Almost two decades ago, Congress passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) to defend our nation and prepare for all-natural disasters and biological, chemical and radiological threats. Because then, the provisions enacted in that legislation and subsequent reauthorizations have confirmed important to shoring up our public wellness infrastructure and safeguarding our national wellness safety. 

With PAHPA up for reauthorization once more this year, we applaud the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Wellness, Education, Labor and Pensions and Residence Power &amp Commerce Committees for starting the important operate of making sure that our nation’s preparedness applications are correctly funded, sustained and enhanced.

The origins of PAHPA lie in our country’s response to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed shortly thereafter. We intimately knowledgeable these attacks, as a single of the sitting members targeted with anthrax via the mail (Daschle) and the Senate’s public spokesman on anthrax and bioterrorism charged with easing public fears (Frist).

With each other, we worked to create the legislative framework to respond to this new threat. In 2002, Congress passed the Public Wellness Safety and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, establishing the Workplace of Public Wellness Emergency Preparedness, which was accountable for coordinating efforts to prepare for bioterrorism and other public wellness threats. Nowadays, these efforts are run by the Division of Wellness and Human Service’s Administration for Strategic Readiness and Response.

4 years later, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed PAHPA to bolster our emergency preparedness and response capabilities by authorizing numerous of the federal government’s biodefense and pandemic preparedness applications, such as the agency now identified as the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, the National Wellness Safety Strategy and the Biomedical Sophisticated Investigation and Improvement Authority. With bipartisan reauthorizations in 2013 and 2019, PAHPA established new applications to improve our nation’s emergency response, including Project BioShield, and enacted measures to strengthen the part of the Meals and Drug Administration in the improvement of health-related countermeasures.

Because PAHPA’s inception and subsequent reauthorizations, each Republicans and Democrats showed overwhelming assistance for strengthening our nation’s preparedness for the complete variety of all-natural or manmade threats and hazards. Defending our nation’s wellness and nicely-becoming need to not be a partisan situation, and we contact on our leaders to continue that bipartisan tradition.

This year will mark the 1st time Congress will be tasked with reauthorizing PAHPA following the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress ought to take the lessons we’ve discovered more than the previous 3 years to improve our nation’s preparedness capabilities ahead of the subsequent pandemic — as it is not a query of if, but when, the subsequent a single will take place. We urge Congress to stay clear of becoming distracted by previous partisan fights or tangential policy troubles. Our nation’s preparedness is also significant to jeopardize, and these important applications ought to not be permitted to lapse.   

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Congress has taken meaningful measures to enhance our public wellness preparedness all through the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the enactment of the bipartisan PREVENT Pandemics Act in final year’s omnibus appropriations package. Congress has shown, time and time once more, that it recognizes the basic significance of fortifying our defenses against disasters and public wellness crises. On the other hand, considerably remains to be completed. 

We urge Congress to capitalize on this momentum to bolster our national safety and improve our public wellness preparedness by reauthorizing PAHPA just before its expiration on Oct. 1.

Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), a Bipartisan Policy Center co-founder, served in the Senate from 1987 to 2005 and as Senate majority leader from 2001 to 2003. Former Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a BPC senior fellow, is a doctor. He served in the Senate from 1995 to 2007 and as Senate majority leader from 2003 to 2007.

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