Maintaining American Superiority By Improving Export Control Transparency Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JACKSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, today, we are bringing a very important piece of legislation to the floor, the Maintaining American Superiority by Improving Export Control Transparency Act, a key piece of legislation to ensure our country stays ahead of our adversaries.

Businesses and universities in the United States work constantly to innovate, improve, and invent the best technologies and systems in this world. This is what keeps America on the leading edge. Our Nation's determination and commitment to achieving the best has allowed us to develop the best technologies in all fields. Through strategic investments under the leadership of President Trump, this will continue for many years to come.

In today's era of strategic competition, Congress needs to provide the administration with the tools it needs to ensure American technologies are not falling into the hands of our adversaries. Malign actors like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran would gladly seek to use our very own goods and technologies against us, whether in military engagements or on the economic battlefield.

America's open, competitive economy has allowed us to become the global leader in cutting-edge technologies, but in order to maintain this advantage, we must be able to track how American technology is used around the world.

My bill, the Maintaining American Superiority by Improving Export Control Transparency Act helps to ensure increased transparency and accountability in the export control process by creating better reporting in the licensing application process, giving critical information to both Congress and the administration.

My bill creates a mechanism for tracking and reporting of export licenses and can be utilized to form a paper trail to understand where American-made technologies are going, who is using them, and how they may be getting diverted to adversarial nations. If our adversaries are benefiting from American technology, we must know exactly how that happened and who is responsible.

Further, my bill will provide necessary clarity on how licensing determinations are made by producing information for each application, including the applicant, the recipient, and the compliance measures implemented to uphold export regulations. With this necessary information in one place, we will have a better understanding of where American-made technologies are going abroad, who is supposed to have them, and how we can support the administration to close gaps being exploited by our adversaries.

The American free market has led to some of the most incredible technological advances of all time, so it is important that we modernize our export control process to help protect it. Export controls are a key national security tool for the administration in these increasingly dangerous times. Therefore, Congress should swiftly pass this legislation and send it to President Trump's desk.

As my chairman mentioned, this bill passed the House unanimously in the 118th Congress. The only difference between this year's bill and last year's bill is that we have incorporated some helpful technical assistance provided by the new administration to ensure the legislation better executes the letter of the law and congressional intent.

I thank Chairman Mast and Ranking Member Meeks for supporting this legislation and working together to see that this bill made it to the floor today. I also thank the co-leads of this bipartisan and bicameral legislation, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, Senator Jim Banks, and Senator Mark Warner.

Greater transparency and accountability in export controls is a critical national security issue that everyone should have an interest in supporting. I urge all of my colleagues to support this critical piece of legislation that will enhance our national security and economic competitiveness while protecting American innovation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source