Peter Deutsch: “This legislation very well might go down as the very most important piece of legislation that this Congress passes in…”

“This legislation very well might go down as the very most important piece of legislation that this Congress passes in this session. It has not gotten the most attention at this point in time, and I hope what it tries to prevent does not get as much attention because in a sense that would mean a success. But I highlight some of the issues that we are facing, and really the world obviously changed, each of our lives changed, America changed on September 11. This bill is a step towards dealing with some of those changes. The budgeting that we had in the past, literally in the past year, in last year's fiscal year, amounted to approximately $100 million towards bioterrorism. This bill now raises that level to effectively about $3 billion. Obviously, an incredibly dramatic increase. I think there have been Members who have expressed a viewpoint, and in a sense I share it, maybe that number should even be larger. Even $30 billion, an order of magnitude different than hopefully what we will appropriate and authorize in this legislation.”