and prevent against a future pandemic, we need to know how and where this pandemic began.

There are sound reasons to conclude that this particular virus may have resulted from a lab leak in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In the fall of 2019, well before Americans were aware of a problem in Wuhan, four unusual things happened at the Wuhan lab. Multiple researchers became sick with COVID-19-like symptoms, according to a State Department fact sheet. The Wuhan institute deleted the sequences of viruses that they had in their library. They changed control of the lab from civilian to military--highly unusual--and had a contractor redo the ventilation system in the laboratory. Furthermore, we know the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting gain-of-function research on novel bat coronaviruses by creating chimeric viruses, combining two viruses together to test infectivity, and infecting mice with these viruses for study.

The Wuhan lab applied to receive U.S. grant funding in order to insert what is called the furin cleavage site into novel coronaviruses, the same unique genetic aspect of COVID-19 that made it more infectious to humans.

Last Congress, I was honored to lead the House Intelligence Committee Republicans in producing our second interim report on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Congress, I am fortunate to continue this work as the chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, where we will work on a bipartisan basis to follow the facts, conduct a fair investigation, and seek to deliver the truth to the American people.

This bill we are voting on today to declassify information on the origins of the COVID-19 virus will provide much-needed transparency for Americans who have lost so much in this tragedy, but it is only a start.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in this endeavor.

Madam Speaker, I urge support of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, it is about time. It is good to see a bill actually shed some light on a disease process if we want to expose something, if we want to bring the truth. This should have been done a long time ago.

When we first started seeing this disease in the emergency department, I was there on the front lines seeing people with fevers for no reason, testing negative for flu, testing negative for strep, pneumonia, and urinary tract infections. We couldn't figure out why they were sick. We were sending them home, not really understanding what was wrong with them.

Then we had a hard time trying to figure out how to treat them. We went through a novel disease process, just like they did back in 1918 when we had the original flu pandemic where 26 million people died in about a year.

It should never come to a point where we become politically motivated. More to the point of why we have become so critical of people who should be trusted is when they have bias built into their argument to begin with, and that is what we are here to expose.

When we have transparency, when we have declassified information so we can actually make a good judgment based on public opinion when it is exposed to the truth, I think it will expose that people were politically motivated; that they are embarrassed by their choices, and that they made choices to politicize this, rather than get to the bottom of this.

We cannot stop a disease by misunderstanding where it came from. We cannot have an honest discussion and heal our Nation until we have accountability.

I think where the mistrust comes from is the fact that it was politicized to begin with. So I think it is fair criticism when you have emails that expose the fact that they were trying to spin it a certain way, rather than having an honest, scientific discussion. That is fair criticism, and people should be held accountable if we are going to get to the bottom of this.

As an ER doctor who served during the entire pandemic, since before I even knew what it was, watching people die in front of me, learning lessons--and those are honest lessons, where doctors made decisions and in good faith made mistakes, but it was in good faith--and we want to expose people who made decisions out of bad faith.