Martin Heinrich: “I am incredibly proud of what we did last year in passing the PACT Act.”

I would be very concerned if this were an engineered pathogen. I don't have any unique information saying that is the case. But if it were the case, that would be cause for alarm.

Our whole premise as we approached this permitting bill was: How do we create a faster process, not lower the bar on standards.

In the short term, what I'd really like to see is a hand-in-glove approach between Russia and the World Health Organization. That would tell us a lot.

And some of the secret sauce in this was just the fact that we had four people who were genuinely committed to a balanced package that both sides could support.