Ed Royce

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, again I thank the Congressman from New York, Major Lee Zeldin, for authoring this bill. Let me also again express my appreciation for the cooperation of Ranking Member Engel and to commend his work and, also, that of our colleague from California (Mr. Bera), on this legislation. The 9/11 Commission states in their report to the Congress on recommendations: ``The U.S. Government cannot meet its own obligations to the American people to prevent the entry of terrorists without a major effort to collaborate with other governments. We should do more to exchange terrorist information with trusted allies, and raise U.S. and global border security standards for travel and for border crossing over the medium and long term through extensive international cooperation.'' This bill does that. It adds another component, and that is as it relates to the collateral benefit, which will come through trying to prevent infectious diseases borne by these exotic vectors, like these mosquitoes that bring the Zika virus or like Ebola. So this bill, H.R. 4314, increases collaboration with our allies through improved information sharing, tightened border security screening methods overseas, and the Department of State and Department of Homeland Security are required to accelerate the delivery of certain border security systems and prioritizing delivery to countries deemed to be at high or medium risk for foreign fighter or terrorist travel. It also establishes minimum border security standards. The Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security are required to submit an annual report to us in Congress detailing how countries are meeting the minimum border security standards established there. The annual report will not only assess partner country efforts over the previous 12 months, but it is also going to identify those areas that are most necessary for improvement. Countries that don't meet border security standards could have their nonhumanitarian, nontrade- related U.S. assistance suspended, cut off. Suspension of assistance is meant to ensure that countries take the necessary steps to improve their border security. I again want to thank Mr. Zeldin and other members of the Committee on Homeland Security's bipartisan Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel and all the bipartisan cosponsors for their support for this bill, which deserves our unanimous support. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the passing of community activist and civic and religious leader, Atty. Linda Sarno, who passed away on February 1, 2016. Atty. Sarno was a beloved community organizer and leader who supported the development and professionalism of Filipino American businesses and raised awareness and appreciation for Filipino culture and cuisine in Southern California. She started initiatives in the community to promote the advantages of green technology, health, and conservation both in business and everyday life. She was co-founder and director emeritus of the Filipino American Chamber of Commerce of Orange County where she encouraged young entrepreneurship, and was also actively involved in the Asian Business Association of Orange County. Atty. Sarno will be deeply missed by her family, friends, and our community.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of H.R. 4238, which was introduced by my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York, Representative Meng. Racism and discrimination have no place in America today. We are a nation of immigrants that is proud of its diversity. Despite our society's progression and growth over the last 100 years, the Federal Code still contains language on ethnicity that is antiquated, and, quite frankly, inappropriate. For example, the term ``Orientals'' is offensive, especially so when referring to the vibrant Asian American community. Using this term in federal law lends it a legitimacy it doesn't deserve. I strongly believe that when we get the chance, we should correct the mistakes of the past. This bill goes a long way towards correcting our mistakes. H.R. 4238 eliminates outdated, disrespectful terms from federal law and replaces them with terms, such as ``Asian American,'' ``Alaska Natives,'' and ``Hispanic,'' that are more appropriate for our times and in keeping with our values. Last year, Representative Meng and I successfully amended H.R. 8 to strike these derogatory terms, which did not move in the Senate. As an original cosponsor of this standalone bill, I'm very happy that she and I are closer to having this language signed into law and these terms removed for good. Deleting inappropriate terms from the U.S. Code is a simple, yet important, way of demonstrating respect for our Nation's diversity. I strongly support this bill and urge my colleagues in the House to vote in support of it.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, for 3 years the Committee on Foreign Affairs that I chair has worked with great determination to build support for this North Korea sanctions legislation. I want to thank my Democratic colleagues, and I especially want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), our ranking member, for his support in this legislation. I also thank Senators Corker, Cardin, and Gardner, for their leadership in the Senate and for their strong additions, particularly on human rights and on cyber attacks by the brutal and hostile North Korean regime. Today Congress--Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate--unites to put this North Korean sanctions legislation on the President's desk. Last month this bill passed the House with 418 votes, and this week it passed the Senate 96-0. Mr. Speaker, these overwhelming votes reflect bipartisan frustration with our North Korea policy, a policy of strategic patience that isn't working. Today Congress unites to say it is time for a new approach. Mr. Speaker, last month North Korea conducted its fourth known nuclear test, and last weekend it concluded a long-range missile test. On Tuesday, our Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, testified that North Korea has restarted a plutonium reactor and expanded that production of weapons-grade nuclear fuel. The threat to the United States and our allies is real. The tyrannical regime of Kim Jong-un has developed increasingly destructive weapons: its miniaturized nuclear warheads that fit onto its most reliable missiles. We cannot stand by any longer. The legislation we consider today, H.R. 757, is the most comprehensive North Korea sanctions legislation to come before this body. My bill uses targeted financial and economic pressure to isolate Kim Jong-un and his top officials from the assets they maintain in foreign banks and from the hard currency that sustains their rule. These assets are gained, in part, from illicit activities on the part of North Korea, like counterfeiting U.S. currency and selling weapons around the world, and they are used to advance the North Korean nuclear program. They also pay for the luxurious lifestyle of the ruling elites and the continued repression of the North Korean people by their police state. In 2005, the Treasury Department blacklisted a small bank in Macao called Banco Delta Asia, which not only froze North Korea's money in the bank, but also scared away other financial institutions from dealing with the Government of North Korea for fear that they, too, would be blacklisted. Unfortunately, this effective policy was shelved for ill-fated negotiations, but this bill can get us back to a winning strategy. Equally important to the strong sanctions in this bill are its critical human rights provisions. North Korea operates a brutal system of gulags that hold as many as 120,000 men, women, and children. If a North Korean is suspected of any kind of dissenting opinion, even telling a joke about the regime, his entire family for three generations is punished. North Korea is a human rights house of horrors. Two years ago the U.N. Commission of Inquiry released the most comprehensive report on North Korea to date, and their finding was that the Kim Jong-un regime and the whole family regime has, for decades, pursued policies involving crimes--and this is the words of the United Nations report--crimes that shock the conscience of humanity. This amended version requires the administration to develop a strategy to promote North Korean human rights, including a list of countries that use North Korean slave labor. The implementation of this bill will help sever a key subsidy for North Korea's weapons of mass destruction program, for only when the North Korean leadership realizes that its criminal activities are untenable will the prospects for peace and security in northeast Asia improve. I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. ROYCE. 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 this resolution.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 757) to improve the enforcement of sanctions against the Government of North Korea, and for other purposes.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, before yielding to our next speaker, I also want to note that this bill effectively reauthorizes and extends the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, which I have worked to support for more than a dozen years. That groundbreaking law, which was reauthorized in 2008 and again in 2012 by our chairman emeritus, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, emphasized that human rights, the free flow of information, and the protection of those who escaped are not only important to the people of North Korea, they are also critical to changing North Korea's strategic calculus and trying to force that rogue regime to address the needs of its own people instead of threatening its neighbors. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.

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

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to again thank Ranking Member Eliot Engel for his leadership on this issue. He is my coauthor on this bill. I would just like to concur in his thoughts about the shocking nature of this totalitarian regime, not just in terms of the way it has treated its people, but also its hostility towards South Korea and towards the United States and to the West; and to just share the thought, as he has expressed, this level of struggle that the people themselves in North Korea live in under this totalitarian state. When I was in North Korea, I had an opportunity to see something that struck me just in terms of the malnutrition. The NGO community tells us that close to 50 percent of those children are malnourished. What I saw in terms of the malnourishment, the NGO community says malnourished to the point that it affects their ability to learn. The malnourishment can be seen everywhere. The actual height differential between the average person in North Korea, it is 4 inches shorter than in South Korea. That is a really stark thing to see as you are in North Korea. But the other observation that Mr. Engel made was the overt hostility shown to the United States and, of course, to South Korea and to the rest of the world. I remember seeing the Cheonan. This is a corvette. This was a South Korean ship on which 46 South Koreans lost their lives, over 50 were injured. It was split in half by a torpedo from a North Korean submarine. And they actually lifted the two halves out of the water. Inspecting that and looking at the letters, the last letters that some of those young South Korean sailors had sent home before they perished, it is just a reminder, it is a reminder of how brutal that regime can be on its own people, but also on those against whom it has ill intent. So the South Koreans have suffered from this. And now, to see them move forward and try to expand this nuclear weapons program, each new launch brings them closer. They say they can hit the West Coast of the United States. They are claiming that they will be able to hit the entire U.S. with their ICBM program. These placards that you see and these posters actually show their missiles coming down on the United States. So, at this point, I think it is critical, and our colleagues in the Senate feel the same way. I want to thank our Senate colleagues for building upon the House bill which Eliot Engel and I have authored. And I also appreciate the cooperation of the bipartisan House leadership to ensure this bill's quick scheduling. It is just back from the Senate. In the wake of North Korea's fourth nuclear test and its recent missile launch, many of our allies also are trying to tighten the screws now on that regime in order to slow its capability to deliver this type of weapon. Only days ago, South Korea shuttered the Kaesong Industrial Complex because, as they observed, it was giving the North Korean regime the hard currency it needed in order to move forward its weapons programs. This will end a very important revenue for the North Korean regime. Japan has issued a new set of sanctions as well, and China and Russia should take notice and follow this example. It is time for the United States to stand with our partners in northeast Asia as we press China and Russia to follow suit, and this bill sends the message to that regime in North Korea that they must reform and they must disarm this nuclear weapons program. By cutting off Kim Jong-un's access to the hard currency he needs for his army and his weapons, H.R. 757 will return us to the one strategy that has worked: financial pressure on the North Korean regime. So I urge the passage of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Chairman, the reason this legislation is on the floor, frankly, is because of the anemic economic growth that the United States is facing. We have got less than 2 percent economic growth. If we are going to figure out a way to get the economic engine running again, we have got to do something to remove the barriers to access to capital. That is what the Capital Markets Improvement Act attempts to do here. H.R. 2354, the Streamlining Excessive and Costly Regulations Review Act, does just that. Let's face it, regulators aren't perfect. They are like lawmakers in that sense. Regulators have a certain obligation to examine their record to determine failures and to rectify missteps as needed. The Streamlining Excessive and Costly Regulations Review Act will give the Securities and Exchange Commission the opportunity to do so. It would set that up on an ongoing basis. It requires a retrospective Commission review of rules and regulations that have an annual economic impact or cost of $100 million or more, result in a major increase of costs or prices for consumers, or harm the ability of U.S. enterprises to compete against foreign competitors. Commissioners will be able to reverse ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome regulations with the guidance of public notice and comment, and it ensures that the SEC isn't simply rolling out the red tape in a vacuum, oblivious to the negative economic impact that their actions have on consumers, investors, or businesses. The success of a regulation or rulemaking shouldn't be measured in quantity. Instead, we need smart guidelines to protect our economy and preserve the world's strongest capital markets here in the United States. Mr. Chairman, I thank the author of this bill, Mr. Hurt of Virginia, for his leadership on this issue, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this.

Mr. ROYCE

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

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I again thank all of this bill's cosponsors in the House and in the Senate as well as the House and Senate staffs, particularly Nilmini Rubin. I also thank Andy Olson, whose hard work has gotten us here today. I also acknowledge Andrew Herscowitz--the USAID Power Africa's coordinator--and his team, who are watching this debate right now in the gallery. I think, as we look at the range of enthusiasm for this legislation, at the last count I took, we had letters of support from 35 African ambassadors, from the Chamber of Commerce, from the Corporate Council on Africa, from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and, of course, from the ONE Campaign. The United States has economic and national security interests in the continued development of the African continent. This bill sets out a comprehensive, sustainable, and market-based plan to bring 600 million Africans out of the dark and into the global economy, benefiting American businesses and workers at the same time and, frankly, saving lives at the same time. So I urge all Members to support the Electrify Africa Act. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE. I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on this bill.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking this bill's Senate cosponsors. The Senate sponsors of the original measure are Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and the ranking member, Mr. Cardin, as well as two other Senators, Marco Rubio and Chris Coons. I thank them for their good work to ensure this bill's Senate passage. We had our House version passed into the Senate. I also want to thank Ranking Member Eliot Engel, as well as Chairman Chris Smith, and Ranking Member Karen Bass of the Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee for working so closely with me to develop the concept for this legislation over the last several years. Last Congress, the House passed a similar version of the measure we consider today. With today's action, this bill will head to the President's desk for signature. The Electrify Africa Act seeks to address the massive electricity shortage in Africa. It is a direct response to the fact that today 600 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa--that is 70 percent of the population--do not have access to reliable electricity. The Electrify Africa Act offers a market-based response to this problem, and it will bring about the development of affordable, reliable energy in Africa. Why do we want to help increase energy access to the continent? Well, to create jobs and to improve lives in both Africa and America. It is no secret that Africa has great potential as a trading partner and could help create jobs here in the U.S. As the Foreign Affairs Committee investigated how to make better use of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which was landmark legislation passed over a decade ago to expand trade with Africa, we learned that the lack of affordable, reliable energy made the production of goods for trade and export nearly impossible. Even where other conditions supported manufacturing, the cost of running a plant on a diesel generator is prohibited. However, the U.S. is not alone in its interest in enhancing trade with Africa. We have competition. Just last month, the People's Republic of China pledged $60 billion in financial support to the continent. If the United States wants to tap into this potential consumer base, we need to be aggressively building partnerships on the continent, which is what this bill does. This bill will also have a tangible impact on people's lives. As former chairman of the Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee, I have seen firsthand how our considerable investments in improving access to health care and education in Africa are undermined by a lack of reliable electricity. Mr. Engel and I visited a power provider in rural Tanzania, which would help meet the goals of this bill, in a place where only 10 percent of the population has access to electricity. In areas like that throughout Africa, schoolchildren are forced to study by inefficient, dangerous kerosene lamps. Cold storage of lifesaving vaccines is almost impossible without reliable electricity. Too many families resort to using charcoal or other toxic fuel sources whose fumes cause more deaths than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined and also damage the eyesight of the children trying to study. In Tanzania, we now have American entrepreneurs bringing new technology and management expertise to the remotest areas of Africa, and that is improving lives. Many of us on the committee have worked to transform our foreign assistance from programs that offer extensive Band-Aids to policies that support economic growth and independence. The Electrify Africa Act is part of this transition. This bill mandates a clear and comprehensive U.S. policy providing the private sector with the platform that it needs to invest in African electricity. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 2152) to establish a comprehensive United States Government policy to encourage the efforts of countries in sub-Saharan Africa to develop an appropriate mix of power solutions, including renewable energy, for more broadly distributed electricity access in order to support poverty reduction, promote development outcomes, and drive economic growth, and for other purposes.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 515, the International Megan's Law, focused on preventing demand for child sex trafficking. I really want to acknowledge the hard work by the Member from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), his perseverance here as the bill's author, as he has tried on several occasions to get this through the Senate and to the President's desk. With this action today, this bill, when it passes the floor, will go to the President's desk. I think it is very important that we understand the magnitude of this problem, as he has tried to convey to us here, and how this is going to strengthen the hand of law enforcement. We want law enforcement to consider this a new tool. It will combat the appalling industry of child sex tourism, in which adults travel overseas to exploit children in other countries. My chief of staff, Amy Porter, has gone on several humanitarian missions to work with very young children in Cambodia and elsewhere in South Asia as well. As she shows you the photographs of these little girls exploited and traumatized by this predatory activity, it is hard to fathom that men from around the world, including America, including our country, engage in this predatory activity. While the countries they travel to lack the resources needed to deal with this rising number of child predators, this legislation is going to help us offset that. One of the most discouraging things that my chief of staff, Amy, found was that, in Cambodia, it was the local police chief who himself was involved in the practice. Now, upon her return to again check on this, she found that they had put an end to that. He was no longer in this trade, in this type of business. It had been cleaned up some with pressure from the United States, but it is still ongoing. So this will help us fight back.

Mr. ROYCE. At present, multiple U.S. Government agencies are working to combat human trafficking and child sex tourism, but there has been a troubling lack of coordination and information sharing and notifications to foreign countries that a potential sexual criminal is heading their way, and those notifications are very inconsistent. This bill clarifies the responsibility, puts it on the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. It better coordinates those efforts. And, importantly, by proactively helping other countries to identify those incoming child predators, we will encourage them to alert us when foreigners convicted of sex offenses against children attempt to enter into the United States. So I commend Chairman Smith for his work on this bipartisan legislation, and I encourage all Members to support its passage. It will be on the President's desk here after our action this evening.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 400) to require the Secretary of State and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to submit reports on definitions of placement and recruitment fees for purposes of enabling compliance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. ROYCE. 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 on this bill.

Mr. ROYCE. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, my coauthor on this bill is the ranking member, Eliot Engel of New York, and I wanted to thank him as well and our 27 bipartisan cosponsors for their support. This is the Trafficking Prevention in Foreign Affairs Contracting Act. As many of our colleagues are aware, we just observed Human Trafficking Awareness Month, shining a spotlight on what is now tens of millions of victims every year of what is modern-day slavery. One of the goals here was increasing the awareness of these crimes against human dignity. The scourge of human trafficking now is a worldwide challenge. Although the vulnerability may be greatest in the developing world, these crimes also occur here in our own communities. I am very proud of the work being done in southern California by members of our Human Trafficking Congressional Advisory Committee where advocates, law enforcement, service providers, faith-based groups, and trafficking survivors themselves meet regularly to converse, coordinate, and plan how to combat human trafficking. Out of that working group come a lot of good ideas. I want to acknowledge Sara Catalan who helps me in leading that task force. This bill is intended to close a gap that exists in protection. The United States cannot be too careful in ensuring that our overseas employment practices do not inadvertently support debt bondage, because that debt bondage is one of the tools of human traffickers. At some overseas posts, the State Department and USAID rely on contractors to provide construction, security, maintenance, and other services, and these contractors sometimes employ foreign workers recruited from far away, far-away developing countries where they are vulnerable to abuses. In particular, the middlemen those contractors rely on often charge recruitment fees to prospective employees--in other words, payments for the right to work. Current law prohibits U.S. contractors from charging foreign workers unreasonable recruitment fees, and the State Department claims to prohibit any recruitment fees at all. However, neither State nor USAID have defined what constitutes a ``recruitment fee,'' and this ambiguity allows for a loophole that has been exploited. Recruiters simply rename these fees and continue charging them. This is a serious problem. We had a report by the State Department Inspector General in 2011. He found that a majority of the Department's foreign contract workers in certain Middle East countries were paying substantial fees to recruiters--and this is what caught our attention-- sometimes more than a year's salary resulting in, in the words of our Inspector General--in his words--``effective debt bondage.'' A worker from the Philippines performing janitorial services for our Embassy in Saudi Arabia should not be at risk of shakedowns from unscrupulous or violent operators. To ensure that our overseas contracting does not feed such problems, this bill requires State and USAID to define what prohibited ``recruitment fees'' are and to report to Congress on their plans to improve contract monitoring, to protect against human trafficking. A prohibition is only forceful if people understand what is prohibited. Clarifying these matters will give our contractors the guidance they need to ensure that our laws and policies are followed by those they use to recruit foreign workers. I again want to thank Mr. Engel and all of our cosponsors for their support of this strongly bipartisan bill which deserves our unanimous support. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, and he is the author of the original Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank Mr. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania for his work on this. On the heels of Human Trafficking Awareness Month, I think it is important that we as an institution take this opportunity to ensure that our own overseas contracting does not indirectly support debt bondage, and that is what this legislation ensures. Our practices need to reflect our Nation's fundamental commitments to freedom and human dignity, and, most importantly as well, we need to set an example for the rest of the world. I think by passing this legislation we will do so. I again want to thank my coauthor, Mr. Engel, and all of our bipartisan cosponsors for their support of this bill. It really deserves our unanimous support. I yield back the balance of my time.