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Capitol to open, other buildings remain closed
Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2001
 
• Anthrax Primer
• Testing for Anthrax
• Anthrax: Quick Facts
By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The House and Senate will hold regularly scheduled sessions Tuesday in the Capitol, but congressional office buildings will remain shuttered while environmental experts continue testing for anthrax contamination.

The House is scheduled to vote on measures aimed at curbing bioterrorism and re-establishing war bonds while the Senate addresses spending measures. There also will be work on an economic stimulus package as well as the final antiterrorism bill sought by President Bush.

No new anthrax exposure was found among some 5,000 congressional employees tested, Capitol Police Lt. Dan Nichols said Monday.

Twenty-eight employees of Congress, most of them staff for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., but also six police personnel, tested positive last week for exposure to anthrax, but none has contracted the disease.

Anthrax has been confirmed in areas of four congressional office buildings, including three Capitol mail facilities. For the first time Monday, there was evidence that anthrax may have reached the Capitol itself.

One congressional source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said three spots tested positive for anthrax in a second-story room on the Senate side of the Capitol, where clothing from Daschle's staffers was taken last week.

Nichols said he would talk only about conclusive test results. He insisted results over the weekend did not indicate contamination in the Capitol and said it was safe for occupancy.

But the discovery of anthrax contamination in a House mail facility led police to search for a possible second contaminated letter, besides the one sent to Daschle's office. No new letter has yet been found, Nichols said. Mail deliveries to congressional offices have been temporarily halted.

Another congressional source, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said initially there was a shortage of experts to do the environmental sweeps in the buildings, delaying the results.

Anthrax contamination has been found in the area of the Hart Senate Office Building where Daschle has his personal office, as well as three other locations: a congressional mail sorting facility several blocks from the Capitol; the mailroom in the Ford House Office Building; and the mailroom in the Senate Dirksen Office Building.

Both houses have arranged for each member of Congress and three staff members to work in temporary space near the Capitol on Tuesday. Further accommodations were made for committee staffs.

The office buildings were closed last Thursday, and Nichols said he was not certain when they would reopen.

``It's going to be closed until the health care workers and the scientists advise us that it's safe to be back there,'' he said. ``The congressional leaders have acted very prudently on this, and they have indicated in unison that the public safety comes first.''

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