Ed Royce

Mr. ROYCE of California

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 601, the Reinforcing Education Accountability and Development Act, or the READ Act. This bill passed the House at the end of the last Congress in essentially the same form as H.R. 4481. I am pleased the House has moved to take it up again today. We all recognize the importance of education as a driver of economic growth, social mobility, and overall stability. Education is what increases the productivity of the workforce. This is what empowers men and women to better care for themselves and their families. It increases civic participation. Even 1 extra year of schooling significantly increases a worker's earnings over her or his lifespan. For women in particular, a primary school education is directly correlated very strongly with improved maternal-child health and improved survival rates. Yet, around the world, as we know here, there are 120 million children that are not in school. More than one-third of these children, as Nita Lowey can testify, come from countries that are embroiled in war, embroiled in conflict, and many of these recent conflicts have lasted for over a decade. We are now seeing entire generations of these young children who are failing to receive even the most basic education. You want to talk about a humanitarian crisis? This is it. There are clear implications for global stability and for our security. When children remain out of school, what do they face? Well, certainly great increased risk of abuse at the hands of traffickers, forced marriage or marriage as a child bride, and recruitment by criminal or terrorist organizations. Nowhere is this harsh reality more clear than in Syria, where 4 million Syrian children are currently out of school. We have had the opportunity to talk to many of these children on the border and see what their circumstances are like. Inside Syria, these children are being shaped by violence and by a lack of alternatives that place them at high risk of exploitation and radicalization. As refugees--if you talk to our friends and allies in the region--they are placing tremendous strain on the education system in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. Despite these growing challenges, it has been decades since Congress reviewed and updated the authorities on which U.S. international basic education efforts are based. This bill, the READ Act, introduces the new guidelines and the increased accountability for existing U.S. efforts to improve access to basic education in developing and conflict-torn countries. It requires strategic planning. It requires the prioritization of resources relative to needs on the ground in these countries and relative to the potential for impact. It requires alignment with U.S. diplomatic development and security interests. Particular emphasis is given to those areas in crisis and those countries that are partners of the United States that face this critical challenge, whose populations are most in need, who have committed their own resources to ensure the success and sustainability of these efforts, but need our assistance. It also requires increased attention to what is most important here, and that is to the specific barriers to education that are faced by women and girls. The bill formalizes a senior coordinator position within USAID to oversee the development and implementation of a strategic plan across Federal agencies to ensure coordination and eliminate duplication and waste. I thank Representative Lowey for her continued bipartisan leadership on this issue, as well as my committee's ranking member, Mr. Engel, and the chair of our Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, Mr. Smith, for their work on this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I concur with those arguments that Mr. Engel just made. Congresswoman Nita Lowey and I have talked about this, and if my colleagues will think on this for a minute, the reality today is that we face a situation where there are 65 million men, women, and children around the globe who have been displaced by conflict. I would just like the Members to think about the fact that this is more people than were displaced during World War II. This is the highest level, highest on record of human beings who have been displaced by conflict. Think about what that means to the children who are those most victimized. The United States is doing important work around the world, trying to help our allies, trying to help organizations--and there are many good NGOs working on this--to address this massive education deficit that so many of these children face. But Congress, I think, has to demand a greater degree, yes, of transparency and accountability for these activities to ensure our investments are as effective as possible in line with our strategic interests. There is one more thing that we have to ask of our partners in this, and that is equal access to every young girl for education. That has got to be up there at the top of that priority list. This Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development Act outlines clear priorities for this work with that emphasis that I talked about and asking those partners to carry out their end of this bargain. This bill also requires aggressive monitoring and evaluation and an annual report that justifies the investment on a country-by-country basis, but holds with it the accountability for the education of girls and for the rest of this work. I urge Members to support this measure. Again, I thank Representative Lowey. I thank the rest of the Members who worked on this for working on such a bipartisan basis on its provisions. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous material in the Record.

Mr. ROYCE of California

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous materials in the Record.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to say, as the author of this bill, it does take a lot of work, a lot of research, to put together legislation like this. And I did want to thank Joan Condon of the staff, and I wanted to thank Jessica Kelch, certainly Margot Sullivan, and Taylor Clausen for their efforts here. I think that as you get involved in this legislation and you see some of the lost opportunities in the past--I would just give one example. NetHope, an NGO, made a compelling case for this build-once policy that this puts in place. It was several years ago, as they explained, and Eliot Engel and I have been out to Liberia. There was a $100 million project for a road where there is no Internet use, and there is very little across Liberia. Had the donors had the foresight to just invite the private sector to lay the fiber-optic cable under that road while it was being constructed--and, as you know, you do that at a fraction of the cost. That is when they want to lay the cable--the cost would have been 1 percent of the total investment. It would have been $1 million. But what is the consequence of that lack of foresight? You fast forward to 2014. I will tell you the consequences. Ebola ravaged Liberia, 10,000 people over the course of a single year; it crossed international borders, finally included the United States. There was a reason why the information did not get out, and that reason was because there was not Internet access in this region across Liberia, which was the same region where they would have put the Internet access. That is what physicians tell us. It is not a surprise that experts agree that the lack of Internet infrastructure hampered Ebola response efforts, according to the physicians, as donors and community health centers struggled to track the disease. They could not even coordinate their efforts, for those of you who remember that struggle. Now, all of a sudden there is renewed interest in improving the Internet architecture in Liberia, and now we find that the cost is so many, many, many multiples of what it had been had this bill been law, and that we had simply let those know in industry that that opportunity was there to lay that cable back when the road was originally being built. So we need this build-once strategy. We have got to have smart development. We can do better. We will. And I urge the Members to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE of California

Mr. ROYCE of California. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. on Friday, January 27, 2017; and further, when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet on Monday, January 30, 2017, when it shall convene at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Mr. ROYCE of California

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Chairman, this has been an issue in Europe. It has been an issue in the United States. I would like to make the point that, with respect to looking at economic analysis and making certain that it is bipartisan, I think there is a way to make certain it is objective. As I look at the underlying text and then look at the amendment that we are accepting, we should reflect on this. We are going to have the SEC here look at both the protection of investors and the effects to ensure competition and efficiency. So I would explain to the Members that adding that into what I already thought was pretty exacting rules here in terms of an objective analysis should really succeed in our attempt here. And what is the attempt in this Regulatory Accountability Act? It is to make sure that the U.S. capital markets are unmatched in terms of their size, their depth, their resiliency, and transparency. And this Regulatory Accountability Act gives the Commission the opportunity to ensure that its rules and regulations, past and present, each of those are worth pursuing when measured against their economic costs. Growing access to capital, protecting investors, preserving the world's strongest capital markets are not mutually exclusive objectives here.

Mr. ROYCE of California. And here is what I would like to point out. The European Union clearly recognizes this conundrum right now. They are launching a call for evidence to investigate the unintended consequences created by their regulatory framework because they are searching for balance in this, too, to make sure that they have retrospective examination. It is prudent. Frankly, as the effectiveness of regulation is measured by outcomes rather than volume in a situation like this, it drives us toward efficiency in the market.

Mr. ROYCE of California

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Donald James Greco, MD, of Huntington Beach, California, who passed away on Tuesday, January 3, 2017. Dr. Greco served our community with kindness and compassion for over 58 years. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he graduated from Creighton University School of Medicine in 1948 and began his career by serving our country proudly as a physician in the Korean War. Moving his first love and bride, Teresa Marasco, to Japan, he completed his military service as a Lieutenant in the Army. Donald chased the sun to California in 1954, finishing his dermatology residency at University of California, Los Angeles, and opening his own practice, in 1956, in Long Beach. He found a home and we gained a doctor. When not serving as president of the Long Beach Medical Association, Donald donated his time teaching dermatology residents as an associate professor at UCLA. His doctor's practice was his family and his family was his practice. Through generations of patients, he provided excellent care, while employing family members to serve by his side. His longevity was surpassed only by his generosity, often forgiving the debts of those in need. He was proud of his Italian heritage and his Catholic faith, as a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus. He loved Frank Sinatra, playing craps in Las Vegas, and a good glass of red. Often with a story to tell, and never shy about giving advice to anyone he thought needed it, he always made time to call and check on the family he held so dear. Today, our thoughts are with them: his wife, Terry, of 11 years, his daughters KrisAnn and Lisa, his sons Richard and David, and his 11 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Mr. Speaker, last week, ``the summer wind came blowing in from across the sea'' and took Dr. Greco home. May flights of angels lead him on his way.

Mr. ROYCE of California

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Trott).

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance).

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, just by way of the facts, what this resolution attempts to do is to reject the U.N. resolution that calls for a Palestinian state but not a Jewish state, a resolution that opens the door for those who want to impose boycott, divestment, or other sanctions measures against Israel or Israeli companies and, in essence, declares Judaism's holiest site as occupied territory. That is what is in this resolution. Those are the facts that we are debating here. Those are the facts that need to be rejected, my colleagues. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Costello).

Mr. ROYCE of California. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill).

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), the esteemed Speaker of the House.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous material in the Record.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 22, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 11) objecting to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 as an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to begin by thanking the ranking member, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel). I thank him for working with me in a bipartisan manner not just on this resolution but on the one that we worked on late last year--a unanimous vote by this body directing the administration not to take the steps that the administration has taken. I appreciate the leader and the Speaker as well working with us to ensure this resolution was brought quickly to the floor of this House. Today, we put Congress on record objecting to the recent U.N. Security Council resolution that hurt our ally, that hurt Israel, and I believe that puts an enduring peace further out of reach. Mr. Speaker, the United States has long recognized that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only come about through direct bilateral negotiations between these two parties, and that is why it is longstanding U.S. policy to veto the many one-sided, the many anti- Israel resolutions at the United Nations Security Council that violate that principle. But just the other week, the Obama administration broke with this longstanding U.S. policy by failing to veto U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334. This dangerous resolution effectively states that the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, are, in the words of the resolution, ``occupied territory.'' Why would we not veto that? It also lends legitimacy to efforts by the Palestinian Authority to put pressure on Israel through the U.N. rather than to go through the process of engaging in direct negotiations, and it puts wind in the sails of the shameful boycott divestment and sanctions movement. Unquestionably, this U.N. Security Council action damages the prospects for peace. The resolution and the bullying and harassment of Israel that it will spur only happened for one reason: the Obama administration let it happen--and that went against the distinct warnings from this body. Mr. Engel and I engaged in letters, in conversations with senior administration officials seeking their assurance that the United States would veto one-sided, anti-Israel resolutions. In November, the House unanimously, all of us, passed a resolution which warned the administration against taking such last-minute action. With that resolution, H. Con. Res. 165, the House unanimously stated that the United States Government should continue to oppose and veto United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to impose solutions to final-status issues or are one-sided and anti-Israel. Yet the administration rejected the call from Congress and chose a course that will bring harm for years to come by failing to veto U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334. If the Palestinians want a lasting peace, they must accept that Israel, not the U.N., is their negotiating partner; and that means ending the incitement to violence against Israelis that goes on in so many of the mosques, that goes on in the schools, that goes on in the newspapers and on television there. It also means ending--and I think this is the most important fact, because leaving this out of the resolution at the U.N. is beyond me--their pay-to-slay scheme. You talk about a lack of balance. Here we have a situation where, since 2003, it has been Palestinian law to reward Palestinian terrorists--terrorists--to go out, and they are given this incitement, this stipend for life. The more mayhem they create, the more horrific the number of civilians they attack and, therefore, the longer the sentence, the more they know: Well, I can serve my time, and then when I get out, I can get this stipend for the rest of my life--and it is larger and larger, depending upon the amount of mayhem--and if I don't make it, or if I am a suicide bomber, my family gets the stipend. That, by law, is the way the Palestinian Authority has engineered this, costing the lives--and you can read about it every month of those civilians attacked on the streets. It is not just Israelis, of course. Taylor Force, a U.S. Marine, was killed simply because he was in Israel, but it was by someone responding to the incitement. So $300 million per year spent by the Palestinian Authority to do that. No mention of that, of course, by the United Nations. And that is why today's action is so important, to demonstrate our united opposition to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, call for its repeal, to head off any more moves the Obama administration might have in the next few days with respect to the Paris conference next week as well, and to provide the foundation for the next administration to move forcefully to counteract its dangerous impact. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the longtime chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, in short, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 has harmed our ally Israel. It has harmed the prospects for peace. It is one-sided. It is an anti-Israel resolution, the kind of which it has been longstanding U.S. policy to veto within the U.N. Security Council, and it is not hard to see why because this resolution opens the door for those who want to impose boycott, divestment, or other sanctions measures against Israel or against Israeli companies. And, in essence, it declares Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall, as occupied territory. Mr. Speaker, this is reminiscent of another action by the United Nations, the infamous ``Zionism is racism'' resolution whose damage took decades to undo. Fortunately, the bipartisan rejection of the President's U.N. decision provides an opportunity for the House to rally around a more constructive policy and renewed U.S. leadership in the region. I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this resolution so that the bipartisan policy of rejecting this harmful U.N. Security Council resolution and encouraging direct negotiation is endorsed loud and clear. It is far past time for the incitement to stop and the budgeting of $300 million by the Palestinian Authority to pay people to slay Israeli civilians be discontinued. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROYCE of California

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE of California

Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, the problem with this U.N. resolution is not simply that it criticizes Israeli actions; it is that it is fundamentally one-sided. It is anti-Israel, and that is a departure from longstanding, bipartisan U.S. policy. U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 does not address the Palestinian Authority's failure to end incitement of hatred. Frankly, they encourage it. The violence that we see against Israeli civilians comes from the encouragement of PA officials. It doesn't address the Palestinian Authority's continued payments. An incentive payment in their budget--over $300 million a year--is paid to those who would carry out attacks against Israeli civilians. The more mayhem you create, the longer the term you have in prison, the larger the stipend. That comes right out of the budget of the Palestinian Authority. The U.N. resolution did not call upon Palestinian leadership to fulfill their obligations towards negotiations. The Middle East Summit is planned next month. So, first, the administration abstains on this, and next month in France there is real concern that another damaging Security Council resolution should follow. That is why this dangerous policy must be rejected, hopefully unanimously, by this House.