A US House Space, Science and Technology subcommittee hearing renewed scrutiny of how AI is accelerating biotech while also raising biosecurity risks. Rep. Rick McCormick (R-Ga.) opened the discussion on balancing innovation with safeguards to protect US global leadership in biotechnology. Witnesses cited prior research showing that biological AI models can be trained to generate functional viral genomes, producing sequences that led to viable infectious viruses in that study framework. The hearing highlighted the emerging governance challenge: enabling AI-driven discovery while reducing misuse potential. For industry, the debate foreshadows tighter expectations for guardrails, data access controls, and monitoring practices as AI adoption spreads across drug discovery and protein engineering workflows.