Mr. President, I rise to introduce two separate but related bills that address the crucial issue of our national preparedness for acts of bioterrorism. I plan to introduce a third bill next week. As we have learned firsthand over the past two weeks, bioterrorism preparedness is a topic where we have a considerable set of available resources combined with an urgent need for additional legislative action. The Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services held hearings in July to learn what the federal government is doing to better prepare our communities for acts of bioterrorism.
This morning, the Committee and Subcommittee held a joint hearing. We heard from Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson on the government's role in lateral coordination of response efforts between federal agencies and vertical coordination of efforts with the local and state agencies that are the first to respond to acts of bioterrorism. All our witnesses provided excellent testimony on the progress in national bioterrorism preparedness since the September 11 terrorist attacks on America.
The bills I introduce today address a set of key issues in our national response to acts of terrorism. First, I am sponsoring legislation to increase funding for research and development of new technologies to detect the use of biological weapons against this nation. Second, I am offering a bill with Senator Rockefeller to strengthen cooperation between the hospital network of the Department of Veterans Affairs and community healthcare workers across the nation. And, third, I will introduce a measure next week to establish stronger safeguards for our nation's agricultural system and protection of our crops and livestock from agricultural terrorism.
The first piece of legislation, the Biological Agent Environment Detection Act, authorizes appropriations totaling $40 million to support research and development of technologies to detect organisms in the air, water, and food that cause disease in humans, livestock, and crops. This mirrors the President's request of $40 million to support early detection surveillance to identify potential bioterrorism agents, announced by Secretary Thompson at today's hearing. Funds are necessary to encourage cooperative research agreements between the federal government, industry, and academic laboratories. The anthrax events of the past two weeks underscore the need for new detection methods and information-gathering systems. These funds will also support ongoing efforts to develop satellite-based remote sensing technologies to identify weather patterns that contribute to the spread of infectious disease and biological or chemical attacks. Finally, this funding is necessary to support the rigorous testing, verification, and calibration of new biological detection technologies.
The second piece of legislation, sponsored with my friend from West Virginia, Senator Rockefeller, will provide the Department of Veterans Affairs with additional funds to develop training programs with community health care providers. We need to enhance the cooperation between crucial elements of our health care system included in the National Medical Disaster System. These increased funds will support expanded use of existing telecommunications systems to implement a telemedicine training program for VA staff and their community public health counterparts. Remote regions of our nation need the assurance that local public health responders will have the training and information they need to protect and treat citizens in instances of biological terrorism.
The third bill, the Biosecurity Agriculture Terrorism Act, will enhance federal efforts to prepare for and respond to acts of agricultural terrorism or naturally-occurring agricultural epidemics by prioritizing efforts, authorizing funding and establishing new policy guidelines. Planning, training, and communication are three cornerstones of the preparedness and mitigation measures that will support the people who initially respond to any agricultural terrorism incident. This bill tasks the Federal Emergency Management Agency to create an emergency response function for agricultural disaster within the Federal Response Plan. This would result in having response and recovery plans in effect in the unfortunate event of an actual agricultural terrorism incident.
Together, these three bills will make significant and necessary contributions to the urgent task of protecting our nation from all forms of bioterrorism. We can discourage and detect the manufacture, distribution, and use of biological weapons. We can use the existing emergency communication infrastructure, emergency response training programs, and community partnerships within the 173 VA hospitals across the nation to train both VA staff and local health care providers for bioterrorism response. And, we can protect our national agriculture industry from attack with biological agents. I strongly encourage my colleague's support as we move forward with this legislation.
