[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 139 (Monday, September 9, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H5039-H5041]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CLARIFICATION OF DEFINITION OF FOREIGN COUNTRY FOR PURPOSES OF MALIGN 
                 FOREIGN TALENT RECRUITMENT RESTRICTION

  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill 
(H.R. 7686) to amend the Research and Development, Competition, and 
Innovation Act to clarify the definition of foreign country for 
purposes of malign foreign talent recruitment restriction, and for 
other purposes, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 7686

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

[[Page H5040]]

  


     SECTION 1. CLARIFICATION OF DEFINITION OF FOREIGN COUNTRY FOR 
                   PURPOSES OF MALIGN FOREIGN TALENT RECRUITMENT 
                   RESTRICTION.

       Paragraph (4) of section 10638 of title VI of division B of 
     the Research and Development, Competition, and Innovation Act 
     is amended--
       (1) by inserting ``of concern'' after ``foreign country'' 
     each place such term appears;
       (2) by striking ``means--'' and all that follows through 
     ``any program, position, or activity'' and inserting ``means 
     any program, position, or activity'';
       (3) by striking subparagraph (B);
       (4) by redesignating clauses (i) through (ix) as 
     subparagraphs (A) through (I), respectively, and moving such 
     subparagraphs, as so redesignated, two ems to the left;
       (5) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), as so 
     redesignated, by striking ``directly provided'' and inserting 
     ``whether directly or indirectly provided''; and
       (6) in subparagraph (I), as so redesignated, by striking 
     ``; and'' and inserting a period.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Casten) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma.


                             General Leave

  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to 
include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 7686, the bill now under 
consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Oklahoma?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here today to support H.R. 7686, 
which helps strengthen our research security.
  Research theft is one of the single greatest threats to our 
competitiveness as a nation. It takes our hard-won innovation and puts 
it to work for our adversaries, hurting our economy and our national 
security.
  This is no idle threat either.
  The Chinese Communist Party has made it clear that they intend to 
surpass us as the global leader in science and technology, and they 
have no qualms about using intellectual property theft, forced 
technology acquisition, and other illicit means to do so.

                              {time}  1415

  The CCP uses our intellectual property to advance their own research 
and keep them at the leading edge of new technologies. After acquiring 
our research, they use subsidies and regulations that benefit Chinese 
companies, making it difficult for U.S. companies to compete globally.
  According to some estimates, this is costing our economy between $200 
billion and $600 billion a year. The Committee on Science, Space, and 
Technology has been proactive in our response to this threat and has 
passed multiple bills to protect American research.
  When we passed the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022, we included a 
number of provisions to halt the theft of U.S. innovation. We 
prohibited Federal funding for any school that hosts Confucius 
Institutes, which are designed to spread CCP propaganda to students and 
researchers. We gave universities better tools to protect sensitive 
research from cyber theft. We created a dedicated office on research 
security at the National Science Foundation to help detect and combat 
foreign influence and theft.
  We banned participation in malign foreign talent programs. These 
programs recruit researchers and provide funding, travel, and other 
benefits in exchange for access to research and intellectual property. 
We prohibited all Federal agency personnel and any researcher receiving 
Federal funding from participating in these talent programs.
  As the government, labs, and universities began to implement this 
prohibition, it became clear that our definition of malign foreign 
talent programs needed to be updated. H.R. 7686 provides a clear, 
comprehensive definition that ensures that we are covering efforts by 
foreign countries of concern like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. 
This clarification will make it easier for universities and Federal 
research agencies to identify and address threats to our taxpayer-
funded research.
  I thank Representative Garcia for his work on this important bill. 
Research theft is a broad threat that is difficult to extinguish, and 
it is challenging to protect our research while still maintaining 
helpful international scientific collaboration.
  I appreciate Representative Garcia's efforts to walk that line and 
improve our tools to stop research theft. I encourage all of my 
colleagues to support this important bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 7686.
  Mr. Speaker, we recently celebrated the 2-year passage of the CHIPS 
and Science Act. In those 2 years, we have reinvigorated domestic 
semiconductor manufacturing, and we are revitalizing the American 
scientific enterprise. The positive impact of that legislation can be 
felt in everyone's district, so we should be proud of this bipartisan 
accomplishment.
  In the same vein, as with all great legislation, we need to perform 
some legislative maintenance and improvements. The CHIPS and Science 
Act has many provisions focused on improving research security. One of 
those provisions, section 10631, prohibits the distribution of Federal 
research awards to individuals participating in foreign talent 
recruitment programs.
  Universities and research institutions are ultimately responsible for 
ensuring that their faculty members are aware of and compliant with 
that prohibition, but the current law contains two independent, 
lengthy, and--I know this is the first time this has ever happened--
rather complex prohibitions, which makes good faith implementation 
efforts difficult to achieve.
  We have heard that there is a need for clearer definitions, 
specifically for the ``malign foreign talent recruitment program.'' 
H.R. 7686 amends the Research and Development, Competition, and 
Innovation Act to better clarify that definition.
  The need for this clarification has been affirmed by the National 
Science Foundation. The agency believes that this change will aid 
Federal science agencies' work in ensuring compliance.
  For all of my colleagues, please do keep in mind that this 
legislation is very sensitive in its nature. Even minor changes to 
these definitions can have decisive consequences that can make 
institutional compliance problematic.
  Both Democratic and Republican staff have worked surgically, shall we 
say, to ensure that this amendment makes the necessary corrections so 
that institutions can faithfully carry out these research security 
efforts.
  On that note, I would like to state my enthusiastic support for this 
bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from California (Mr.  Mike Garcia) to speak on his bill.
  Mr. MIKE GARCIA of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Lucas 
and the entire committee for bringing this very important bipartisan 
bill to the floor.
  It has now been 2 years since the CHIPS and Science Act was signed 
into law, providing a much-needed kick-start to America's lagging 
semiconductor industry as we compete with an accelerating Chinese 
Communist Party threat in China.
  The CHIPS Act was a good bill that I supported, but as I said during 
the markup of this legislation, a bill is only as good as its 
implementation and only as good as Congress' oversight of its 
effectiveness. The CHIPS Act only works if the investments are 
available to American enterprises and not available to our foreign 
adversaries, like the CCP.
  Following great oversight work by the House Committee on Science, 
Space, and Technology and the Select Committee on the Strategic 
Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, 
it became clear that complicated and confusing language in the CHIPS 
Act would allow China access to American-paid, American-funded 
research.
  This lack of clarity would allow China to use malign foreign talent 
recruitment programs in our universities and other research labs to 
recruit researchers to access this data, effectively getting our 
constituents to fund breakthrough research for the Communist Party.

[[Page H5041]]

  The Chinese Government has a nasty tendency of doing what I call rob, 
replicate, and replace. They take our intellectual property. They 
replicate it. They make it slightly better, slightly cheaper, and then 
replace it on the open market and compromise our technical advantages.
  These researchers in these universities may often be ensnared by 
China without even knowingly being ensnared and can unwittingly hand 
our enemies an advantage in technological advancements.
  In order to address this, Congresswoman Stevens and I introduced H.R. 
7686, which updates and clarifies the definition of ``malign foreign 
talent recruitment programs'' to protect our national investments.
  My bill is a simple, noncontroversial, bipartisan solution that 
ensures our taxpayer dollars and the research they fund are being 
protected from the CCP and their espionage behavior.
  I thank Chairman Lucas and the entire committee, again, for their 
support on this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
  Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I close simply by thanking Mr. Garcia and 
Ms. Stevens on our side for all of their hard work on this extremely 
well-constructed bill. I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on 
H.R. 7686.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, as you have heard today, H.R. 7686 is smart policy that 
will protect taxpayer-funded research from being stolen and misused by 
our adversaries. We want to give our scientific agencies and 
universities every tool they need to protect critical research. This 
bill does that and helps us better implement the CHIPS and Science Act.
  I thank Representative Garcia for his work on this issue, and I urge 
all of my colleagues to pass this important piece of legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania). The question 
is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas) 
that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 7686, as 
amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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