GOP divided over how to respond to lab leak report

Others are calling on the White House to hold secret briefings about what they knew about the origins of Covid-19, when they learned it, and what led to the agency’s latest assessment. And even more hope to use the lab leak estimate as the impetus for sanctions and investment restrictions on the world’s second-largest economy.

A spectrum of responses played out Tuesday at nearly a dozen hearings and legislative mark-ups aimed at curbing what GOP lawmakers say is increasingly aggressive behavior from China that the Biden administration has not dealt with effectively.

News of Covid “reinforces the vigilance we’re going to have on China on almost every front,” the senator said. Todd Young (R-Ind.). “It will take a little time to gain momentum, but you will see a lot of new anti-China policies from this Congress.”

US government did not come to a consensus about how the coronavirus pandemic began. But a report published by The Wall Street Journal over the weekend that the Energy Department approved the lab leak theory with a “low level of confidence” provided new evidence for those who have long accused the federal government of misleading the public about Covid-19, which could potentially sow even more distrust of the threat the virus continues to pose.

But even as some Republicans argued that the Department of Energy news confirmed the lab leak theory they had been promoting for years, they cautioned against focusing on the past at the expense of current threats.

“Of course, we may have additional hearings, but I think there are other priorities now,” the senator said. Mike Rounds (RS.D.) POLITICO said. “We are now at war in Europe. We have a new competitor in China right now that is growing faster than we are in terms of military capability. We have problems within our country, connected with a huge debt, which we really need to solve. So when we look at the pandemic and talk about blaming, I think most of us have already blamed.”

Going forward, Republicans say they hope to develop a strategy to combat the coronavirus in China that includes both fact-finding missions and new policies to counter threats in the US and abroad.

“We should protest that China tried to cover it up because it delayed our ability to respond,” the senator said. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican Senate appropriator and member of the intelligence committee, told POLITICO. “We also need to look at what kind of research was done in this lab and whether they received US tax dollars to support them, which is an open question right now.”

However, GOP policy-making began to falter on Tuesday. The House Financial Services Committee has put forward 10 bipartisan bills, but bypass any meaningful new restrictions on the Chinese economy. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has also put forward several bipartisan messaging bills while facing a proposed ban on Chinese social media app TikTok.

And on the House Science Committee, Republicans on Tuesday disagreed with their committee chairman over what restrictions to impose on Chinese scientists working in the US and on China’s cooperation with American scientists abroad.

Rep. Darrell Issa (Republic of California) called for limits on information shared by US universities with China. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) pushed for increased surveillance of Chinese STEM students and researchers who work in the United States.

Federal law enforcement “should probably keep a close eye” on them, he said. “Because there are important ties to the place they come from, including the family that stays in place.”

chair Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) did not support these moves, although he agreed that Beijing had made efforts to “steal our research and innovation—whether through cyberattacks, forced acquisition of intellectual property, or malicious recruitment initiatives such as as the Thousand Talents Program. which aims to attract academic talent to China from other countries.

Several Republicans said the Department of Energy’s assessment revived caucus interest in their bills, which were not approved last year.

Sen. Mike Brown (R-Ind.) said the Department of Energy report could be a “breakthrough” for its legislation to declassify intelligence on the origins of Covid.

“I assume that this will be the straw that breaks the back of a camel in this matter,” he said. “It will be a cascade.”

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kahn) was just as confident on Tuesday that the revelation would give impetus to his bill to create a 9/11-style non-partisan commission to look into the origins of Covid — a provision that was dropped from the spending bill passed in December — though he noted that the conversations are at the staff level and have not yet moved to the members.

Several lawmakers have told POLITICO they need more information before they can decide how best to proceed when it comes to US and Chinese policy.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), which sits on the oversight subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Trade, said Tuesday it has requested a classified briefing from the Department of Energy and has yet to receive a response.

“I don’t think we’ve been told a straight story,” he said. “So obviously when they came up with this observation, I wanted more information.”