Two House committees, and potentially several more, are getting involved in investigating the origins of COVID — setting them up for a lot of overlap, and even friction.
Why it matters: What comes out of these COVID origin investigations could have implications for federal funding of scientific research, vaccination campaigns and future pandemic responses — as long as the committees don't blunt the impact by stepping on each other.
- There's also the potential for COVID misinformation to be spread, depending on how the hearings are focused and whether far-right members decide to push into those waters.
The main investigations:
- The House Energy and Commerce Committee kicked off the first COVID origins hearing early this month in its Oversight subcommittee, overseen by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.). Its jurisdiction: public health and research.
- The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic claims jurisdiction of "pretty much everything related to COVID," as the subcommittee's chair, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), put it in an interview with Axios. That includes vaccines.
- House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) will also be involved, as his committee is housing the select COVID subcommittee.
- He and Wenstrup recently fired off letters to Anthony Fauci, top Biden administration officials and the head of the EcoHealth Alliance requesting information for the select subcommittee's investigation of COVID origins.
- The inquiries are heating up after two recent federal watchdog reports criticized the National Institutes of Health for its oversight of risky research involving pandemic-causing pathogens.
- Energy and Commerce spent part of its first oversight hearing airing unsubstantiated theories that taxpayer-backed research into pathogens triggered the pandemic — a claim that was strenuously denied by the acting head of NIH.
What they're saying: So far, key Republicans on those panels haven't cited a plan for how they'll steer the investigations apart — just that they're talking about how not to crash into each other.
- "We're going to work together," Griffith told Axios. Asked how the committees are going to differentiate from each other, he said: "I'm going to let the staff figure that out."
- Comer said Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Majority Leader Steve Scalise had staff working with everyone to ensure "there aren't any major dust-ups over jurisdiction."
- "That communication with the other committees is going to be key. We don't want ourselves stepping all over each other," Wenstrup told Axios.
- "In the last Congress, E&C Republicans worked cooperatively with the Select Committee, and we look forward to continuing that work with Dr. Wenstrup," House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said in a statement.
Yes, but: Two former House Republican senior leadership staffers told Axios that GOP leadership had set up the COVID select subcommittee specifically to head up investigations into the origins of COVID and that there is some annoyance that Energy and Commerce Oversight is still continuing to look into the matter.
- One of the former aides added that the COVID subcommittee made its mark on COVID origins with a minority forum on the subject in 2021 and that Energy and Commerce oversight could extend into many areas beyond COVID origins.
The other side: "Congressional committees routinely have overlapping jurisdictions and committees in this majority will coordinate amongst themselves to deliver the accountability and oversight that the American people expect and deserve," Mark Bednar, a spokesperson for McCarthy, told Axios.
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