Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet on Monday next, when it shall convene at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 888 reaffirming the State of Israel's right to exist.

I thank my good friend from New York, Mike Lawler, for introducing this timely, extremely important, and ever-necessary resolution.

Mr. Speaker, Israel is the only state in the world whose fundamental right to exist is openly denied by other states. Some of them, including Iran, even call for Israel's complete destruction and support transnational terrorist organizations to work toward its demise.

It is also the only state in the world whose fundamental right to exist is constantly undermined and challenged by intergovernmental organizations, such as and most shamefully of all, the United Nations.

The anti-Semitism motivating those who deny Israel's right to exist is apparent, but it is important to connect, as this resolution does, the denial of Israel's right to exist, to anti-Semitism, and to connect them both as enabling causes to the monstrous crimes Hamas has unleashed on Israel.

Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, anti-Semitic bigotry is at the root of the U.N.'s hostility toward Israel, which is ugly, evil, and manifests itself at almost every U.N. entity.

On November 8, I chaired a hearing of my subcommittee, and we called it United Nations' Bigotry Towards Israel.

We heard expert testimony from Hillel Neuer, the executive director of U.N. Watch; and Jonathan Schanzer, the senior vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Hillel Neuer testified: ``Teachers and schools at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which runs education and social services for Palestinians, regularly call to murder Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis, and incite anti-Semitism.''

He further said: ``In 2022 alone, UNRWA received $344 million in U.S. funding. Yet, a March 2023 report by U.N. Watch and Impact-SE identified 133 UNRWA educators and staff who were found to promote hate and violence on social media, and an additional 82 teachers and other staff affiliated with 30 UNRWA schools who were involved in drafting and distributing hateful content to their students.''

That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Jonathan Schanzer testified that: ``The U.N. doesn't recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. Nor does it recognize Hezbollah either. That means U.N. resources can be and regularly are provided to members of those terrorist groups.''

Mr. Speaker, according to the great human rights defender, Nathan Sharansky's famous 3-D test for anti-Semitism, which he articulated at a hearing that I chaired way back in 2004, criticism of Israel is nothing less than anti-Semitic when it passes over into the demonization of Jews and Israel, delegitimizes the Jewish state, or applies double standards; that is, one standard for Israel, and another for every other country on Earth.

That is what many U.N. entities and agencies do every single day.

Yesterday, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the JTA, reported on the latest example of the double standard and said: ``Nearly 50 days after Hamas' attack on Israel left 1,200 dead, and after weeks of criticism over its silence about allegations of sexual violence during the attack, the women's rights group, U.N. Women, issued a statement condemning the terror group on Friday.

Then it deleted the post.''

Here is what it said originally:

`` `We condemn the brutal attack by Hamas on October 7 and continue to call for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,' read the initial statement posted on U.N. Women's Instagram page.

It was soon replaced with a statement that dropped the condemnation of Hamas and only called for the release of hostages.''

Mr. Speaker, there are so many examples.

In 2022, the U.N. General Assembly targeted Israel in a total of 15 harshly critical resolutions, compared to 13 country-specific resolutions for the entire world: China, North Korea, Iran; 13 for all of them combined, 15 for Israel.

In large measure, it is because of the U.N., which unquestionably is the world's foremost legitimizer of anti-Semitism, that it remains necessary, 75 years after the founding of the great State of Israel, to reaffirm its right to exist.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and colleague from New York, and my friend from Florida, for authoring this important resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding and for her leadership on protecting Israel and providing them the means to protect themselves.

Mr. Speaker, our great friend and ally, Israel, with assistance from the U.S., continues to respond to the cowardly Hamas invasion that includes psychotic terrorists butchering innocent civilians, rape, hostage-taking, the beheading of babies, and the daily indiscriminate missile attacks that are reminiscent of Nazi buzz bombs and V-2 rockets.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he would never allow a second Holocaust, nor should we. Anti-Semitism, as we all know, is at the root of Hamas violence against Israel.

Mr. Speaker, I ask Members to read the charter that was put out by Hamas in 1988. They call for killing Jews--slaughtering Jews. I ask every Member to read it. They demand the destruction of Israel--that there be no Israel--that they eviscerate it from planet Earth.

This important bill provides $14.3 billion to provide military assistance to Israel, including $4 billion to replenish Iron Dome and David's Sling, $3.5 billion for foreign military financing, $1.2 billion for the continuing development of the Iron Beam system, and so much more.

Mr. Speaker, like the Nazis before them, Hamas and its chief terrorism sponsor, Iran, are committing genocide against the Jews.

Can you believe that Iran is now chairing the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva as of today? That is absurd.

The United States--and all people committed to human rights and the rule of law--must stand with Israel. That means our moral support and our prayers. That means ensuring that critical intelligence be shared, and every weapon system critical in destroying Hamas, including Iron Dome, is conveyed to Israel in quantities commensurate to the challenge and without delay.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important bill, and I call on my friends on the other side of the aisle to support it.

Mr. Speaker, each October we recognize National Spina Bifida Month and pay tribute to the nearly 166,000 Americans living with Spina Bifida--the most common permanently disabling birth defect compatible with life--and to draw attention to the critical challenges we must address to ensure each and every American can achieve their full potential and attain the quality of life they deserve.

The federal government has an obligation to advance research into devastating diseases and disabilities to help find cures and therapies and to identify preventative strategies. Equally important is federal support for programs and initiatives that help patients and their families as they struggle to live with these conditions, such as Spina Bifida.

Literally translated as ``split spine,'' Spina Bifida is a condition that occurs when a baby's neural tube fails to develop or close properly. Typically occurring within the first 28 days of pregnancy while the neural tube is forming, Spina Bifida often develops before a woman even knows she is pregnant.

Sponsored by the Spina Bifida Association (SBA), National Spina Bifida Awareness Month is a time to highlight the needs of the community and recognize the importance of the work done year-round to advance research, programs, and policies aimed at meeting those needs.

As co-chair of the Congressional Spina Bifida Caucus, I've had the honor to work alongside SBA to advance Spina Bifida awareness, research, and public health efforts in Congress. Founded in 1973, SBA is the Nation's only organization solely dedicated to advocating for and assisting those living with and affected by this debilitating birth defect.

Through its nearly 60 chapters in more than 125 communities, the SBA brings expectant parents together with those who have a child with Spina Bifida. This interaction helps to answer questions and concerns, but most importantly it lends much needed support, solidarity, inspiration, and hope.

Mr. Speaker, Spina Bifida is a birth defect that can happen to anyone. Every day, an average of eight babies are affected by Spina Bifida and approximately 3,000 pregnancies are affected by this birth defect each year.

We do not know the exact cause of this condition, but research has found that if a woman takes 400 mcg of folic acid every day before she becomes pregnant, she reduces her risk of having a baby with Spina Bifida or another neural tube defect by as much as 70 percent.

No two cases of Spina Bifida are ever the same and so this birth defect is commonly referred to as the ``snowflake condition.'' Children born with Spina Bifida typically undergo dozens of surgeries before they reach the age of 18. And during their lifetime, someone with Spina Bifida will face at least $1 million in medical expenses, including multiple surgeries, and most can expect to spend much of their lives in a wheelchair or walking with braces.

Despite these challenges--and thanks to advances in research and medicine, along with policies supportive of children with disabilities--nearly two-thirds of Americans currently living with Spina Bifida have made it to adulthood. And while these strides are certainly worth celebrating, people with Spina Bifida--particularly adults--continue to face a crisis of care that could be largely prevented with the right resources and policies.

For instance, while we have a coordinated system of care designed to treat children with Spina Bifida in the U.S., there is no equivalent for adults. The result is that adults face a ``care cliff'' and enter a very fractured medical system where they are unable to find physicians willing or even knowledgeable enough to provide treatment, as Spina Bifida is still largely taught in medical schools as a pediatric condition and education has failed to keep pace with the rapid rise in the adult Spina Bifida population.

Thousands of adults are left with few options other than to seek care in the emergency room or continue to see their pediatric care team until insurance will no longer cover their care because of their age. And to make matters worse, many of these adults rely on Medicaid as their insurance provider, so even if they have the means to travel to an adult specialist, if they are located in another state--as is often the case--their coverage is denied. Across the country, there are more than 100 pediatric clinics devoted to caring for children with Spina Bifida. There are only 20 whose focus is on adults.

At the federal level, we can and should make dramatic improvements in the ability of adults with Spina Bifida to access quality care by increasing the funding of the CDC's National Spina Bifida Program--the only federal program tasked with improving the care and outcomes for people living with Spina Bifida.

In 2008, the Federal Spina Bifida Program created a National Spina Bifida Patient Registry to collect the scientific data needed to evaluate existing medical services for Spina Bifida patients, and to provide clinicians, researchers, patients, and families, a window into what care models are effective and what treatments are not making a measurable difference.

Building on this in 2014, the Spina Bifida Program funded the development of a Spina Bifida Collaborative Care Network to identify and to disseminate best practices for the care of people with Spina Bifida at all ages.

However, with only $7.5 million in annual funding--and this amount has been stagnant--there are only 11,000 patients in the national registry, limiting the ability of medical professionals to glean knowledge that would advance research in areas critical to improving quality of life. Even modest increases to this funding would make an enormous difference.

Additionally, we should urge NIH to work collaboratively across their many divisions to better understand Spina Bifida. As Spina Bifida can affect every organ and every system in the human body, a collaborative effort undertaken by NIH could result in research that would lead to better care for both this generation and future generations of Spina Bifida patients. Moreover, the new designation of those with disabilities as a health disparity creates a new opportunity to harness federal resources for the Spina Bifida community by ensuring their representation in NIH research and thereby recognizing those with this complex condition in a new and critical light.

We are so fortunate today that our country is benefiting from the talent and contributions of the first generation of adults living with Spina Bifida. Today, I honor and celebrate all of them, along with their care partners, and also remember those we have lost to this condition. And I urge my colleagues to not only increase funding for the National Spina Bifida Program, but to work together so that these Americans receive the care and treatment all of us want for our families and loved ones.

Mr. Speaker, with added federal support, more people living with Spina Bifida could receive assistance they need along their life's journey. I invite my colleagues to join me in this mission and join me in the Spina Bifida Caucus to broaden our efforts and advance the goal of a better future for people living with Spina Bifida.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman and the ranking member for this extraordinarily important resolution.

Mr. Speaker, our great friend and ally Israel, with significant assistance from the United States, continues to respond to the cowardly Hamas invasion that includes Hamas' psychotic terrorist butchering of innocent civilians, rape, hostage-taking, the beheading of babies, and daily indiscriminate missile attacks that are reminiscent of Nazi buzz bombs and V-2 rockets.

Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu has said in the past that he would never allow a second Holocaust, nor should we.

Anti-Semitism is at the root of Hamas' violence against Israel and every Jewish man, woman, and child. Israel's right to defend itself from this brutal invasion is absolute.

Hamas' 1988 charter explicitly demands the absolute destruction of the State of Israel and proclaims: ``Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it. . . . ''

Article 7 of the Hamas charter demands the slaughter of all Jews and says:

The Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks

and trees will cry out, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come

and kill him.

Article 13 explicitly rejects initiatives for peace and reconciliation and states, ``Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.''

In its 2017 charter, Hamas reiterated its goal of wiping Israel off the face of the Earth and said: ``There is no alternative to a fully sovereign Palestinian State on the entire national Palestinian soil, with Jerusalem as its capital.''

Like the Nazis before them, Hamas and its chief terrorism sponsor, Iran, are committing genocide against the Jews.

The United States--and all people committed to human rights and the rule of law--must stand with Israel. That means our support and prayers and the weapons systems to defeat Hamas.

Mr. Chair, I thank my good friend for yielding.

Mr. Chair, the State-Foreign Operations bill under consideration today continues and strengthens the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR, for another year, fiscal year 2024, ensuring that critically needed medicines, including antiretrovirals, or ARVs, and other lifesaving interventions are available to those who need them in Africa and elsewhere.

Mr. Chair, I especially thank Chairman Mario Diaz-Balart and the Committee on Appropriations for insisting that the noble purpose of PEPFAR is not compromised or undercut by integrating and merging other agendas, including and especially the promotion of abortion by massively funding pro-abortion foreign nongovernmental organizations and instructing them to repeal pro-life laws.

To that end, the new State Department bill reinstates the protecting life and global health assistance policy, also known as the Mexico City policy.

Sadly, upon assuming office, President Biden repealed Ronald Reagan's old Mexico City policy, which ensured that PEPFAR's over $6 billion a year in taxpayer grant money wasn't subsidizing foreign NGOs that perform or promote abortion. Biden's PEPFAR Core Program--and this needs to be underscored because some people say they are not doing it-- says they promote protecting sexual reproductive health and rights, including the ongoing rescission of the Mexico City policy.

The executive director of UNAIDS, a prime PEPFAR partner composed of WHO, UNFPA, and other U.N. agencies, welcomed Biden's repeal of the pro-life policy, saying that it showed his commitment to abortion rights.

Mr. Chair, a June 6th letter signed by 131 African lawmakers and religious leaders, including the speaker of the Parliament of Ghana, implored Congress not to--I say again, not to--exploit PEPFAR to promote abortion, stating: ``We want to express our concerns and suspicions that this funding is supporting . . . abortion,'' which ``violates our core beliefs concerning life, family, and religion.''

Most of the African countries are solidly pro-life, and they are under siege by the NGOs that we are supporting. The Mexico City policy helps to ensure that that doesn't happen.

They went on to say: ``We ask that PEPFAR remain true to its original mission and respect our norms, traditions, and values. We ask that those partner organizations with whom the U.S. Government partners to implement PEPFAR programs . . . are cognizant and respectful of our beliefs and not cross over into promoting divisive ideas and practices that are not consistent with those of Africa.''

Last year, showing no doubt of the pro-abortion goals of this administration, they announced a sweeping new radical policy known as Reimagining PEPFAR's Strategic Decision. They said that it integrates sexual reproductive health and rights. Of course, that means abortion with HIV/AIDS work.

Mr. Chair, in a recent op-ed, former Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote: ``It is incredibly disappointing, but not surprising, that the Biden administration has hijacked one of President George W. Bush's greatest accomplishments, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, to promote apportion on demand in the developing world.''

He continued: ``President Biden's insincere and demonstrably false claim that PEPFAR isn't pushing abortion on demand in Africa and elsewhere collapses under any serious scrutiny of its partners.''

They say they are not doing it. They are empowering the NGOs to do it. Just like in this Chamber, the House and Senate, and all over this country, we know it is the NGOs, Planned Parenthood and others, that tee up and promote very aggressively for abortion right up until the moment of birth.

Mr. Chair, I strongly supported PEPFAR when it was created in 2003, and I was the sponsor of the reauthorization of PEPFAR in 2018. Regrettably, it has been reimagined, hijacked by the Biden administration to empower pro-abortion international NGOs, deviating from its life-affirming work.

It is time we got back to the original noble idea, for which there is a strong bipartisan, bicameral consensus. That noble goal is to prevent this devastating disease, robustly treat and assist those who have been affected, and ultimately end HIV/AIDS around the world, not supporting abortion, the killing of unborn children by dismemberment, chemical poisoning.

Do you know what the abortion pill does? It starves the baby to death. That is its operation. They are trying to disseminate that all over Africa.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I associate myself with the remarks of my distinguished chairman.

I have been on the Helsinki Commission, serving on it since 1982. It is a remarkable Commission. We get political prisoners out of prison. We did it during Soviet times. I worked with Steny Hoyer, when he was chair and I was ranking and also when I was chair and he was ranking member.

It is truly a bipartisan Commission that promotes democracy, human rights, and as my good friend mentioned a moment ago, we also combat horrible things like human trafficking. I am the special rep for human trafficking, and we are making a difference, so please vote ``no'' on this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to instruct.

Let's be absolutely clear. Current Federal DOD law already permits taxpayer funding of abortion in cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother, but the Biden DOD travel policy forces taxpayers to pay the transportation costs for military members and dependents to travel to procure an abortion for any reason whatsoever right up until the moment of birth.

Some States, like my State of New Jersey--and there are many others like it, like New York and California--have enacted extremist laws that legally sanction the killing of a baby for any reason whatsoever right up until the moment of birth. The Biden policy has no limits on gestational age, so it facilitates aborting babies through all 9 months.

There is nothing humane, Mr. Speaker, or benign about abortion. Abortion is not healthcare unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanquished.

Dr. Ronny Jackson's House-passed amendment to the NDAA overturns the DOD abortion travel policy.

Regrettably, the pro-abortion culture is truly a culture of denial. It continues to deny, devalue, and disrespect unborn children, both boys and girls.

We must recognize the breathtaking miracle of the newly created life of an unborn child and that women deserve better than abortion. We need to care for both. We need to love them both.

I do believe, Mr. Speaker, that future generations will someday look back on us and wonder how and why a society that bragged about its commitment to human rights could have legally sanctioned and aggressively promoted child beheadings, because they do behead the child during the process of a dismemberment abortion, as well as other dismemberment.

Abortion pills. How do they work? They literally starve the child to death. That is how they work. I work on global hunger and food insecurity issues in my district and throughout the country and world all the time. How does the abortion pill work? It starves the baby to death.

Please, Mr. Speaker, I call on my colleagues to not force taxpayers to facilitate abortion on demand.

Mr. Chair, I thank my good friend and colleague for writing such an important bill, and I thank Chairman Graves and Mr. Larsen for the great cooperation between both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Chair, my amendment, cosponsored by Jeff Van Drew and Dr. Andy Harris, requires the President or his designee to certify that offshore wind turbine projects in the North Atlantic and Mid-Atlantic Planning Areas will not ``weaken, degrade, interfere with, or nullify the capability of radar relied upon by the FAA or the Armed Forces.''

It would also require the DOT IG to conduct a comprehensive review of the sufficiency of the process used to approve offshore wind projects in areas critical to air travel and national security.

Many of us, Mr. Chair, are deeply concerned over the safety, efficacy, and likely deleterious environmental impact of embedding some 3,400 ocean wind turbines, each the size of the Chrysler Building in New York City, off our coast.

We have serious, well-founded concerns that offshore wind turbines will interfere with radar capabilities and, as a direct consequence, create a dangerous and potentially catastrophic impact on both military and commercial aviation activities, as well as helicopters used by the Coast Guard to save lives.

Offshore wind development will affect some of the busiest airspace in the country, including the areas surrounding New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, which contain major international airports, dozens of smaller airports, and several military and Coast Guard aviation facilities.

Mr. Chair, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's radar interference analysis from August of 2020 stated: ``The research team found that the proposed and hypothetical wind farms are within the line of sight of 36 radar systems, indicating that they will generate interference to these radars under normal atmospheric conditions'' and ``future offshore wind energy installations off the Atlantic Coast may impact land-based radar systems.''

Additionally, in 2017, the interagency Ground-Based Coastal Air Surveillance Wind Turbine-Radar Interference Vulnerability Study found that: ``Offshore wind turbines may pose unique impacts to coastal radar systems given the differences in propagation of radar signals over the ocean versus land, as well as the larger size of offshore wind turbines compared to land-based wind turbines.''

This particular analysis, I would point out, relied on the Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island whose turbines are 589 feet tall. The turbines slated for installation off the New Jersey and New York coast are significantly higher, approximately 1,000 feet. They are huge, and they will affect radar.

The DOD has expressed serious concerns over offshore wind development off the Virginia coast. How does that apply to us and to commercial aviation, which is, again, the gist of this amendment?

I have personally, Mr. Chair, read several of the major impact studies for these projects, and they confidently, almost arrogantly, suggest and assert that problems that might arise can be ``mitigated.''

Really? Then support my amendment and ensure that that's the case and that we do our due diligence.

A 2022 comprehensive study by the National Academy of Sciences found that: ``Wind turbine generator mitigation techniques have not been''--I emphasize ``have not been''--``substantially investigated, implemented, matured, or deployed.''

Additionally, the NAS found that wind turbine generator returns obfuscate even marine vessel radar. That is not the subject here, but it is radar. Therefore, it leads to false images when vessels are traversing our oceans.

Mr. Chair, allies, including Taiwan, Japan, Finland, and Sweden, have halted certain offshore wind turbine projects due to objections from their armed services. An article last year in the Taiwan News said: ``The military has confirmed wind turbines could interfere with the surface-to-air missile systems deployed in the northwestern coast of Taiwan. The low-frequency noise generated by the turbines is likely to affect the reflected radio waves that phased array radars need to detect signals of missiles or aircraft.''

That is very serious. This wall will make us blind potentially. It will inhibit our ability to see what is going on. Again, there is so much commercial aircraft, and they need to have unfettered ability to traverse the skies.

Finally, no matter where any of my colleagues stand on offshore wind, a certification by the President or his designee--and the due diligence that that will require--that offshore wind turbines do not weaken, degrade, interfere with, or nullify the capability of radar relied on by the FAA is both prudent and it is absolutely necessary.

Mr. Chair, I thank the distinguished chairman for including this in his en bloc amendment.

Mr. Speaker, this week in my district in New Jersey, veterans, leaders and local officials will be dedicating the Women's Wing at the Gordon H. Mansfield Veterans Community in Tinton Falls--and will be appropriately naming it in honor of my good friend and extraordinary public servant, Monmouth County Commissioner Lillian G. Burry.

For more than a decade, Commissioner Burry has been the quarterback in the push to meet the compelling housing and service needs of homeless veterans in our community.

When Lillian and I first heard of and met with John Downing of Soldier On more than ten years ago, we decided that's what we need in Monmouth County.

We quickly discovered that Soldier On created world-class housing opportunities coupled with vital services for homeless veterans, and the impact has been enormous and life changing.

In July 2012, we secured a million-dollar grant to Soldier On to provide housing assistance and stability to our veterans so that they could remain in their homes even when times are difficult.

Although there were many setbacks along the way--including an inability to secure space at Fort Monmouth--Lillian never quit and helped lead the way through some of the toughest road blocks. Ultimately, Lillian's dream of creating a homeless veterans housing initiative in Monmouth County became a reality in 2021 with the grand opening of the Gordon H. Mansfield Veterans Village.

Set on a six-acre village-like setting, this amazing community offers a wide-range of supportive services, general wellness, health and social opportunities in addition to permanent housing for those who have courageously stepped up to serve our great nation and have put their lives on the line to defend our fundamental freedoms.

This state-of-the-art complex for homeless veterans that provides 70 fully furnished one-bedroom apartments--including its special wing reserved for women--would not have been possible without Lillian's tenacity and skill in making it happen.

As a devoted military wife to U.S. Coast Guard Captain Don Burry for over 65 years, Lillian has long known firsthand the tremendous sacrifices made by our nation's service members and their loved ones.

Residents across Monmouth County have benefitted from Lillian's courage, tenacity, can-do spirit, wit and determination. Along with helping our veterans, Lillian has expanded services through her work for open lands, libraries, infrastructure improvements, the arts and much, much more. A former Matawan councilwoman, mayor of Colts Neck and the first female Director of the County Board of Chosen Freeholders, Lillian has greatly enhanced our quality of life in Monmouth County.

Thanks to Lillian's unwavering commitment to our veterans and her enduring perseverance, for the first time in years--even decades--many veterans finally have a place to live and hope and thrive in Monmouth County.

Mr. Speaker, with the recent largest-ever homicide spike in the history of our Nation, our first responders and law enforcement officers are facing unprecedented threats on the job at severe staff shortages as they are simultaneously met with radical calls by some to ``abolish the police.''

These men and women of extraordinary courage who take the risks, sweat the details, and face danger each and every day in order to ensure public safety not only deserve our gratitude and respect but also robust support from Congress to assist them in keeping our communities safe.

The brave officers we remember this Police Week--and always--remind us of the increasingly dangerous job our men and women in blue so courageously perform--some paying the ultimate sacrifice in defense of their community.

In the Fourth Congressional District of New Jersey, we specifically remember Officer Joseph William Goertz, of the Lakewood Township Police Department, Officer Joseph Charles Capriotti, of the Middletown Police Department, and Officer Matthew Scott Horton, of the Ocean County Sheriffs Office.

Mr. Speaker, those who commit violent acts against police and others, as well as those who destroy property and steal, should be prosecuted to the greatest extent of the law. As a lawmaker, I've written many laws to combat crime and assist victims and strongly opposed recent legislation in Congress to eviscerate ``qualified immunity'' for law enforcement. Qualified immunity--a judicially created legal doctrine-- shields government officials, including law enforcement, from personal liability lawsuits so long as their actions do not violate ``clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.''

According to the Congressional Research Service, ``The Supreme Court has observed that qualified immunity balances two important interests-- the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.''

As recently as last Congress, Democrats introduced a bill that would end qualified immunity and states in pertinent part that ``It shall not be a defense or immunity in any action brought under this section against a local law enforcement officer. . .'' even if ``. . .the defendant was acting in good faith, or that the defendant believed, reasonably or otherwise, that his or her conduct was lawful at the time when the conduct was committed. . .''

If this section became law, it would likely result in a flood of legal actions--an engraved invitation to sue law enforcement officers.

Moreover, it will deter police from using force where the use of force is necessary to save life or protect property--diminishing the ability of police to provide public safety in dangerous situations. As an elected official, words are inadequate to convey the gratitude and respect that I and the vast majority in the community have for you and your families.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 90, calling for the immediate release of U.S. Citizen Mark Swidan, whose wrongful and arbitrary detention by the Chinese Communist authorities, without ever having had a chance at a fair trial, is unconscionable.

Just two weeks ago, the PRC Jiangmen Intermediate Court denied Mr. Swidan's appeal. He remains on death row, with a two-year suspended death sentence.

Moreover, I and my colleagues are very concerned at the condition in which Mr. Swidan is being held. He is being denied needed medical care and is cut off from receiving mail from loved ones in a timely manner.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has expressed ``grave concern'' over the severity of Mr. Swidan's sentence, and has catalogued the step-by-step denial of justice that has accompanied Mr. Swidan's arbitrary detention: ``it is evident that Mr. Swidan has been unable to defend himself properly, as he has been subjected to a detention of extraordinary length, to ill-treatment and to coercion with the purpose of extracting a confession and as he has received ineffective legal assistance.''

The Working Group has therefore called for the only just resolution of this case: ``release Mr. Swidan immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations.''

We also must redouble our efforts to release of US citizens Kai Li and David Lin, who are wrongful detainees, as well as Chinese nationals who are imprisoned because of their connection to the United States, such as Ekpar Asat, who was jailed because he participated in the State Department's International Visitor's Leadership Program, and Gulshan Abbas, who was interned because of her sister Rushan's intrepid reporting at Radio Free Asia, and her testimony before Congress and elsewhere.

At the end of the day these individuals are hostages held by a hostile regime. Their freedom must be prioritized and raised in all our State Department's interactions with PRC officials.

Please join me in supporting this resolution, and in calling for Mark Swidan's immediate release.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Chair, like canaries in coal mines, the recent spate of tragic whale and dolphin deaths and a well-founded suspicion that geophysical surveys, including the use of sonar may be a contributing cause, has brought new light and increased scrutiny to the fast-tracking of approximately 3,400 offshore wind turbines covering 2.4 million acres by 2030, more after that by 2040--all embedded into the ocean floor by massive pile drivers--in the North Atlantic Planning Area that includes New Jersey's coast.

The offshore wind industrialization approval process has left unaddressed and unanswered numerous serious questions concerning the potentially harmful environmental impact on whales, marine life, and the ecosystems that currently allow all sea creatures great and small to thrive.

Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, pointed out in testimony at a field hearing chaired by my good friend and colleague, Jeff Van Drew, that the National Marine Fisheries Service has said, ``Offshore wind is a new use of our marine waters, requiring substantial scientific and regulatory review.''

So she asks: So, where is the substantial review?

My amendment, Mr. Chair, requires the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, to investigate the sufficiency of the environmental review process for offshore wind projects of the Marine Fisheries Service, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and any other relevant Federal agency.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1154) to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs, and for other purposes.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, every year under General Secretary Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party, between 60,000 to 100,000 young victims, average age 28, are murdered in cold blood to steal their organs.

These crimes against humanity are unimaginably cruel. Ethnic groups targeted for this mass harvesting include Uyghurs who suffer from Xi Jinping's ongoing genocide and the Falun Gong, whose peaceful meditation and exercise practices and exceptional good health make their organs highly desirable.

The Chinese Communist Party has declared them to be an evil cult fit for butchering.

Mr. Speaker, in May of last year, I chaired an absolutely chilling congressional hearing at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission titled ``Forced Organ Harvesting in China: Examining the Evidence.''

The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice--and this is the man who prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a tribunal that I worked very hard on and was very supportive of, as were other Members of this body-- conducted the world's first independent legal analysis of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China.

Sir Geoffrey Nice testified at my hearing and said, ``Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale,'' and he said that ``. . . Falun Gong practitioners have been one--and probably the main--source of organ supply.''

He said the Falun Gong and the Uyghurs in the PRC each qualify as a ``group'' for purposes of the crime of genocide.

Ethan Gutmann, Senior Research Fellow in China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, testified that the Kilgour-Matas-Gutmann report of 2016 estimated China's total transplant volume--this is forced transplantations--at 60,000 to 100,000 annually.

Mr. Gutmann also pointed out ``. . . at any given time since 2017, there are approximately a million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Hui in the camps.'' These are the concentration camps, of course, made up mostly of Muslims.

He said his estimate is that 25,000 to 50,000 camp detainees are being harvested every year. Again, he says 28-year-olds from the Xinjiang camps can be harvested for two or three organs each, translating into a maximum of about 150,000 organs.

Another expert witness who testified at our hearing, Matthew Robertson of the Australian National University, coauthored with Dr. Jacob Lavee an examination of Chinese medical journal articles and found that ``71 papers gave explicit descriptions of surgeons appearing to violate the dead donor rule while procuring hearts from prisoners. In plain language, the papers appear to show that the donors, who were prisoners, were alive at the time of surgery and were killed by transplant surgeons in the process of heart extraction.''

Their work, published last April in a top peer-reviewed U.S. medical journal,

``The American Journal of Transplantation'' provided additional evidence of the People's Republic of China's egregious practices and violation of international standards. These are, again, crimes against humanity.

Robert Destro, the former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor testified that, ``The size and scope of the organ harvesting and organ trafficking market are staggering.''

Mr. Speaker, we also know through open-source Chinese language media that elderly, high-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials have received replacement organs from the very people they despise, like the Falun Gong, like the Uyghurs. There is one particular hospital, Army Hospital 301 in Beijing, that excels at this.

While this still shocks me, and I know it shocks my colleagues, I cannot say it surprises me.

Almost 25 years ago, I chaired a hearing. Doug Anderson, who is sitting right here, was a part of that hearing as the top staff on the committee. I chaired a human rights hearing with a Chinese security officer who testified that he and other security agents were executing patients with the doctors right there with ambulances ready to harvest their organs after the bullets were fired.

Indeed, at last year's hearing, we produced a doctor who testified that he had performed one such surgery on a victim--he was forced to, he claimed--a botched execution who as he began cutting discovered that the victim was in a state of shock--he wasn't dead yet--a live vivisection on a living human being. He has nightmares to this day.

To combat these heinous and inhumane practices, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, a bipartisan piece of legislation, amends the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to require reports on forced organ harvesting and trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs in foreign countries, including and especially in China; and the imposition of serious sanctions on any person the President determines funds, sponsors or otherwise facilitates forced organ harvesting or trafficking for purposes of the removal of organs.

What does that mean? It means civil penalties up to $250,000 and criminal penalties including a fine of up to $1 million and imprisonment for not more than 20 years or both. So we are serious about sanctioning this egregious practice.

Sanctions also include blocking and prohibiting all transactions in property and interests in property and making such persons inadmissible to the United States and ineligible to receive a visa.

State-sponsored forced organ harvesting is big business for Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party and shows absolutely no signs of abating, which is why we and the rest of the world need to step up, particularly the democracies of this world.

We must act, and we must act decisively.

I thank Chairman McCaul for his cosponsorship and his tremendous leadership on this bill, as well as Ranking Member Meeks for his strong support. I also thank our Democratic cosponsor, Bill Keating, as well as Kathy Manning, for their strong support and cosponsorship of this legislation. I extend a very special thanks to Mary Vigil; Janice Kaguyutan, who is sitting over here on my right on the Democrat side; Piero Tozzi, who is the staff director for the China Commission of which I am the chairman; and Doug Anderson, who has done a wonderful job throughout all of this; and Mary McDermott Noonan, my chief of staff, all who have worked so diligently in such a cooperative and bipartisan way to bring this piece of legislation to the floor.

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

House of Representatives,

Committee on Foreign Affairs,

Washington, DC, March 17, 2023.

Hon. Jim Jordan,

Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Jordan: Thank you for consulting with the

Foreign Affairs Committee and agreeing to be discharged from

further consideration of H.R. 1154, the ``Stop Forced Organ

Harvesting Act of 2023,'' so that the measure may proceed

expeditiously to the House floor.

I agree that your forgoing further action on this measure

does not in any way diminish or alter the jurisdiction of

your committee, or prejudice its jurisdictional prerogatives

on this measure or similar legislation in the future. I would

support your effort to seek appointment of an appropriate

number of conferees from your committee to any House-Senate

conference on this legislation.

I will seek to place our letters on this bill into the

Congressional Record during floor consideration. I appreciate

your cooperation regarding this legislation and look forward

to continuing to work together as this measure moves through

the legislative process.

Sincerely,

Michael T. McCaul,

Chairman.

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

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

I thank Ms. Wild for her strong support and for her wonderful and strong remarks today in favor of this bipartisan legislation.

I do believe that we are really at a point now where if not us, who? We need to speak, and we need to speak boldly. This legislation, again, was crafted across the aisle. We have worked very closely together on it. I believe this legislation will make a huge difference.

Not so long ago I was in the intensive care unit. I am fine now, but when I was lying there, I kept thinking about this bill and some poor 28-year-old in the People's Republic of China who is not there being treated in a benign way by doctors and nurses but is being strapped down--not always anesthetized sufficiently--to steal their organs and to kill them.

It is happening--as I indicated earlier, and this is a very reliable number--between 60 to 100,000 times against 60 to 100,000 20-year-olds each and every year.

This is Nazi-like.

Xi Jinping needs to be held accountable. The fact that he and the high officials of the Chinese Communist Party are benefiting not just with unbelievable amounts of money for the Chinese Communist Party and for them personally, but also, if they need any organ, they turn to the very people that they hate, especially Falun Gong and Muslim Uyghurs, in order to procure their organs.

This must get strong support from this body, strong support from the Senate, and I believe it will be signed by the President if we can get it to his desk.

We need to make a difference.

Again, I urge Members to vote ``yes,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1107) to direct the Secretary of State to take certain actions with respect to the labeling of the People's Republic of China as a developing country, 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 measure.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Kim), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Indo-Pacific and is the author of this important legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, the United States and other developed nations of the world need to stop underwriting the belligerent expansion of the Chinese Communist Party's influence around the world.

Since 1978, the economy of the People's Republic of China has reportedly grown 9 percent a year on average. Today, the PRC is the world's second-largest economy and is a top goods exporter. Look at our balance of trade. Its outward direct investment exceeds that of 32 of the 36 OECD countries, and China's defense expenditures and number of satellites in space are second in the world, only behind the United States.

That is why it is ridiculous that the PRC is still considered a developing country by international financial institutions, or IFIs, and in various treaty provisions intended to benefit genuinely poor nations. That designation allows the PRC to pay less in United Nations dues and assessments; it allows them to avoid stricter requirements in certain environmental agreements; and it allows the PRC to get preferential loans from international financial institutions, which the PRC then uses to offer predatory and unfair loans to actual developing countries, countries such as Sri Lanka, Djibouti, and Uganda, which have been placed into debt bondage by the PRC, often accompanied by bribery and corruption of local officials.

This is just one way the PRC distorts the global economy through unfair trade and lending practices while hurting countries that are actually still genuinely developing.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from California, Young Kim, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Indo-Pacific, for introducing this bill. It is smart, targeted legislation. I thank Gerry Connolly for his chief cosponsorship, as well.

This legislation clearly states that the PRC is no longer a developing country and that the United States should seek to ensure that any future treaties, conventions, or organizations we are a part of do not treat the PRC as one.

The world must stop allowing the PRC to siphon benefits from other nations by taking advantage of an outdated and inaccurate developing country status.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Foreign Affairs,

Washington, DC, March 23, 2023.

Hon. Jason Smith,

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Smith: Thank you for agreeing to forgo

pursuing a sequential referral of H.R. 1107, the ``PRC is Not

a Developing Country Act,'' so that the measure may proceed

expeditiously to the House floor. As requested, the Committee

on Ways and Means has been added as a recipient of the report

required by this bill.

I agree that your forgoing action on this measure does not

in any way diminish or alter the jurisdiction of your

committee, or prejudice its jurisdictional prerogatives on

this measure or similar legislation in the future.

I will seek to place our letters on this bill into the

Congressional Record during floor consideration. I appreciate

your cooperation regarding this legislation and look forward

to continuing to work together as this measure moves through

the legislative process.

Sincerely,

Michael T. McCaul,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I urge unanimous support by this body for this important legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me thank Chairwoman Virginia Foxx for the extraordinary job she is doing on this important parental rights legislation, H.R. 5.

I thank my friend from Virginia (Mr. Scott) for this civil debate. It has been disciplined. Obviously, we have a major fundamental difference, but there is respect on both sides.

Mr. Chairman, last month, Adriana Olivia Kuch, a student at Central Regional High School, in my congressional district, tragically took her own life just days after a group of students violently attacked her in the school hallway and then shared the video of the horrific assault online.

Adriana's family told the Asbury Park Press that she ``took her own life after being threatened online, attacked on school grounds, and then later harassed when video of the attack was spread via social media.''

My amendment today, Mr. Chairman, would add to the bill's disclosure requirement of violent incidences a provision that schools notify parents of whether recordings exist of such violence.

The amendment recognizes that bullying and violence are often compounded, and the victim further traumatized, further humiliated, and further mocked, when the crime is videotaped and shared on social media.

Once informed, the parents are empowered to, hopefully, be better able to shield, to better comfort, and to protect their child.

This amendment is a step in the right direction of what must be a full-court press to tackle online bullying. Many school districts, as my colleagues already know, do have harassment, intimidation, and bullying, or HIB policies, which should include parental notification of online bullying occurrences.

What happened in the Central Regional High School must never happen again. There must be no higher priority for us than school safety and protecting every student from violence.

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

Mr. Chairman, after the terrible incident and the loss of this young woman, there were meetings with the school board, and the number of students who came forward who talked about the bullying and the videotaping of bullying that happens, and how threatened they feel, it seems to me, out of an abundance of caution and respect and concern for the

well-being of these individuals, these young people, having the school leaders step up and say we know of a video recording, we have got to make sure the parents know.

That young woman, in this case, sitting in her room watching the video over and over again, and all the extreme mockings that she endured, that may have driven her to suicide. We don't know absolutely, but we do know that it has a very debilitating impact on a young person to see all of that.

I watched the video, Mr. Chairman, and I was moved to see her on the ground, being kicked and punched. Again, there was a video of this.

So many of the parents have no idea. They don't monitor social media necessarily. Why not have the school leaders make sure that that is transferred over to the parents, so they can step in and love their child and try to protect their child from all the psychological and other harms that accrue from that video.

This is a simple amendment, and I would hope that my colleagues would vote for it.

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