NBAF Document Library

OneNBAF Blueprint for Excellence in Safety and Continuous Improvement

The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) is working to become a High-Reliability Organization (HRO). As an HRO, all staff at NBAF are not only committed to but are expected to perform in an exceptionally safe, efficient, and effective manner. Like other high-containment laboratories, NBAF will function in a high-risk environment. NBAF staff recognize their responsibility to maintain the HRO practices described in this document to mitigate the risk to themselves, each other, and the community.

The framework in this document serves as a guiding structure for NBAF staff, enabling them to strive for operational excellence and cultivate a safety and security culture that can be emulated by other life science institutions worldwide, ensuring a safer organization for all.

View the blueprint (PDF, 12.0 MB)

Record of Decision

The Record of Decision (ROD), which documents the agency’s final decision, was signed on January 12, 2009 and published in the Federal Register on January 16, 2009. The Manhattan, Kansas site was selected for the construction and operation of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. All comments on the NBAF Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) were considered before the Record of Decision was issued.

Memorandum of Agreement Between USDA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for the Transfer of NBAF to USDA

This Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Marketing and Regulatory Programs (MRP); the USDA Research, Education, and Economics (REE); and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), was signed June 20, 2019. It formally outlines how the departments will transfer ownership and operational responsibility for NBAF from DHS to USDA.

View the agreement (PDF, 3.1 MB)

Creating a National Asset for America’s Biosecurity Infrastructure

This document provides information on how the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will be operated and the work its scientists will do to protect the nation’s food supply and global health.

View the plan (PDF, 5.7 MB)

Memorandum of Understanding Between USDA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for NBAF Collaboration

In January 2020, USDA and DHS S&T signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to outline their ongoing strategic interagency partnership at NBAF focused on national security. The MOU establishes an initial framework for scientific collaboration and identifies current areas of opportunity for collaboration which include:

• Threat Risk Assessment and Research Prioritization: To determine which transboundary, emerging animal diseases and zoonotic pathogens present the greatest risk to animal health, human health and national security. Outputs from this work will inform the process for research prioritization at NBAF.
• Research and Collaboration: To support the related USDA and DHS S&T food and agriculture missions including threat characterization and classified research; RDT&E involving biological countermeasures (vaccines, biotherapeutics and diagnostics); subject matter expert collaboration and information sharing; and partnerships.

Collaborative program areas may evolve over time. As a result, this MOU establishes a process for periodic review to ensure consistency with current missions and scopes of activities.

View the MOU (PDF, 3.6 MB)

NBAF’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee Executive Summary

This document is a record of NBAF’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee’s compliance to all regulatory responsibilities. The NBAF IACUC reviews the facility’s Animal Care and Use Program to ensure the safe and efficient use and humane and ethical treatment of animals used in all scientific and training activities in high and maximum containment laboratories.

View the summary (PDF, 114 KB)

Environmental Impact Statement

The Department of Homeland Security prepared an environmental impact statement (EIS) to evaluate siting alternatives for the construction and operation of a proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The NBAF Final EIS analyzes the potential environmental impacts of taking no action, as well as siting, constructing and operating the proposed NBAF at the six site alternatives.

Appendix H is the Comment Response Document of the NBAF Final EIS, showing the comments submitted on the NBAF Draft EIS and the Department's response to those comments.

Instructions for how to locate a specific comment that was submitted on the NBAF Draft EIS and the associated Department response are located in the Section 1.4 of Appendix H, available from the link below:

After you have identified the file name where your comment is located, navigate to the page below and click on that file name to find the comment and the Department response. Please note that Chapter 2 of Appendix H is not readable by accessibility software due to its format.

If assistance is required to read this document, please contact the Department via e-mail at SandTNatLabs@hq.dhs.gov.

The Department received a small number of comment documents that were postmarked before the end of the comment period (August 25, 2008), but were not delivered to the NBAF Program Office in time for publication in the CRD. The Department did consider the comments and posted both the comments and responses.

Other historical documents related to the EIS include the following:

• NBAF Draft Environmental Impact Statement
• NBAF Environmental Impact Statement Support Documents
• NBAF EIS Scoping NBAF Report
• Final Selection Memorandum
• Plum Island Memorandum for the Record
• Preferred Alternative Memorandum
• Letter to each consortia on December 8, 2006
• Federal Register on January 19, 2006
• Site offer verification Letter on February 29, 2008

Authorities

• 2002: Homeland Security Act transferred ownership of PIADC from USDA to DHS and provided for USDA (APHIS and ARS) activities on site.
• 2004: HSPD-9 directed DHS and USDA to develop a plan to provide “safe, secure, and state-of-the-art” agriculture biocontainment capabilities for research and diagnostics.
• 2008: Farm Bill authorized USDA Secretary to issue FMD permit to PIADC’s successor facility (NBAF).
• 2016: S. Rept. 114-259 “encourages DHS and USDA to work together on a plan for the future operation of NBAF, including consideration of the appropriate agency to manage the facility.”
• 2018: Conference Report, Omnibus Appropriations: The agreement acknowledges that the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will continue to be responsible for the construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF). The agreement provides an additional $4,000,000 to USDA to support operational activities of the NBAF.
• 2019: Conference Report, Consolidated Appropriations Act: “The conferees recognize that the Department proposes to transfer the responsibility for operational planning, and future operations of NBAF to USDA and support the fiscal year 2019 funding request to allow NBAF to be fully operational by December 31, 2022. The conferees appreciate the joint DHS/USDA transition team working to identify and outline transition activities to address all requirements for the timely operational stand-up of NBAF. The conferees provide...$42,000,000 to address stand-up activities and other initial costs to operate and maintain the facility.”
• 2019: Consolidated Appropriations Act: Sec. 408: The Secretary of Homeland Security may transfer personnel and up to $15,000,000 in unexpended balances of amounts made available to the Department of Homeland Security "… to the Department of Agriculture for the purpose of contract and associated support of the operations of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility…”

NBAF Stakeholders and Partnerships 2019 Conference

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) Stakeholders and Partnerships Conference was held on May 22-23, 2019, in Kansas City, Missouri. The conference served as a platform to update NBAF stakeholders and potential NBAF partners on the progress of NBAF construction and the operational plan for the facility. Stakeholders in attendance included representatives from livestock industries; biologics, pharmaceutical, and animal health industries; local and regional development organizations; academia, and the United States Government (USG).

NBAF Stakeholders and Partnerships Conference Report

This USDA NBAF Stakeholders and Partnerships Conference Report provides a summary of the activities and outcomes from the 2-day conference, including a summary of presentation sessions, breakout discussion sessions, main themes, questions captured, and input received from attendees.

View the conference report (PDF, 2.0 MB)

Summary of Participant Breakout Sessions

Participant breakout sessions hosted on both days of the USDA NBAF Stakeholders and Partnerships Conference focused on asking direct questions and collecting specific input from conference attendees. USDA also hosted a breakout session dedicated solely to federal partner engagement and collaboration. The purpose of each of these breakout sessions was to encourage discussion regarding specific questions inspired by each of the plenary session presentations. Each question in the linked document contains sub-bullets summarizing the most common responses and major themes from the stakeholders in attendance. This section is included as a summary of the discussions held during the conference and does not contain any official perspectives, nor responses from USDA.

*As appropriate, USDA will provide responses to selected questions through the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of the NBAF website at www.usda.gov/nbaf/faqs.

View the summary (PDF, 338 KB)