Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act

Mr. President, the Foreign Agents Registration Act is a law that I have spoken about on this floor many times. At its core, the Foreign Agents Registration Act brings transparency and accountability to foreign influences in our politics.

I want to make very clear, this act doesn't prohibit anybody from doing anything they want to do. It only requires those who lobby on behalf of foreign governments and their interests to register their affiliations and activities with the Justice Department. This fits in with a law that I tried to surely describe as bringing transparency, and when you bring transparency, you have accountability.

While it requires lobbyists on K Street to disclose if they are lobbying on behalf of foreign governments and their interests, it lacks the teeth necessary to enforce the intent of the law and its other requirements. That is very much a weakness in a law that goes back to the 1930s, and it hasn't been updated in the last 55 years.

Today, I seek to change, once again, that environment I just told you about by introducing the Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act. If enacted, this legislation would grant the Justice Department new investigative powers.

The bill would increase criminal and civil penalties for violations. It does this in order to deter abuse of the law; in other words, people not registering when they should register.

The bill appropriately limits who in the Justice Department can use this authority, and it provides essential due process protections. In fact, it is based on identical authorities in the False Claims Act, which for years has helped root out waste, fraud, and abuse.

The bill tasks the Government Accountability Office with studying whether and to what extent the Lobbying Disclosure Act exemption to the Foreign Agents Registration Act is being abused.

These reforms are the result of this Senator's oversight and policy work dating to 2015. These reforms are not in any way partisan, and last Congress this was very much a bipartisan bill.

This Congress, it seems funny that not a single Democratic colleague would join me and my Republican colleagues in cosponsoring this legislation, even though the same people cosponsored it in the last Congress. I have to ask my Democratic colleagues: What is different now than at the tail end of the last Congress?

In December of last year, I came to the floor for a live unanimous consent on this very same bill. At that time, I had the support of the chairs and senior Democratic Senators on both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee. What has changed between last December and right now, that these same Democrats who helped us aren't helping us on a bill that is the same? Are the compromises that we hashed out no longer relevant now that the Democrats control the U.S. Senate and, of course, the Presidency?

Maybe I should put it a little more bluntly. Do my Democratic colleagues no longer care, now that the Trump administration isn't in power? During the Trump administration, I heard my Democratic colleagues speak loudly about the risks of foreign influence on the Trump administration. We all heard it: Trump, Russia. We heard it all day, every day.

Well, I can ask embarrassing things on the other side. What about Biden and China? We all know about the links between the Biden family and Chinese foreign nationals connected to the communist regime, and those links are real and proven, unlike the links that supposedly existed between Trump and Russia that a whole 2 years of study proved were not true.

If the Democrats want to be intellectually honest on the issue of foreign influence, they are going to have to face the music on both sides of the political spectrum.

I have conducted oversight of the Foreign Agents Registration Act without regard to power, party, or privilege. That means I have done it both when we had Democratic Presidents and when we had Republican Presidents.

Also, I raised concerns about the work for Ukrainians by Paul Manafort and the Podesta Group, also involved with the Foreign Agents Registration Act--or maybe they should have been involved with it--and violated it.

I even raised concerns when the firm behind the discredited Steele dossier failed to register for its lobbying work to repeal U.S. sanctions against Russia.

I subpoenaed Paul Manafort to testify at the Judiciary Committee hearing on lax Foreign Agent Registration Act enforcement.

I praised Mueller for dusting off the law that had been ignored for so long.

I want to remind my colleagues that we make laws to be equally enforced, no matter which party is in power. The Foreign Agents Registration Act isn't a right or left issue. It is about foreign influence, about foreign control, and the preservation of our sovereignty. Without our sovereignty, we fail to even exist as a nation.

The last Congress--getting back at my attempt to make a unanimous consent request--at that time, Senator Menendez did what he had the authority to do and the right to do. He objected at that particular time, stating that it bothered him because the Foreign Agents Registration Act reform should move through regular order because that committee, under Republican leadership at that time, did not take up the bill.

The chairman then gave his approval to it but obviously didn't get Menendez's approval to it. So Senator Menendez did what he thought a ranking member of the committee ought to do to protect his side of the aisle, and he objected. He wanted it to go through regular reform. So I am waiting for regular reform to happen.

I look forward to working with Senator Menendez and the Foreign Relations Committee to move this bill any way they want to move it, through regular order or, like we did last time, by having the chairman and ranking member just approve moving it. In fact, some of your Members were previous cosponsors of this bill.

So I am saying to Senator Menendez that members of his committee cosponsored this bill last time, and I don't understand why they aren't joining me in cosponsoring it this time. I would love to have them do that.

The issues with foreign influence on our political system aren't going to go away. In fact, I think we can say they are primed to get even worse. In the meantime, while partisan politics play out, the Foreign Agents Registration Act stands without necessary reform.

I strongly urge my Democratic colleagues to work with me and my Republican cosponsors to achieve a much needed, meaningful reform to a very important law that doesn't deprive anybody from making their living any way they want to. If they want to lobby and influence our government for a foreign country, we accept that. They can work in that if they want to, but we ought to know about it. That is what the Foreign Agents Registration Act is all about, to get this information out so it can be made public because, with transparency, there is accountability

Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce the ``Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act'' along with my California colleague Senator Padilla.

This legislation, based on a Congressionally-authorized National Park Service study, would increase the size of the Santa Monica Recreation Area by 191,000 acres, accomplishing multiple goals of expanding access to green space for underserved communities and conserving and connecting wildlife habitat corridors, while maintaining private property rights and existing land-use authorities.

In 2008, Congress passed the Rim of the Valley Corridor Study Act, which directed the National Park Service to study the area. The park expansion in our bill is based upon this six-year special resource study.

This bill also takes into account more than 2,000 comments received by the public, elected officials, local organizations, and other stakeholders.

The ``Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act'' would add 191,000 acres to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation area. This addition, known as the Rim of the Valley Unit, would provide improved recreational, educational, and outdoor opportunities to the local communities.

The proposed expansion would also better protect natural resources and habitats, including valuable habitat for endangered wildlife, such as the California red-legged frog, mountain lions, bobcats, foxes, badgers, coyotes, and deer.

Notably, the ``Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act'' would only allow the Department of the Interior to acquire non-Federal land within the new boundaries through exchange, donation, or purchase from willing sellers.

As I mentioned, this legislation will significantly expand outdoor recreational opportunities for residents of Los Angeles County, one of the most densely populated and park-poor areas in California. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic has only underscored the importance of having access to green spaces close to home.

In fact, 47% of Californians--that's six percent of the total U.S. population--live within two hours of the proposed expansion area. Enlarging the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, at no cost to U.S. taxpayers, will provide these communities with increased access to public lands and boost the local economy.

In light of President Biden's January 27, 2021 Executive Order on ``Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad'' setting the goal of protecting ``30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030'', this legislation aligns with that goal and provides an opportunity to advance it based on federal agency recommendation and a robust public process.

Last Congress, we successfully advanced this legislation out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in the Senate.

My colleague, Representative Adam Schiff, reintroduced this legislation in the House, where it passed as part of a larger package in a bipartisan vote last February.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the ``Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act'' out of the Senate as well.

Thank you, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.