[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15308]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            CONFIRMATION OF HEALTH TARBERT AND CFIUS REFORM

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to 
congratulate Heath Tarbert, who was confirmed by the Senate last 
Wednesday and will soon be serving as Assistant Secretary of the 
Treasury for International Markets and Development, and also to talk 
about reform legislation that relates to his new area of 
responsibility. I was pleased to support Mr. Tarbert's nomination, 
along with the vast majority of my Senate colleagues. He has held a 
number of important positions in all three branches of the Federal 
Government, including his service as a special counsel to the Senate 
Banking Committee during the negotiations leading to the Dodd-Frank 
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; an associate counsel to 
the President of the United States during the global financial crisis; 
and a law clerk for the Supreme Court of the United States. He is an 
experienced lawyer and financial expert who will be a valuable asset to 
the Treasury Department. While his new position may not be well known 
to many outside of the Beltway, it is vitally important to safeguarding 
our national security interests, as Chairman Crapo of the Senate 
Banking Committee attested to when Mr. Tarbert was voted out of 
committee in near-unanimous fashion in May. I have no doubt of Mr. 
Tarbert's qualifications to take on this key role, and given that only 
one Member voted against his nomination, it is clear that there is a 
bipartisan consensus on that point.
  With that being said, I look forward to working closely with him on 
some important reforms that are desperately needed to protect our 
national security and modernize the way we screen foreign investment 
deals for those risks. Specifically I am referring to the Committee on 
Foreign Investment in the United States, better known as CFIUS. As you 
may know, Mr. Tarbert will now be charged with overseeing the vetting 
of hundreds of proposed investments annually. I am confident that Mr. 
Tarbert will make effective use of the tools and authorities that CFIUS 
has. Unfortunately, those current tools and authorities are not 
adequate, in light of the changing national security landscape. There 
are clear gaps in the CFIUS process, which nations such as China are 
exploiting on a daily basis. The reason for this is simple: CFIUS was 
not designed to stop investment-driven technology transfers, and 
unfortunately, many such transactions are occurring today that are 
carefully designed to sidestep CFIUSs' limited jurisdiction.
  The need to close these gaps has garnered support from Republicans 
and Democrats alike, something that is seemingly rare in Washington 
these days. In fact, there is a bipartisan effort coming together right 
now to introduce legislation that would modernize the CFIUS process for 
the first time in a decade. Such commonsense reforms should be made to 
heighten scrutiny on certain types of investments, especially from 
countries such as China that pose a potential threat to U.S. national 
security interests. At a minimum, we should expand the types of 
transactions that fall under CFIUS jurisdiction, including joint 
ventures and minority-position investments, as well as certain real 
estate transactions in close proximity to military bases and other 
sensitive national security facilities.
  My legislation, the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, 
or FIRRMA, will do just that, and I intend to file it in the next few 
weeks. It will address the aforementioned gaps in the current CFIUS 
process and will help protect our national security. I urge my 
colleagues to cosponsor this legislation and support these commonsense 
reforms for the sake of our long-term national security.
  (At the request of Mr. McConnell, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)

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