Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we held a hearing on human rights concerns in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan civil war ended almost 10 years ago this May. The 25-year war cost an estimated 100,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands more. The civil war was a brutal ethnic conflict between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils; both sides--the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and the rebel ``Tamil Tigers''--have been credibly accused of unimaginable war crimes.

To this day, justice for many of the victims remains elusive. Although many observers hoped that the reformist government of President Sirisena would increase access to justice, focus on human rights, emphasize transparency and accountability, and improve the rule of law, his administration has been criticized for having an inadequate response. Despite having run on a platform of ethnic reconciliation, President Sirisena has done little to mend the ties between the groups, and the political polarization has increased among both ethnic groups.

As one of our experts, J.S. Tissainayagam, attested, there has been no progress on holding those responsible for war crimes to account. And he will describe forced disappearances of Tamils and torture were endemic during the war. Much of this was facilitated by the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, or the PTA. The PTA has yet to be repealed, and is still in use by the government and security forces. Whereas most Tamils nowadays simply desire some semblance of self- governance and federalism, their areas in the north and eastern part of the island are increasingly militarized.

A concerning development in Sri Lanka is the resurgence of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. As one of our expert witnesses, Dr. Michael Jerryson, described, this particularly virulent strand of nationalism preaches exclusion of other ethnic and religious minorities, with Buddhist fundamentalists in groups such as the BBS saying ``This is not a multi-religious country. This is a Sinhalese country.''

What of the minority groups, such as the predominantly Hindu Tamils, then? Or the Muslims, who constitute a distinct minority, or the Christians, who can be either be Sinhalese or Tamil? If the character of Sri Lanka is solely Buddhist and Sinhala, there is little room for these ethnic and religious minorities to thrive, and reconciliation will remain a far off goal.

Unfortunately, the trend is heading in the opposite direction--in local elections in February of this year, a newly formed Buddhist nationalist party gained 45 percent of the vote, beating the government coalition combined. Furthermore, in March of this year, Sinhalese mobs engaged in an anti-Muslim pogrom after a local dispute, forcing the President to declare a state of emergency.

Sri Lanka's stability is of critical importance to the United States national interests. Strategically located in the sea-lanes linking the Persian Gulf to East Asia, this island-nation has seen a spike in recent activity by the Chinese. China's strategy globally is one of indebting countries and binding them in servitude so it can extract resources, so it is safe to say that Beijing's initiatives will not emphasize ethnic reconciliation and/or human rights. This presents the United States with an opportunity to stand up for justice and the rule of law and to oppose China's malign influence.

After a brutal war that cost an unconscionable loss of life, we must do better to help Sri Lanka get on the right page again. The country has promise and the people deserve better. Once all sides recognize this, this island-nation will finally have some semblance of peace.

Mr. Speaker, today on the 243rd birthday of the U.S. Army, I take the opportunity to congratulate the Monmouth County, New Jersey, Chapter of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) which has been designated as the AUSA's ``Best Chapter 2017.''

The designation represents the second year in a row that the Monmouth chapter has clinched this national top honor.

The award, given primarily for leadership and distinguished accomplishments in the service of U.S. Soldiers, Army civilians, and their families, was presented at the AUSA's Annual Meeting & Exposition held last Fall at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

During the opening ceremony of the 2017 association meeting--attended by more than 5,000 members and guests--AUSA Monmouth Chapter President Col. Samuel Fuoco (USA Ret.), Secretary Mrs. Ellie Smith, and Mr. Frank Brogna, of the Monmouth County Sheriff's Office were all presented the ``Best Chapter 2017'' banner by AUSA President & CEO Gen. Carter F. Ham (USA Ret.), and AUSA Vice President, Lt. Gen. Patricia E. McQuistion (USA Ret.).

Also, Mrs. Catherine C. ``Kit'' Roache, the Monmouth Chapter's Vice President of Programs and Community Partners, received the AUSA ``2017 Major General Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Medal,'' awarded to the individual who has most contributed to the advancement and mission of association for the year.

Additionally, Chapter President Fuoco was presented with the AUSA ``Greatest Reserve Component Increase--2017'' streamer, for the greatest increase in membership.

Mr. Speaker, these awards are not lightly given or earned. The AUSA Monmouth Chapter was bestowed with these honors due to its extremely active and tireless work in supporting the U.S. Army and AUSA. The chapter has constantly supported our service members--Active and Reserve, past and present--through educational activities and raising money for many causes like support for New Jersey veterans and retirees, scholarships for JROTC high school students, the Fisher House Foundation, and their Service Dog initiative.

Chapter members and community partners regularly welcome new Army commanders at the nearby Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. The chapter has supported Honor and Remember Flags for Gold Star Families who have lost a loved one in combat, and the New Jersey Run for the Fallen. It helps foster Veteran Service Organizations (VSO) training, and works to build civilian support in Monmouth County by participating in many educational, business and charity events.

Mr. Speaker, the Monmouth County AUSA chapter takes to heart and gives all they have to live up to their inspiring motto: ``A Voice for the Army--Support for the Soldier.'' Given its current leadership and unyielding drive to serve in a manner consistent with its roots in the United States Army, there is little doubt that the chapter's ongoing work will lead to consideration for another banner in 2018 and in the years ahead.

I thank all the members of the AUSA Monmouth Chapter for their continued hard work, dedication, commitment and outstanding contributions in the service of America's men and women in uniform.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate four exceptional students from New Jersey's Point Pleasant Borough High School--Luke Boylan, Theresa Cardone, Jaspreet Kaur, and Adrian Wittmann--for their amazing app designed to ensure that their classmates with special needs have a lunch buddy to build friendships, share conversation, laugh, or talk about each other's hopes and dreams.

Lunch Buddy app helps make all participating students more understanding, knowledgeable, kind, and empathetic. Lunch Buddy app helps all participating students see the world from each other's eyes.

Everyone has good days and bad, strengths and weaknesses, and things we want to talk about to a friend. For many, high school can be difficult and lonely. Lunch Buddy app recognizes this and enables participating students to better grasp the God-given worth, inherent value, and innate goodness of everyone and says with neon lights: You are welcomed and cherished here.

Working together, under the incredible guidance of their advanced software engineering teacher, Mr. Nick Gattuso, Luke, Theresa, Jaspreet, and Adrian created a Lunch Buddy app

which earned them the top prize in New Jersey's Fourth Congressional District App Challenge.

Several weeks ago, the team came to the Capitol, where they were nationally recognized.

Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of seeing the app in action when I visited the high school in February and was struck by the extraordinary care and kindness of the winners and, frankly, all the students in the class. These young people are truly amazing.

Allow me, Mr. Speaker, to say a brief word about the teacher, Nick Gattuso.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Gattuso was so inspired by the selflessness of so many that he left a highly successful career at Bell Labs and took an early retirement and huge pay cut to teach because he said he just wanted to give back to others. He said he was too old to be a firefighter and too old to be a cop, but he chose the noble profession of teacher.

Today, with great skill, energy, and passion, Mr. Gattuso teaches his students, in his words, ``how to use their programming, engineering, and problem-solving skills for good.'' Lunch Buddy app epitomizes that good.

Lunch Buddy app, Mr. Speaker, sprang out of a broader initiative to create a better learning environment for students with disabilities. In 2012, Point Pleasant Borough High School established The Panther Assisted Learning Software, or PALS, with the stated goal of ``providing students with multiple disabilities differentiated assistive learning technologies and to promote increased independence and vocational sufficiency.''

Additionally, PALS was created to overcome specific barriers to learning and to facilitate increased interaction between special needs students and their nondisabled peers. It is a wonderful program that teaches important lessons that last a lifetime, and I believe this program needs to be replicated in every high school in the country.

The Lunch Buddy app is one of several real-world, operational apps that are enhancing the learning and community environment at Point Pleasant. Other apps, for example, assist students with their class schedules, money management, and resume building and are developed in close collaboration with special needs students in the life skills class.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, the Congressional App Challenge itself was created to allow students in STEM fields who also work in computer programming an opportunity to showcase their software application achievements. These STEM fields are central to the global workforce of the future, and it is critical for our students to have opportunities like this challenge to further develop expertise in computer programming and work with teammates to enhance their collective creativity.

We all know that integrating into the academic and social environments at school can be difficult for many students, especially and including those with a disability. As the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Autism Caucus, I have heard stories from countless families with children with autism who struggle.

So I am especially grateful to our four designers of the Lunch Buddy app who showed both great technical skill and compassion. They put their expertise toward the service of others.

Mr. Speaker, the world awaits what they and other students in that class have to offer.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we held a hearing on human rights in Vietnam. It has been a very bad year in Vietnam for human rights. Since the beginning of 2018 alone, the Vietnamese government has handed out sentences totaling over 100 years in prison and house arrest to human rights defenders and democracy advocates.

In the past year alone, 22 bloggers have been jailed as well as six members of the Brotherhood for Democracy. An outrageous 15-year sentence was given to Nguyen Van Dai, whose wife Vu Minh Khanh testified before this committee in 2016.

Nguyen Van Dai should be released unconditionally and immediately. I know he is courageous and he wants to remain in his own country seeking rights and reform. However, if he desires to leave Vietnam, he should be allowed to leave with his wife immediately. Vietnam's loss will be the world's gain.

The Vietnamese government has gotten a free pass on human rights for too long.

There are currently 169 political and religious prisoners in Vietnam, including bloggers, labor and democracy advocates, and religious leaders.

Freedom House rates Vietnam as ``Not Free'' and possessing of some of the world's highest press and internet restrictions.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom again this year recommended that Vietnam be designated as a ``Country of Particular Concern'' for egregious religious freedom abuses. U.S. policy has failed the Vietnamese people. This is a bipartisan criticism. We have enriched Vietnam's Communist leaders and coddled their interests at the expense of the hopes and desires of the Vietnamese people of liberty and human rights.

The Trump Administration has an opportunity to bring about real reforms in Vietnam if tangible human rights improvements are linked to better U.S.-Vietnam relations.

The U.S. has leverage to encourage reform--Vietnam needs a strong U.S. partnership--particularly as China's aggressiveness

increases. The questions is--will this leverage be used to help the people of Vietnam or their Communist rulers?

I have been to Vietnam. I have met with its rights advocates and young activists for decades now. The younger generation in Vietnam--66 percent of Vietnam is under the age of 40--looks to the U.S. as a land of opportunity and freedom.

This generation wants the same liberties enjoyed by their relatives in California, Texas, Virginia, Louisiana and so many other places where former Vietnamese refugees have flourished.

They want to speak freely, blog freely, worship freely, and be free to choose and change their leaders.

Failing to press for concrete human rights improvements underestimates U.S. leverage and will disappoint the young generation in Vietnam who are that country's dynamic future.

The President will face pressure from his advisors and the business community to look at Vietnam through the lens of trade deals and the containment of China. Hopefully, he will be able to see the situation more clearly than past Administrations.

I know there is great interest in the Pentagon about a partnership with Vietnam to oppose China's aggressive South China Sea policy. The U.S. has an interest in free and open sea lanes.

But no government that represses its own people or restricts fundamental freedoms can be a trusted ally of the United States. No government that censors the Internet, tortures and jails dissidents, and crushes civil society should be given generous trade or security benefits without conditions.

Robust championing of individual rights will meet with some success-- if recent history is our guide.

The Vietnamese government has responded to concerns expressed by the last two Administrations when they linked human rights improvements to better U.S.-Vietnam relations.

Whether to gain entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) or to address U.S. concerns over religious freedom abuses, the Vietnamese government took steps toward reform when pressed by past American Presidents.

It is when the U.S. loses interest in human rights that conditions regress--as it has in the past year.

The business of the Communist Party is staying in power and repressing those they believe will challenge their power. They will not embrace human rights improvements or the rule of law unless it is a firm condition of better relations with the U.S.

Putting human rights and the rule of law at the center of bilateral relations is the goal of H.R. 5621--the Vietnam Human Rights Act-- bipartisan legislation that was introduced last month.

The bill emphasizes the connection between human rights improvements and U.S. interests and states that U.S. policy should prioritize the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, Internet Freedom, independent labor unions, the protection of women and girls from trafficking, and advances in the rule of law as critical components of both U.S.-Vietnam relations and any U.S.-led effort to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

Similar bills passed three times in the House with overwhelming margins, only to stall in the Senate.

U.S. policy must send the unmistakable message to the Government of Vietnam that human rights improvements are fundamental to better relations, critically linked to our mutual economic and security interests, and will not be ignored or bargained away.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday Kansas City Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann was the keynote speaker at the 14th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast here in Washington, D.C.

Archbishop Naumann's incisive remarks were extraordinarily inspiring, hope filled, uplifting, yet challenging. Like a modern-day Jeremiah, he spoke truth to the nation. After detailing some of the ``threats to the well-being of our nation,'' Archbishop Naumann said ``However, the most serious crisis for our country is none of the above, but rather a God- crisis--a crisis of Faith. . . .

He said, ``We have no permanent enemies, but only confused brothers and sisters who have yet to encounter the Lord of Life and to experience His unconditional love and amazing grace. . . . It is our task to reclaim our culture one mind, one heart, one soul at a time.''

I respectfully ask my colleagues in both the House and Senate and on both sides of the aisle to take a few minutes to read the Archbishop's remarkable words.

National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Washington, D.C., May 24, 2018

I. Acknowledgments

It is a great honor to be with you this morning and to

address this distinguished gathering. As we assemble as a

people of Faith to pray for our nation, we must first give

thanks for our many blessings. We enjoy religious liberty,

freedom of speech and expression, the right to assemble--to

name only a few of the freedoms for which our Founders fought

and subsequent generations sacrificed heroically to preserve.

Despite our economic challenges, middle class Americans enjoy

creature comforts that were unavailable to kings of earlier

ages. For all this and so much more, we must give thanks to

God from whom all blessings flow.

At the same time, there are certainly many challenges

facing our nation. Within the past week we had another deadly

school shooting. There are several tense international

situations, e.g. the Holy Land, Iran, Syria and Korea. Many

Christians throughout the world experience brutal religious

persecution. Racial tensions remain high in many cities. One

third of American children are being raised in homes without

their biological fathers. The legal status of more than a

million young people who were brought to this country as

children remains in limbo. In Massachusetts, Illinois and the

District of Columbia Catholic Charities is no longer able to

place children for adoption. Our nation continues to give

legal protection to doctors and organizations that profit

from the killing of more than one million innocent unborn

children. There are efforts in the courts and some states

legislatures to coerce Catholic Hospitals to perform

abortions.

Unfortunately, this is by no means an exhaustive list of

the serious threats to the well-being of our nation. However,

the most serious crisis for our country is none of the above,

but rather a God-crisis--a crisis of Faith.

II. Is God Dead?

Is God Dead? This was the title cover story for the April

8, 1966 edition of Time Magazine, when I was a junior in High

School and Time was the most influential periodical in the

United States. The 1966 article began with these words:

``Is God dead? It is a question that tantalizes, both

believers, who perhaps secretly fear that he is, and

atheists, who possibly suspect the answer is No.

``Is God dead? The three words represent a summons to

reflect on the meaning of existence. No longer is the

question the taunting jest of skeptics for whom unbelief is

the test of wisdom and for whom Nietzsche is the prophet who

gave the right answer a century ago. . . .''

At the time, the subject was considered shocking and

provocative. I was reminded of this article while reading the

2017 book, The Benedict Option, by Rod Dreher who makes the

case that we need a new St. Benedict to form vibrant

Christian communities to preserve the truth of the Gospels

during a new Dark Age of unbelief.

Dreher notes the decline in church attendance, the large

number of Millennials who profess atheism or even more

commonly

identify themselves as spiritual, but not religious. This

non-religious spiritualism is a new paganism, where God is

not the God of revelation who makes Himself known to us, but

a god or gods that are fashioned in our own image to re-

enforce our own desires. Dreher gives his assessment of the

status of Faith in America: ``. . . God may not be quite

dead, but he is in hospice care and confined to bed.''

III. A Crisis of Faith

Our culture is indeed experiencing a crisis of Faith that

leads to a denial of truth. Once the relationship between man

and God is severed, man becomes just a highly developed

organism. Human life becomes just another thing in a world of

things. Materialism reigns and breeds utilitarianism--our

value is determined by our usefulness. We no longer possess

inalienable rights that are God-given and from which no human

being can deprive us.

The pursuit of pleasure becomes the highest goal. This

hedonism is a futile seeking of greater and more intense

pleasures that in the end leave us more and more empty.

Suffering and death become the great enemies that we strive

futilely to eliminate or at least impede

It is this loss of a sense of God that also leaves us

vulnerable to lose sight of the innate value of each and

every human being. We consider those who are profoundly

disabled as more vegetable than human. We experience their

care as a burden rather than an opportunity for the

expression of the noblest form of love.

We begin to see human life at its earliest stages as

something too tiny to have rights, but something very useful

to destroy in order to exploit its components in the hope of

healing or restoring youth to those already born. This loss

of a sense of God also leaves us helpless to find meaning in

suffering. Suffering becomes the other real evil and thus to

be avoided at all costs. If it is impossible or perhaps

difficult to eliminate the suffering, then it becomes

acceptable to eliminate the one suffering.

IV. The Essence: An Encounter with a Person

Pope Emeritus Benedict, in his writings and speeches

reflecting on the essence of what it means to be Catholic

declared it is not our dogma and doctrine. Obviously, it is

not that he thought these to be unimportant, after all he had

been the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the

Faith--he was the architect of the Catechism of the Catholic

Church. Yet, important as they are, they are not the essence

of Catholicism. Similarly Pope Benedict maintained that

living an ethical life is not the heart of what it means to

be Catholic. Again, he was not claiming this is

insignificant, but it is the fruit of our Faith, not its

essence.

Pope Benedict asserts the essence of Catholicism is an

encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. Without that

personal encounter, our dogma and doctrine makes no sense.

Without this encounter we will not have the capacity to

persevere in living a virtuous life.

V. Jesus, the Man Who Lives

Malcolm Muggeridge--the late BBC television personality,

while an agnostic, filmed a documentary on Mother Teresa of

Calcutta entitled Something Beautiful for God. Muggeridge

made Mother Theresa a household name in the English speaking

world. Muggeridge's experience of Mother Theresa's selfless

love changed the trajectory of his life.

The BBC subsequently assigned Muggeridge to do a

documentary on Jesus. In Bethlehem at the Church of the

Nativity while observing the prayerfulness of Christian

pilgrims venerating the spot commemorated as the birth place

of Jesus, Muggeridge was inspired to name his documentary--

Jesus, the Man Who Lives. Muggeridge realized Jesus was not

just another historical figure, but he was still alive and

animating the lives of his disciples like Mother Teresa and

millions of other saints canonized and uncanonized for the

past 2,000 years.

It is this same Jesus we encounter every time we open our

hearts to His presence in prayer. It is this Jesus, the Lord

of Lords and King of Kings, who conquered death and is alive,

whom we receive in the Eucharist.

It is this Jesus who transformed Peter from the coward of

Good Friday to the martyr in Rome, who changed Paul from a

persecutor of His disciples to the greatest Christian

missionary, who inspired Francis of Assisi to abandon a

frivolous life of comfort and through simplicity and poverty

to awaken the world to the Gospel. It is this same Jesus who

motivated Thomas More to resign as Chancellor of England and

die a Martyr's death rather than betray his conscience, who

emboldened the North American Martyrs to make the perilous

crossing of the Atlantic to evangelize Native Americans well

aware that they would meet violent deaths, who led St. Damien

to provide pastoral care for the lepers of Molokai knowing

the probability that eventually he would succumb to the

dreaded disease, and who gave Blessed Stanley Rother, a farm

boy from Oklahoma the courage to stay with his flock in

Guatemala despite being a target of the death squads. This is

to name only a tiny fraction of some of the more well-known

disciples who found abundant and eternal life in losing their

lives following Jesus, the Man Who Lives.

VI. A God Who Died but Is Not Dead

The Original Sin was the decision by our first parents to

push God out of their garden in order to become their own

gods. This is the archetype of every sin. God's response to

humanity's rebellion is mercy. God does not abandon us to

dwell in the darkness created by our rejection of His love.

Instead, God comes to rescue us just as he saved Israel from

the slavery of Egypt. Sin masquerades as freedom but in

reality enslaves us to disordered cravings. Jesus came to

liberate us from the bondage of sin and to vanquish death

destroying its power to rob life of its meaning and render it

absurd.

The method of this rescue was not to use His almighty power

to force us into submission to His will, but it was through

His incarnation to become one with us in all things but sin.

Like a special operations soldier dropped behind enemy lines,

Jesus entered fully into our humanity, enduring unspeakable

suffering because of our sin.

Jesus defeats humanity's twin enemies, sin and death, by

walking through death to eternal life. We believe in a God

who died but is far from dead. The triumphant, risen Lord is

still animating the lives of those who open their hearts to

encounter His love. Thus for the Christian, we are never

without hope.

In recent years, I have been drawn to read the memoirs of

former atheists who have become Catholic. Two of my favorites

in this genre are Jennifer Fulwiler's Something Other Than

God and Sally Read's Night's Bright Darkness. Both of their

conversions illustrate, if we just open a crack in our

hearts, God's amazing grace will come rushing in.

VII. A New Great Awakening

In our prayer this morning, let us pray for a religious

revival in our nation, another great awakening. For those of

us who have encountered the Risen Jesus we have a

responsibility to bring His love and mercy to others,

especially as Pope Francis so often reminds us to those on

the peripheries. We are called to be Missionary Disciples,

communicating the love of Jesus to others and bringing others

to encounter the Risen Lord.

We have no permanent enemies, but only confused brothers

and sisters who have yet to encounter the Lord of Life and to

experience His unconditional love and amazing grace. We are

called to renew our nation, not primarily by enacting laws,

but by announcing the Joy and Hope of the Gospel of Jesus to

individuals in desperate need of its good news. It is our

task to reclaim our culture one mind, one heart, one soul at

a time.

Mr. Speaker, last week we marked up H.R. 1911, the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. All of the Co-Chairs of the Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism are cosponsors of the bipartisan H.R. 1911--including four members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Eliot Engel, Brad Schneider, and Ted Deutch--which I authored to advance the fight against the ancient, persistent evil of anti-Semitism, whenever and wherever it occurs in the world.

So far 80 members have cosponsored the bill, including 25 members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Many leading Jewish organizations also support the legislation.

My friend, the great former Soviet refusnik and religious prisoner, Natan Sharansky, testified at two of the nine hearings I have chaired on anti-Semitism. He proposed what he called a simple test to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. Sharansky called it the ``three Ds: Demonization, double standard, and de-legitimization.''

Rabbi Andy Baker, Director for International Jewish Affairs for American Jewish Committee and Personal Representative of the OSCE

Chairperson-in-Office on Combatting-AntiSemitism, reports, ``We continue to see physical and even lethal attacks on Jews in Europe, efforts to restrict or ban elemental religious practices, and emboldened extremist political parties with an anti-Semitic agenda. Even as European governments have come to recognize the dangers facing their Jewish communities, many still have failed to devote the necessary resources to protect them or to be clear-eyed in recognizing the sources of the problem.'' This past March an 85-year Holocaust survivor, Mireille Knoll, was brutally murdered in Paris, an abhorrent example of anti-Semitic hatred.

According to B'nai Brith International, ``Unfortunately, we continue to see the dramatic growth of anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe and the Islamic world. This scourge has reached its highest level since World War II. B'nai Brith International is dedicated to shining the spotlight on hatred of Jews as a distinct and unique social illness, and to marshaling efforts to combat, and wherever possible, eradicate this phenomenon.'' According to B'nai Brith Canada, ``Last year was a record-breaking year for anti-Semitism in Canada, according to a new audit by B'nai Brith's league for human rights. As Global's Anne Leclair reports, Quebec ranks second in the country for reported anti- Semitic activity.''

The Kator Center on Anti-Semitism Worldwide sounded the alarm; stating ``Europe's largest Jewish communities are experiencing a normalization and mainstreaming of anti-Semitism not seen since the Second World War.''

There is an urgent need for a comprehensive United States government approach to combating anti-Semitism--led by a strong, senior official. In 2004, Congress passed and signed into law the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004. I was the prime sponsor of the provisions that created the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism in the State Department and position of Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti- Semitism to lead it.

H.R. 1911 would elevate the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti- Semitism to the rank of Ambassador, to be nominated by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, and reporting directly to the Secretary of State. It would mandate the Special Envoy to serve as the primary advisor to the United States government on monitoring and combating anti-Semitism in foreign countries and coordinate efforts across the government.

The bill would prohibit the Special Envoy from being double-hatted with duties and responsibilities unrelated to monitoring and combating anti-Semitism. It would also require the President to nominate a Special Envoy within 90 days of the enactment of this act and thereafter within 120 whenever the position is empty.

Since Congress created the position, there have been long delays in every Administration filling it.

PRESIDENT BUSH: 583 days

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 307 days and 227 days

When they were appointed, Gregg Rickman, Hannah Rosenthal, and Ira Forman did a tremendous job. Currently there has been no Special Envoy for 482 days. I and colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including you Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, called on the President and Secretary Tillerson to appoint someone as a matter oftop priority. I repeat that call and urge Secretary Pompeo to appoint a Special Envoy now.

Jewish communities here and abroad continue to be targeted for hatred and deadly violence. America has a proud bipartisan history of leading the fight against anti-Semitism, including this House unanimously-- passing H. Res. 354 in 2015, which I authored as a detailed blueprint for actions that are critical to prevent more deadly attacks on Europe's Jewish communities.

We must build and expand on this history. The Special Envoy is critical to focusing and redoubling our leadership and this bill enhances the position. I ask my fellow committee members to support this vital legislation.

I also ask my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 3030, the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2017. This bill will strengthen our efforts to anticipate, prevent, and mitigate genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. My friend Ann Wagner is the sponsor of this legislation and I am proud to cosponsor it.

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct honor and privilege to yield to the gentlewoman from South Dakota (Mrs. Noem), an extremely effective Member of the House of Representatives, the former assistant majority leader of the South Dakota House of Representatives, and a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for her very eloquent statement.

Mr. Speaker, last Friday, the Trump administration announced its intention to re-assert and promulgate portions of President Ronald Reagan's modest but necessary life-affirming title 10 rule; a policy designed to ensure that taxpayers don't fund, facilitate, or promote abortion in America's $286 million per year family plan program.

This new old policy comes at a time when huge majorities of Americans, over 60 percent, according to major polls, strongly oppose the use of taxpayer funds for abortion.

The Trump/Reagan policy, now called the Protect Life Rule, comes at a time when the high utilization of ultrasound imaging of the child in the womb has provided spectacular clarity and empathy, and even love, for the baby.

First baby pictures today, the kind you put on the door of your refrigerator, are of unborn babies. Seeing is believing.

No one can seriously deny anymore that unborn children are alive, dynamic, precious, a miracle, and defenseless.

Title 10 was intended to be about family planning, prevention, not the hideous dismemberment or chemical poisoning or deliberate starvation and forced expulsion of a defenseless unborn baby. There is nothing benign or compassionate about killing a defenseless child.

Mr. Speaker, created by Congress in 1970, title 10 of the Public Health Service Act authorized taxpayer funds to assist ``voluntary family planning projects,'' but made absolutely clear in the status that Federal funds were prohibited from being spent on ``programs where abortion is a method of family planning.''

As title 10 was administered, however, that didn't happen. So to faithfully implement both the spirit and the letter of the law, President Ronald Reagan issued a rule in 1988 that included physical separation of abortion activities from federally funded family planning projects.

In response, the American abortion industry sued to get hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollar subsidies, and they lost. On May 23, 1991, 27 years ago this Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Rust v. Sullivan, affirmed the constitutionality of the Reagan title 10 rule.

Tragically, President Bill Clinton, by executive order, reversed the Reagan policy. He not only authorized abortion clinics and family planning activities under the same roof, co-location, but went further, mandating, made it a condition of receiving title 10 funds, that title 10 recipients refer for abortion, an egregious violation of conscience rights protected under Federal law.

Thus, by requiring abortion referrals, family planning service providers who oppose abortion, were and are today, precluded from all participation in the Federal program.

Today, hundreds of abortion clinics are co-located as title 10 family planning facilities. For example, 266 of Planned Parenthood's abortion clinics are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers in the title 10 program, to the tune of $56- to $60 million each year.

Planned Parenthood is an organization, let's not forget, that is directly responsible for over 7 million deaths of unborn children--a staggering loss of children's lives.

Mr. Speaker, if past is prologue, I fully expect an organized, aggressive, willful distortion of the Protect Life Rule. Nevertheless, in the spirit of honest debate and civil discourse, I urge opponents and the news media to be clear what this rule actually does and what it doesn't do.

According to the White House, the new Protect Life Rule will: one, physically and financially separate family planning clinics from abortions, and will make other important reforms. It will also safeguard the conscience rights of providers by eliminating the egregious illegal mandate that requires all participants in the program to refer pregnant women to abortion.

The Protect Life Rule will not, however, prohibit counseling that may include conversations about abortion. This would be in keeping with guidance issued by George H.W. Bush's administration that affirmed that:

Nothing in these regulations is to prevent a woman from

receiving complete medical information about her condition

from a physician.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, really summed it up when he said: ``For too long, title X has been used to subsidize the abortion industry. We need to draw a bright line between what happens before a pregnancy begins and what happens after a child has been created.''

He goes on to say: ``Abortion always takes the life of a child and often harms the mother, her surviving children, and other family and friends as well.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), my good friend. He serves on the Committee on Ways and Means and is a former member of the Butler City Council.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Kelly so much for his comments and his leadership for many, many years. I deeply appreciate it.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Estes), a good friend and colleague, who is a distinguished member of the Education and the Workforce Committee and also serves on Homeland Security.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for his comments and his leadership, especially on this important issue. I deeply appreciate it.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), a member of the Agriculture Committee, the Small Business Committee, and a force on the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is now an honor and privilege to introduce a former member of the Colorado General Assembly and a member of the House Armed Services and Natural Resources Committees, Doug Lamborn.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. Speaker, Doug LaMalfa is the distinguished gentleman representing California's First District. He serves on the Committees on Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for his eloquence and his principled and very courageous stand.

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we held a hearing on global health supply chain management. By holding yesterday's hearing, this subcommittee is fulfilling its obligation to the American taxpayers to conduct vigorous oversight of our global health programs in order to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used properly and efficiently to deliver aid to rightful beneficiaries. It also, we hope, will help better the lives of those beneficiaries in the developing world who receive life-saving medications thanks to the generosity of the American people.

Specifically, we addressed serious concerns regarding the United States Agency for International Development's contractor selection process and performance by that supply chain management company, Chemonics International, which was awarded the agency's largest ever monetary contract--a contract with a ceiling of $9.5 billion over five years.

Congressional interest in this was triggered by reports last year that Chemonics had failed repeatedly to deliver essential health commodities in a timely manner to African and other countries where they are desperately needed--most critically, anti-retrovirals to treat HIV/AIDS patients. At its lowest point, only seven percent of deliveries were made on time and in full. The purpose of this hearing is to determine where USAID went wrong in the selection and transition process of this contractor and what can be done to prevent such a failure in the future.

In January of 2014, USAID issued a Request for Proposals for a supply chain management contractor that would consolidate procurement and delivery of health commodities to Africa and elsewhere as well as provide health systems strengthening in conjunction with the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Two companies responded to the request, the first being the then existing contractor, Partnership for Supply Chain Management, and the second being Chemonics.

In April 2015, USAID awarded the contract to Chemonics, in large part because Chemonics displayed greater data visibility and IT capability. As might be expected, the incumbent losing bidder filed a complaint against USAID with the U.S. Government Accountability Office and, upon losing that, lodged an appeal with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. In both instances, a deferential standard of review is applied, and thus USAID's decision was upheld.

Following the final decision, the Partnership began the process to transition services to Chemonics. While tensions between the two companies were evident throughout the transition process, performance levels remained steady until after Chemonics fully took over operations. At the end of 2016, under Chemonics' leadership, on time deliveries dropped from 84 percent to 67 percent. They continued to freefall throughout 2016, down to 31 percent and then reaching an all- time-low of 7 percent in the first quarter of 2017. During this time, some countries reported stock-outs of some commodities.

This absolutely unacceptable delivery record resulted in part from poor data quality, weak inventory management and distribution practices and poor planning. Moreover, while hindsight is 20/20, one cannot but question what justified certain of the assumptions USAID made when it selected Chemonics.

For example, USAID had graded Chemonics' data visibility as ``Excellent,'' placing great reliance on Chemonics' promises regarding an IT system. No demonstration of a functioning IT system was ever requested by USAID during the selection process, however, nor any in- person presentation during which the Technical Evaluation Committee could ask questions.

Indeed, no such demonstration could have taken place, as Chemonics had not even completed building the IT system that was specifically required in the request for proposals. The system would not be fully functional until June 2017, nearly a year and half after Chemonics began operations.

While USAID did require a corrective action plan from Chemonics and implemented some corrective measures on the company--including freezing promotions and raises until performance reaches an acceptable level--it is the spur of congressional oversight, including visits to the field, which has forced the issue and brings us to where we are today, demanding answers and seeking solutions.

Our oversight continues to raise questions, and not only with respect to the implementing partner, but also how PEPFAR and USAID are coordinating their activities. We need to know how is it that each year PEPFAR engages partner nations in developing Country Operational Plans designed to meet particular needs in each nation while guaranteeing that annual taxpayer investments are ``maximally focused and traceable for impact,'' yet USAID is still paying for the drug Nevirapine to give to HIV patients in Africa. Nevirapine is an outdated drug with serious side effects that was supposed to have been retired a long time ago.

I expected to hear from our witnesses not only a post-mortem of what went wrong--and by that, not simply a passive voice recitation that ``mistakes were made''--but also concrete solutions for how we can prevent such mistakes in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Christopher D'Urso, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania from Colts Neck, NJ, in my district, who was one of only 32 candidates nationwide selected as a 2018 Rhodes Scholar, for a three-year doctoral program at Oxford University.

Christopher graduated from the University of Pennsylvania this week with a Master's of Public Administration (MPA) and a Certificate in Politics through Penn's Fels Institute of Government--the youngest student to graduate the university with an MPA. He also earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations, and was named Valedictorian of the International Relations Senior Class of 2018, with a 4.0 GPA.

This fall, Christopher will begin pursuing a doctorate in Public Policy at Oxford's renowned Blavatnik School of Government as one of only five full-time students worldwide selected to enroll in this program.

Rhodes Scholarships honor young men and women not only for their achievements, but ``for their character, commitment to others and to the common good, and for their potential for leadership in whatever domains their careers may lead.''

Christopher most certainly meets these high standards, as I have seen first-hand his keen intellect, passion for public service, outstanding leadership qualities and commitment to excellence. From 2013 to 2014, he interned in my district office where he assisted our staff with casework matters by helping provide valuable information from government agencies.

As a high school student, his research on loopholes in U.S. country- of-origin labeling laws that pose risks to consumer safety was so well- conducted that in 2014, he testified before the China Commission alongside officials from the USDA and the FDA in a hearing on concerns over food exports from China. He also produced a report with legislative recommendations on the issue.

I know that consumer safety and public service are important issues for Christopher--while at Penn, he founded Penn CASE, a student--led consumer assistance outreach program for local residents. Christopher also worked for the Monmouth County Department of Consumer Affairs for three years, investigating 70 consumer complaints--many of them related to Hurricane Sandy--and helping return over $114,000 to local citizens.

His senior project, a report on ``Translating Justice: An Evaluation of U.S. Efforts to Support Criminal Procedure Reform in Panama,'' was borne out of his recent trip to Panama as part of his MP A capstone project; he interviewed Panamanian and U.S. officials on the country's criminal justice system and evaluated U.S. programs created to help reform the system. Christopher won Penn's Rose Undergraduate Research Award for his work, and he will share his evaluation and recommendations with the U.S. Department of Justice, the State Department, and the Panamanian Embassy.

As Christopher graduates and prepares to attend Oxford in the fall, I wish him all the best in this exciting new step in his life.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be a co-sponsor of H.R. 5141, the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act, and commend my good friend, Chairwoman emeritus Ros- Lehtinen, for her leadership in introducing H.R. 5141--a critical, important bipartisan measure--along with Congressman Deutch.

This bill responds to a crisis of converging threats that imperil the security of our closest ally, Israel. Iranian forces and their terrorist proxies now surround Israel from nearly every direction. With Iranian support, Hizballah continues to amass a dangerous arsenal of thousands of advanced rockets to the north that are trained on Israel's main population centers.

Hamas, also with Iranian backing, threatens Israel from the south and west with terror tunnels, rocket barrages, and now with a cynical campaign that manipulates civilian protests with the use of so-called human shields to threaten Israel's sovereign border. To the east, in Syria, Iran continues to carry out strategic outposts where it can station advanced weapons systems and fighters to challenge Israeli defenses.

Faced with such a constellation of fanatical enemies, Israel cannot spare a moment's vigilance--and neither can we for the sake of our close friend.

By authorizing enhanced military cooperation between our countries and further enshrining Israel's qualitative military edge, H.R. 5141 guarantees that Israel will also remain far and away our most capable ally. The bill authorizes foreign military financing at an annual level no less than the $3.3 billion agreed to in the bilateral MOU negotiated under the Obama Administration. Crucially, the bill specifies that the assistance should be ``not less than $3.3 billion''--a clear statement that this MOU constitutes a floor rather than a ceiling. This Congress can not accept predetermined limits on its support to such a crucial ally. A floor, yes--a ceiling, no.

The bill's other provisions facilitate the transfer of advanced precision guided missiles for Israel's use and lays the groundwork for bilateral cooperation that will assist Israel in confronting an evolving landscape of threats, including from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), cyber-attacks, and non-state actors. The many facets of cooperation supported by this bill--from international development, to space exploration, to cybersecurity--are not just for Israel's benefit: they directly contribute to our national security.

Mr. Speaker, our hearing today will explore U.S. policy responses to the growing trend of government incursions on the space for non-state actors in Sub-Saharan Africa. As authoritarian regimes and backsliding democracies have entrenched themselves in countries such as Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, governments have increasingly encroached upon the mediating space between individuals and the state, particularly against religious groups and journalists, who often stand as independent institutional checks to authoritarian rule.

Protecting non-governmental sector in Sub-Saharan Africa is critical to preserving civil and political rights within the region. As we learned from the U.S. civil rights movement, groups such as churches and independent journalists are the safekeepers of civil liberties. Through sanctions and public diplomacy tools, the international community can protect the space for these safe-keepers to operate in Sub-Saharan Africa.

For example, the Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the only organization with a nationwide institutional presence and moral authority capable of checking Kabila's growing authoritarian rule. The National Episcopal Conference of the Congo (CENCO, per its French acronym) is the only civil society institution that pressures the Kabila regime to respect human rights and democratic principles. CENCO mediated the Saint Sylvester political agreement in 2016. It also oversees the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace (CEJP) which conducts voter-education and election-observer training programs and is a recipient of USAID funding, and has expressed ``moral support'' for pro-democracy protests.

The Catholic Church's leadership in the Congo does not come without a cost. Priests, nuns and parishioners have been targeted, attacked, and killed in retaliation for its leadership. A few months ago, Father Sebastien Yebo, parish priest of St. Robert in an outer eastern suburb of Kinshasa, was was abducted by Congolese security forces. Interviewed on RFI radio, Father Joseph Bema from St. Kisito's parish said he has rarely slept at home since the brutal suppression of the protest marches organized by the Lay Coordination Committee on Jan. 21.

The closing of space for faith based organizations and other civil society organizations is a worrying trend in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries. Humanitarian aid workers, journalists, priests and political candidates (and their families), have been increasingly targeted and threatened by governments in Sub-Saharan Africa.

If we look north of the DRC, we can see that in South Sudan, a country I visited twice since its independence, we see humanitarian organizations are harassed by government forces. Last year, humanitarian organizations reported over 700 cases of humanitarian access incidents. The environment for humanitarian operations grows increasingly difficult and dangerous as the geographic scope of humanitarian need continues to expand. South Sudan currently have over 1.7 million IDPs.

There is also growing concern throughout the region on the closing of independent and objective media sources. Most recently, Burundi suspended Voice of America and BBC earlier this week for a period of six months, according to the announcement made at a press conference by the Conseil Nationale de la Communication (CNC). The CNC claims that this suspension is in response to ``biased reporting.'' This suspension comes two weeks before a referendum allowing Burundi' s president to serve into the 2030s, in apparent violation of constitutional term limits. VOA's local correspondent told US Embassy Bujumbura that the decision was a complete surprise and we will hear more from VOA's Africa Director as one of our witnesses today.

All of the witnesses today bring us an on-the-ground perspective of the closing space for non-governmental organizations, though they will provide a snapshot of conditions in several countries, their testimony's will provide evidence of the growing regional trend of incursions against civic space. My hope is that this hearing will inform our view of possible U.S. policy responses to better protect fundamental civil and political rights in Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes using sanctions, greater support for faith-based actor via USAID, and support media independence, specifically Voice of America-- Africa (VOA).

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, April 27 I chaired a hearing at the Helsinki Commission inquiring into whether a U.N. Commission founded to fight corruption worked with the Kremlin to destroy a Russian family. The Russian government regularly pursues its vendettas beyond its borders, harassing and even murdering Russian emigres abroad--people who are on the Putin circle's target list for various reasons. The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in England is one of the most recent examples to reach the news.

The family in question is the Bitkovs, and the Kremlin's sadistic pursuit of them is in its way just as shocking as its cruel murder of Litvinenko and the attempted murders of the Skripals. The Bitkovs are still alive today, but they have been hounded for over a decade, to the opposite end of the world, and beyond the limits of human endurance-- merely for resisting Putin favorites who sought to take over their successful paper manufacturing company.

More shocking, the facts of the case strongly indicate--and we will hear testimony on this today--that the United Nation's International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, became deeply involved in the Kremlin's persecution of the Bitkov family. Indeed that CICIG acted as the Kremlin's operational agent in brutalizing and tormenting the Bitkov family.

Congress has a special responsibility in this matter because the United States is one of the largest contributors to CICIG's budget. There has been little congressional oversight of CICIG--it's clearly time for that to change.

In the 1990s Igor and Irina Bitkov built the Northwest Timber Company, acquiring and modernizing old factories to increase paper production. As their company grew, the Bitkovs took loans from several Russian state banks to finance further modernization. Their business prospered--grew to a value of hundreds of millions of dollars--and the family was approached by a powerful bank executive who sought to buy a majority share in the company at a significantly below-market rate. Other officials asked Irina to become politically involved in the President Vladimir Putin's party.

When the Bitkovs refused things got very ugly. Their 16-year-old daughter, Anastasia, was kidnapped for several days, drugged, and repeatedly raped. Her parents ransomed her--paying the money to policemen, who said they were go-betweens to the kidnappers. Then the banks suddenly called in the loans, even though the Bitkovs had excellent credit. The family was threatened with imprisonment and death.

Fearing for their lives, the family fled Russia. They found what they thought was legal refuge in Guatemala with the help of a Guatemalan law firm. They acquired Guatemalan passports, bought a house, learned Spanish, and gave birth to their second child, Vladimir.

But the Kremlin caught up to them and VTB Bank, one of Russia's biggest state-controlled banks, often referred to as ``Putin's Piggy Bank,'' filed a complaint against them in Guatemala, alleging use of false identification documents.

While we don't know exactly what transpired internally to CICIG and the Guatemalan state agencies that work with them, it appears to have been taken up by the Guatemalan state and CICIG. In any case, the Bitkov's suddenly found themselves catapulted into what has become for them a horror without end.

On January 15, 2015, Igor, Irina, Anastasia and Vladimir were awoken by an armed raid on their home--70 or so armed policemen woke them up, took them away, and spent 20 hours tearing apart their home and their office.

It got much worse--the Bitkovs were put into cages for nine days. Their daughter--remember she had been kidnaped and repeatedly raped years earlier--was denied medication, now suffered a nervous breakdown. As the ordeal continued, she would later make multiple suicide attempts. Their infant son was torn away from them, not even permitted to stay with friends, and sent to an orphanage, where he sustained facial injuries, a chipped tooth, conjunctivitis, lost the ability to speak. When family friends recovered him they found that, when given food, little Vladimir immediately began hiding it under his shirt. I will not say more now about the Bitkovs harrowing ordeal--their lawyers will speak to that. Suffice it to say that Igor, Irina, and Anastasia have remained incarcerated since January 2015.

In January of this year, despite an earlier appeals court ruling that the Bitkovs' alleged offense was only administrative in nature and punishable with a fine, Igor was sentenced to 19 years in prison and Irina and Anastasia were sentenced to 14 years each. These sentences were far harsher than those given to Guatemalan officials who perpetrated the sale of passports--they are harsher than sentences given to rapists or murderers.

What was CICIG's role in all of this? What we know for a fact is this: CICIG and a special branch of the attorney general's office worked together on the investigation and arrest of the Bitkovs--CICIG personnel participated in the raid on the Bitkovs home. Then CICIG and VTB Bank initiated and aggressively pursued the legal case against them, consistently arguing at every level of the judicial process against the Bitkovs, including against their appeal to be tried as migrants guilty of an administrative offense rather than a criminal one. CICIG--via its representative Claudia Gonzalez Orellana--defended the role of the VTB Bank in the prosecution of the Bitkovs. Oddly, CICIG never prosecuted the law firm which provided the Bitkovs with the passports that destroyed their lives.

As Bill Browder testified: ``Inexplicably . . . In January 2015, a criminal case against the Bitkovs was opened at the direction of CICIG. Immediately after, 70 armed police officers raided the Bitkov's home, arrested Irina, Igor, and Anastasia and detained them in cages behind the parking garage in the main court building of Guatemala City.''

Mr. Speaker, today we held a hearing on China's digital authoritarianism. China has the world's largest number of internet users as well as the world's most sophisticated and aggressive internet censorship and control regime. The Chinese government, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, views digital controls as necessary for its political stability and control of core digital technologies as necessary for its economic future.

The Chinese government spends $10 billion on maintaining and improving their censorship apparatus. The U.S. government has an annual internet freedom budget of $55 million and Congress still has little idea how this money is spent.

Over the past year or so, Chinese companies were ordered to close websites that hosted discussions on the military, history, and international affairs and crack down on ``illegal'' VPNs (in response, Apple was forced to remove VPNs from the China App store). New regulations were announced restricting anonymity online and the Chinese government rolled out impressive new censorship technologies, censoring photos in one-to-one WeChat discussions and disrupting WhatsApp.

Beijing has also deployed facial and voice recognition, artificial intelligence, and other surveillance technologies throughout the country, but particularly targeting the Uyghur ethnic minority, where between 500,000 to 1 million Uyghurs have been detained arbitrarily.

The Chinese government and Communist Party's attempts to enforce and export a digital authoritarianism poses a direct threat to Chinese rights defenders and ethnic minorities and poses a direct challenge to the interests of the U.S. and the international community.

The U.S. must recognize that we are engaged in a battle of ideas with a revitalized authoritarianism--online, in the marketplace, and elsewhere--and we need up our ``competitive game'' to meet the challenge.

The Administration's National Security Strategy says quite clearly that the Chinese government and Communist Party (along with Russia) seek to ``challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.''

[The Chinese government and Communist Party] is using economic inducements and penalties, influence operations, and implied military threats to persuade other states to heed its political and security agenda. . . China gathers and exploits data on an unrivaled scale and spreads features of its authoritarian system, including corruption and the use of surveillance.''

The Chinese government and Communist Party want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests and to export its economic, political, and censorship models globally.

In response, the U.S. and like-minded allies must stand resolutely for the freedom of religion, fairer and freer trade, labor rights, freedom of navigation, the rule of law and the freedom of expression-- including online.

A coherent and engaged internet freedom strategy must be a critical part of the U.S. diplomatic toolbox. This strategy should have at its core a commitment to protect fundamental freedoms, privacy, and promote the free flow of news and information.

But it is not a matter of just having a strategy; it should be the right one. The Bush and Obama Administrations pursued cyber diplomacy; yet internet freedom has declined

around the world, privacy is increasingly under threat, and the free flow of information has become more endangered.

The right strategy must start with some humility. Cyberspace is a place to spread democratic ideals and a place where criminals, extremists, corporations, traffickers, and governments exploit vulnerabilities with impunity. Online communication can convey are highest ideals and our worst fears. It can shine a light on repression and be the source of hatred, manipulation, fake news, coercion, and conflict. It can bring people together or push us apart.

Despite all this, I agree with the NSS's conclusions which says, ``The Internet is an American invention, and it should reflect our values as it continues to transform the future for all nations and all generations. A strong, defensible cyber infrastructure fosters economic growth, protects our liberties, and advances our national security.''

Central to a revitalized U.S. internet freedom strategy should be a priority to open gaping holes in China's Great Firewall.

Right now, I'm just not confident that this is the policy of the Broadcasting Board of Governors or the State Department right now.

I think there are certain goals we should prioritize in our internet freedom strategy regarding China.

First, China's netizens require easy, reliable and free access to uncensored information through anti-censorship technologies, so that anybody can freely access information regardless of their technical ability. Reliable solutions should work all the time, regardless of intensified crackdowns or major events (Party Congress, June 4th anniversary) taking place in-country.

Second, solutions should also present difficult choices for the Chinese authorities--if the authorities want to disrupt these solutions, then they must disrupt many online services which they would normally be hesitant and unlikely to block.

Third, Access to solutions should also come at no cost for Chinese netizens, the Chinese authorities often block access to payment providers so even if Chinese can afford a circumvention solution, they cannot get past censorship by their payment provider.

Fourth, holistic anti-censorship solutions should be encouraged, including not just technical circumvention but also distribution of those tools (getting around Google Play being blocked, and censorship in the Apple App Store) and well as helping users share anti-censorship tools, as well as content, through messaging apps, social networks and QR codes.

These are just a few starting principles. I am open to a conversation about these goals with experts and allies. But given the stakes and possible outcomes, moving quickly to fund and distribute anti-censorship technologies should be a priority.

The future of our grandchildren--in the U.S. and China alike--may very well depend on open, interoperable communications online, with minimal barriers to the global exchange of information, data, ideas, and services.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4681, the No Assistance for Assad Act, introduced by my good friend Rep. Engel, the Ranking Member of our committee. I commend Rep. Engel and Rep. Kinzinger for advancing this important measure in a bipartisan manner to demonstrate the broad agreement in this House that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has no future as the legitimate leader of the Syrian people.

Mr. Speaker, this bill would effectively block most categories of U.S. assistance to areas of Syria controlled by the Assad regime unless it is delivered through trusted local partners or serves basic humanitarian needs. In creating strict conditions for the provisions of U.S. assistance to regime-controlled areas, this bill ensures that the United States will not help those responsible for destroying Syria to profit from rebuilding it.

Mr. Speaker, the Syrian regime, Russia, and Iran have played both arsonist and firefighter in Syria's devastating civil war--and now they want to play the role of predatory developer, sopping up reconstruction contracts to pad their pockets and further determine Syria's future in line with their narrow political agendas.

Mr. Speaker, Assad long ago surrendered his last shred of legitimacy as president of Syria. His regime's horrific chemical attack this month in Douma placed this fact once again in high relief. The Trump Administration was right to respond decisively to this barbaric attack with targeted strikes to punish and deter such atrocities perpetrated with chemical weapons.

Mr. Speaker, I have long advocated concrete steps that would ensure the Assad regime, jihadi groups, and others responsible for mass atrocities in Syria face justice for their crimes. This bill rightly insists on the removal of war criminals from the Syrian government as one condition among many for releasing U.S. aid to the regime.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this timely and important measure.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we marked up H.R. 5129, the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act of 2018. I'd like to thank Chairman Royce, for his leadership on global food security, including in particular for his original cosponsorship of this reauthorization as well as the original Global Food Security Act, and his agreeing to move this bill to markup so rapidly.

The original Global Food Security Act promoted food security, resilience and nutrition in developing countries in keeping with U.S. national security interests. Through agriculture-led economic development, GFSA has strengthened partner countries' capacity and lessened their dependence on emergency food assistance. It has also improved efficiency among federal departments and agencies and leveraged the participation of other non-U.S. governmental partners.

I should be restated that GFSA's legacy as a bipartisan success story--legislation which solidified in law a policy that had its roots in the Bush Administration, was amplified by President Obama and is now being implemented by President Trump.

Now is the time to reauthorize this landmark legislation. H.R. 5129 builds upon the Global Food Security Act of 2016, which formally codified the Feed the Future Initiative and was signed into law with overwhelming bipartisan support in July 2016, by reauthorizing the program for two years--per the Amendment you have before you--through 2020.

Crucially, this reauthorization bill emphasizes the importance of deworming initiatives. Among the neglected tropical diseases, intestinal worms account for nearly eighty percent of NTD prevalence, affecting close to one billion people the world over. These worms undercut our nutrition interventions, and can lead to death by malnutrition or lifelong stunting. We need to combine our nutrition interventions not only with a coordinated deworming campaign, but also with Water Sanitation Health interventions that change people's behavior. WaSH training helps ensure people limit exposure to worms, such as by washing and peeling vegetables or something as simple as giving children shoes to wear so if they trod on worm-infected soil they don't get sick again. We are trying to feed the future, not feed the worms.

We will also rectify an oversight by including the Inter-American Foundation in the interagency initiative on Food Security. IAF does development right, in particular working with small holder farmers while keeping bureaucratic overhead low.

That we are here reauthorizing the Global Food Security Act is a testament to the dedication of numerous committed groups outside Congress that have made food security and nutrition their priority, from advocates to implementers--especially and including faith-based organizations who perhaps work the closest to the small-holder farmers and women who benefit in particular from our food security efforts. I thank them for their support and look forward to working with them more in this process.

I'd also like to compliment our federal agencies tasked with implementing the GFSA--in particular USAID under the leadership of Beth Dunford. The professionalism and dedication of Beth and many others is critical to the overall success of the program.

Finally, I would like to thank Rep. Betty McCollum for again being the lead cosponsor on this critical, bipartisan legislation, as well as to thank original cosponsor Ranking Member Engel and the Ranking member of our subcommittee, Karen Bass and others.