Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on May 11, 2004.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I brought a war powers resolution to the floor this Congress to get U.S. troops out of Syria, arguing that the United States, being excessively entangled in a great power competition in Syria wasn't making life better for Syrians, it wasn't playing out to our benefit in the sphere of great power competition, and that it left U.S. servicemembers and contractors as sitting ducks.

Following that vote, which I lost overwhelmingly in a bipartisan fashion, sadly, there were casualties; there was the death of an American, because we have now become the neighborhood crime watch of certain areas in Syria where there are oil rigs. That is what it is all about.

I now come to the floor with this resolution to repeal a 2004 emergency vis-a-vis Syria. Now, it is supposed to be voted on by Congress every 6 months thereafter, but we have been derelict in our duty in doing so.

I am glad that today we are bringing forward a number of these emergency resolutions that have been dormant slush funds, spending untold sums of money with no transparency as to how much is going into the Syrian emergency.

How about this rule for how the House thinks about emergencies: Nothing is allowed to be an emergency for 20 years. If it were really an emergency, there probably would have been some cataclysmic event of Biblical proportion before the 20 years. If it is still an emergency 20 years later, it is a chronic condition, and the United States cannot be the world's policeman and we cannot be the world's piggy bank.

Now, if the principal argument against my resolution is that my resolution is soft on Assad, well, the logic that undergirds that is that somehow the 2004 resolution was this great anti-Assad tool that we must have, that we must maintain, to beat Assad.

Look around, Mr. Speaker. Assad has never been stronger. So if this 2004 resolution was Assad kryptonite, it has been the worst Assad kryptonite you can ever imagine. It has malfunctioned.

I think we ought to repeal this emergency. We have sought transparency to see how much money has been going pursuant to it. We don't know the answer to that question.

To the extent that there are sanctions that we still want to maintain, whether there are the other national emergencies that exist targeted at terrorism generally, at Russia, at Iran, we have the Magnitsky Act and there are all kinds of other authorities for the President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, even the DOD weighs in, and the State Department, regarding sanctions regimes.

This is not a vote to lift sanctions and then hope for the best with some pretty gnarly Syrians. In fact, it is us standing up to do our job, and that is what we should do in repealing this 2004 resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would point out, Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman that if he is looking for a more effective way to insult the President of Israel, he need look no further than the remarks of some of his own colleagues in the recent days, which I would deem far more insulting than this policy debate about how to have an effective sanctions regime.

No one here is arguing for sanctions relief vis-a-vis these individuals. What we are saying is that the National Emergencies Act is a very ineffective, inefficient way to administer a sanctions regime. We do have specific authorities with the Magnitsky Act, with the National Emergencies Act vis-a-vis counterterrorism. Treasury has these authorities. State has these authorities. Most importantly, Congress has the authority to impose sanctions.

If you believe that there are people who should be the subject of sanctions by the United States Government, we are the board of directors of the most powerful country on the planet Earth. We can introduce those bills, vote for them, and we can fulfill our constitutional authority.

What I am asking the Congress to do is to repeal a 2004 emergency vis-a-vis Syria when Syria doesn't look anything like it did in 2004.

Mr. Speaker, if you vote to allow this national emergency to continue, what you are doing is gaslighting unaccountable spending by the Biden administration because they never have to make the requisite report regarding the outlays on these matters. The money just moves around, and we never quite see the efficacy of it.

We are all strong supporters of Israel on this side of the aisle, certainly, and I would observe that U.S. policy in Syria has not particularly helped Israel. As a matter of fact, when you had terrorist groups setting up camps in Syria, directed at Israel, you know what the Israelis did? They took them out. They blew them up. That sent a message to Iran, the balance of power was restored, and it did not involve the United States of America becoming the block captain of Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East. If we want to do that, it should be through a war powers

resolution with Congress affirmatively voting to do it, not just having rolling national emergencies.

When the law contemplates a requisite obligation for us to vote to reauthorize these things, we never do it. We don't do our job, then the money goes out the door, and we don't see a safer Israel, a safer Middle East, or a safer Syria. All we see is an empowered Assad. If this is the great tool we had against Assad, we had better be thinking of some different ones, because it hasn't exactly worked out as the proponents of this national emergency would seemingly indicate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of July 17, 2023, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 79) relating to a national emergency declared by the President on May 11, 2004, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the measure under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. The Syria National Emergency is the basis for sanctions against the regime of the murderous dictator Assad and his comrades.

For over a decade, the Assad regime, war criminal Putin, and the terrorist regime in Tehran have committed brutal atrocities against the people of Syria. The civilian mass murder in Aleppo should never be forgotten, which was facilitated by war criminal Putin.

In the last 5 years, sanctions issued pursuant to this authority have prevented over $100 million from reaching more than 100 dangerous entities and individuals affiliated with the Assad regime and its backers, including ISIS middlemen.

This murderous regime has supported international terrorism, committed innumerable atrocities against civilians, assisted with the manufacture of ballistic missiles, and developed weapons of mass destruction.

Let me be clear: Some of the people sanctioned under this national emergency quite literally developed chemical weapons, and we know when President Donald Trump determined that chemical weapons were used, he immediately responded with a direct attack on the Assad regime.

If we overturn this national emergency, those sanctions will automatically and immediately disappear. The criminals behind Assad's weapons of mass destruction program should not be able to access credit cards to do business with Americans.

These sanctions are more than just an essential tool in countering the war criminal Bashar Al Assad. As previously mentioned, most of the proceeds from violations of the sanctions, including these sanctions on Syria, go directly to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism fund, which benefits American victims of terrorism, including our Nation's 9/11 families.

In addition, this resolution would terminate sanctions on people like George Haswani, who the U.S. Treasury has named, and I quote: ``A Syrian businessman who serves as a middleman for oil purchases by the Syrian regime from ISIL.''

It would also lift sanctions on a number of Assad officials who support Hezbollah terrorists who threaten daily the people of Israel from Lebanon.

Today, Assad is not only a war criminal, but also the head of a narco-state. His regime spreads both the malign influence of his Iranian puppet masters and the scourge of drugs throughout the region.

The Assad regime is a critical player in the growth of regional and global trade of the narcotic Captagon. Removing these sanctions would be a gift to Assad, Putin, and the Iranian regime, as the civilized world confronts the unprovoked attacks on democracies which have rule of law being attacked by the dictators with rule of gun.

Terminating this national emergency would immediately terminate sanctions on hundreds of Assad cronies and financiers, developers of Syria's chemical weapons, terrorist-supporting middlemen who threaten America and Israel, and drug traffickers involved in the Captagon trade.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Assad regime, its dictatorship, and support the people of Syria to oppose this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.

The bipartisan opposition to this resolution is significant. Lifting the national emergency of economic authorities with regard to Syria would immediately line the pockets of chemical weapons manufacturers, terrorists, and drug traffickers who have committed horrific crimes against humanity.

We must work together to oppose the Hezbollah murderers who attack Israel from Lebanon. These economic sanctions keep terrorists from using the financial networks of the free world to enrich themselves and plan attacks against America and our allies.

Democracies must stand together to respond to the dictators' rule of gun opposing democracies' rule of law. The world is in a competition we did not choose. Democracies are under attack by dictators such as war criminal Putin, the Chinese Communist Party, and the regime in Tehran.

Ronald Reagan was absolutely correct, and that is we must have peace through strength.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 79, which terminates the national emergency pertaining to actions and policies that have existed for years, enjoyed bipartisan consensus, and underpinned a significant portion of the U.S.-Syria sanctions architecture.

More specifically, this measure targets an executive order that was issued based on legislation that Congress passed with broad bipartisan consensus: The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which over 400 Members of the House, including 200 Republicans, voted in support of.

For over 12 years, Syria's Assad regime has perpetrated a heinous campaign of genocide and unrelenting violence against the Syrian people, who rose up for their basic rights and freedoms after years and years of oppression.

This unceasing campaign of brutality has been aided and abetted by Assad supporters in Tehran and Moscow, and amounted to countless war crimes and the most egregious violations of international humanitarian law of which I am aware.

Relevant to this legislation, the Assad regime has served as a fertile and pliant jurisdiction for Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies to shuttle arms throughout the region, as well as grow in numbers and capabilities in support of the Assad regime's actions against the Syrian people.

At the same time, actors ranging from the remnants of ISIS to other violent extremist organizations like al-Qaida-affiliate Hurras al Din, and others continue to terrorize civilians, and threaten to reconstitute and, again, use Syria as a launchpad for attacks into Europe and the rest of the world.

Active U.S. efforts to counter and degrade these very groups and support networks--those targeted by the sanctions--would be undermined by abruptly repealing and stripping away such important authorities. Preemptively abandoning these policy tools and sanctions authorities through a rushed, poorly conceived legislative effort undermines our national security interests and those of our closest partners.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in opposition to this measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume for the purpose of closing.

I agree with my colleague from Florida on a couple points. I abhor war like he does, and I wish Congress would reassert itself, but I must say, we should legislate it, not terminate it.

Abruptly terminating this national emergency will simply undermine U.S. national security interests and those of our allies. The resolution would further destabilize Syria and the entire region, be a gift to the violent and oppressive Assad regime, and create space for terrorist organizations like ISIS to grow in numbers and capabilities.

I strongly oppose H.J. Res. 79 and urge my colleagues to do the same. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle join me in opposing it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a resolution to roll back sanctions and then hope that maybe we will reimpose them on some other basis not detailed by the gentleman from Florida. This is not some meaningless resolution to feel good about or to message about. It has practical consequences.

How many more people would Assad have been able to kill if he had the chance to cooperate economically with businesses here in the United States? How many other dictators would feel free to develop chemical weapons, would feel free to murder their own people and feel that they would face no economic consequences from the United States?

Our policy has not turned Syria into a garden spot.

What would the world be like if America turned its back on the crimes of Assad? Assad has killed more than half a million of his own people and forced 12 million people to flee.

These particular sanctions are imposed on the Assad regime specifically because of his support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Think of that. We are having the President of Israel come here tomorrow, and what would we greet him with but nothing but a rollback of sanctions against two terrorists organizations who are trying to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible every day of the week.

I think for us to be considering a pro-Israel resolution on this very floor in a few hours, for us to be welcoming the President of Israel tomorrow, and to have a resolution on this floor that would say it is okay, support Hamas, support Hezbollah, watch them try to kill as many Israelis as possible--they are not always successful, but they are trying--I can't think of a more effective way to insult the President of Israel when he stands on that podium and addresses us tomorrow.

Let us continue to do what we can and remember that these sanctions do not expose a single American serviceman to risk of death or risk of injury. We should at least be willing to use the economic power of the United States to do what we can to rein in Syria and to make it clear to other dictators that chemical weapons, mass murder, and support for terrorism is not something that we will ignore.

Mr. Speaker, I missed votes today due to a death in the family. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 333, H.J. Res. 68--Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on October 27, 2006, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 334, H.J. Res. 70--Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on February 25, 2011, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 335, H.J. Res. 74--Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on May 16, 2012, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 336, H.J. Res. 71--Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on May 22, 2003, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 337, H.J. Res. 79--Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on May 11, 2004, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 338, H. Con. Res. 57--Expressing the sense of Congress supporting the State of Israel.