The National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility: Issues for Congress

The agricultural and food infrastructure of the United States is potentially susceptible to terrorist attack using biological pathogens. In addition to the impacts of such an attack on the economy, some animal diseases could potentially be transmitted to humans. (These diseases are known as zoonotic diseases.) Scientific and medical research on plant and animal diseases may lead to the discovery and development of new diagnostics and countermeasures, reducing the risk and impact of a successful terrorist attack. To safeguard the United States against animal disease, Congress has appropriated funds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to engage in research at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC), off the coast of New York, on animal diseases not native to the United States. When creating the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003, Congress transferred the PIADC facility from USDA to DHS, though USDA continues its own research programs at the facility. However, the DHS, in cooperation with USDA, has established a foreign animal disease research program at PIADC. The DHS has identified PIADC as outdated and too limited to continue as the primary research facility. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9 tasks the Secretaries of Agriculture and Homeland Security to develop a plan to provide safe, secure, and state-of-the-art agriculture biocontainment laboratories for research and development of diagnostic capabilities and medical countermeasures for foreign animal and zoonotic diseases. To partially meet these obligations, DHS has requested appropriations to construct a new facility, the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF). This facility would house high-containment laboratories able to handle the pathogens currently under investigation at PIADC, as well as other pathogens of interest. The DHS plans to select the site in 2008 and open NBAF in 2014.
CRS Report for Congress