Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman and ranking member.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment would increase the funding provided to the Treasury Department's Office of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, also known as FinCEN, by $3.339 million so that it remains at its current level of $112 million.
This amendment would offset this necessary increase through corresponding decreases in the funding provided for the repairs and alterations and the rental of space accounts within the General Services Administration.
If adopted, the amendment would have no effect on budget authority and would reduce outlays by $1 million.
As cochair of the bipartisan Task Force on Anti ter ror ism and Proliferation Financing, I have worked closely with our cochair, Ed Royce, the gentleman from California, and with FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, to help strengthen our national antiterrorist finance strategy, and I realize the increased need to be able to quickly and efficiently track and stop the flow of funds to terrorist groups in doing this important work.
Through the task force, we have witnessed the critical and important work that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network engages in. The skilled staff at FinCEN works tirelessly every day to track and stop the flow of elicit funds that would otherwise be used to aid terrorism in order to safeguard our financial system from evolving money laundering and mounting national security threats. We all know very well the risks presented by Hezbollah in Syria, al Qaeda in Yemen, ISIS in Iraq, and Boko Haram in Nigeria.
By sharing financial intelligence with law enforcement, private industry, and its foreign counterparts, FinCEN supports financial crime investigations throughout the world. Congress has taken significant steps towards utilizing terrorist financing as a viable intelligence tool, as well as disrupting the financing of terrorist activities. Nevertheless, terrorists' proven ability to move money through innovative means necessitates continued progress in this critical coun ter ter ror ism area.
As the chairman pointed out, FinCEN does incredibly important work. Most recently, FinCEN has played an instrumental role on the ground in Ukraine in support of international efforts to recover billions of dollars in missing Ukrainian funds that were misappropriated by former Ukrainian Government officials, including former President Viktor Yanukovych.
With today's increasingly complex and rapidly evolving terrorist networks, we cannot risk our national security by reducing funding for this important department.
I appreciate the chairman's challenges and the ranking member's challenges in trying to balance priorities within this bill, and I respect both of those gentlemen, but I do urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment in order to make sure that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is properly funded. The balance here is funding for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network versus a reduction in the repairs and alterations account and the rental space account for the General Services Administration. I think that we recognize where the real priorities of this Congress should be. This is not what the chairman mentioned in his opening remarks. This is not nonessential funding. This is not wasteful funding. This is very important funding with respect to the national security of our country.
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