Suhas Subramanyam

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because I have heard from many of my constituents whose Federal retirement benefits are still delayed. They have been waiting months for retirement applications that are stuck in limbo at Federal agencies.

Career civil servants who spent decades serving this country are waiting to receive the benefits that they have paid into all of these years. The delayed timeline not only impacts their financial security, but it also breaks the promise we made to civil servants.

This is another symptom of the impacts of DOGE on the Federal Government, including cuts to the H.R. departments that help process retirements. Our constituents deserve better after dedicating their careers to service.

Mr. Speaker, I call on this administration to honor the commitment we made to civil servants and process these retirements expeditiously.

using flock cameras for warrantless searches

Mr. Speaker, imagine if someone followed you around everywhere you went with a notepad logging every single one of your moves, everywhere you went, and everything you did, and then reported that to a private company that sells that data to law enforcement or to the highest bidder.

That is basically what Flock cameras are. They aren't traffic cameras. They use AI to log everywhere you go, everything you do, and everywhere you visit; and they build a pattern of life on everyday, law-abiding citizens, without a warrant and without consent.

They are getting installed all over Virginia and all over the country. Even my neighborhood, Brambleton, is looking into installing them. That means hundreds of thousands of warrantless searches across our region without any guardrails.

It is no surprise that they can and have been abused. More than 50 law enforcement officers have been accused or charged with misusing this technology, and we cannot continue to let this stand. We must put safeguards in place now, and we must protect the privacy and civil liberties of every single American and prevent unauthorized surveillance.

We need action now.

building safety throughout ai development process

Mr. Speaker, I sat down with some of the leaders in the AI industry. They told me that there were going to be dire consequences if we didn't put AI safeguards in place and that there would be massive implications for our country and for the world if we didn't act.

That meeting was 10 years ago. I was in the White House as a technology policy adviser, and the AI leaders were saying then that we needed to act now.

Here we are today. We have AI frontier models with the capability to wreak havoc. We are getting to a place where AI can self-improve and duplicate itself. The stuff that was theoretical 10 years ago is now happening. We have swarms of AI chatbots working together in a Machiavellian way to hack and undermine systems. We must act now.

There are commonsense ways that security researchers, industry experts, and even Members of Congress here agree can make this safer, like auditing, information reporting, transparency, building safety throughout the AI development process, and real containment strategies, so that AI models don't escape their sandbox during development. This is common sense, and we need to act now.

My colleagues and I have already put forward bipartisan legislation, like the FRONTIER Act, led by Representatives Obernolte and Trahan, and other bills. It is because voluntary standards are not a true safeguard, and sitting on the sidelines is not a safeguard. Even President Trump, despite what he just said online, is not a safeguard for the rapid development of AI and what it can cause.

We need action now. We need to put legislation on the floor this week. We cannot wait until the next Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for having this Special Order hour tonight.

Mr. Speaker, when the Trump administration slashed USAID funding and fired its dedicated employees, they said it was a crowning achievement of fiscal responsibility because why spend money abroad, spend it on everyday Americans instead.

Well, they didn't spend the savings on Americans. They gave tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations and cut Americans' health benefits and food assistance instead. Because of the cuts to USAID, we are now seeing how it actually puts American lives and American dollars at massive risk.

If you think foreign aid doesn't affect you, let's look at the most recent example, because more than 70 Americans, including 9 Virginians, some in my district, are missing right now in Nepal because of the catastrophic floods that happened there last week. Over a thousand people are dead.

USAID was running a natural hazards program to monitor and identify landslides, disasters, and climate events in Nepal and the project's former director said that the cuts to that program undermined ``landslide situational awareness.'' Imagine how many lives, and yes, even how much money we could have saved, and all the damage we could have prevented.

It is more than just that. USAID was America's frontline defense against global chaos by building peace, providing clean water, and stabilizing unstable regions. It aimed to stop humanitarian crises from exploding into violent conflicts, crises that affect Americans at home and abroad.

Look at the trillions of dollars being spent on wars right now. We can spend pennies on the dollar instead to prevent them. In fact, Jim Mattis, Trump's old Secretary of Defense said: ``If we don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.''

Let's refund USAID. It will save American lives and, yes, it will save money, too.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for bringing this to the floor today.

Whenever I tell people I am on the Ethics Committee in Congress, people tend to ask me the same questions: Why doesn't the Ethics Committee move faster? What is taking so long? Why are these investigations taking so long? Justice delayed is justice denied.

Well, Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons is because a lot of times witnesses and people with information string our committee along. Even their lawyers tell them to ignore our subpoenas, ignore our inquiries, or delay us as much as possible.

This subpoena, in particular, was issued September of last year, and that was after a very long process of trying to get this witness in, going back to before I was even in Congress. That was more than 2 years ago. There have been multiple requests, multiple failures to appear.

If we don't enforce these subpoenas, then everyone will ignore our investigations. They will string us along, and they will draw out these investigations for months or sometimes years, like in this case, and the American people will lose faith in this body's ability to investigate our own.

The Ethics Committee will never be as fast as the news cycle, and we will afford everyone due process. Today's vote is a message that we, as a committee, do intend to move swiftly in these investigations. It is a message that Congress does intend to hold people accountable if they don't comply with our subpoenas, whether it is Members or people with information.

I thank the chair and ranking member for their leadership on this, and I ask the body to support this motion.