20250409: CITI Hearing: Final Report of the National Security Commission for Emerging Biotechnology
House Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation Subcommittee
2025-04-08
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Source: Congress.gov
Participants
Transcript
four years ago because we recognized the vulnerabilities, challenges, and opportunities that biotechnology presented. I appreciate the work that the commissioners and the commission staff have done, especially our House members, Ranking Member Khanna and Congresswoman Stephanie Bice. I also appreciate Senator Todd Young of Indiana, Chair of the Biotech Commission, and Dr. Michelle Rozo, the Vice Chair of the Biotech Commission, for appearing before the subcommittee today. The United States has long been a leader in biotechnology, my home state of Nebraska being a big contributor to our leadership, but there is no doubt that China is catching up. China has invested heavily in biomanufacturing, synthetic biology, and other biotechnologies, meanwhile prioritizing biotechnology leadership. It's important now more than ever for the DoD to catalyze research and development in emerging biotech and dedicate the necessary resources to maintain the United States lead in this critical technology area. While biotech is traditionally thought of the medical and agriculture sectors, when applied to defense and national security, biotech has the potential to secure supply chains, enhance sensors to counter bioweapons, and improve warfighter readiness and lethality. The Department of Defense has made strides in improving integration of biomanufacturing to fully maximize the power that biotechnology can bring to bear for national security. But it must continue to scale those capabilities. Congress recognizes this need and the massive potential biotech could have on national security. leading to the creation of the national security commissioning commission on emerging biotechnology in the fiscal year 2022 defense national defense authorization act the commission was tasked with carrying out a review of emerging biotech capabilities and associated technologies related to national security the commission released an interim report and recommendations in december 2023 several of which Congress authorized in the FY25 NDAA. The commission's final report will be released this week, and today's hearing provides an opportunity to discuss their findings and legislative recommendations to help secure our leadership in biotechnology.
Thank you both for appearing today and for your hard work on this important commission. I'll turn it over now to our ranking member, Khanna, for his opening remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for convening this hearing and your leadership. I want to thank our witnesses for appearing today.
Senator Young has been a great partner on many issues with the CHIPS Act and other industrial policy, and he stepped in to take the chairmanship and didn't phone it in. He was present at every meeting, even ones that I missed, and really dived into the details. And so thank you for your leadership, and thank you, Dr. Rosso, for your leadership. Very much looking forward to what you have to say. And I want to thank Representative Bryce for her leadership as well on on the Commission. As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, back in 2021, the NDAA recognized the need for experts to look at biotechnology and its intersection with national security. And we created this National Security Commission of Emerging Biotechnology. I have been proud to be part of the Commission, and I am hopeful that The final report and our discussion can lead to critical steps in addressing the challenges. I just want to say that China is moving ahead at light speed. Two trillion dollars of industrial lending that they are doing, 200,000 AI companies that they are funding, and they are certainly funding a lot in biotechnology. So if there is one message that I have, it is that we need to stay ahead of China in this area, we need to recognize how serious they are about it, and we need to make sure that our innovation, our creativity ultimately succeeds and thrives and leads. So thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
I appreciate your comments. With that, we'll yield to Senator Young for five minutes. Well, thank you, Chairman Bacon. Congressman Kahn had just offered, I think, the bottom line up front, which is that the United States needs to lead on biotechnology, and our leadership is indeed in jeopardy, as we outlined in the report and elaborate on through the classified I thank all the members of the subcommittee for this opportunity to testify today. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention all the hard work of the many commissioners, including Representative Bice, who I know will make every effort to be here as well. Today, the United States is locked in a competition with China that will define the coming century. This competition is playing out not only through arms races, but also through the quest to dominate cutting-edge technology. Biotechnology is the next phase in this competition. Thanks to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, we now have the tools to reprogram the building blocks of biological systems. These breakthroughs will advance every strategic sector including defense, healthcare, agriculture, energy, and manufacturing. Biotechnology can help us maintain military superiority, ensuring our warfighters continue to be the strongest fighting force on tomorrow's battlefields. Biotech will reshore supply chains and revitalize our manufacturing sector, creating American jobs for American workers, creating American products right here in America. It will revolutionize ag production, enabling larger harvests with less water, less fertilizer, less land.
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