Effective Date

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCHRIER. Speaker, I rise today in support of Section 1001 of the American Recovery Plan Act of 2021. This section provides necessary resources to strengthen food and agriculture supply chains that have been ravaged by COVID-19 and provides $300 million to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct surveillance of animals that are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

As a physician, making sure we approach this and future pandemics from a One Health perspective is key for both human and animal health, and as a Member of the Agriculture Committee, I am personally invested in making sure USDA has adequate resources to do their part. We have already seen documented evidence of a strain of COVID-19 impacting people in Europe that matches a strain that has been documented in captive mink. We cannot ignore the One Health implications of this pandemic.

The resources provided in this section will help ensure USDA can follow science-based international surveillance recommendations. I look forward to working with the Department of Agriculture to fully implement these provisions, because this is how we can stay one step ahead as this virus evolves, and also how we can detect the next virus that jumps from animal to human before it becomes a pandemic.

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