It has been eight months since deadly anthrax attacks killed five people, sickened 17 others, paralyzed the Postal Service, and shut down the Hart Senate Office building. Authorities have still not determined who is responsible. However, it appears very likely that the highly concentrated form of anthrax sent to members of the press and numerous government offices did not originate from Iraq or a terrorist camp overseas, but instead came from an American laboratory.

Since November, hundreds of FBI agents have interviewed more than 5,000 people and offered a $2.5 million reward but may still be unable to locate a single witness, fingerprint, or a match to the handwriting found on the envelopes. The weaponized anthrax was expertly made and so finely aerosolized that it easily escaped through the envelopes' pores. It was also finely coated with an unidentified chemical to increase potency by preventing the microscopic spores from clumping together. As a result, only a scant .871 grams of the anthrax, a sugar packet's worth, is in the hands of investigators. While the FBI is hoping that DNA sequencing may yield further clues, it is still uncertain when the killer will be found.

One major obstacle to finding whoever is responsible for this biological attack is our inability to trace the anthrax to back to a specific laboratory. Under a loophole in current federal law, laboratories that acquired anthrax and other deadly agents prior to 1997 were not required to register with the federal government unless they were shipping the agent to another lab. This means that an estimated 20,000 laboratories nationwide including government facilities, biopesticide labs, and pharmaceutical companies stock very deadly biological agents, viruses, and bacteria without uniform security standards or proper federal oversight. In fact, prior to 1997, scientists often casually traded bacteria and chemical agents at scientific conventions. Under these lax security conditions, a rogue employee or outside terrorist group could easily gain access to many of the most dangerous pathogens on earth.

Following the anthrax attacks, we introduced the "Deadly Biological Agent Control Act" to close this dangerous loophole. This month, the House and Senate are working towards final passage of the bipartisan "Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Response Act of 2001." In addition to providing grants to state and local governments to prepare for and respond to biological threats and attacks, this legislation contains the key laboratory security provisions of our "Deadly Biological Agent Control Act." Those provisions include:

• Requiring that the Department of Health and Human Services maintain and regularly update a select agent list of deadly biological agents, viruses, and bacteria that pose a severe threat to public health and safety

• Every laboratory that possesses one of these select agents must be government certified after proving that they will be used strictly for legitimate research purposes and that sufficient measures are in place to safely handle and dispose of the agents while ensuring protection against unlawful access.

• Laboratory employees would have to register with the Department of Health and Human Services and pass a thorough criminal background check for the specific research project they are working on.

• If a lab does not fulfill its responsibilities, it would be subject to government de-certification and civil penalties up to $500,000.

Any comprehensive bio-terrorism preparedness package would be incomplete without addressing laboratory security here in the United States. These controls are reasonable and required given the magnitude of the threat posed by biological and chemical weapons.

We strongly support the inclusion of these measures in the final version of the "Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Response Act of 2001." While the war on terrorism will continue for many years, with much of the battle far from American soil, we must begin to take immediate steps at home to ensure that dangerous chemicals and biological agents do not slip into the hands of those who would seek to terrorize America.

Senator Feinstein was elected to the Senate in 1992 and is the first woman to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She is the chair of the Technology and Terrorism Subcommittee and a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence. A former federal prosecutor and state legislator, Congressman Schiff was elected to the House in 2000, and is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.