GUARD Act

Mr. Speaker, every family is now impacted by this. Every American knows someone who has come into contact with an AI fraud, a pig butchering scheme, a romance theft.

Right now, criminals on the other side of the world are stealing the life savings of people in our own communities, and the local officers who answer those calls oftentimes can't even do anything about it. The money moves through digital currencies, including crypto, faster than anyone can even trace it. By the time a deputy who answers the call files a report, the life savings of that family, individual, or loved one is gone.

I will share a story of what happened in my district in rural Iowa, of all places. A farmer in Wapello County was targeted through social media by an account posing as a Russian model. Over months, this Russian woman began to earn his trust and then took him for $1 million, including farm equipment that he had to mortgage.

Over months, the people behind it further earned his trust. When they realized that he had money on his farm, in cash, they hired mercenaries on U.S. soil to drive from New York to a rural farmhouse in Iowa, where, when he refused to give up his cash, they opened fire on him. Due to this smart-thinking farmer locking himself in his barn and calling local law enforcement, his life was spared. His monetary loss was immeasurable.

Sheriff Don Phillips of Wapello and his deputies worked with Federal agents. They arrested the men who showed up that day. Out of the three, they were able to keep one. The other two ended up getting away. The people who ran the schemes, the real perpetrators of this, were far overseas. They still haven't answered for a single dollar of the more than $1 million that this farmer lost.

This is no longer a rare story. In Iowa alone last year, families lost $96 million to these types of frauds, and Americans lost as much as $200 billion. To put that in another context, the entire budget for the U.S. Army is gone in 1 year, mainly to foreign actors committing fraud on U.S. citizens. Those citizens are retirees, farmers, and families.

This is now the number one financial crime impacting families. That is why, 2 years ago, I brought together Iowa sheriffs, investigators, and local detectives and asked them what they needed to combat this rising number of scams and fraudsters targeting our communities. I am proud to say that their best ideas are now in the process of potentially becoming law with this bill, the GUARD Act.

Together, we are fighting for 21st century solutions to address criminals who are using cutting-edge technology, but we are still dealing with it built from a different era. The moment that their money crosses a State line or an ocean, they hit a wall that only the Federal Government can help them climb.

This bill aims to fix that. That is why our bipartisan bill, the GUARD Act, brings together real solutions and puts legislation in place for real-time tracing tools, including blockchain tracking, as well as Federal backup when these things happen, so that we can combat it on the front line before it becomes a national catastrophe.

It helps not only my State and local law enforcement. It helps the deputy who is just trying to help a community member follow up, identify the money, and stop it before it leaves the district or the country. Most importantly, it goes after the people running these scams.

I am grateful to AARP, financial lenders across the country, law enforcement, veterans groups, and other advocates who brought these ideas forward. This is exactly what Congress should be doing: taking and hearing concerns from our local communities and distilling them into a law that can actually help save money, save lives, and, most importantly, help people right here in our own country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their support of the GUARD Act.

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

I rise in support of H.R. 2978, the GUARD Act, sponsored by Representatives Nunn and Gottheimer. The GUARD Act would allow State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies to tap into certain Federal grant programs to support investigations into senior fraud, romance scams, and general financial fraud.

The bill would also permit Federal law enforcement to assist State and local law enforcement with tracing tools for blockchain technology. This bill is particularly important because blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, is so often used in scams, and it is the Federal Government that has the best chance--and it is only a chance--of using technology to defeat the scams and to hold those responsible accountable.

Certainly, now that we are faced with crypto scams, we need to react, and this bill is part of that reaction. This is a sensible bill that will help Americans who are losing literally billions of dollars to fraudsters and scammers.

I support this bill, but I must express a significant concern of the Democratic Caucus that should be addressed. That is the potential misinterpretation or misuse of this bill to allow agencies to siphon funds from defined grant programs for unrelated purposes.

One of the grant programs, for example, is found in the Violence Against Women Act, VAWA, which allows grants to nonprofits and local governments to provide support for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

I believe that all Members and organizations supporting this bill have no intent to deny grants or reduce grants to address domestic violence and sexual assault. This bill is not meant to be a way for the President to raid those funds.

Rather, the bill intends to augment the funds and to cover areas where GUARD Act activities overlap with the existing grant programs, such as where the victim of domestic violence is also the target of a romance scam.

I stress again that when the bill says ``eligible Federal grant funds,'' no Member voting on this bill intends to ignore or change the purpose of existing Federal grant programs from which the GUARD Act draws.

Thus, going forward, this bill or our statutes must add clarifying language that makes it clear that VAWA and this bill's other programs are intended to combat financial fraud and abuse within the bounds of the grant programs that are listed.

Mr. Speaker, with these concerns about our intent to fix the text of the bill noted, I urge colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close if the gentlewoman from Texas also has no further speakers.

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

Mr. Speaker, the GUARD Act allows State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies to use certain Federal grant programs to investigate senior financial fraud, romance schemes, and general financial fraud.

There are two points that I made in my earlier statement that I will reiterate. The first is that crypto has facilitated frauds and scams, and it is necessary that we give law enforcement the tools to react to that. The second is that while this is a very worthwhile bill, we do need to clarify that the GUARD Act overlaps and augments, doesn't steal from, the funds mentioned in the bill. It can help victims and survivors of domestic violence, among others, as they are targeted by fraudsters and scammers.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2978) to permit State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies that receive eligible Federal grant funds to use such funds for investigating elder financial fraud, pig butchering, and general financial fraud, and to clarify that Federal law enforcement agencies may assist State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies in the use of tracing tools for blockchain and related technology, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I note that although H.R. 2978 has not been reported out of Judiciary Committee, which also received a referral for the bill, the Judiciary Committee supports H.R. 2978 being considered today under suspension of the rules. I thank Chairman Jordan for his committee's support.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2978, the Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act, or GUARD Act.

Financial fraud is one of the fastest-growing threats facing hardworking Americans, particularly seniors and retirees who have spent decades saving for the future. Today, sophisticated scammers are using technology to target vulnerable Americans through increasingly complex schemes.

The GUARD Act helps address this challenge by allowing State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies to use existing Federal grant funding to investigate financial fraud.

This bill also gives law enforcement greater access to modern investigative tools by allowing Federal agencies to assist State and local authorities with blockchain tracing and related technologies. These tools can help law enforcement follow the money, identify bad actors, and recover funds that have been stolen from victims.

As scammers continue to develop new ways to exploit Americans, our law enforcement agencies must have the tools and information necessary to keep pace.

This bipartisan bill takes a commonsense approach by strengthening coordination between Federal, State, local, and Tribal law enforcement, while providing the resources needed to investigate and disrupt financial fraud.

More importantly, the GUARD Act will help protect seniors and retirees who have worked hard their entire lives and deserve to be protected from predatory actors.

I thank Representatives Nunn, Fitzgerald, and Gottheimer for their leadership on this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2978, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nunn), the sponsor of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser).

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

Mr. Speaker, for the reasons I explained earlier, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge and thank the leadership of Congresswoman De La Cruz for seeing this bill through and my colleague, Congressman Nunn, because, as he stated, the level of importance of this is vast.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support H.R. 2978, the GUARD Act. For well over a year, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, which I chair, has led in-depth investigations into the growing prevalence of fraud and scams.

As part of our work, we conducted many hearings, roundtables, meetings with private industry, law enforcement, and regulators to investigate the problem and find solutions.

In July, we released a comprehensive staff report detailing the growth of financial fraud and scams in the U.S. Shockingly, or not so shockingly, we found that Americans lost well over $16 billion which was reported in these schemes in 2025 alone, and truly the toll was closer to well over $200 billion, as has been mentioned.

Financial fraud picks no favorites. Scams affect everyone from veterans and small businesses to seniors to young people. Everybody is vulnerable.

This report, however, included several recommendations to better address financial fraud and scams, including the passage of this bill, the GUARD Act. The important legislation addresses many of the issues we identified in equipping law enforcement with the tools necessary to combat sophisticated criminals. They are sophisticated.

It also allows law enforcement to use innovative tools to trace and recover stolen funds and improves Federal reporting on fraud trends.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Nunn for his hard work to stop fraud and scams, and I thank Chairman Hill of the Financial Services Committee for his strong leadership as well.

Mr. Speaker, I urge and thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for their support.

Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 301.