Providing for Consideration of H.R. Protecting Our Democracy Act; Providing for Consideration of S. National Pulse Memorial; and Providing for Consideration of S. Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania for yielding and for her leadership on the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, there are lots of good things in this rule, such as the Protect Our Democracy Act, and everybody should vote for it. There are lots of amendments to that bill that are included in this rule. We move forward with the doc fix, and we put in this rule a procedure that will allow the Senate to consider the debt ceiling issue.

I should clarify this, because during the Rules Committee meeting today, I think some of my Republican friends who testified started to believe the Republican talking points that somehow this was automatically increasing the debt ceiling. It isn't. It puts in place a process that was negotiated by Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell, a Democrat and a Republican, that would allow the Senate to deal with the issue. When they deal with it and pass it, we will then have to deal with it and pass it here in the House. So I want to be clear on that.

The bill also includes the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which was negotiated between the House and Senate. It is a bill, in my opinion, that spends far too much on military matters, and I have some problems with that. But I will say this: Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Rogers did an incredible job of trying to piece together a bill that would get a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate.

I want to speak about one provision in particular that is missing. The House version of the NDAA that passed with broad bipartisan support last September in the House had some good things in it, including section 6470, which included my provision that reauthorizes Global Magnitsky sanctions and makes them more effective by adding a provision from Executive Order No. 13818, which was actually issued by former President Trump.

Briefly, the NDAA provision codifies the Global Magnitsky sanctions as they have been applied over the last 5 years. We need to reauthorize the Global Magnitsky sanctions because when they became law in 2016, a sunset was added.

Since 2016, Global Magnitsky sanctions have had strong bipartisan support and have proven to be one of our most powerful foreign policy tools. They have been imposed on more than 300 human rights abusers and corrupt actors in nearly 40 countries around the world.

Human rights groups, civil society organizations, and victims' organizations overwhelmingly support them.

The number one request we hear from threatened human rights defenders is that the U.S. impose Global Magnitsky sanctions on government perpetrators, on the individuals, and on the institutions responsible for heinous human rights atrocities.

In 2020, Global Magnitsky sanctions were imposed on Chinese officials for abusing Uighurs in China. Who opposes that? Well, apparently there are a handful of Republicans here in House that oppose it because they are the ones who are responsible for blocking the Global Magnitsky provisions from the final NDAA agreement.

These are the same people who are happy to talk about human rights and how important human rights are, and then they issue press releases and call for sanctions when there is a human rights atrocity that they want to be involved in. But when it comes to making sure that the U.S. Government can maintain the tools it needs to advance human rights, they just said no.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, shame on those who derailed this in the negotiations between the House and Senate.

It is not enough to issue press releases. We need to take action.

Mr. Speaker, mark my words, we will reauthorize and we will strengthen Global Magnitsky in this Congress. We will do so hand-in- hand with allies on both sides of the aisle in the House and in the Senate, because at the end of the day, it is important that we just don't talk the talk, that we walk the walk. I can't believe that this important provision was derailed by a small group in this House.

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