Bioeconomy Research and Development Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCAUL. Mr. Speaker, last year, the CCP's hypersonic weapons program successfully launched a missile that traveled all the way around the world. That program was built on the backbone of U.S. technology.

And as we speak, the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide against their own people. Women are forced to abort their children. Families are ripped apart. And all the while, American IP is being used to build the CCP's police state to help the CCP surveil and imprison the ethnic and religious minorities that they torture.

A substantive bill that counters the CCP isn't just a national security issue; it is a moral issue. That is why any serious legislation must include export controls to keep U.S. technology out of the hands of the CCP's military and surveillance state.

The stakes could not be higher, and the outcome hinges on a technology race. Unfortunately, this bill takes no meaningful step to address this significant risk to U.S. national security. Instead, it is a Trojan horse being used to inject $8 billion worth of taxpayer money into an unaccountable United Nations slush fund.

That is more than double the amount of money authorized for actual foreign policy programs. This U.N. slush fund has already provided at least $100 million directly to China, U.S. taxpayer dollars to a country that this Congress, that the former Republican President and the current Democrat President have all agreed is committing genocide; to a country that even Secretary Kerry admitted is using slave labor to make green energy projects, like solar panels and batteries.

And for some unknown reason, Democrats rejected Republican efforts to guarantee that the CCP could not access U.S. taxpayer money in this bill.

But even worse, this legislation could send U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund green energy projects built on the CCP's genocide program against its own people, to fund their slave labor, to prop up their forced abortions.

Shockingly, Republicans attempted to stop this from happening, to stop U.S. taxpayers from funding slave labor, but we were outright rejected by the Democrats.

Mr. Speaker, this is a moral issue. It is the test of our time. If we allow this legislation to pass, we will be on the wrong side of history. We will be helping the CCP build the future of global energy on the foundation of slave labor and genocide.

And Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today both angry and disappointed. This bill could have been the bipartisan crowning achievement of this Congress and we could have worked together.

We could have shown the American people that when it comes to generational threats posed by the CCP, that Republicans and Democrats can put U.S. interests over special interests; that we can put national security over party politics; that we can put morality over money.

Instead, the gentlewoman from California hijacked this legislation that was bicameral, bipartisan; hijacked these negotiations, and threw it together in this legislation that she well knew contained provisions that Republicans could not support.

In other words, she chose to turn this into a partisan political stunt. And she did it in secret, behind the backs of Republicans, while many of us were still negotiating with our Democrat counterparts in good faith to find a bipartisan agreement.

So, Mr. Speaker, the CCP is the most significant economic and national security threat the United States faces. The American people deserved better than this superficial partisan response.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this immoral bill and stand with me against genocide.

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