Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa introduced legislation late last week to permanently cut federal allocations to the American science non-profit organization that sent U.S. taxpayer dollars to a virology lab in Wuhan, China.
“China has been exploiting our federal small business research programs – and I put an end to it,” a tweet from Ernst’s office reads.
China has been exploiting our federal small business research programs – and I put an end to it. MORE: https://t.co/3j6uhTzOkV
— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) October 3, 2022
As first reported by the Daily Caller, Ernst introduced new legislation on Friday that would cut off EcoHealth Alliance, Inc., from future funding after the organization awarded more than $600,000 in grants it had received from the National Institutes of Health to the Wuhan Institute of Virology between 2014 and 2019.
“No funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law may be made available for any purpose to EcoHealth Alliance, Inc., including any subsidiaries and related organizations that are directly controlled by EcoHealth Alliance, Inc.,” the legislation reads.
As of this writing, EcoHealth Alliance, which is described on its website as being “a global environmental health nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and public health from the emergence of disease,” has not commented on Ernst’s legislation.
The National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by Doctors Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, respectively, have been the frequent target of criticism from Republicans who allege they both funded gain-of-function research in the province from which COVID-19 emerged.
Fauci, Collins, and EcoHealth have all denied these allegations.
Ernst’s bill, though, is not truly geared toward litigating the gain-of-function question and is better understood as an effort to prevent funding streams from reaching China. The latter effort might yet prove fruitful.
The EcoHealth-related bill is one of two pieces of legislation Ernst has championed in aid of the latter goal.
Unanimous bipartisan support for corporate background checks
Thursday, she introduced a bipartisan bill, one that has already passed the Senate by unanimous vote, that would force government agencies to do background checks on businesses seeking federal support while simultaneously maintaining business relationships with countries of concern, China chief among them.
Ernst said that she and her colleagues have become worried that millions of dollars are being funneled into the communist country by agencies and organizations that are outsourcing research and development to China.
“Washington is spending billions of your tax dollars every year to hypothetically achieve technological dominance over Communist China, but the ultimate beneficiary of that effort may be the CCP,” Ernst said in a statement.
No matter how much of your money Washington spends to ‘win’ the global tech race, we will never win by surrendering American-made innovation and subsidizing our adversaries. This cycle is bound to continue until these grant programs are both required and empowered to hold unscrupulous recipients of taxpayer funds accountable for selling out to China – and my bill will fix this.
In homage to the late Sen. William Proxmire, a Wisconsin Democrat who made a name for himself giving out monthly “Golden Fleece” awards to the greatest wasters of taxpayer money, Ernst gave what she has dubbed her “Squeal Award” to “Government Agencies Funding Double-Crossing Companies Who Sell Out to China.”
Even if Republicans lose the Senate in the upcoming election, Ernst might yet have the steam to carry the legislation through both chambers.
The unanimous passage of the background check bill is a strong indicator, but Ernst is also a notable Republican centrist who has helped Democrats pass legislation in the past — most notably the new gun legislation that became law last summer.
Additionally, there are few people on either side of the aisle whose voter bases would likely be enthusiastic in their support of American tax dollars being sent to China, even for research.
These factors could prove enough to get the bill past the Senate. With Republicans expected to take the House in the midterms, the legislation would likely succeed at that level as well.
“Giving taxpayer money to EcoHealth to study pandemic prevention is like paying a suspected arsonist to conduct fire safety inspections,” Ernst said in an interview with the Daily Caller.
NIH got it right when it canceled the funding for the experiments EcoHealth Alliance was conducting with China’s state-run Wuhan Institute. In addition to violating multiple federal laws, EcoHealth has still not turned over documents about these dangerous studies that NIH has requested on multiple occasions that could offer vital clues to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.