"Safeguarding U.S. Agriculture: The Role of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN)"
House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry
2025-07-15
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Source: Congress.gov
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Transcript
You guys ready? Get in. Okay. Good morning everybody, the meeting will come to order. Welcome and thank you for joining today's hearing entitled Safeguarding U.S. Agriculture, the Role of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network. After brief opening remarks, members will receive testimony from our witnesses today and then the hearing will be open to questions. In consultation with the ranking member and pursuant to rule 11E, I want to make members of the subcommittee aware that other members of the full committee may be joining us today. I'm excited to chair this hearing of the House Agriculture Committee Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry, where we will focus on the important work of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, or NALM. As a fifth generation Kansas farm kid, I grew up riding pens and doctoring sick cattle at my family's preconditioning feedlot, and I infinitely understand and appreciate the vital role the animal health plays in all of livestock and our poultry operations. The National Animal Health Laboratory Network is a critical piece of our ability to respond to and mitigate foreign animal diseases. Originally comprised of 12 laboratories when it was created in 2002, the NAL network has grown to include over 60 state and university laboratories, including the Kansas State University Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory in Manhattan, Kansas, my district and alma mater. These labs are strategically placed across the United States to support animal agriculture by developing and increasing the capabilities and capacities to support early detection rapid response and appropriate recovery from high consequence animal diseases a Put simply, they are the first line of our defense. These labs do not operate in a vacuum. The Null Network is successful because of partnerships between federal, state, and university-associated animal health laboratories and experts. This partnership is critical to response efforts when foreign animal diseases are detected. such as highly pathogenic avian influenza, New World screwworm, African swine fever, and unfortunately, so many more.
Today, you will hear from a panel of experts who all work at Nolns Laboratories. These experts will be able to share pertinent information about the critical work they do, whether it be tracking the New World screwworm outbreak in Mexico, identifying the move of high path entry into dairy cattle in Texas, working with the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility in Kansas, or crucial swine testing in Iowa. This hearing could not come at a better time to highlight the work of the known laboratories and talk about the need for additional resources as of 2 weeks ago funding for the known as well as funding for the national animal disease preparedness and response program and national animal vaccine and veterinary countermeasures bank was substantially increased in the one big beautiful bill. The One Big Beautiful bill included $233 million per year for the three-legged stool, with $10 million per year directed towards the non-laboratories which is on top of existing discretionary federal spending. This funding will increase diagnostic capabilities, improve research, assist in disease surveillance, and strengthen our overall capacity as a nation to prevent, detect, and mitigate foreign animal diseases. I'm proud of the work of this committee did to shore up our animal health resources and protect the herds and flocks that bring so much value to our producers and national security. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the work they do day in and day out in their roles with the National Animal Health Laboratory Network. I'm excited to hear about how the increased funding will help their operation of these laboratories, which foreign animal diseases they see as the most consequential, and how we as Congress can be good partners to them. Again, thank you all for being here today. With that, I'd now like to welcome the distinguished ranking member, my friend and the gentleman from California, Mr. Costas, for any opening remarks he would like to give. Thank you very much, Chairman Finstra.
And for members of the subcommittee, it's indeed, I think, a very important subcommittee hearing that we're holding here this morning, because high-path avian flu has infected many parts of our country on a regional basis. And we've had different efforts with varying degrees of success to deal with this. But certainly, We are not unaccustomed to having infectious diseases impacting our livestock and poultry industries across the country and how we handle those and how we respond is critical and therefore this hearing I think is totally appropriate and important. I want to thank the chairman not only for holding this hearing for that reason, but thank our witnesses. The witnesses that we have here have over 20 years of experience with growing to include over 60 labs that make up our detection system for animal disease control. As I always like to say, food is a national security issue. It is, and we should address it in that fashion. The laboratory network plays key roles in ensuring we have a safe and secure food supply chain for all Americans at their dinner table every evening. This laboratory network is part of that safety response. It is a foundation that allows us to respond rapidly. to animal disease outbreaks simultaneously while keeping our food supply chain safe, and that's a challenge. As HyPATH has gone over recently in different parts of our country, in California, where we have 20% of America's milk production, We've had over 70 percent infection in our dairy herds, which is critical mass. And, of course, we've got a significant poultry industry as well, and trying to handle the two over the last 18 months, we've had our hands full.
But we have an extra effort that is done by our efforts with our state veterinarian, Dr. Jones, who I will introduce in a moment. The only way, though, that we can properly trace and avoid further spread or spillover infection, I think, is if we're able to respond quickly. And that's why I think this hearing is so important and accurately to identify and then use the information to allocate appropriate resources to address the problem. And NAHLN is a great example of which highlights the importance of how federal and state partnerships work together.
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