Max Rose

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 3494.

Our law enforcement officers stand on the front lines of defending the American people from domestic and international terrorist threats. It is our job as Congress to make sure that they have the most up-to- date information about the evolving threats posed by terrorism, including the use of advanced conventional weapons.

One such evolving threat is the danger posed by terrorist use of conventional and advanced conventional weapons, including unregistered weapons that lack serial numbers.

To address this issue, my amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act will require the Department of Homeland Security to conduct an annual assessment of the domestic and international terrorist threats posed by conventional weapons as well as advanced conventional weapons.

This is a simple, straightforward amendment that seeks to put important information about terrorist threats in the hands of our law enforcement officers.

Madam Chair, law enforcement needs to have the information they need to understand these threats. The assessment of the terrorist threat posed by conventional weapons and advanced conventional weapons that I call for in this amendment will do just that.

Additionally, this assessment will then be shared with Congress and with law enforcement so that our frontline officers have the information they need to understand these evolving threats.

Madam Chair, I urge all of my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, I rise to offer an amendment to title VII of H.R. 3494, entitled, ``Reports and Other Matters.''

As a combat veteran, I can tell you firsthand that intelligence drives operations, and it is imperative to the security of our homeland that the U.S. maintains its superiority when it comes to intelligence. However, a growing concern I have is when our former or retired intelligence professionals choose to later work for a foreign government.

We saw it with former NSA employees working as hackers for the United Arab Emirates' Project Raven. Interviews and documents showed that the NSA's surveillance techniques were central to the country's monitoring efforts.

Reporting showed that American ex-intelligence personnel would target the UAE Government's opponents online. This information, provided to them by the country's NSA equivalent, didn't just target terrorists, but also human rights activists and journalists, those whom the UAE deemed unfavorable.

It is concerning when our best and brightest go off to conduct or advise on intelligence operations for foreign governments that, in some cases, are against the very people our American ideals protect. We need to understand the nature and impact of this expertise in the hands of a foreign government. What are the homeland security implications of this?

My amendment will do just that. It requires the Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with other intelligence community partners, to conduct an annual assessment of the homeland security vulnerabilities associated with former intelligence community employees providing intelligence assistance to a foreign government.

Madam Chair, the invaluable training, tradecraft, and expertise developed by former or retired intelligence professionals to keep our country safe, to keep Americans safe, now in the hands of a foreign government for their benefit is absolutely chilling.

My amendment will tackle these concerns head-on with an annual assessment of any homeland security vulnerabilities that may be associated with this capability, cultivated from years of service to our country, now being provided to foreign governments.

Madam Chair, I urge all of my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask my distinguished colleagues to join me in honoring my constituent Megan Poser for her efforts to dispel the stigma of addiction and to congratulate her on receiving the Girl Scout Gold Award.

No community has been hit harder by the opioid epidemic than Staten Island. And at just 17 years-old, Megan decided that she wasn't going to just sit around and wait for others to do something about it. She decided she'd take it upon herself to change the perception and the stigma surrounding this crisis. Beyond her research of the drug epidemic on Staten Island, she took the initiative to become trained in the use of naloxone, a drug that has saved countless lives in our borough.

She also surveyed young people in our community about the dangers of this crisis, because she recognizes that the first step in overcoming the opioid epidemic is addressing the perception of the issue. She built on her findings to create a presentation that she then used to educate her fellow young Staten Islanders about the nature of the drug epidemic. She became certified in Mental Health First Aid which gives people the tools to help someone experiencing a mental health or substance use-related crisis.

The Girl Scouts have already recognized Megan's hard work and dedication to the Staten Island community by presenting her with its Gold Award, and it is my honor to do the same here in the Halls of Congress. She has successfully set herself up on a foundation of service to her community that is already having an impact on Staten Island, and I am confident that she will continue to build on these accomplishments to make the world a better place.

So, Madam Speaker, today I ask my colleagues in the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Megan for her selfless and compassionate service to the Staten Island community. Megan's commitment to extend this project beyond receiving the Girl Scout Gold Award shows a continued love for learning and educating her peers. Ms. Poser is already an inspiring leader and I look forward to seeing her other projects unfold.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my bipartisan amendment in both the House and Senate to the National Defense Authorization Act, a necessary leap forward in combating the opioid crisis by cracking down on illegal fentanyl from China, Mexico, and other countries.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the cosponsors of this amendment, my colleagues French Hill, Anthony Brindisi, Brian Fitzpatrick, David Trone, and Conor Lamb.

This amendment will place sanctions on drug manufacturers that knowingly provide fentanyl to traffickers, on transnational criminal organizations that mix fentanyl with other drugs and traffic them into the U.S., as well as financial institutions that assist these traffickers.

Critically, my amendment also authorizes new funding to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to go after fentanyl traffickers while establishing a commission on fentanyl and opioid trafficking to ensure that we make progress here.

Kids are dying in my district, in Staten Island, south Brooklyn, and New York City, and they are dying around the country because of deadly fentanyl.

We know where it is coming from. It is about time that Congress does something about it. The days when a person or a company could find safe harbor in another country, flood our streets with drugs, and face no consequences have to be over.

Madam Chair, I strongly urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this amendment. We have to get this done.

Madam Chair, I want to thank my good friend, Congresswoman Lee, for introducing this amendment and, just as importantly, for her, as our colleagues on the other side of the aisle noted, consistency and leadership on this issue for the last 18 years.

Madam Chair, it will be 18 years this coming September. Men and women will enlist in the United States military who were not born on 9/11. They are enlisting in the United States military, and they will likely go to fight in a war in Afghanistan that is currently being fought based off an authorization that was signed before they were born.

In the last 18 years, three different Presidents from both parties-- yes, this is a Democratic and a Republican problem--have conducted countless military operations in 19 different countries against groups entirely unrelated to those who attacked our country.

I don't want to hear that we don't understand. I fought in Afghanistan. I am a New Yorker. I was in New York City on 9/11. We understand the severity of this problem. We understand that, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we had to kill those people who had killed innocent people in this country. But that is not what this is about today, and we refuse to make that the focus of this discussion.

This is about Congress doing its job. This is about the fact that we are still waging war, and 80 percent of this institution has never voted to declare war.

This is about the fact that, right now, we are unwilling to enact a piece of legislation that requires Congress to do its job in 8 months.

So I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we accept your invitation.

We accept your invitation, and we would love to work out a way for Congress to----