Jon L. Christensen: “I am pleased to join him and other Members of our committee to call attention to the glaring deficiencies in homeland…”

“I am pleased to join him and other Members of our committee to call attention to the glaring deficiencies in homeland security, which continue to exist now more than 3 years after the attacks of 9/11, and the failures of the administration in this regard. I do not call attention to them to cause alarm but to continue to put pressure on the administration and the Department to address what every commission or task force has told us even before that fateful day, and what polls show is the primary concern of Americans, our safety and the safety of our children, our protection from terrorism. I am going to focus on the area of bioterrorism, and we can all agree that the threat of biological attack is a very real one. Indeed, we have seen biologic agents used in this very building against our colleagues and those who work here. We also witnessed the differences in public health response here and in our neighboring communities, especially communities of color where several people died.”