National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024
Floor Speech
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chair, I oppose this broad reactionary and irresponsible amendment because it would harm U.S. interests and undermine scientific progress for the American people and the world.
There is no question that the PRC poses real challenges to the United States and that it is engaged in technological and economic competition with us. We know that the PRC is engaged in harmful research to boost its military, that it engages in technology and IP theft. These are challenges worth tackling, and the Biden administration and Congress have taken steps to protect ourselves against these activities in effective and responsible ways.
This amendment, however, goes entirely too far. When a careful and scalpel-like approach is needed to ensure we are not contributing to China's military or providing China with advanced and sensitive technology and know-how, this amendment uses a guillotine to cut off support for any form of research collaboration between the United States and China.
As drafted, this amendment would prevent any U.S. funding of, contracting with, or partnership with any individual or entity connected to the PRC government. Let's be clear about what that would mean. This would prohibit collaboration with all the major public universities in China, endangering academic collaboration and research partnerships between U.S. and Chinese institutions.
We should be worried about AI and supercomputing. This amendment would cut off collaboration on completely harmless and often very beneficial social science research on things such as poverty reduction and economic development.
This amendment would make it harder for American academics and researchers to partner with the Chinese people, many of them who may not have any love for the CCP and would benefit from talking directly to and working with an American and learning about the freedoms and values that Americans enjoy.
More critically, this amendment would cut off collaboration on medical research that could literally save lives of Americans and people around the world. Let me give you one example. Right now doctors and researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York are collaborating with the Chinese Thoracic Oncology Group to conduct shared clinical trials in hospitals in the United States and China to develop modern cancer drugs. We need to make sure this research collaboration happens in a safe and secure way, but why would we prohibit it? Why would we not want to work together to find a cure for cancer?
Ultimately, we cannot and must not follow the Chinese Communist Party's example and close ourselves off to the world and the Chinese people. That is what they do. That is not what America does.
Madam Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith).
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Madam Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from San Diego, California (Ms. Jacobs).
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
As we consider this amendment today, Ukrainians are suffering greatly as Russia's brutal war against their sovereignty continues unabated. Seventy-eight percent of Ukrainians have had either a family member or a friend die because of Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. Cities have been decimated, families have been broken, and lives have been lost.
But the Zelenskyy government stands, the fight for democracy is alive, and Ukrainian willpower is and has been unflappable, and Putin's so-called ``special military operation'' has become one of the biggest strategic catastrophes in Russian history as we stand today. Russian generals are disappearing, and the Wagner group was marching on Moscow, not Kyiv, just a few weeks ago.
The United States' security assistance has been absolutely essential for the Ukrainian Army's heroic stand against the invaders of their homeland. We cannot and must not pull back now. The cost of this war on the Ukrainian people has been immense, but their bravery has been even more monumental.
I urge all Members to oppose this amendment, and I am confident that it will, in fact, be opposed in a strong bipartisan vote.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chairman, I request an Advil, and I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Chairman, as a 31-year Army veteran myself, and a grateful father of four sons who have served overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt, I believe very much in the principles of Ronald Reagan, peace through strength.
I am very grateful that, in fact, President Donald Trump was the first person to recognize and try to stop the war in Ukraine. He sent javelin missiles to stop Putin, war criminal Putin.
He put American troops in Poland, which had the effect of stopping war criminal Putin. He also warned the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and others that Nord Stream 2 should be closed and stopped to avoid the funding of any war by war criminal Putin.
So in that tradition, I would oppose any cutting of the defense because we know this is a worldwide war that we are in of authoritarians versus democracies. This is not a war we chose. War criminal Putin is the person who started the war February 24.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moulton).
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith).
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chair, do I have any more time remaining?
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith).
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to this amendment.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment is consistent with certain members of the Republican Party's continued opposition to aiding Ukraine.
Our security assistance to Ukraine over the past year plus has been crucial to Ukrainian efforts to counter Russia's illegal, immoral, and reprehensible invasion of another sovereign nation.
If Vladimir Putin and our foreign adversaries can invade other countries without any response from the United States or our allies around the globe, then every country in the world becomes less safe.
The United States is not fighting a war in Ukraine. We are giving Ukrainians the weapons they need to fight the war for themselves and defend their country from totalitarian invaders.
We must support our friends who are standing on the front lines of the fight for freedom in this world. I oppose this amendment forcefully, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Spartz).
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Chair, Congresswoman Victoria Spartz is correct. We can learn from the lessons of World War II. There was weakness, and with that weakness, Imperial Japan attacked China. Then, ultimately, on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
We must be resolved to resist by having peace through strength. I personally can identify. My father served in China and India during World War II with the Flying Tigers to stop the tide of imperialism at that time.
Today, we can learn from history. Today is the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Guam. We don't need to repeat the weakness that has occurred. We need to stop our enemies today. These authoritarians have plans to dissolve the United States, and we need to stop it now.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Smith).
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Madam Chair, in Ukraine, since day one of this war, attacks have been aimed at civilian structures, hospitals, energy infrastructure, and urban centers. In the battlefield, Russia has brutally murdered prisoners of war as their Wagnerites occupied Ukraine's towns and territory.
Allied military sources say that Russia has landmined Ukrainian territory at an unprecedented rate, making it one of the largest minefields in the world. These minefields in war zones and in agricultural areas will likely cause civilian death and require billions of dollars to safely remove in the coming years. The World Bank estimated the cost to be at $37.6 billion.
Ukraine is paying for their freedom with their lives as we speak, but the mental, emotional, familial, and social scars will be there for generations to come. Ukrainian citizens are living through a nightmare because of their push toward democracy during the Revolution of Dignity in 2014.
This amendment prohibits a feasibility study on centers for treatment of traumatic brain injuries to improve the lives of individuals affected by traumatic brain injury experienced in Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression and to improve the lives of the family members of such an individual.
Honestly, we should be funding centers across the world because that is a better expression of democracy than what is often exhibited.
This amendment is callous, and America and our partners' support of Ukraine's fight for freedom is better than that.
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