[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 123 (Tuesday, July 18, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H3668-H3670]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 RELATING TO A NATIONAL EMERGENCY DECLARED BY THE PRESIDENT ON MAY 11, 
                                  2004

  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of 
the House of July 17, 2023, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 
79) relating to a national emergency declared by the President on May 
11, 2004, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House on July 
17, 2023, the joint resolution is considered read.
  The text of the joint resolution is as follows:

                              H.J. Res. 79

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That pursuant 
     to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 
     1622), the national emergency declared by the finding of the 
     President on May 11, 2004, in Executive Order 13338, is 
     hereby terminated.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The joint resolution shall be debatable for 
30 minutes equally divided among and controlled by Representative 
McCaul of Texas, Representative Meeks of New York, and Representative 
Gaetz of Florida, or their respective designees.
  The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Phillips), and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gaetz) 
each will control 10 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina.


                             General Leave

  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and 
extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the measure 
under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from South Carolina?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time 
as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. The Syria 
National Emergency is the basis for sanctions against the regime of the 
murderous dictator Assad and his comrades.
  For over a decade, the Assad regime, war criminal Putin, and the 
terrorist regime in Tehran have committed brutal atrocities against the 
people of Syria. The civilian mass murder in Aleppo should never be 
forgotten, which was facilitated by war criminal Putin.
  In the last 5 years, sanctions issued pursuant to this authority have 
prevented over $100 million from reaching more than 100 dangerous 
entities and individuals affiliated with the Assad regime and its 
backers, including ISIS middlemen.
  This murderous regime has supported international terrorism, 
committed innumerable atrocities against civilians, assisted with the 
manufacture of ballistic missiles, and developed weapons of mass 
destruction.
  Let me be clear: Some of the people sanctioned under this national 
emergency quite literally developed chemical weapons, and we know when 
President Donald Trump determined that chemical weapons were used, he 
immediately responded with a direct attack on the Assad regime.
  If we overturn this national emergency, those sanctions will 
automatically and immediately disappear. The criminals behind Assad's 
weapons of mass destruction program should not be able to access credit 
cards to do business with Americans.
  These sanctions are more than just an essential tool in countering 
the war criminal Bashar Al Assad. As previously mentioned, most of the 
proceeds from violations of the sanctions, including these sanctions on 
Syria, go directly to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism 
fund, which benefits American victims of terrorism, including our 
Nation's 9/11 families.
  In addition, this resolution would terminate sanctions on people like 
George Haswani, who the U.S. Treasury has named, and I quote: ``A 
Syrian businessman who serves as a middleman for oil purchases by the 
Syrian regime from ISIL.''
  It would also lift sanctions on a number of Assad officials who 
support Hezbollah terrorists who threaten daily the people of Israel 
from Lebanon.
  Today, Assad is not only a war criminal, but also the head of a 
narco-state. His regime spreads both the malign influence of his 
Iranian puppet masters and the scourge of drugs throughout the region.
  The Assad regime is a critical player in the growth of regional and 
global trade of the narcotic Captagon. Removing these sanctions would 
be a gift to Assad, Putin, and the Iranian regime, as the civilized 
world confronts the unprovoked attacks on democracies which have rule 
of law being attacked by the dictators with rule of gun.
  Terminating this national emergency would immediately terminate 
sanctions on hundreds of Assad cronies and financiers, developers of 
Syria's chemical weapons, terrorist-supporting middlemen who threaten 
America and Israel, and drug traffickers involved in the Captagon 
trade.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Assad regime, its 
dictatorship, and support the people of Syria to oppose this 
resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PHILLIPS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 79, which terminates 
the national emergency pertaining to actions and policies that have 
existed for years, enjoyed bipartisan consensus, and underpinned a 
significant portion of the U.S.-Syria sanctions architecture.
  More specifically, this measure targets an executive order that was 
issued based on legislation that Congress passed with broad bipartisan 
consensus: The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty 
Restoration Act, which over 400 Members of the House, including 200 
Republicans, voted in support of.

  For over 12 years, Syria's Assad regime has perpetrated a heinous 
campaign of genocide and unrelenting violence against the Syrian 
people, who rose up for their basic rights and freedoms after years and 
years of oppression.
  This unceasing campaign of brutality has been aided and abetted by 
Assad supporters in Tehran and Moscow, and amounted to countless war 
crimes and the most egregious violations of international humanitarian 
law of which I am aware.
  Relevant to this legislation, the Assad regime has served as a 
fertile and pliant jurisdiction for Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies 
to shuttle arms throughout the region, as well as grow in numbers and 
capabilities in support of the Assad regime's actions against the 
Syrian people.

[[Page H3669]]

  At the same time, actors ranging from the remnants of ISIS to other 
violent extremist organizations like al-Qaida-affiliate Hurras al Din, 
and others continue to terrorize civilians, and threaten to 
reconstitute and, again, use Syria as a launchpad for attacks into 
Europe and the rest of the world.
  Active U.S. efforts to counter and degrade these very groups and 
support networks--those targeted by the sanctions--would be undermined 
by abruptly repealing and stripping away such important authorities. 
Preemptively abandoning these policy tools and sanctions authorities 
through a rushed, poorly conceived legislative effort undermines our 
national security interests and those of our closest partners.
  Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
join me in opposition to this measure, and I reserve the balance of my 
time.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I brought a war powers resolution to the floor this 
Congress to get U.S. troops out of Syria, arguing that the United 
States, being excessively entangled in a great power competition in 
Syria wasn't making life better for Syrians, it wasn't playing out to 
our benefit in the sphere of great power competition, and that it left 
U.S. servicemembers and contractors as sitting ducks.
  Following that vote, which I lost overwhelmingly in a bipartisan 
fashion, sadly, there were casualties; there was the death of an 
American, because we have now become the neighborhood crime watch of 
certain areas in Syria where there are oil rigs. That is what it is all 
about.
  I now come to the floor with this resolution to repeal a 2004 
emergency vis-a-vis Syria. Now, it is supposed to be voted on by 
Congress every 6 months thereafter, but we have been derelict in our 
duty in doing so.
  I am glad that today we are bringing forward a number of these 
emergency resolutions that have been dormant slush funds, spending 
untold sums of money with no transparency as to how much is going into 
the Syrian emergency.
  How about this rule for how the House thinks about emergencies: 
Nothing is allowed to be an emergency for 20 years. If it were really 
an emergency, there probably would have been some cataclysmic event of 
Biblical proportion before the 20 years. If it is still an emergency 20 
years later, it is a chronic condition, and the United States cannot be 
the world's policeman and we cannot be the world's piggy bank.
  Now, if the principal argument against my resolution is that my 
resolution is soft on Assad, well, the logic that undergirds that is 
that somehow the 2004 resolution was this great anti-Assad tool that we 
must have, that we must maintain, to beat Assad.
  Look around, Mr. Speaker. Assad has never been stronger. So if this 
2004 resolution was Assad kryptonite, it has been the worst Assad 
kryptonite you can ever imagine. It has malfunctioned.
  I think we ought to repeal this emergency. We have sought 
transparency to see how much money has been going pursuant to it. We 
don't know the answer to that question.
  To the extent that there are sanctions that we still want to 
maintain, whether there are the other national emergencies that exist 
targeted at terrorism generally, at Russia, at Iran, we have the 
Magnitsky Act and there are all kinds of other authorities for the 
President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of the 
Department of Commerce, even the DOD weighs in, and the State 
Department, regarding sanctions regimes.
  This is not a vote to lift sanctions and then hope for the best with 
some pretty gnarly Syrians. In fact, it is us standing up to do our 
job, and that is what we should do in repealing this 2004 resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. PHILLIPS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Sherman).
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a resolution to roll back 
sanctions and then hope that maybe we will reimpose them on some other 
basis not detailed by the gentleman from Florida. This is not some 
meaningless resolution to feel good about or to message about. It has 
practical consequences.
  How many more people would Assad have been able to kill if he had the 
chance to cooperate economically with businesses here in the United 
States? How many other dictators would feel free to develop chemical 
weapons, would feel free to murder their own people and feel that they 
would face no economic consequences from the United States?
  Our policy has not turned Syria into a garden spot.
  What would the world be like if America turned its back on the crimes 
of Assad? Assad has killed more than half a million of his own people 
and forced 12 million people to flee.
  These particular sanctions are imposed on the Assad regime 
specifically because of his support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Think of 
that. We are having the President of Israel come here tomorrow, and 
what would we greet him with but nothing but a rollback of sanctions 
against two terrorists organizations who are trying to kill as many 
Israeli civilians as possible every day of the week.
  I think for us to be considering a pro-Israel resolution on this very 
floor in a few hours, for us to be welcoming the President of Israel 
tomorrow, and to have a resolution on this floor that would say it is 
okay, support Hamas, support Hezbollah, watch them try to kill as many 
Israelis as possible--they are not always successful, but they are 
trying--I can't think of a more effective way to insult the President 
of Israel when he stands on that podium and addresses us tomorrow.
  Let us continue to do what we can and remember that these sanctions 
do not expose a single American serviceman to risk of death or risk of 
injury. We should at least be willing to use the economic power of the 
United States to do what we can to rein in Syria and to make it clear 
to other dictators that chemical weapons, mass murder, and support for 
terrorism is not something that we will ignore.
  Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I would point out, Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman that if he is 
looking for a more effective way to insult the President of Israel, he 
need look no further than the remarks of some of his own colleagues in 
the recent days, which I would deem far more insulting than this policy 
debate about how to have an effective sanctions regime.
  No one here is arguing for sanctions relief vis-a-vis these 
individuals. What we are saying is that the National Emergencies Act is 
a very ineffective, inefficient way to administer a sanctions regime. 
We do have specific authorities with the Magnitsky Act, with the 
National Emergencies Act vis-a-vis counterterrorism. Treasury has these 
authorities. State has these authorities. Most importantly, Congress 
has the authority to impose sanctions.
  If you believe that there are people who should be the subject of 
sanctions by the United States Government, we are the board of 
directors of the most powerful country on the planet Earth. We can 
introduce those bills, vote for them, and we can fulfill our 
constitutional authority.
  What I am asking the Congress to do is to repeal a 2004 emergency 
vis-a-vis Syria when Syria doesn't look anything like it did in 2004.
  Mr. Speaker, if you vote to allow this national emergency to 
continue, what you are doing is gaslighting unaccountable spending by 
the Biden administration because they never have to make the requisite 
report regarding the outlays on these matters. The money just moves 
around, and we never quite see the efficacy of it.
  We are all strong supporters of Israel on this side of the aisle, 
certainly, and I would observe that U.S. policy in Syria has not 
particularly helped Israel. As a matter of fact, when you had terrorist 
groups setting up camps in Syria, directed at Israel, you know what the 
Israelis did? They took them out. They blew them up. That sent a 
message to Iran, the balance of power was restored, and it did not 
involve the United States of America becoming the block captain of 
Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East. If we want to do that, it 
should be through a war powers

[[Page H3670]]

resolution with Congress affirmatively voting to do it, not just having 
rolling national emergencies.
  When the law contemplates a requisite obligation for us to vote to 
reauthorize these things, we never do it. We don't do our job, then the 
money goes out the door, and we don't see a safer Israel, a safer 
Middle East, or a safer Syria. All we see is an empowered Assad. If 
this is the great tool we had against Assad, we had better be thinking 
of some different ones, because it hasn't exactly worked out as the 
proponents of this national emergency would seemingly indicate.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. PHILLIPS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
for the purpose of closing.
  I agree with my colleague from Florida on a couple points. I abhor 
war like he does, and I wish Congress would reassert itself, but I must 
say, we should legislate it, not terminate it.
  Abruptly terminating this national emergency will simply undermine 
U.S. national security interests and those of our allies. The 
resolution would further destabilize Syria and the entire region, be a 
gift to the violent and oppressive Assad regime, and create space for 
terrorist organizations like ISIS to grow in numbers and capabilities.
  I strongly oppose H.J. Res. 79 and urge my colleagues to do the same. 
I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle join me in opposing it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance 
of my time for closing.
  The bipartisan opposition to this resolution is significant. Lifting 
the national emergency of economic authorities with regard to Syria 
would immediately line the pockets of chemical weapons manufacturers, 
terrorists, and drug traffickers who have committed horrific crimes 
against humanity.
  We must work together to oppose the Hezbollah murderers who attack 
Israel from Lebanon. These economic sanctions keep terrorists from 
using the financial networks of the free world to enrich themselves and 
plan attacks against America and our allies.
  Democracies must stand together to respond to the dictators' rule of 
gun opposing democracies' rule of law. The world is in a competition we 
did not choose. Democracies are under attack by dictators such as war 
criminal Putin, the Chinese Communist Party, and the regime in Tehran.
  Ronald Reagan was absolutely correct, and that is we must have peace 
through strength.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to this resolution, and I yield back 
the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Miller of Ohio). All time for debate has 
expired.
  Pursuant to the order of the House of July 17, 2023, the previous 
question is ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the joint resolution.
  The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third 
time, and was read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the joint 
resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas 
and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________