National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and appreciate the opportunity to introduce this amendment combating illegal CCP dictates in the South China Sea.

Mr. Speaker, on September 1, China's Maritime Security Administration began to demand that foreign ships report specific vessel information before entering the CCP's imagined maritime claims.

This information includes the following: the name and number; the satellite telephone number; the position and recent locations; and cargo.

Vessels needing to provide this information include submersibles, nuclear vessels, ships carrying radioactive materials, as well as any vessel the CCP deems to be a threat, which is, naturally, purposefully vague.

Now, what this is is the Chinese Communist Party literally drew a line in the South China Sea and said: You come across it, even though you are in international waters, you have to do this.

No, we don't have to do this.

The United States has repeatedly said we reject all maritime claims made by China within the so-called nine-dash line, the 10-dash line, or the 11-dash line, or whatever they want to call it, at any time, as virtually all of those claims are both imagined and illegal. This position was prominently reinforced by former Secretary Pompeo on July 13, 2020.

Fortunately, it appears to be the case that the administration agrees with this assessment.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this amendment to push back against China's lawless activity in the South China Sea.

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I am opposed to the legislation.

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, on January 23, 2020, President Trump carried forward an initiative that had begun in 2010 focused on improving processes for reviewing arms exports, including making necessary updates to the United States Munitions List. Specifically, the items that moved fell within the category of firearms, for sure, however, only certain items were moved, not all.

The State Department retains oversight of those defense articles and services that provide a critical military or intelligence advantage or, in the case of weapons, are inherently for military end use.

Now, what does that mean?

That means fully automatic firearms and modern artillery, silencers, components, parts, and accessories specifically designed for automatic firearms remain on the munitions list under State Department jurisdiction. These are still subject to congressional notification requirements as appropriate.

For the items that were moved to Commerce, their export still requires authorization, but under Commerce Department regulations.

Just keep in mind, Mr. Speaker, we compete. Even arms manufacturers in the United States still have to compete globally. Now, we can either sell American arms to our allies, or we can have them go shop with Russia or China. That would be great.

Now, the Department of Commerce has been regulating exports of shotguns and specific types of ammunitions for decades and continues to do so today. For goodness' sake, even President Biden, who really doesn't have a clue about weapons, recommended that we all get a shotgun, didn't he? He said that.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has the ability and responsibility to request any licenses or authorizations approved or denied by Commerce, pursuant to the Export Control Reform Act passed in August of 2018. To date, there has not been any inappropriate licenses issued for any of these items to any entities--none.

Moreover, no Member has even requested licensing information from Commerce since this shift. There just simply has not been any problem.

Mr. Speaker, this is a solution that is looking for a problem. There isn't a problem. There is no basis for this amendment as it directly contradicts the spirit of this regulatory change. Shifting this regulatory function to Commerce does not and never has governed the illicit transfer of firearms.

This is about the illicit transfer of firearms. If we wanted to get to the illicit transfer of firearms, and my colleagues on the other side were really serious about that, they would be interested to find out what ever happened with Fast and Furious. That was an illicit transfer of firearms.

This amendment falsely claims to address illicit transfer of firearms. This is not an amendment that will address that.

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I just want to reiterate that the House Foreign Affairs Committee--that is a committee in Congress. That is Congress, by the way. That is what Congress is.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee can request and has the authorization to approve or deny these exports pursuant to the Export Control Reform Act passed in August of 2018. It is already covered. All we are doing is adding redundancy. All we are doing is making it more difficult if we pass this for us to sell our allies things that they want to have from us and we want to sell to them.

Why would we make that more difficult? It seems to me we want to help our allies and our allies want to help us.

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