The
Republican-controlled
House Energy and Commerce Committee is ramping up investigations into the origins of the
coronavirus
pandemic and the fentanyl crisis to start off the new session.
The oversight and investigations subcommittee will hold a hearing on recent watchdog reports on the pandemic outbreak, and the
Health
subcommittee will preside over a hearing on the fentanyl crisis, both scheduled for next week.
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“For the past two years, Energy and Committee Republicans have been pursuing an in-depth investigation into [the] early days of SARS-CoV-2 with an emphasis on the virus’s origins,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Oversight subcommittee Chairman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) in a statement. “As the committee begins to consider legislation to prevent future pandemics and biological outbreaks, it’s crucial that we understand what technologies and capacities we need to quickly determine an outbreak’s origins.”
Newly-appointed Health Subcommittee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) said Wednesday he intends to focus on combating the overdose epidemic, driving down healthcare costs, and oversight into the Biden administration’s handling of the pandemic in his role.
“With a Republican House majority, a new wave of oversight and accountability in healthcare is coming for the Biden administration to improve healthcare agencies and prevent future crises,” Guthrie said in a statement.
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The announcement follows a new
report
from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General that highlighted concerns about the National Institutes of Health’s oversight of how grant funding was being used. The report particularly faulted the NIH’s monitoring of an award to EcoHealth Alliance, which has been scrutinized for its collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
GOP leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have been investigating the pandemic’s origins since 2021, particularly looking into a theory that the coronavirus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Rodgers and Guthrie requested that the NIH preserve records related to the origins of the COVID-19 virus last November after the midterm elections in preparation for additional inquiries into the issue.
