[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 50 (Wednesday, March 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1589-S1590]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Sunshine Week

  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, I am proud to join my 
colleagues in celebration of Sunshine Week and promote the importance 
of government openness and transparency. Transparency isn't something 
you see too much up here in Washington. Being accountable to the 
American people should be a basic function of government.
  In Florida, we have sunshine laws to promote openness and build our 
citizens' trust in government. When I came to Washington, I made it my 
mission to bring the success and transparency we had in Florida to the 
Federal Government and make this dysfunctional place work for the 
American people.
  Unfortunately, my Democratic colleagues have blocked nearly every 
single one of my efforts for transparency and requests for information 
to help Congress make the best decisions for American families.
  Last month, I wrote to President Biden's Acting Director for the 
Office of Management and Budget requesting any documents related to 
enacted but currently unspent COVID-19 stimulus funding. The response? 
None. Total silence.
  This month, as we considered the Democrats' wasteful and partisan 
$1.9 trillion COVID spending package, I introduced a resolution calling 
on President Biden to inform the Senate and the American people of how 
much unspent funds are left over from the previous COVID spending 
bills, but Democrats blocked it.
  When my colleague Senator Johnson called for their massive, 600-page 
bill to be read on the floor so the American people could know exactly 
what was in the bill, Democrats complained and called it a waste of 
time.
  Let me be clear. Being transparent, open, and accountable to the 
American people is actually never a waste of time; it is our job. That 
is why I have been working on several measures to bring sunshine 
transparency to Washington, including my bill to make sure Members of 
Congress work for the American people and actually read bills before 
casting their votes and my STOP COVID-19 Act to set vaccine 
distribution reporting and transparency standards for States and create 
a program for cities and counties to increase funding, testing, contact 
tracing, and transparency efforts in order to reduce the spread of 
COVID.
  I will never stop fighting to bring sunshine to Washington and 
working to make sure our government and the Biden administration are 
transparent, open, and accountable to the American people who elected 
us to serve.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I want to start by thanking Senator 
Ernst for once again setting up the Government Sunshine Week event and 
for her commitment, as was just discussed by my colleague from Florida, 
to ensuring taxpayers know where their money is going. This includes 
the $150 billion that the U.S. Government distributes every year in 
taxpayer funds for research grants. More transparency will help ensure 
that research isn't stolen by China and other countries.
  In 2019, as the then-chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations, or PSI, I led a bipartisan investigation with then-
ranking-member Senator Tom Carper into China's theft of U.S. 
intellectual property and U.S. research at our research institutions 
and college campuses.
  As many of you know, China has made no secret of its goal to surpass 
the United States as the world leader in scientific research. This has 
become even clearer, by the way, during the COVID-19 pandemic, as China 
has attempted to get information in the United States to help produce 
their own vaccines to rival ours. But what most don't know is that 
China has been using our taxpayer-funded research enterprise here in 
the United States to accomplish this long-term goal. China uses talent 
recruitment programs--most notably its Thousand Talents Plan--to 
recruit researchers at American universities and research institutions 
using taxpayer-funded grants to do the same research at shadow labs in 
China or transfer taxpayer-funded research back to China--research that 
has been used over the past two decades to strengthen China's military 
and its own economic rise.
  Along the way, they have been aided by a lack of transparency in our 
Federal grant-making process that has allowed researchers to receive 
taxpayer funding without disclosing their ties to foreign governments. 
What is worse, Federal law enforcement officials at the FBI knew about 
this for years and admitted at our PSI hearing last Congress: ``We wish 
we had taken more rapid and comprehensive action in the past.'' I wish 
they had.
  I am pleased the Trump administration chose to follow through on 
their promise to do better in this regard. Since our report, 
prosecutors have charged at least 13 researchers here in the United 
States for failing to disclose their ties to the Chinese Government and 
Chinese Communist Party--researchers at prestigious institutions like 
Harvard and the Ohio State University. Many of our colleges and 
universities around the country have been part of this.
  The Biden administration must stand by the promises made on the 
campaign trail to keep the pressure on China, and that includes on this 
issue. We can also help here in Congress by shining a light on the 
grant-making process and passing laws to help us keep track and protect 
these important investments in our research.
  In the coming weeks, I will be reintroducing bipartisan legislation 
called the Safeguarding American Innovation Act, which uses the key 
findings from our bipartisan PSI investigation and report to protect 
the research enterprise--in part, through more transparency.
  First, our bill creates a cross-governmental council at the Office of 
Management and Budget to coordinate and streamline unauthorized access 
and grant-making processes between Federal Agencies so that there is 
greater transparency in where the money is going and how it is being 
used.
  Second, the Safeguarding American Innovation Act makes it illegal to 
lie on a grant application about ties to

[[Page S1590]]

foreign governments like China. Transparency here will make it clear 
that researchers are liable for attempting to mislead the government 
when trying to receive taxpayer funds.
  Third, our legislation closes loopholes exploited by China and other 
foreign actors and empowers the State Department to deny visas to 
foreign researchers aiming to steal U.S. intellectual property and 
research.
  Fourth, the Safeguarding American Innovation Act requires research 
institutions and universities to safeguard against unauthorized access 
to sensitive technology and to be transparent with the State Department 
about what technologies a foreign researcher will have access to on 
campus.
  Finally, the act requires transparency from our colleges and 
universities as to what money they are getting from foreign sources. 
They will have to report any foreign gift of $50,000 or more, and it 
empowers the Department of Education to fine universities that 
repeatedly fail to disclose these gifts. Current law requires 
reporting, but at $250,000. We found that nearly 70 percent of U.S. 
universities consistently failed to do even that. Lowering the 
threshold increases transparency, and adding the penalty ensures the 
schools will report.
  The American Council on Education has supported our PSI report's 
recommendation that research institutions should establish a ``know 
your collaborator'' culture.
  Greater transparency in our Federal grant-making process, great 
transparency from our research institutions and universities--these are 
the steps we need to take to ensure that there is proper accountability 
in place for the $150 billion that taxpayers entrust with the 
government for federally funded research every year, while still 
keeping our fundamental research open and collaborative.
  The Safeguarding American Innovation Act will shine a light on the 
Federal grant-making processes and allow us to maintain our world-class 
lead in innovations, while protecting our investments from foreign 
theft.
  Again, I want to thank my colleague Senator Ernst, in particular, for 
this event today to talk about transparency, and I urge my colleagues 
to support this important legislation that will provide long overdue 
transparency in our federally funded research enterprise.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, about 4 weeks ago, it got cold in 
Oklahoma--really cold. My house was at negative 14 degrees. Now, 
Senator Steve Daines from Montana is used to that, but in Oklahoma we 
are not used to negative 14 degrees. It was overcast, snowy, cold. 
Then, the sun broke through, and we had a day when it got up to 30 
degrees. It was like everyone was going to the park. It felt so nice 
because the sun was out, even though it was cold.
  Sunshine has a great way of making everyone lift and look around and 
say: Where has that been?
  I think that happens in the Federal Government as well.
  I thank Senator Joni Ernst for hosting what she is calling Sunshine 
Week to be able to say: What are we doing to put a little light into 
the Federal process to be able to make sure people can see into some of 
these programs? Because all the time I hear from people, and when 
something comes on the news, they will say: Where did that come from
  I will say: That was poked in some bill that probably no one read.
  I will give you an example of it. Two weeks ago, when the ``COVID'' 
bill passed with almost $2 trillion in spending, I already had folks 
come back to me saying: I am grateful for that $70 million for the 
Small Business Administration to increase some of the loans by $70 
million.
  I said: Great. Do you know how much the administrative cost was on 
that $70 million program?
  The answer is $390 million in administrative costs, $70 million in 
loans. That is in the bill.
  Everyone looks at me and says: Oh, I didn't know that.
  In lots of States around America right now, their legislatures are 
meeting, including mine in Oklahoma. They are suddenly finding out that 
that bill that was for ``COVID-related'' mandated that no State in 
America could reduce taxes on anyone. Lots of States are saying: Wait a 
minute; we were planning on reducing taxes on working families in 
certain targeted areas.
  They are finding out that you can't do that, and they will say things 
like: I didn't know that was in the bill because there wasn't any 
sunshine on that bill.
  I worked for years to pass a bill called the Taxpayers Right-To-Know 
Act. It is a commonsense bill. It asks a simple question: What programs 
do we do in the Federal Government? This body has heard about me talk 
about it year after year after year. Contrary to popular belief, it is 
not easy to actually move a bill in this place. Some things that are 
very commonsense take forever.
  This was my simple bill. In the Federal Government, every Agency has 
to list every program that they do, how many employees they hire to do 
that program, what is the cost of the program, and is the program 
evaluated? If it is, just put the evaluation numbers with the program.
  Why would I say that? Because I talk to Agency heads that start a new 
program and they get 2 years down the road from starting a new program 
and they find out a different Agency has already done that for 5 years. 
Then we get together and find out a third Agency started that 10 years 
ago. None of them knew about the other program.
  Before you think that doesn't happen, oh, yes, it does. It happens 
all the time. Not only that, but I want to ask a simple question to 
say: How many options do we have for whatever it may be? How many 
programs do we have for STEM education, for instance? How many 
different incentives have we put out there, and how many Agencies are 
helping to provide greater STEM education? The Agencies can't tell me. 
They could eventually tell me what is in their Agency, but they don't 
know what other Agencies are doing.
  And when I go to the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, and 
ask them, their answer is: I will get you an answer back in about 18 
months--months--18 months before they can tell me how many STEM 
programs we have in the Federal Government. I should be able to do an 
internet search and get that in 18 seconds, not 18 months.
  The Taxpayers Right-To-Know bill requires the Office of Management 
and Budget to actually work with every Agency to get a master list of 
every program across the Federal Government--how many employees they 
have, if it is evaluated, and what it does.
  It is pretty simple. It is basic transparency, but it allows any 
American and all Members of Congress to be able to see what we do and 
if we have duplication in government.
  Again, you may think that is simple and straightforward. It is, but 
it took years to actually pass. We finally got that passed and signed 
into law last December.
  I met with Gene Dodaro, who heads up GAO, and asked him about it 
because he has also been an advocate of that for years. He said: We 
need an ``unequivocal commitment from the Office of Management and 
Budget to implement it properly'' because we have to actually get this 
done.
  Sunshine helps. We can see how money is spent. We can see how 
duplication actually functions. We can't reform what we can't see. The 
American people perpetually get frustrated with what they didn't know 
was in a bill and find out later, and they don't like it.
  In the days ahead, I will release my annual ``Federal Fumbles'' book, 
as we do every year. In that ``Federal Fumbles'' book, this year, we 
are going to outline where our debt comes from because I run into so 
many people who say: We have debt. Who is our debt? Is it all China?
  I will say: Well, actually, $1.6 trillion of it is from China, and we 
are paying them interest every single year on that debt. But it is in a 
lot of other places.
  A lot of people misunderstand what government debt really is. This 
needs some sunshine because if we are going to solve this, the American 
people have to be able to see it and so do we
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.