Countermeasures
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported a new milestone on Thursday for the automated commercial environment (ACE) system, with more than 75 percent of all cargo imported into the United States now being processed by the system.
The system is also now successfully processing 97 percent... Read More »
A coalition of Congressional Republicans sent a letter on Thursday to the Obama administration pushing back against a plan to shift funding from the BioShield special reserve fund (SRF) to help combat the emerging Zika virus.
The coalition was led by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman... Read More »
Smiths Detection, Inc., announced on Wednesday that it has received a $17.2 million follow-on production order from the U.S. Army as part of the Department of Defense’s Joint Chemical Agent Detector (JCAD) program.
Smiths Detection's Lightweight Chemical Detector (LCD) product line serves as... Read More »
The United States House of Representatives passed U.S. Rep. Martha McSally’s (R-AZ) Preparing for Attacks and Responding to Emergencies (PREPARE) Act on Tuesday.
The legislation seeks to improve the efficiency and coordination of disaster preparedness programs.
“This bipartisan bill... Read More »
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Director General Ahmet Üzümcü met with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday to discuss a wide variety of issues pertaining to chemical weapons.
One of the main topics for discussion was the... Read More »
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation - the Promoting Resilience and Efficiency in Preparing for Attacks and Responding to Emergencies (PREPARE) Act, H.R. 3583 - on Tuesday that would enhance the U.S.’s disaster preparedness and response capabilities.
The legislation was... Read More »
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on Monday showing the strengths and weaknesses various federal agencies have against a possible electromagnetic attack to the electrical grid.
The report sought to assess the progress agencies have made since the 2008 Commission... Read More »
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released its annual assessment of health security and preparedness on Monday, which showed improvement for the United States.
The report, entitled the “2016 National Health Security Preparedness Index,” showed that the United States scored a 6.7 on a... Read More »
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a feature-length documentary on Friday entitled “Ebola in America: Epidemic of Fear,” based on the timeline of the Ebola crisis and how the United States responded to the virus.
The documentary contains interviews from those... Read More »
The U.S. is woefully underprepared for potential bioterrorist attacks or naturally occurring pandemics like the Zika virus, and the federal government must do more to partner with the private sector in order to combat those threats, U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN) warned this week.
“The answers... Read More »
The House Judiciary Committee on Friday announced the release of a roadmap intended to identify solutions to the ongoing debate surrounding encryption.
Members of the working group include U.S. Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Bill... Read More »
U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) introduced legislation on Thursday aimed at curbing the spread of Zika virus, which has already reached approximately 300 reported cases in the U.S.
As part of Curbelo’s proposed Zika Eradication and Good Government Act, H.R. 5031, the federal government would... Read More »
As part of its monthly Terror Threat Snapshot, the House Homeland Security Committee recently emphasized the need for vigilance in keeping the U.S. safe against terrorist and fundamentalist threats originating from home and abroad.
The report said that as the struggle against ISIS continues and... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) announced an agreement on Thursday for a new test to identify whether donated blood is infected with the Zika virus.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)... Read More »
The First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) will continue to accept proposals from private partners for deployment of an innovative nationwide public safety broadband network until May 31, with the goal of making an award Nov. 1, the agency recently said.
“FirstNet is going to really... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Wednesday that it is sponsoring a new broad spectrum antibiotic that could become the first of its kind to treat specific Gram-negative and Gram-positive infections.
The broad spectrum antibiotic is being looked at as a... Read More »
Bavarian Nordic A/S recently published the results of a Phase I trial of a preventive Ebola vaccine regimen in the latest edition of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association
The regimen was undertaken by healthy volunteers who generally responded well to the vaccine, according to... Read More »
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on Monday entitled, “Deciphering the Debate Over Encryption: Industry and Law Enforcement Perspectives.”
Members weighed the benefits and vulnerabilities of strong encryption and the needs of law enforcement, with officials... Read More »
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Subcommittee for Emerging Threats and Capabilities (ETC) held a markup of its proposals for the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization (NDAA) on Thursday.
“[O]ur oversight often involves reviewing sensitive Department of Defense (DoD)... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced on Monday that a fifth cybersecurity technology has been licensed for commercialization as part of the cybersecurity division’s transition to practice (TTP) program.
The Physical and Cyber Risk... Read More »
A survey released on Wednesday by the Alliance for Biosecurity, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense and the Trust for America’s Health found that the American public is concerned about biosecurity threats and believes that the government should invest more in preparedness.
“The... Read More »
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) signed S. 2512 on Friday as companion legislation to H.R. 4400, a proposal introduced earlier this year by U.S. Reps. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) and Susan Brooks (R-IN) to add the Zika virus to the Tropical Disease Priority Review Voucher Program.
“Our... Read More »
Top members of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) met with multiple members of Congress at their congressional offices in Washington D.C. last week to discuss the critical role fire departments play in local response across the country.
A delegation including Fire Chief Rhoda... Read More »
The United States House of Representatives passed U.S. Rep. Candice Miller’s (R-MI) Border and Maritime Coordination Improvement Act, H.R. 3568, on Thursday.
The bills seeks to streamline the logistics and coordination of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) diverse operational... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Wednesday released a report entitled “Emergency Management: Improved Federal Coordination Could Better Assist K-12 Schools Prepare for Emergencies.”
The report was jointly requested by U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Martha McSally (R-AZ), Dan... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday released the results of a critical study of the country’s biodefense enterprise and their ability to defend the county in the case of crisis.
“The biodefense enterprise is fragmented and does not have strategic oversight to promote... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions, Inc., submitted a supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday for the approval of the manufacture of BioThrax (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed) in the company’s large scale Building 55 manufacturing... Read More »
The Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, chaired by U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA), held a hearing entitled “Blackout! Are We Prepared to Manage the Aftermath of a Cyber-Attack or Other Failure of the Electrical Grid?” on Thursday to examine the... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its medical countermeasures initiative (MCMi) fiscal year 2015 update on Thursday as required by the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013.
The FDA laughed the MCMi in 2010, building on the substantive medical... Read More »
The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday to authorize the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department to develop open-source software designed to screen travelers by cross referencing law enforcement databases and terrorist watch lists.
The Enhancing Overseas... Read More »
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the States and High-Risk Urban Area Working Group Act, H.R. 4509, on Wednesday.
The legislations requires decision makers involved in disaster response planning to work together to gain a complete understanding of a community’s vulnerabilities so that... Read More »
The U.S. Navy announced on Thursday that it has awarded Raytheon a $1 billion sole source contract for engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) for increment 1 of the next generation jammer (NGJ).
The NGJ is an advanced electronic attack technology that combines high-powered, agile,... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) introduced an amendment on Tuesday that requires the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to establish a pilot program to improve the physical layout of security screening operations at airports.
“The recent attack in Brussels raised... Read More »
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) released a European terror threat snapshot on Tuesday.
The snapshot represents a periodic committee assessment of potential Islamist terror threat environments across Europe.
“The United States and our allies face an... Read More »
INTERPOL announced on Wednesday that it apprehended seven internationally wanted terror suspects with the cooperation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as part of Operation Sunbird II.
Operation Sunbird II spanned all 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) nations... Read More »
