Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. RISCH. Madam President.
There is almost nothing that the Senator said that I disagree with, although from time to time I do disagree with my good friend and colleague from Illinois.
I think that this is a matter of most consequence to the United States of America today, and certainly the pursuit of a vaccine and/or a cure are of utmost importance. I think that the process by which we go through that is incredibly important.
Like the Senator from Illinois, I am a huge fan of the NIH and, for that matter, the CDC, which do great things for the public health system in not only America but in the world. They are vastly underappreciated. They are much like the electric switch in our rooms. Every morning, we get up and turn on the electricity and everything is fine, and we just take it for granted and don't even think about it. That is true of the NIH and the CDC. They do good work regardless of whether we are thinking about it.
In America, we have something more than just a government effort when it comes to public health. We have this great machine called the free market and free enterprise system that incentivizes Americans, through the private sector, to do great and glorious things.
Indeed, while my good friend from Illinois was bragging on the efforts by other countries to pursue the kinds of things that are needed, within the last 24 hours we have had a very important announcement from part of our private sector, which is making great strides in this regard.
I think it is important that we do accept that there are various ways that we can and should pursue the vaccine and the cure for this horrible scourge. This matter is a lot deeper than that. It is the intent of our committee to hold hearings and develop very comprehensive legislation regarding how we pursue this in the future. What has just recently happened to us is of great interest to all of us but not nearly as important as what is going to happen to us in the future.
There are parts of S. Res. 579, if not the vast majority of it, that I hope will be included when we get to what, hopefully, will be a comprehensive piece of bipartisan legislation to address this. Some of the whereases I am not too red-hot about, but as far as the resolutions are concerned, certainly, they state things that there would be unanimity, I think, in agreement.
Where are we going with this? What my friend from Illinois has raised is a very small facet--an important facet but a small facet--of what we are going to do, what is the intent of our committee to do, going forward in what I think will be a bipartisan fashion. Again, like I said, I hope we are able to include these. I welcome the Senator's participation and all Members of the Senate's participation as the Foreign Relations Committee does move forward on some comprehensive legislation.
What do we know for sure right now? I think Senator Durbin did an excellent job of taking us through history when it comes to some of the things we have had in the past like smallpox, AIDS, polio, and Ebola. And, certainly, the United States has been a leader and will be a leader on this particular scourge.
The WHO--and, for that matter, other world organizations--have been large players, important players, helpful players in those efforts in the past on smallpox, AIDS, polio, and Ebola. Again, I come back to, just as an example, polio. A huge factor in that was not the U.S. Government involvement--well, it was a huge factor, but another huge player in that were private citizens, a couple in the United States, Bill and Melinda Gates, who played a huge role in eradicating polio, working with the WHO, working with the USG, and many others.
I have no doubt, as we go forward on this, there will be that type of collaboration in the future. As the good Senator noted, this is not a political issue. This is not a Democratic issue. It is not a Republican issue. The virus doesn't care who you are or what you are. It is just looking for a home. We need to deny it that home, and we will. I think we will make great strides as we go forward.
What do we know for sure right now? What we know is that this particular virus evolved in China, particularly in Wuhan Province, and specifically in a species of bat.
What we also know is that there are about 2,000, so far, identified viruses that are in the same position that are carried by bats in the Wuhan Province. What we also know is that a virus has escaped from China before. There is a lot of speculation as to exactly how this happened. We know that the virus jumped species, from the bat to a human being and then went around the world.
We also know, for a fact, that this particular virus, like all viruses, acts uniquely. It is not exactly the same as other viruses that have jumped species and gone around the world. This one was unique in that, unlike some of the ones we have had in the past--this is our sixth experience since 2003 with the virus--this moved around the world at an incredibly fast speed. It was much more like a house on fire than the other diseases that we have talked about, like smallpox or polio. Its speed was unique. It was new. It was different.
As a result of that, historical organizations that have dealt with these in the past were not expecting it and were not geared for it. They thought this virus would move much like the others that we have dealt with. The result of that, of course, was that it got away from us, from the world, and we now find ourselves in the position we are in because that happened.
It is my hope, and it is my objective--and hopefully will be the objective of our committee, eventually the objective of the U.S. Senate, and hopefully eventually the objective of the world--that we develop a protocol for dealing with a virus or, for that matter, any other health challenge that moves at the speed of light and like a house on fire as opposed to a small, creeping thing that we have had in the past in some of the other challenges we have had.
It is different. There is no doubt it is different. It is going to have to be dealt with differently, and we are going to have to develop a protocol that does address this speed. It is going to entail--and this is probably the heaviest lift of all of it we are going to do--the 200 governments around the world to come together and agree that when something like this happens in their country, instead of covering it up or instead of making political excuses, or instead of hoping it is going to go away, that instead they call the fire department. And the fire department will be a new agency or perhaps even one of the old agencies that we have had that are geared to handle a pandemic that moves at this speed or presents other challenges.
The institutions we have simply aren't geared to do that, which we found out with this epidemic. I think a good example is, as my good friend from Illinois mentioned, the Ebola challenge we had. The historical institutions, I think, dealt quickly with that and really held down the damage from it, which could have been much worse than what it was. We need to develop protocols for dealing with this.
This is going to be a challenge. There is no question it is going to be a challenge because politics comes into this simply because of governments in the various 200 countries around the world have to deal with this. When they do deal with it, they have different ways of dealing with it.
As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, I deal with our diplomats who deal with the diplomats from other countries. We deal with them on the committee directly, but since this thing has hit, we haven't had as much direct contact, but our diplomats have continued to have contact. In talking with them, one of the things I find particularly disturbing is, I ask: Are the Chinese humble about this? How are they dealing with this? What is their view of what has happened here? Interestingly enough, they take it as an opportunity to compare our form of government to their form of government. And they say: Look, we had a problem; we dealt with it. You guys had the same problem, and you dealt with it. And the reason is because we have this strong authoritarian central government that can control people and can control people in the most severe fashion, and we can deal with it. You people, with all these freedoms and your democracies, you have speech, you have these political arguments, you have these disagreements, and you allow dissent, and when you have that, you can't deal with it. Therefore, our form of government is better than your form of government. That is very dangerous talk.
I am disturbed and disappointed the Chinese Government has viewed this as they have and has not viewed it as we have, as a challenge that is going to take historical changes as we go forward. That is a huge challenge as we go forward, but that shouldn't stop us from making every effort that we can to go forward, and we will.
On the Foreign Relations Committee, it is our intent to hold hearings to deliberate, as the U.S. Senate does, and to produce what hopefully will be a bipartisan piece of legislation, which is substantially broader than what we have here, but hopefully that will include many of the things that we have here, and that will include--as the good Senator from Illinois has indicated--the necessity of including other governments in the effort as we go forward.
I commit to Senator Durbin, and I commit to all that our committee will undertake this challenge. It is within the jurisdiction and the responsibility of our committee. We take it seriously. We are still in the throes of this, although it feels like we are on the downhill side and are starting to come out of this. As we go forward in a very commonsense, deliberative fashion, we hope to construct legislation that will address all of these very serious issues
If there is one thing we know for sure--and I am absolutely convinced of it--this is going to happen again. Given the physical situation on the ground in Wuhan, China, and given the fact that there are 2,000 other viruses, probably some of which are substantially worse than this--and, for that matter, the same situation in other parts of the world--this is going to happen again. Given the population of the world and given the culture of the way we live today in the world and our travel and interconnectedness, this is going to happen again.
We need to be ready for it. We need strong legislation that will address this, not only at the U.S. level but also at the international level. The United States has been the world leader in world health issues, and I anticipate that we will continue to be like that. At the present time, it is under consideration in our committee. At the present time, we can't go forward with this.
Before I state an objection, I want to yield to my good friend from Indiana, who also has some ideas in this regard, and all of which will be, I am sure, constructive on both sides of the aisle. I want to yield the floor to Senator Braun at this time.
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Mr. RISCH. Not yet.
I want to yield to Senator Braun.
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