Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act of 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUIZENGA. 6270.

Republicans are unwavering in our support to hold China accountable for the human rights violations that are occurring in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or the XUAR.

We agree with each other on the facts on the ground, from the oppression that the Uyghurs are feeling, to the forced labor camps.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I would remind my colleagues that we passed H.R. 6210 last week, literally last week, on a bipartisan basis to address these human rights violations.

Moreover, to date, the Trump administration has taken significant action to punish human rights violators in the region, including recent sanctions and additions to the Commerce Department's Entity List.

On the other hand, this window-dressing bill, put forth by the Democrats less than a month before the election and a week after we actually passed legislation, will not hold any bad actors accountable.

Adding additional mandatory disclosures for public companies is not the appropriate way to curtail human rights atrocities.

Sanctioning is the most effective way to hold these human rights abusers accountable.

The framework of this bill is deeply flawed. First, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, has no foreign policy expertise. The SEC's three-part mission is to: one, protect investors; two, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and third, facilitate capital formation here in the United States.

The Treasury and State Department handle the sanctions regime.

We should instead be working with both the State Department and Treasury to hold these bad actors accountable, not the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that we are working with the State Department and Treasury.

To be clear, this bill would require the SEC to issue rules regarding American companies, and only American companies, to disclose whether they or any of their affiliates directly or indirectly engaged with an entity or an affiliate of an entity to import not only goods from the XUAR, but also goods containing materials originating or sourced from the XUAR.

Now, we all have been talking about Disney a lot and a lot of other places that have had content from, seemingly, this area.

So now let's look at what this would mean for a manufacturer. Let's look at what this would mean in so many various areas of our economy.

This means that companies would be required to know if its affiliates, its suppliers, anyone they may have a relationship with, are ``indirectly engaged with affiliates of certain companies.''

So you may not be doing something directly, but an affiliate or a partner of yours may be doing something with an affiliate or a partner of somebody else that may be dealing and doing some business in that area.

This is a poorly constructed disclosure regime where a public company would be required to disclose impossible-to-discern information, and it would be liable for securities fraud, a very powerful word, if it is impossible to discern information that is not disclosed correctly.

So think about that. They may not know they are breaking the law, this law, but they would be held accountable for that.

Further, the bill does not contain a sunset clause, and the disclosure requirement would apply indefinitely even if behavior in the region has changed.

This bill's framework has proven disastrous.

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act mandated disclosures relating to the use of conflict minerals that originated in the DRC, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, or an adjoining country. There is an entire Great Lakes region, they call it, in Africa.

The implementation of section 1502 cost billions of dollars--Democrat estimates put it at over $7 billion--and the provisions led to devastating job losses, not here in America, but in Africa.

Mr. Speaker, this bill did not go through regular order either, I might add.

Committee Republicans have not had the opportunity to make substantive changes or suggestions, let alone examine the bill's likely harmful consequences.

So, again, just last week, the House passed H.R. 6210, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, to hold China accountable. That is where the responsibility lies, with China, not U.S. companies or the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Today, we are only trying to give a vulnerable Member and other Democrats who feel the need to ``get tough on China all of a sudden'' a win--sad, in my opinion.

I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 6270, as it will limit opportunities for everyday investors, reduce the number of public companies, increase compliance costs on businesses, and may harm, actually, the Uyghurs themselves who this bill is intending to protect.

Let's go after China. Let's not go after the Uyghurs.
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Mr. HUIZENGA. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
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Mr. HUIZENGA. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Is it appropriate--

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Mr. HUIZENGA. Will the gentlewoman yield for a parliamentary inquiry?

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

Let me just address the point that was just brought up, Mr. Speaker.

There is a sensitivity to that. There has been an injustice in our history, there is no doubt, and we need to address that now. Obviously, it was addressed at the time, but it has been ongoing.

But whether it was the slave trafficking that the chairlady was talking about or whether it was family members of my wife who were enslaved by Nazis in work camps or whether they are modern-day slave labor camps like this with the Uyghurs, this must be stamped out. This must be stamped out. We are in robust agreement about the problem and about the issue.

The question here is enforcement and responsibility. So, Mr. Speaker, I am going to read a quote from the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We heard about moral obligation and those kinds of things. This is what the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission said: ``As we all know, the SEC has little or no experience in crafting trade sanctions or articulating and enforcing human rights policy, two areas which have not traditionally been within the purview of securities regulation.''

This is from Mary Jo White, Barack Obama's head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

So this is not a partisan issue. This is not a question of whether you support Uyghur slavery or not. I am offended if our colleagues are trying to portray it as that. I don't think they are, but that may be kind of how they are tinting it. And I might refer everybody to the fact that, last week, we passed a bipartisan bill addressing this very issue.

But this is about enforcement. This is about the State Department doing its job. This is about the Treasury Department doing its job, and, yes, our Financial Services Committee, which has done its job with sanctions. We are very much a part of that sanction regime with the Department of the Treasury.

So, please, Mr. Speaker, do not misunderstand, and please don't misconstrue opposition to this particular bill. Again, we have no disagreement about the atrocities. We have no disagreement about what is happening on the ground to the Uyghurs and, frankly, to others.

By the way, if this was about others, we would include others, but it is narrowed down to the Uyghurs.

So I am hoping and I am praying that this isn't just a political ploy to look tough on China, finally, but I hope this is really about helping people, because I know that is why I am here.

So I want to make sure, whether it is a young lady in the Philippians who is in sex slavery or whether it is a Uyghur in a labor camp or whether it was my wife's family that was imprisoned by the Japanese in internment camps in Indonesia or in the Netherlands under the Nazis or whether it was our brothers and sisters who came here involuntarily as slaves, we have to recognize the evil and the sinfulness behind this, as my friend and colleague from Texas had talked about its being sinful. I wholeheartedly agree.

The question is: How are we going to remediate that and address it? Unfortunately, the Securities and Exchange Commission is not the right vehicle for that.

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

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Mr. HUIZENGA. Mr. Speaker, we are hoping to get one more person here who is on their way, so I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we have had a good, robust conversation, and we have agreed violently here on the problem and on the issue that we need to address. Again, we have no disagreement about the atrocities against the Uyghurs. We have no disagreement about what is happening on the ground and the despicableness of the CCP, the Chinese Government.

Mr. Speaker, I really hope that it is not simply that the Democrats are wanting to appear ``tough on China'' by pushing through an empty window dressing bill that hurts U.S. investors and companies but, unfortunately, simply pays lip service to the Uyghurs with a framework that has already been proven disastrous.

And I just read a short while ago the quote from Barack Obama's head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Jo White, who said that the Securities and Exchange Commission is not equipped for this. Using the SEC as social police didn't work with conflict minerals, and it won't work as we all attempt to protect the Uyghurs.

I would remind my Democrat colleagues, again, that a year ago, Republicans put forth strong proposals to prohibit taxpayer-backed financing through the Export-Import Bank from going to the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese Government. Our proposals had real teeth in them.

Sadly, the Democrats on our committee rejected this proposal with no real explanation. So instead, Democrats want to target our securities laws and make the SEC responsible for foreign policy. In fact, targeting our securities law is the Democrats' solution for virtually everything--climate change, outsourcing, conflict minerals, not enough mustard at the ballpark. It is not the job of the SEC to make sure that these things are happening. It is our job and Treasury's job and the State Department's job to make sure that those sanctions are in place.

This bill does not target the problem. Instead, it simply puts, not just inconvenient duties on the plates of these publicly traded companies, no, it accuses them of fraud--fraud--over something that is impossible for them to determine. On top of it, it requires enforcement from an agency that simply cannot do it.

Sanctioning bad actors is the appropriate and most effective way to punish human rights abusers, as sanctions hurt the Chinese Communist Party without hurting the Uyghurs or the American capital markets or other investors and employees around the world. And ironically, sanctions cover everyone. If you are a privately held company that is using materials from a source that is under sanctions, guess what? You just broke the law. You can't do that.

Now under this, if we are only using the SEC, guess who the SEC applies to? Publicly traded companies only. So those private companies could still go along their merry way doing business with those folks. Yet, these publicly traded companies have this massive burden put on them, enforced by an agency that says it cannot enforce them. I would like to see everyone covered, not just these publicly traded companies.

Mr. Speaker, both the House and the administration have taken meaningful action to combat human rights violators in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This includes recent sanctions imposed by the administration on a number of China's 25-member ruling Politburo and party secretary of the region, as well as additions to the Commerce Department's Entity List.

Mr. Speaker, that is why I request my colleagues oppose H.R. 6270, not because we don't agree on the goal, not that we don't want to make sure that the Uyghurs are protected, but because using an agency to enforce the law is the wrong direction to go. We are literally asking the street department to go be the police department. And whether you are doing the fire department or the street maintenance, or something else in the city government, you may be good at that but that doesn't mean you are a good police department or a good fire department. So let's not ask the SEC to do that job, the job of the State Department.

Mr. Speaker, this is only going to be hurting those American investors, those American companies, everyday investors, who are trying to make sure that they get a reasonable return, yet, have a concern to protect the Uyghurs that, unfortunately, this bill fails to do.

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