House Energy & Commerce members initiate biodetection technology system inquiry

U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders have written to the U.S. Comptroller General requesting that the Government Accountability Office examine the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new biodetection technology system known as BioDetection 21.

The BioDetection 21 pilot program is intended as a potential replacement for DHS’s biosurveillance program BioWatch, an early warning system designed to detect a large-scale, covert attack that releases anthrax or other agents of bioterrorism in the air.

In an Aug. 7 letter sent to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, lawmakers also requested an evaluation of DHS’s implementation of GAO’s prior recommendations for the program.

“We write to request that the Government Accountability Office examine the Department of Homeland Security’s deployment of a new biodetection technology system called BioDetection 21 to replace BioWatch, and the status of the DHS’s implementation of GAO’s prior recommendations concerning BioWatch,” the letter said. “This Committee has an ongoing bipartisan interest in biosurveillance programs that involve the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the state and local public health laboratories.”

Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR), Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Oversight and Investigations Ranking Member Brett Guthrie (R-KY) penned the correspondence.

In April, the committee requested a briefing from DHS following a Los Angeles Times article that raised concerns over whether the agency had followed through with GAO’s recommendations.

The lawmakers are petitioning the GAO to assist in garnering answers to questions such as to what extent has DHS implemented the GAO recommendations from the 2015 report on reliably establishing the capabilities of BioWatch, and what are DHS’s requirements for the acquisition of a technology and to what extent has BioDetection 21 followed those requirements.