Floor Statements

Madam Chairwoman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairwoman, I stand in support of an amendment I

have offered to the Damon Paul Nelson and Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act.

I would like to thank Representative Nunes and Representative Schiff for their work on this important legislation.

My proposed amendment includes within the report on 5G technology, the threat to the national security of the United States posed by telecommunication companies that are subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary; namely, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

This will cover threats from acquisitions, importations, transfers, or use of communications technology by any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States that involved technology designed, developed or controlled by a foreign adversary.

As globalization continues to shape the world we live in, it is increasingly important that the United States prioritizes the security of our cyber networks and infrastructure. Today, China controls over 60 percent of the 5G networks in the world.

In 2012, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence deemed telecommunication companies, Huawei and ZTE national security threats. Seven years later, these companies continue to harm and undermine U.S. cybersecurity interests. Should the U.S. continue to let these companies and others like them continue to proliferate our networks, we are putting the security of our citizens at risk and our national security.

We must continue our maximum pressure campaign on these malicious companies until we can ensure that these actors do not pose threats to our national security.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairwoman, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 3494. My amendment No. 28 would require the FBI Director, in coordination with the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis to submit a report on domestic terrorist activity in the United States to the congressional intelligence committees.

The report will detail:

Activities conducted by domestic terrorist groups that restrict free speech using violence or intimidation;

Activities conducted by domestic terrorist groups that are a danger to human life and are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State; and

The prevalence of any domestic terrorist group within the United States and abroad or any group that claimed to be domestic yet have ties to foreign groups like al-Qaida or other terrorist organizations.

There are abhorrent groups of people within the United States today whose reasons for existence is violence. They do not respect the rule of law or the values of America. Yes, we have the First Amendment that allows for freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, but with those freedoms, one must exercise responsibility.

They seek to inflict harm on Americans or specific groups of Americans because of their race, religion, personal beliefs, or other reasons.

We have seen this evil in recent years with the deadly attacks on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, the attack on the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, and, sadly, too many more.

Moreover, we have seen violence used by groups that restrict free speech, most recently with the attack on Andy Ngo in Portland by the group Antifa.

We are the most extraordinary Nation because of our belief in and the adherence to the idea ``that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,'' with the rule of law included.

Groups that threaten these notions threaten our country and our very form of government. It is imperative that Congress be informed of domestic terrorist activities and understand the prevalence of these activities.

By keeping Congress informed of these activities, we, as legislators, may continue to ensure laws are appropriately crafted to protect all Americans and safeguard the liberties we hold dear.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a great man and a friend who recently passed away, Mr. Edwin Russell Megonegal, or, as his friends called him, Russ.

Russ passed away peacefully last week on June 21, 2019, at the age of 97. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 21, 1921.

Mr. Megonegal was part of America's Greatest Generation, serving his country during World War II and the Korean war in the Army Air Corps, the Air Force, and retiring in 1973 from the Pennsylvania National Guard, with the rank of colonel.

He was a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College and Temple University.

Mr. Megonegal had a long career in education in Pennsylvania as teacher, assistant principal, principal, and retiring as assistant superintendent of the William Penn School District.

He and his beloved wife, Tigger, retired to Lake Mary, Florida, in 1981, where he served as the commissioner of the City of Lake Mary. He and Tigger made Clay County their home in 1991 and immediately became ensconced in their community.

I first met Russ in 2012, while running for office. He was at every meeting, every gathering, and knew everyone. He always had a smile on his face and many pearls of wisdom that he would impart upon me, whether it was solicited or not. No matter what, he also told you what he believed and what he felt and what he thought was right; and that is perhaps what I will miss most about Russ.

Russ's service to Clay County was boundless. He served on the City County Planning and Zoning Committee and the board of Penney Farms Retirement Community. He was actively involved in many of the charities, including the Rotary Club of Green Cove Springs, J.P. Hall Charities, the Clay County Salvation Army Advisory Council, the Food Pantry of Green Cove Springs, the Republican Club of Clay County, the Republican Executive Committee of Clay County, the DePaul Society of St. Vincent's Medical Center, the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, and the Clay County Fair Association.

He was an active member of the First Presbyterian Church of Green Cove Springs.

He had received many awards for his public service, including the Clay County Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and the Boy Scouts of America 12 Points Award in 2019. Of all of these awards, Russ may perhaps be remembered best as the unofficial mayor of Penney Farms, where he made his home.

Russ's life was full, and he touched all those who knew him. I am proud to have known him and to have called him a friend.

Russ, you will be missed.

Congratulations to Jim Lloyd

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and celebrate one of my constituents, Jim Lloyd.

Dr. Lloyd received his degree in veterinary medicine from Michigan State University in 1981, but he didn't stop there. He furthered his education with a doctorate in agricultural economics in 1983 and began his long career as both a published researcher and educator.

Before leaving Michigan, Jim served as the dean of the Michigan State University Veterinary College. After years of teaching, presenting, and serving the agricultural community of Michigan, Jim was selected as the dean of the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in 2013, my first year in Congress. In that role, I had the great privilege of working with him directly on a number of initiatives.

His passion for science, his commitment to agriculture, his passion for the veterinary profession in general, and his friendship inspire not just me, but everyone who comes in contact with him.

Mr. Speaker, I wish Jim well in his retirement, and I look forward to working with him in the future.

In Honor of Ken Brock

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Ken Brock.

Mr. Brock calls Keystone Heights home and is an Army veteran.

In addition to serving his country with distinction and honor, he has done something else that is incredible. Mr. Brock has walked more than 2,650 miles across the United States to promote PTSD programs for the Wounded Warrior Project, with the aim of making it to Idaho by Independence Day.

His walk began on February 1 of this year and wasn't without challenges. He faced two weekends of deadly tornadoes, deadly floods, thunderstorms, a collision with a tractor trailer, and plenty of snow.

In the midst of the Ken's trek, he was called back to Florida for a mandatory VA benefit evaluation. Not to be deterred, Ken made his appointment and got right back on the road.

Nonetheless, he arrived at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, 6 days ahead of the town's Fourth of July parade, with residents standing five deep along Sherman Avenue. Brock was featured in the parade doing what he does best: walking with his 100-pound supply cart and his service dog, Pam.

This Sunday he will receive a hero's welcome from the Keystone Heights community. I am proud to honor and celebrate Ken Brock's journey to honor our veterans.

Madam Speaker, last week I had amendment number 25 accepted as part of the Commerce Justice Science appropriations package. This amendment increased and decreased the NASA science and research fund by $1,000,000 in order to highlight the importance of funding research to better understand human development in space in order to promote future space colonies. However, I would like to clarify that while I think these embryology experiments are of the utmost importance, I do not believe they should be done using human embryos or babies. The intent of this amendment was strictly to highlight the importance of non-human embryology experiments.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Illinois for yielding.

I rise today as a Member from the great State of Florida. We all recall the 2000 Presidential election. What happened in Palm Beach County turned into a national punch line, ``the hanging chad.''

The Democratic bill before us today would mandate paper ballots and make our elections a technology-free zone. I, too, am worried about malign actors like Russia and China when it comes to our cybersecurity network. However, let us not throw out the baby with the bath water.

Many of my colleagues submitted commonsense amendments that would improve the bill, amendments addressing ballot harvesting and ensuring State matching funds. Yet, Democrats, under another closed rule, are forcing passage on a one-sided bill with no prospect in the Senate and no chance of being signed by the President.

Madam Speaker, I sincerely hope we address these issues in a bipartisan manner that reflects well on this body and the American people.

Madam Chair, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 411.

Amendment No. 4 Offered by Ms. Norton

Madam Speaker, I would like to bring attention to the unjust detention of an American citizen, Mr. Michael Phuong Minh Nguyen, in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Mr. Nguyen was arrested on July 7, 2018 while visiting elderly relatives in Vietnam. He has since been held at the Phan Dang Luu Detention Center in Ho Chi Minh City. While the Vietnamese government still has not provided any evidence of wrongdoing that would justify his arrest, the Vietnamese government has confirmed they are charging Mr. Nguyen for allegedly violating Article 109 of Vietnam's Penal Code, engaging in activity against the government.

I have worked with my colleagues in Congress, the Administration, our embassy personnel, as well as with Mr. Nguyen's family, to encourage the government of Vietnam to find a fast, transparent, and fair resolution to this case. Unfortunately, Mr. Nguyen is still being held in Vietnam. It is disheartening that an American citizen be detained for such a prolonged time before a trial is held.

Over the past four decades, our two countries have built a strong relationship based on trade, trust and mutual respect. My hope is that we can continue this relationship without the detraction of these kind of events. I will continue to urge a just resolution for Mr. Nguyen until he can return to his family and friends in the United States.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time.

Mr. Chair, we stand at a moment in history. Seventy years after the end of World War II and 30 years after the end of the Cold War, the world is still battling authoritarianism. However, due to the increased global economic integration, authoritarian states have begun to utilize practices of economic coercion and predatory lending to take advantage of developing nations.

These vulnerable countries are presented with funding for major development projects, which ultimately lead to unrepayable debt. When these governments cannot fulfill their financial obligations, they are forced to give up strategic ports and lands that can now be used by the authoritarian regimes to achieve diplomatic and strategic aims that threaten democracies and stability.

At the same time, we face the challenge and opportunity of leading the global effort to combat extreme poverty and disease, with an increasing recognition that public investment and grants alone are insufficient for the task.

To tackle these issues, I worked with my colleagues last Congress to pass the new U.S. Development Finance Corporation. This critical tool put America and her allies in the position to counter economic coercion by ensuring that our government maximizes the impact of our resources through a coordinated strategy that prioritizes the mobilization of private capital through a variety of investment structures and partnerships.

Additionally, the DFC will work much more closely with our lead development agency, USAID, and ensure we focus on sustainable development and allowing countries to make the transition from aid to trade through investments in infrastructure.

As the implementation of the new DFC continues, I look forward to engaging with my colleagues and providing this new entity with the sufficient funding and flexibility it needs to achieve our Nation's foreign policy goals.

I applaud Chairwoman Lowey and Ranking Member Granger's support for the new DFC. I would also like to thank my colleagues Adam Smith, Hal Rogers, and Jeff Fortenberry for their support and engagement on this critical issue.

It is paramount that we get this policy right to show America's commitment and continued leadership in forging strong foreign policy that benefits all.

Madam Speaker, I have the honor today to recognize a living hero, a person who served our Nation at the shores of Normandy on D- Day, June 6, 1944.

Mr. Tam Cato is 104 years old and hails from Alachua, Florida. Mr. Cato was born on March 14, 1915, and raised in the town of Alachua on a 653-acre farm, which he still calls his ``Daddy's farm.''

Mr. Cato was drafted into the U.S. Army in February 1941 and trained at Camp Blanding in Starke, Florida. He was in Normandy during the invasion, where he served and aided in the liberation of France and Great Britain from Nazi Germany.

Recently, I had the extreme privilege of sharing in an event for Mr. Cato in his hometown, where the French Government, through their council general and French generals, presented Mr. Cato the highest military and civilian honor France can offer: France's Legion of Honour.

This award recognizes the American veterans who fought on French soil during World War II, risking their lives in the name of freedom. This medal is in honor of that courage and bravery.

Madam Speaker, I thank Tam Cato, and my family and country thank him, as do the people of France. The world was made safer by him and others like him who served.

Mr. Speaker, I have the utmost respect for the majority leader.

What I see as a problem here, that we see over and over again, is finger pointing.

Yes, we did have the majority and the Republican Party didn't do anything. But the Democrats had the majority back in President Obama's first 2 years; they did nothing. But fingers get pointed. Nothing gets done.

I rise today in opposition to this bill, but that is not to say I am against legal immigration. In fact, I don't believe anyone in this Chamber or up in the gallery, even though we can't reference them, is against legal immigration.

I have repeatedly stated that I want to find a solution for the Dreamers, those kids who, through no fault of their own, were brought to the United States as children, illegally.

I support providing a method for those who have registered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, to obtain legal status. However, this must only be done in coordination with measures completely fixing our Nation's broken border.

We have to have border security and the enforcement of current immigration law or we can't go forward, because a vacuum is turned on and more people will come.

Without enhancing border security and addressing the loopholes in our immigration system, this bill simply encourages more illegal immigration.

There is a cause-and-effect process that does occur. If borders are open, they are overrun, and immigration laws aren't enforced. Guess what? There is more illegal immigration.

There is a crisis at our southwest border, and this year we have seen apprehensions of people illegally entering at the border increasing every month.

For instance, in January of 2019, there were approximately 49,000; in April of 2019, 99,000. The numbers are going to continue to go up because the word is out, as Mr. Collins said, if you get to the U.S. southwest border, you will get amnesty.

That is unfortunate. The 99,000 in April are only the crossings that we know about.

Let's look at why this is a crisis. It is because the previous administration created an illegal program called DACA.

It has created a problem in Congress.

What we have to do, if my colleagues on the other side are serious about finding a fix for this problem, for our broken immigration system: Let's work together and agree that, without border security, this will not work.

Let's fix this broken system once and for all. Let's do what is best for America because, if we do what is best for America, is that not best for the immigrants, too?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak before the House and all the people who are here listening. Today's talk is going to be a Special Order on the human rights abuses of China.

Being the 30-year anniversary of Tiananmen Square, where hundreds, if not thousands, of people were murdered at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, I think it is due that we give respect to the people.

What I have here is a poster of people in China in 1989 who came to Tiananmen Square. These were the

people who were peaceful. They were wanting a democracy. They were wanting the things that we yearn for that are innate in all people.

And we are blessed in this Nation to be born in a country where the founding principles said that our rights come from our creator, not from government, and government is instituted by ``we the people.''

We give our consent to be governed, the very first nation on the planet to ever do that. And so that word had spread around the world, obviously.

China, being somewhat of a hermit nation from the Opium Wars of the 1840s into the early 1900s, wasn't introduced to the modern world. But with the advent of publications and with other things, they became aware of what freedom was. And freedom, as we know it in this country, is something that we fought for.

The freedom and liberty that we have today is something that is innate in all humans on the planet, regardless of what government form they have. The ability to be free thinking, to want freedom, to want liberty, is something that comes with us when we are born, when we are created in the womb.

It is no different than, I guess, an oak tree. If an acorn is put in the ground, it doesn't know it is an oak tree, but it goes straight up into the sky. The roots grow down. That is an innate quality that has been designed genetically in that.

Humans are the same way, so they have a desire to be free thinking and free determining. The thing that is fortunate for us is that we have a government that got formed.

And so the people in Tiananmen Square, June 4, 1989, wanted this very same freedom, but, unfortunately, the Government of China thought differently.

June 4 marks the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when the Chinese Government forcibly suppressed the peaceful pro- democracy protest--and I want to repeat that, a peaceful pro-democracy protest--and declared martial law, killing hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent Chinese citizens. Troops with assault rifles and tanks fired upon the protests, creating utter and despicable chaos.

Thirty years later, the Chinese Communist Party continues to censor all information relating to this attempt, attempting to completely erase it from history. So, for the new generations of Chinese, they don't know if this happened or not because they can't look outside of China.

The Chinese Communist Party has such control over the people of China that it is forbidden to look at pictures. They are taken off of the internet. They are not in the history books. They are not in the school books that talk about Tiananmen Square, that talk about the pro- democracy movement that people yearn and desire for.

The human rights abuses under the Chinese Communist Party have continued. But if we look back at China--and I want to direct this conversation, not to the Chinese people, because they are like people everywhere else in the world.

I chaired the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee in the last Congress. I am the ranking member this Congress. I have had the opportunity to travel around the world, and when I talk to people around the world, we will ask them the same question: Do people in your country have the desire to be free and self-determining?

Every one of them says that, and they say: I want a better future for our children than I had.

And, again, that is why I feel this is an innate thing that we are born with, and I know that.

So, as we travel around, we see this as not true in China. And so the Chinese people are great; it is the Chinese Communist Party under the control of Xi Jinping.

China has an amazing history that spans thousands of years. Its culture has stayed, for the most part, intact since the 19th century.

There have been multiple rulers and emperors recorded in the history books. In fact, at one point, China and most of Eurasia were under the control of Ghengis Khan and the Mongolian Empire. This empire was larger than the Roman Empire.

Khan allowed the people in his empire to be free and prosper through their work and developed a market economy based on production and trade. He provided protection from invasion, and they provided goods, services, and loyalty to the Khan empire.

This is the way history has been repeated over and over again. Since then, that is when China became the Silk Road. They were a major economic powerhouse around the world. They are great traders in spice and garments and linens and silks around the world.

But China went from a major economic power in the 18th century to a nation addicted to opium. During the 19th century, China's ruling class allowed their country to be taken over by the European colonial and Japanese imperial powers.

During this time, over 90 percent of the male population became addicted to opium. The culture, heritage, and social fabric of China decayed, and China truly did enter into a peasant state, isolated from the world, for the most part, during the next 70 years. They were a lost country. This has become known as the century of shame.

The PLA, the People's Liberation Army, emerged in 1927. In fact, they will have a 100-year anniversary in 2027.

Mao Zedong was a favored member of the PLA, and he later became the Chairman of the Communist Party of China. He promised communism would be the savior of China.

Mao was an ardent student of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the father of communism, where an individual's role in society was to serve the party for the greater good of the whole. His policies were one where the Communist Party was the supreme law of the land.

Mao, being a firm believer in this philosophy, implemented top-down policies in all sectors of China's economy and culture, destroying the greatness that China once had. His farming policies led to a famine and starvation. Seventy to eighty million people died under Mao's policy due to a combination of starvation and a purge of those who dared to show political dissent towards the communist ruling party.

Mao set a 100-year plan for China to regain its lost stature. Maoism became a belief and a philosophy for many. It was even idolized in some think tanks, with prominent individuals claiming this was a better way to govern a country, a country where the individual needs are secondary to the needs of the Communist Party, where individuals can't challenge the government, the party, or its ideology.

And, again, I am so thankful that we are born in our country, as messy as democracy is. As Ben Franklin forewarned us back when they came out of the Constitutional Convention in Pennsylvania, when asked by a lady, ``What form of government did you give us, sir?'' he said, ``A republic, ma'am, if you can keep it.''

We know democracies like we have in a constitutional republic are messy, but, by God, they are worth it because they empower the people.

It seems bizarre to me that some would idolize Maoism, knowing that history records that 70-plus million people have been killed through the failed policies of communism, again, from the starvation, but also from the brutal torture and the murder of those who challenge the Communist Party and its ideology. That is what I would like to focus on tonight, the human rights abuses of the Chinese Party and the PLA.

Since its founding almost 100 years ago, it has a record of human rights abuses that has led to the death of tens of millions of people, if not over 100 million people.

It does this through the elimination of anyone that challenges the doctrine of the Communist Party. I think that can be seen right here. This shows a peaceful prodemocracy protest that occurred June 4, 1989, in Tiananmen Square in China. This is how it started.

This shows the statue of democracy that these people wanted because they saw what free people could do in a free society that had a government that they could address their grievances to, to change government to fulfill the needs of society, not government changing people to fulfill the needs of government.

This is how it started, and I think we have all seen this. Any of us of a little age or long in the tooth, this is what we remember, as the videos showed on

our television sets, the horror of people brave enough to stand in the way of the tanks.

The Chinese Communist Party and its ruler, Deng Xiaoping, ordered the tanks to disperse the protesters. So they literally killed people. There are videos of people being run over by tanks, people are running away. Tanks are chasing them down and running them over from the back. And they killed them over and over again.

This is something that China had done then, and they are doing it today. We made a big blunder in our foreign affairs policies back in the 1970s under President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger by inviting China into the modern world. It wasn't the wrong thing to invite them into the modern world, but with no safeguards or direction, their goal was that they felt that if China became successful and developed a strong economic base, they, too, would become free thinking and would incorporate into the modern world.

But, unfortunately, as history has recorded, China became more totalitarian, more authoritarian, and the Communist Party grew in strength. China, over the last 30 years, we have seen go from a backward state to a very prosperous state, to where 12 percent of the billionaires are now residents of China or of Chinese origin. They should be commended for that type of success, but not at the cost of what the Chinese Communist Party has done to their citizens.

Under the Chinese Communist Party since the founding of the CCP in 1921, the Communist Party repeatedly disregarded the human rights of the Chinese people. Abuses include the practice of incommunicado detention, torture of persons in custody, censorship of the internet today, and restrictions on the freedoms of religion, association, and assembly.

Xi Jinping, the ruler for life in China now, has further implemented a clampdown on political dissent, civil society, human rights activists, and lawyers.

The Great Leap Forward, which was an economic and social campaign led by the CCP under Mao Zedong from 1949 to 1976, when he died, through the idea of collectivism--again, right out of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' handbook on communism--the CCP took control of citizens' workplaces, took control of their lands and resources, and used coercion, violence, and murder to control their famished citizens.

This failed initiative led to the deaths of over 75 million people, making it the largest episode of mass murder ever on the planet. Not only were 2 million to 3 million people starved to death, people were needlessly tortured and killed, and I suspect that number is small.

The Cultural Revolution also launched by Mao from 1966 to 1976 called on the Chinese youth to purge impure elements of Chinese society. That means anybody that dare challenge the Communist Party's ideology would be purged and they had their own citizens do that to their own citizens.

This escalated when students formed paramilitary groups called the Red Guard and attacked and harassed other Chinese citizens. Violence erupted between factions of the Red Guard, creating wide chaos. The CCP views separatist sentiments as a threat to internal order, and ultimately the party's control.

Tibet, Taiwan, the Uighur population in Xinjiang and Hong Kong are all threatened because the CCP and Xi Jinping are insecure and paranoid in their country and in their leaders, because they fear free-thinking people. The CCP in China is the highest entity in that country. It is higher than any other entity in the universe, including God.

The Uighurs in the Xinjiang region, it has been reported up to 1 million people--I read a report today that said it could be 3 million Uighurs, which are the Muslim sect of the Chinese population--have been interned. We don't know because it is a closed society.

I have met with the Chinese foreign ministers. They told me this is not something that is going on, that the Uighurs have the ability to come and go at random. Although I talked to a Uighur today that was in Tiananmen Square 30 years ago, and he said that is not the case.

You don't book a reservation to go into the internment camp or the reeducate camp. You are ordered, or forced, or kidnapped and put into that camp. You walk around with headphones on your head for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and they are playing the national anthem. They are playing the thoughts of Xi Jinping which are now the standard that all students must listen to in China, and so they are reeducating these people forcefully. This is something they do not have the free will to leave.

In addition, we found a horrific element that came out, there are concentration camps--they are not concentration camps, although they probably are--but what we are seeing is there are crematoriums, not just crematoriums for when people do pass away, but they are armed crematoriums. There was an advertisement that people must be physically fit and able to fend off people.

My question is, if you have got a peaceful situation where you are reeducating people at their free will, why do you need armed crematoriums?

Mr. Speaker, I think what we are seeing in China is a repeat of what we saw in Nazi Germany. This is something I remember Dwight Eisenhower said, as he went over there to Auschwitz and to the other camps: ``Never again.''

It saddens me that I have been in Congress for 7 years and I watched the genocide in Africa, in the different countries, in Darfur, and Somalia. We said, never again. Yet it happens. In Syria, over 500,000 people have been murdered and slaughtered in that civil war under the hideous rule of Bashar al-Assad, and we say, never again. Yet we allow it to happen.

Mr. Speaker, it is happening right now. And China is our number one and two trading partner in the world, as it is with many of the countries around the world. I think that we should rethink our foreign policy of who we trade with.

There was a hearing today and we had several people who were members of the peaceful protest in Tiananmen Square. One of the protesters, Dong Shengkun, was arrested as a political dissident and he was given a death sentence that got commuted to a life sentence that he got off after 17 years.

His comment was in a periodical yesterday and he said that he would prefer to have his son think he is just a regular criminal, at least in the current political climate in China, than be potentially put in danger by learning of his father's political past.

His child should be proud of him because that father's political past was fighting for the very things our Founding Fathers fought for: freedom and liberty. He stated: ``It is for his safety,'' his son, ``I worry that I might influence his thoughts if I started chatting to him about those things.''

Other former political prisoners have expressed concerns about talking to their children about the massacre for fear of putting them at risk. Fellow Tiananmen survivor, Fang Zheng, said that he doesn't blame Dong and the other activists who wanted to shield their children from politics. Fang, who lost both of his legs in the massacre, blames the ruling Communist Party. That is the fear and horror that the regime has brought to everybody.

Three decades after the Chinese Government declared martial law--and I find this interesting, because this relates to the abuses that we are seeing and why China can do this--three decades after the Chinese Government declared martial law and unleashed the military on unarmed students and worker protesters, the bloodshed has been largely erased from the nation's collective memory.

Think about that. The Chinese Communist Party has so much power that they control what is in the textbooks, and we have seen this revisionist history over and over again in different countries around the world.

They tried to do it here in the United States with, I believe it was the Harvard University Press, to get them to rewrite history books so it wasn't a negative slant against China.

I know they have done this in Australia and other countries around the world, and they have done this through force, coercion, and intimidation to get other countries to bow down to the ideology and the teachings of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.

So after three decades, they have erased the nation's collective memory.

The question today was asked: What percentage of the Chinese people even know of Tiananmen Square? The answer was shocking because these people who were there in our hearing today were the actual freedom fighters for democracy in China at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Their answer was: Probably not 20 percent of the people in China are even aware of what happened in Tiananmen Square. The Communist Party- led effort has created a generation who are mostly unaware of the Tiananmen massacre. Dong said, school textbooks don't mention it, and students won't find photos or stories of June 4 on China's heavily censored internet.

The story can go on, but I hope it doesn't for the sake of humanity. If we look at the Uighurs, the Muslim population in the western province of the Xinjiang region, like I said, up to 1 million, maybe 3 million have been interned. There is no way to know. We asked the foreign minister when he was in my office, and he assured us this wasn't happening. These were voluntary camps. And I said: If you feel that certain, Mr. Foreign Minister, invite the Western free press in there, and let them report on that.

He said: No, we are not going to do that. So in the reeducation labor camps, there is near totalitarian levels of surveillance and security measures. Xinjiang is now a police state where cultural genocide is occurring.

And, again, I go back to Dwight Eisenhower: ``Never again.''

CCP views Islam as a threat to the atheist state.

Again, keep in mind that the Chinese Communist Party has stated that the role of the Chinese citizen is to serve the Chinese Communist Party and that the Chinese Communist Party is the ultimate power in the universe; there is nothing higher.

If we look at Tibet, Tibet has been a sovereign nation over the millennia. It is where the Dalai Lama comes from and has come from throughout history.

In 1959, there was an armed conflict between the Tibetan people and the PLA. Retaliation for such an uprising involved the killing of 87,000 Tibetans.

During occupation of Tibet there were tortures, killings, bombardments of monasteries, and the extermination of a whole nomad camp. What they have done is they have gone through and erased the monasteries and erased much of the people. They moved in the ethnic Chinese Hun population to the point where they have diluted the Tibetan population, and all they have to do is wait out time because the youth won't know that.

In Tibetan culture, the Dalai Lama is not chosen by the people. He is chosen through their process, and it is through the birth of the Panchen child. The Panchen child is the next Dalai Lama in their culture.

When the Panchen child was discovered, China kidnapped him, and they said: This is not the Panchen child. We have the real Panchen child.

So they brought him forth.

I found this to be very hideous and just offensive. Being a Christian nation as we are, that would be as if King Herod went to the manger and took Jesus Christ, saying that that is not the Lord and Savior and that you have got it wrong.

Then they kidnapped him and they put somebody they want in there. That is how warped the Chinese Communist Party's thinking is.

In 2008, violent protests and riots erupted through Tibet as they desired more independence from China. CCP views this as a threat to their control. That is why I said that the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping are insecure.

We can talk about Tibet; we can talk about the Uighurs; we can talk about Hong Kong; and we have to talk about Taiwan, because human rights abuses are going on through all of these countries through coercion, intimidation, and threats.

Hong Kong was a nation that the British powers captured in the 1800s during the Opium Wars, during the period of colonization. When that happened, Hong Kong became a province of Great Britain.

What happened in 1997 is there was an agreement between Great Britain and China that they would give the Hong Kong territory back to China, but there was an agreement that, for 50 years, there would be autonomous rule in Hong Kong and that Hong Kong could continue as it was.

Well, we are 22 years into that, and already we have seen the usurpation of power and the influence of China coming in. In fact, China, right now, is trying hard to get extradition laws so that they can take executives from any company. If they feel they have treated the Chinese Communist Party wrong, they can extradite them to China, and my bet is we will never hear from these people again, Mr. Speaker.

We have seen this happen with booksellers, and we have seen this happen with successful businesspeople who have started insurance companies in China, who came to America. All of a sudden, they have mysteriously disappeared, and they have never shown up.

So Xi Jinping stated that, as far as he is concerned, the agreement between Great Britain and China for the 50-year autonomous rule is no longer valid and that it needs to be done away with.

My question is: When we talk about Taiwan--and I think it was a blunder of our foreign policy when President Nixon and Henry Kissinger said that they would agree to a one-country, two-party system, which stripped Taiwan of its autonomy--if Xi Jinping sees no need to follow course with the 50-year agreement with Hong Kong, does that give us cause to forget the agreement that we had with President Nixon and with the Chinese rulers back in the seventies? I say, yes, and I think it is time that we honor and respect Taiwan for the country it is.

Today, in China, we have mass surveillance of its citizens. So what we see are human rights evaporating more so today than ever before.

China has become a powerhouse economically. They are starting to become a powerhouse militarily. They have learned to leverage certain things that hold other nations, including the United States, in debt to them.

If we just look at one example of that, that would be the rare earth metals. Our F-35 fighter jets, 10 percent of the weight of those are rare earth metals; 90 percent comes directly from China, and the other 10 percent comes from countries that get it from China.

China is on a march to take over the world. Mr. Speaker, you can listen to Xi Jinping in the 17th Communist Party Congress in 2017. He said that the year of China has arrived. No longer will they be made to swallow their interests around the world. It is time for China to take the world's center stage.

Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that says, if you want to see one's past, look at their present situation; if you want to see one's future, look at their present activities, look at their present investments, look at their present actions.

I think the actions speak loud and clear, because the human rights abuses that started in the 1920s when 70-plus million people lost their lives, this is something that has happened over and over again.

If we look back then and we look at modern-day China, it is estimated and predicted that China is about to complete the installation of 2.7 billion CCTV cameras around their country. What they are using this for is facial recognition tied up with artificial intelligence. They have over 25 million people today whom they monitor 24/7, around the clock, 365 days a year, and they are giving people what we call good citizen scores.

If your good citizen score isn't high enough, Mr. Speaker, then you don't travel on airplanes and you don't travel on buses. You don't travel anywhere. You have no freedoms because you have become a threat to the Chinese Communist Party. That is today.

Xi Jinping and his Communist Party has offered this to the Russian dictator, Putin, who wants this technology. He has offered this to the ayatollahs of Iran. He has offered this to any despotic government and country that wants to control their citizens, that is afraid of freedom of expression and freedom of thought.

He has also offered this to Maduro in Venezuela. This is something that they are going to use to control people to suppress freedom, liberty, and free thought.

Again, I talk about how blessed we are in this country because we have a country that empowers the individual.

I know as history looks back at this--and there may be some rocky roads ahead, but I know the side that empowers their people and that believes in a Creator will come out on top of this because what I know is you can't suppress the innate qualities and genetics of a plant, of a breed of cattle, or of any animal, and you can't suppress human freedom, thoughts, and the innate quality to be free.

So I feel confident that over time the Chinese suppression, the Chinese Communist Party will collapse, and this picture where you see the people getting ready to be run over by the tank will be replaced by this picture and this statue being rebuilt, the statue of the Goddess of Democracy and Freedom in Tiananmen Square. The future will show this as what China is doing in the future of people protesting peacefully for the freedoms that they have.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to end with, on this day, being the 30th anniversary of a horrendous chapter of suppression and murder in human history, that if it is not for us speaking about this, it won't be talked about around the world. China will do everything they can to erase this kind of history from the history books, and it would be a shame for this to go away.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the chairman of the RSC Budget Committee for yielding to me, along with Chairman Mike Johnson, for leading the way on this task. I thank all of my colleagues who participated in this, and the RSC staff who did the hard work. They were there every night and every day to bring this budget together-- Richard Stern, Jay, and Mark. Many times, they don't get recognized for the work that they did, but yet they put in a lot of effort.

So why do a budget? Everybody asks, why do you guys worry about a budget? Well, this House is tasked with the power of the purse. We are the ones who are supposed to be in charge of a budget and spending the people's money, because the American people care how we spend their money. They want us to spend it smartly, prudently, and responsibly. If you don't have a budget, can you do that?

We have got a budget. Right here, we have got a budget. This is a budget. This is a good budget. We are at $22 trillion in debt. This Nation is at $22 trillion in debt.

In the previous administration, we saw the debt double. This administration, it will probably double again. And if a Democrat gets in, or a Republican, it will probably double again. If this body does not come together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, this problem will never be addressed. What happens is a political divide happens because we can blame the other side for not doing what they are supposed to.

We didn't have a budget last year and the Democrats don't have a budget this year. So how serious is this body about correcting this? The Republican Study Committee has a budget. This budget needs to be looked at.

I was born in the fifties--1955--and I grew up during the sixties. Our mandatory spending in this country was roughly 30 percent: 70 percent was discretionary spending. Do you know what that allows you to do? That allows you to do an interstate system, and it allows you to have a space program and have aspirations of going to

the Moon and coming back by a Democratic President who put country above politics. We came together, and we did that because we could.

Do you know what? We can't do that today, because, today, 71 percent of our spending is mandatory, and 29 percent is discretionary. But let me tell you who can do that.

China can go to the Moon. China can do infrastructure. In fact, they are doing it all over the world. Do you know why? Because they are cash rich. We are cash poor. In fact, they hold a large portion of our debt.

Let me tell you what $22 trillion in debt is. If you take $22 trillion and divide it by 330 million Americans, roughly, that comes down to $67,000, not per family, but per individual. So for 300 million Americans, they are $67,000 in debt.

Is it my fault? Yeah, I guess so, because I am here. It is your fault, it is their fault. If we are here, this is our generation's fault, and this is something that we have to come together as Americans to fix.

If we don't have a budget, can we fix a budget problem? If we don't have a budget, can we acknowledge a problem?

As I pointed out, the other side doesn't have a budget. There is a budget and if we come together as Americans and put down the crazy politics of fighting one side over the other, we can fix the problems of this country. We can fix education, we can fix healthcare, we can fix infrastructure, and we can plan for a future brighter than today. We can create a vision for this country 50 to 100 years down the road, but we can't do it if we are fighting over budgetary problems in this Nation.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the honor to be able to be on this committee. I hope it sinks into the other side that we come together, and we come together as Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues for being here, and I want to start tonight out.

We are going to spend an hour highlighting what many of us on Capitol Hill view as one of the largest threats in the 21st century, and that is a China that has grown wealthy in building their military might.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Zeldin), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Missouri for her comments. Those are very well pointed-out facts that the American people, if they knew this was going on, would stop buying ``made in China.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Arizona, who pointed

out some great things. We are going to talk about the South China Sea, or the East Sea, and what China has done.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania, who is a brigadier general, and he has been on the front lines, for those remarks.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue on the rise of China and why it is important.

I think we have heard some great ideas today and some great dialogue, but this is something the American people need to pay attention to. This is something that our legislators need to pay attention to. This is something that we hear over and over again.

I have had the pleasure of being in Congress for 7 years, chairing the Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation Subcommittee in the last Congress, and I am the lead Republican in this Congress. The information we hear over and over again doesn't get better. In fact, what we find out is a more aggressive China that has raised all pretenses of the past, and I will talk about that.

Before I go into this too much, I want to start with this: China has an amazing history that spans thousands of years. Its culture has stayed, for the most part, intact until the 19th century.

At one point, China and most of Eurasia was under the control of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire for over 100 years before the Khan dynasty lost to the prevailing emperors in the 19th century. I bring this up to counter China's nine dashed historical lines that they are making claim in the South China Sea and now their claim that they are now making near Arctic territory.

Later on in this dialogue, I want to talk about that because China predicates everything by saying: ``Well, we historically have sailed in the South China Sea; therefore, it is ours.'' Now China is saying they are near the Arctic, so being near that, they want to claim that as theirs when international law says it is not so.

In fact, the Philippines took China to court over the South China Seas, and I will have some maps here that we will discuss later.

China went from a major economic power in the 18th century to a nation addicted to opium and taken over by European colonial powers and Japanese imperialism. During the 19th century, China's ruling class allowed their country to be taken over by European colonial powers while over 90 percent of their male population became addicted to opium.

And I want to highlight that because we are going to talk about the fentanyl and the opium that are coming into this country and what country they are coming from.

The cultural heritage and social fabric of China decayed, and China entered into a peasant state isolated from the world, for the most part, during the next 70 years. This truly was a century of shame.

The PLA, the People's Liberation Army, emerged in the twenties, in fact, in 1927. They will have a 100-year anniversary highlighting that in 2027.

Mao Zedong was a favored member of the PLA. He later became the Chairman of the Communist Party of China. He promised communism would be the savior of China, but, unfortunately, for the 70 to 80 million people who died under Mao's policy, for them, it was a disaster.

Mao did set a 100-year plan, though, for China to regain their stature lost. Maoism became a belief for many, which seems bizarre, knowing that history records millions of people's deaths were credited to his policies.

Then, a foreign policy by President Nixon and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger invited China into the modern 20th century. Many today look back and realize that this was a massive misstep in foreign policy. The hope was that China would become a responsible partner in the modern world, but, unfortunately, China thrived at the expense of the United States and many other nations with heavily lopsided, one-way favored trade deals that favored China but nobody else. In the process, China became very strong and very wealthy.

Maoism gave way to the era of Deng Xiaoping, who realized at the time China could not compete with the U.S. or Japan in intellectual capacity or in manufacturing, but he had the foresight to corner the market in rare earth minerals. Deng Xiaoping's saying was: Bide your time and hide your strength. Today, China has virtually cornered the rare earth market that Deng Xiaoping spoke of in the 1980s.

In fact, the F-35s today, our highest tech fighters, the highest tech in the world, have been copied by China via intellectual theft. And the rare earth metals, the weight of an F-35 is approximately 10 percent. This is approximately 4,000 pounds.

Now, get this. Ninety percent of these metals come directly from China. The other 10 percent come from countries that get these metals from China. So Deng Xiaoping fulfilled a promise he made.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

Exactly.

It is.

All right. You are singing a great song that I have shared with the AmChams, I have shared with other countries, and it is our philosophy of ABC. When you go to manufacture, it is anywhere but China.

That is exactly right.

Exactly.

Can I get you to yield?

You are leading into where I was going.

In 1990, President Clinton recommended China's entry into the WTO on a developing nation status. Yet today, they are the second largest economy in the world--second to the U.S.--and they are still a developing nation status. Yet they have a blue-water navy.

And they have a Moon program.

Why do we allow it?

Right. I don't buy into that either, and I am glad you brought that up.

It is.

That is right.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman coming out.

I see this as a series of Special Orders on China, because the American people need to know this. When they go to a

shelf and buy something that is cheap, and they look at that and it says, ``made in China,'' they are feeding this trade imbalance. So they are partly responsible for that.

As the gentleman well pointed out, if I fast forward to Xi Jinping, to the current era right now, the estimate is that there is a $300- plus-billion--I heard it was $400 billion--trade imbalance, I can't blame China for that. I blame our leaders since President Nixon.

For the last 40 or 50 years, somebody has dropped the ball or taken their eye off the ball. If you allow a trade imbalance of $400-billion- plus, and then add to that the theft of intellectual properties that we have heard up to $600 billion--I am sure you saw the DHS as they brought in products made by our manufacturers that went to China that are now coming from China, and it looks identical, yet, it is made by China. So it is robbing that profit and the jobs from American manufacturers that should go here, and it has to stop.

I commend the Trump administration for standing up to that. I think the gentleman brought this out.

The reckoning is here.

Mr. Speaker, it is, and I hope the gentleman participates in these. Because that day of reckoning is here, and if we don't do it today, it is only going to get worse. So this is something that we have to come together as Americans. It is not President Trump out there. It is not some of the businesses that are bold enough to stand with him.

We, the American people, need to stand behind him, and I think the gentleman brought this up that this is not a fight with the Chinese people. It is the system that is running unfair trade balances.

Mr. Speaker, what I would like to bring up, going back to my notes here is, we are in the era of Xi Jinping. I don't think our disagreement is with the Chinese people, but it is with the policies of Xi Jinping and the Chinese or the Communist Party of China.

The 2017 Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in October of 2017. During that time, Xi Jinping kind of came out and was very bold in his statements. He said: The era of China has arrived. No longer will they be made to swallow their interests around the world. It is time for China to take the world's stage.

The gentleman brought this up. There is plenty of room on the world's stage if you want to be fair and balanced, and you want to play like everybody else, but you have to honor international law. You have to honor the rule of law, honoring contracts, honoring the beliefs that we have to be a respected trading partner.

We penned an editorial that talked about Xi Jinping is leading--along with the Communist Party which is 90 million members--is leading China into a second century of shame, and it is because they are losing face. They are losing honor that the Chinese culture, over millennials, built up. They were respected. But they are getting ready to enter into the second century of shame, and I would like for Mr. Fortenberry to continue.

Yeah.

Right.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his time.

The gentleman brought up a good point about China. If you read about the Chinese Communist Party, the role of the individual is to serve the party. There is no higher entity in China other than Xi Jinping. Whereas in our government, we are so blessed in this country because we have a government that empowers their people. China suppresses their people, and that is why I want to talk about this.

This comes from a 2012 House Intelligence Committee report where they deemed Huawei and ZTE to be a U.S. national security threat. I have got the results of that right here. So we want to talk about that.

Huawei and ZTE, from 2012 until today, they have been a national security threat, but they have been able to do business in this country. This is something we need to bring to an end.

Other speakers brought up how universities were falling prey to China. We had our own university in Florida that Huawei came in and offered to set up a cybersecurity program, and they were going to fund it. And we said: No way. And so we got them to stop that.

If you just go to the headlines and you can hear how China is ramping up in intellectual property theft. They are paid to do this. This is something they want to go after, and they are doing it.

They rail against the United States on GMOs, yet, they go to Iowa and steal corn seeds so that they can grow GMO and be in competition with us.

The trade war with China and the problems with intellectual property rights, this is something that goes on every day. And as we buy cheap products made in China, this is benefiting them, not us. You can see the headlines here.

What I want to do is move on to Hong Kong with Xi Jinping. Back when Great Britain gave Hong Kong back to China in 1997, under the rulers of China at that time, there was a 50-year agreement that Hong Kong would be an autonomous, self-ruled nation. Twenty-two years into the program, China has put their heavy foot down. China has disrupted the autonomous rule of Hong Kong to the point where Xi Jinping had the nerve to say this on the world stage; as far as he was concerned, that agreement was null and void.

I want to bring that up because if we talk about if that agreement is null and void with Hong Kong, if we go back to the agreement of Taiwan under Nixon and Kissinger when they said that Taiwan is recognized as one country, two systems, and autonomous rule, if China and Xi Jinping can discount that agreement with Great Britain, does that give us the right to discount one country, two systems?

Is it time to recognize Taiwan as an independent country, a thriving democracy, our eleventh largest trading partner?

I want to bring up the South China Sea.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I will try to tighten this up.

Mr. Speaker, China, in the South China Sea, has started claiming property that is not theirs. It goes off to nine historical lines that come from antiquity, from 300 or 400 years ago. And they said: Well, we used to sail here, so this is our property.

So they started building these islands, and they went off the coast of the Philippines, and the Philippines took them to the Court of Arbitration in The Hague, and China lost the lawsuit. China ignored the ruling of The Hague, an international norm that we are all supposed to follow. They ignored it, and here you have the Spratly Islands that were little atolls sticking shallowly out of the water at low tide.

China has gone in there, and it is probably the biggest environmental insult to this world, where they have dredged up over 4,000 acres of land and they have built these land masses. I refuse to use the word ``island'' because that gives credibility to China.

What they have done is built--illegally, against the environment, against the ruling of international law--land masses in the East China Sea.

President Xi Jinping had the gumption to come here to the United States during President Obama's era in 2015, he went to the Rose Garden and claimed: We will never militarize these islands.

Yet, today, there are runways on there that can accommodate military planes. Our satellites show that there are military barracks, offensive and defensive weapons, and radar systems. I think it is pretty well militarized. They are doing that again and again and again. There are four islands they have done now.

Their goal is to go to the next chain of islands which is closer to our mainland. This is something the world has to stand up to. If not, they are going to keep continuing to march forward.

This is a photo of when they started, and this is more of the dredging. We don't have the one that shows them completed, but you can find it on the internet.

Now we are at the China of today. China has perfected 5G technology. China today has over 800 million CCTV cameras, closed-circuit television cameras, and they have put a system in place where they monitor their systems.

Today in China there are over 24 million citizens being monitored, and they get issued by the Communist Party a good citizen score. But, Mr. Speaker, you don't know what your score is. So when you show up to travel, if your score is not high enough, then you get denied travel. If you go to borrow money or use your banking system, you are denied your banking system. Your kids can't go to the colleges you want them to go to because you are denied because you are a bad citizen. They have extended this and offered this to Russia; they have extended this and offered it to Maduro in Venezuela; and Iran wants this technology.

What better way for a despotic or authoritarian or Communist regime to control their citizens than the CC technology?

China uses technology to suppress their citizens to fall in line so that they serve the Communist Party. Our government empowers our people to reach their full potential.

I will close with this last thing, Mr. Speaker. China has interned over 2 million Muslim Chinese ethnic people, the Uyghurs, in what they call reeducation camps.

I want to show you this poster here, Mr. Speaker. This is a reeducation camp. That means they just go there because they want to learn new skills. This is what China is doing with the Uyghurs, the Muslim population. Not only that but they have armed crematoriums that are in place in these camps.

I've got to ask you, Mr. Speaker, when you have got a place that looks look a prison, I don't believe it is there for education. We went through World War II and the Holocaust. This Nation and all other nations said: ``Never again.''

Mr. Speaker, it is happening right now in China. We need to pivot away from China buying stuff, and we need to encourage our manufacturers to go anywhere but China.

I don't want a conflict with China. Nobody does. But if we stand up collectively together and we encourage manufacturers to go, then we can get China's attention via their pocketbook and we can change the course of the history of this world.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your patience, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this time to commemorate the 175th Anniversary of the founding of Marion County, Florida.

I have the honor of representing part of this county, alongside Representatives Neal Dunn and Daniel Webster.

For the past 175 years, Marion County has been at the heart of Florida's rich history and continues to be an important part of Florida today. The county boasts significant economic development and the title of``Horse Capital of the World.''

Marion County is constantly growing and is an industry leader in the agriculture, equine and forestry industries. The success of these industries can be attributed to the hard-working and dedicated individuals in the community.

As we celebrate this significant anniversary, we must reflect on the contributions that Marion County has made to the great state of Florida and the nation. I look forward to the continued success of the Marion County community. Congratulations.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act, not because we don't want clean water or clean air or deny a world-changing climate. H.R. 9 is a direct attack on this administration for withdrawing from the flawed agreement and is a purely political move by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

The Paris Agreement requires each signatory country to determine, plan, and regularly report on the contributions that it undertakes to mitigate global warming with no regard for American consumers; it places burdensome regulations on American businesses that are already employing environmentally friendly practices; and it places the cost of the Paris Agreement to supplement other nations on the backs of the moms, dads, and citizens of America.

In August 2016, President Obama unilaterally accepted the Paris Agreement under the United Nations climate change treaty. Rather than bringing it to this body, where it could be ratified with the advice and consent of the Senate, this was a blatant power grab by the executive branch encumbering America and future generations.

I had been opposed to President Obama's decision to circumvent congressional approval of the Paris Agreement from the beginning. It was a clear violation of the Constitution to leave Congress out of the approval process of an agreement that will have far-reaching implications on our economy and our citizens.

During the 114th Congress, I even introduced H.R. 544, expressing the sense of the House that the President should submit any binding international agreement on climate change to the Senate as a treaty. By accepting the Paris Agreement without congressional approval, the Obama administration made promises that are too expensive and too difficult and not science-based as far as the results. In fact, in a current hearing, it was stated that if the U.S. were to cut emissions to zero, it would not change global warming.

A report prepared by NERA Economic Consulting in 2017, found that meeting the commitments President Obama made could cost the U.S. economy $3 trillion and 6.5 million industrial-sector jobs by 2040. There are serious concerns surrounding costs, effectiveness, and feasibility of U.S. commitments made under the Paris Agreement.

Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. fell by 14 percent from 2005 to 2017, our manufacturing output increased 4 percent, and our energy consumption went down 2 percent. That is American leadership done by the private sector, not by government mandates or encumbering agreements.

The United States is already leading around the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This agreement does not address the world's largest carbon emission offenders, as you have heard--China and India. These countries are not held to any enforcement standards besides being required to provide a report to the United Nations every 5 years.

Again, the Paris Agreement ties the hands of the American consumers to pay for countries, like China and India, whose total commitment is, ``We will try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions''--not do it, but we will try--while they continue to increase our carbon footprints around the world, again at the cost of nearly $3 trillion to the American consumer.

China is building or planning to build over 700 coal-fired power plants around the world with one-fifth of these plants located in countries outside of China, making it virtually impossible for them to meet goals set in the Paris Agreement.

Additionally, of the 195 signatories, 13 countries have still not ratified the agreement, including Russia, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran. Russia accounts for nearly 5 percent of the global greenhouse gas.

While I do believe that climate change should be addressed, I do not agree that forcing the President to remain in an agreement that had no oversight, cost-benefit analysis or stakeholder input is the right way to go.

As we continue to have discussions about how to address climate change, we should focus on solutions for the world body.

Madam Speaker, I want to compliment Dr. Dunn for doing an awesome job. His leadership on this is well noticed and well taken by the people of his district and all north central Florida, working together with the Georgia delegation and other States.

Florida is no stranger to hurricanes. The year before, we had Hurricane Irma that went through the whole State, bypassed the panhandle. In 2018, we had Michael that hit the panhandle with virtually a Category 5. It was 2 miles short of Category 5.

The estimated impact for Hurricane Michael--in fact, it was so severe, before I get into the impact, we couldn't get ahold of Dr. Dunn, so our office was very concerned about that. We took a load, with the Gilchrist County Sheriff, to take supplies up there, looking for Dr. Dunn. We didn't know if he had survived, because nobody had heard. So we are thankful that Dr. Dunn is here, and I know his constituents are.

The impact of this went from timber, cotton, cattle, peanuts, nursery, poultry, vegetables, other field crops, dairy, aquaculture, fruit crops, tree nuts, beekeepers, to mention a few. That is no structures.

The estimated cost just in the panhandle of Florida is $1.5 billion.

We heard these other States talking about agriculture as their largest economic driver in that State, their largest industry. Florida is the third largest State in the Union, with 22 million people. Agriculture is our second largest industry. It is vital.

We look at the past--this is my fourth term in Congress--and I remember Hurricane Sandy came, hit the

Northeast. Relief was put out. It was sent out.

This is something that we need to come together as Americans. We send billions of dollars in foreign aid around the world. It is time for us to look internally, fix our problems here, because the expense of these storms, they accumulate. They don't go away from one year to the next, and we are going into the next season, the next fire season. This is something we need to work now, to correct these things.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the leadership of Dr. Dunn.