Prepared Floor Remarks by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
On Information Sharing Between the Intelligence Community and the Department of Health and Human Services
Monday, March 15, 2021

 
Today, I’m going to discuss a very important issue that I started to investigate during the last Congress and one that the Executive Branch must continue to improve upon; Information sharing between the Intelligence Community and the Department of Health and Human Services.
 
The connection between those two entities is a critical information sharing data point and it must last beyond the current pandemic.
 
To state the obvious, the health care landscape has evolved considerably in the past several decades.
 
More specifically, the health care landscape has changed considerably in just the last year with the COVID pandemic.
 
Threats to healthcare now include cyber, intelligence and counterintelligence threats.
 
For example, we know the Chinese government engaged in cyber-attacks to steal American COVID-related research.
 
The communist Chinese government will stop at nothing to steal our hard-earned work product.
 
They know, as does the world, that the best of the best is still right here in America.
 
Last Congress, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, I focused a good deal of my oversight efforts on the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of National Security.
 
For example, in June of 2019, I held a hearing on foreign threats to taxpayer-funded research where the Office of National Security was one of the government witnesses.
 
After the hearing, I held a classified committee briefing with all the government witnesses to further discuss the foreign threats that we face.
 
That office is the Department’s connection to the Intelligence Community and, accordingly, it plays a critical part in the Department’s overall mission.
 
That mission includes pandemic response and countering national security threats.
 
To fully perform its mission, it needs access to Intelligence Community products and databases. With that access, they’d have information that’s vital to mitigating threats to the Department, its funded partners and its interagency colleagues. 
 
So, as part of my oversight efforts, and before the pandemic started, I worked to get that done.
 
I noted my concerns to the Trump administration that the Office of National Security hadn’t been adequately incorporated into the Intelligence Community.
 
To their credit, the Trump administration rightfully – and quickly – resolved many of those issues.
 
The Trump administration created links and information sharing between the Intelligence Community and the Department of Health and Human Services that hadn’t existed before.
 
Those links should’ve existed many years ago, but prior administrations, like the Obama/Biden administration, failed to see around the corner and get the job done.
 
For example, even with the swine flu and outbreaks across the globe, the Obama/Biden administration failed to plug the Department of Health and Human Services into the Intelligence Community the way that it should’ve been.
 
The current pandemic exemplifies the need to have a robust intelligence apparatus that includes the Department of Health and Human Services.
 
As pathogenic threats to our homeland and our people increase and become more complex, the federal government must prepare well in advance for a quick response.
 
In order to accomplish that task, the government must focus on the seamless communication between and among various Departments and agencies.
 
The federal government must take a whole of government approach.
 
One serious barrier to that seamless communication is over-classification.
 
In January of 2020, when reports began to circulate about COVID, I instructed my oversight and investigations staff to get a classified briefing from the Office of National Security.
 
After that briefing, I made clear in a public way that over-classification during a public health emergency could have deadly consequences.
 
If certain intelligence work product is classified in a certain way, sometimes other government agencies won’t have access.
 
The federal government must guard against over-classification.
 
That’s especially important during emergency situations that demand quick action.

To the extent that disagreements exist between agencies, which they often do in complex and ever-changing fact patterns, discussions must be had between and among the government.
 
From that, the facts will bear out and the best decisions can be made.
 
That process can’t take place if the government puts information in silos that federal health agencies are unable to access.
 
Over-classification is even more of a problem when China’s government refuses to share relevant data with researchers.
 
At least this government, our government, can – and should – share information between and among its agencies.
 
This Administration must advance and improve upon the cooperative gains created by the Trump administration and make sure that the left hand continues to talk to the right hand.
 
The last thing that we should do is revert to the lack of cooperation that existed before, especially in light of the current pandemic.
 
The cooperation between federal health agencies and the Intelligence Community will strengthen ties between them for decades to come and the American people will be better served by the increased communication.
 

Simply said, increased communication will save lives.