Department of State Operations and Embassy Security Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank, first of all, Chairman Royce and Ranking Member ELIOT ENGEL for drafting this extraordinarily timely and important legislation. This is an essential bill, and it must be passed and signed into law.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday of this week, my subcommittee staff director, Greg Simpkins, and I returned from a 4-day trip to Nigeria, including the city of Jos, the scene of recent fire bombings of Christian churches by Boko Haram, a terrorist organization that has killed thousands of Nigerian Christians and some Muslims as well. Boko Haram--like al-Shabaab, the cowards who slaughtered Kenyans in a shopping center in Nairobi last week--poses serious and escalating threats to indigenous Africans and American personnel overseas.

The Embassy Security Act, like the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999, a law that I authored, is designed to significantly enhance protection at our missions abroad. Significantly, more than a dozen years ago that law came to the floor on the heels of al Qaeda bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam at our embassies in 1998.

I chaired the hearings following that tragic loss of life. Admiral Crowe, who led the Accountability Review Boards at that time, testified. But it is clear that the promised action following those earlier attacks has not been fully implemented. There are serious, significant security gaps that must be remedied more than a decade later. The Royce bill does that. We seem not to have adequately learned the lessons from the terror attacks against our distinguished ambassador and three extraordinarily brave individuals in Benghazi.

The Royce-Engel bill before us today contains a number of significant provisions, including necessary security upgrades for our embassies and consulates abroad. Our embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, was constructed with the upgrades recommended by earlier legislation. Greg and I saw that firsthand this week. But so many older facilities do not meet those high standards, including lifesaving setbacks from roads and thoroughfares. Chairman Royce's bill will address those gaps in essential security features at our overseas posts.

I'm especially appreciative that the Foreign Affairs committee accepted my amendment that originally passed as a provision of my International Megan's Law 3 years ago--it passed the House, never got through the Senate, we all know that drill--which limits to 1 year or such time as the Secretary of State shall determine appropriate the period of validity of a passport issued to a convicted sex offender.

In 2008, the General Accountability Office found that some 4,500 convicted pedophiles got passports. That's every year. That's almost 50,000 over a 10-year period--the life of a passport. And the evidence suggests some may travel to places with impunity in Bangkok and all over the world and abuse children. Poverty worldwide has made this exploitation even more prevalent--more kids now are at risk. This provision will empower the Secretary of State and the President to mitigate their travel to abuse children.

This is an excellent bill. Again, I commend Chairman Royce and ELIOT ENGEL for working in such a constructive, bipartisan way.

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