[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 74 (Wednesday, May 4, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2299-S2300]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



               National Critical Capabilities Defense Act

  Mr. President, I will move to one final topic before I conclude. This 
is a

[[Page S2300]]

topic we are hearing more about because of the pandemic and because of 
legislation we are working on right now.
  Today and tomorrow, as the majority leader made reference to, we are 
going to be voting here in the Senate on measures ahead of a 
conference--kind of a coming together of the House and Senate--to work 
out differences on landmark legislation aimed at addressing U.S. 
economic competition with the Chinese Communist Party and investing in 
American workers.
  As the House and Senate proceed to this conference on the Senate-
passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act and the House version, which 
is called the COMPETES Act, I urge bipartisan leadership in both the 
House and the Senate to negotiate in good faith and ensure substantive 
provisions that support the interests of American workers, supply 
chains, and security.
  Key among these provisions in the trade title is the House COMPETES 
Act and within it, the bipartisan, bicameral National Critical 
Capabilities Defense Act, which both Senator Cornyn and I wrote and 
have led the effort on to pass this legislation. In the House, 
Representatives Pascrell and DeLauro have worked on this as well.
  The pandemic exacerbated a problem that has been decades in the 
making. Here it is: The United States has ceded its manufacturing power 
to other countries--especially countries like China--that don't play by 
the rules. From the PPE shortages that we all know so much about at the 
beginning of the pandemic--I mean, we couldn't even provide enough 
masks, gloves, and gowns for our own people. That was an American 
failure that was long in the making. We cannot--cannot--allow that to 
happen. But, of course, PPE doesn't end the story; we have ceded our 
manufacturing power to other parts of the world in so many other ways.
  For too long, corporations have prioritized their profits over 
anything else. They have prioritized those profits by offshoring their 
manufacturing to countries with low labor standards that undercut 
American workers, thereby lowering the cost of design and production 
all across the board. So offshoring our manufacturing capabilities--the 
best in the world, I would argue--why would we offshore it like we have 
over a generation? Offshoring our supply chain has gotten so bad that 
it is now putting our economic security at risk, but it is also putting 
our national security at risk.
  The issue is that we don't even know how bad the problem is. At its 
core, this bill, the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act, is a 
transparency effort. We need to know how much we are relying on foreign 
adversaries for both the design and manufacturing of goods that are 
critical to our economic and national security interests. Once we know 
that, we can start investing in domestic manufacturing strategically, 
which will lower costs for families, provide good-paying jobs to 
American workers, and ensure that we are no longer relying on 
adversaries for the basic functions of our economy.
  This is a commonsense policy, and that is why this bill has 
bipartisan support in the House and the Senate. Members of the Senate 
are coming together on this who often don't agree on much but agree 
that we have to protect our manufacturing base. We cannot be at the 
mercy of other countries in a pandemic or more generally when it comes 
to our economic interests but also our security interests.
  That is why Biden administration officials, from the National 
Security Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce, have acknowledged a need 
to review outbound investment. Even former National Security Advisor 
H.R. McMaster proposed some form of a government outbound investment 
review mechanism.
  I recognize that this is not an easy problem to solve. It is not an 
easy mechanism to create within the bureaucracy of the Federal 
Government. But this critical moment calls for having to do the hard 
work to ensure that we are meeting the economic and national security 
challenges of the day.
  This is a moment to do the work to set our government and the 
American people up for success in a world where the Chinese Communist 
Party will continue to incentivize American investment into that 
country and away from the United States, thereby eroding the foundation 
of American power, which is leveraging our economic might to uphold 
liberal Democratic norms--the same norms that are being challenged 
every day in places like Ukraine.
  So this is why I urge my colleagues in leadership to work with me and 
to work with others in a bipartisan, bicameral effort to negotiate and 
hammer out the details of this legislation and to ensure the inclusion 
of this critical legislation in a final competitiveness package.
  If a company is outsourcing technology, outsourcing a product that 
compromises or has the potential to compromise our national security, 
we not only should know about that, but we should have the opportunity 
as a government whose first duty is to protect our national security. 
That same Government, the U.S. Government, should be able to review 
those transactions and make a determination about whether or not that 
outsourcing will put us at a disadvantage. That is a reasonable request 
for people in both parties, both Houses, and the administration, and it 
is about time we did this. It is long overdue.
  So this isn't simply that we couldn't make enough masks and had to 
rely upon other countries in a pandemic. That was bad enough. That was 
embarrassing enough. This is a lot more than PPE; this is about our 
economic security and our national security.
  There is no reason why those kinds of investments that companies make 
every day--sometimes without any thought about what it will do to our 
security--there is no reason why that shouldn't be the subject of an 
appropriate review to protect our national security.
  With that, I would yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.