May 13, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 90 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Pages S2414-S2419]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           USA FREEDOM REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2020--Continued


                                  FISA

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, we have just voted on an amendment by 
Senator Lee, which passed overwhelmingly. As we in the Senate are 
working to defeat this invisible enemy, the coronavirus, we are also 
mindful that there are other real threats around the globe. That is why 
the amendment that we just passed was so important to be debated and 
discussed and dealt with--the bill that is on the floor--because the 
Senate is debating a bill to provide national security tools to our 
intelligence community.
  We want to make sure they have the right tools, the tools that work, 
that provide national security but also freedom for American citizens.
  Now, this is unfinished business because these tools under the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act have been left on the shelf, 
expired now for nearly 2 months.
  Before Congress departed the Capitol due to the coronavirus, the 
Senate passed a bipartisan bill to temporarily keep these authorities 
in place. The House Democrats left without acting on what the Senate 
had passed. Speaker Pelosi left town, and she left our national 
security frozen.
  Now, this week, Congress is going to pass a 3-year reauthorization of 
these authorities under FISA. These authorities are known as the 
business records provision, the roving wiretaps provision, and the lone 
wolf amendment.
  The business records provision, or section 215, as it is known, 
compels telecommunications companies to provide call records relevant 
to investigation.
  The roving wiretaps provision allows surveillance of multiple 
cellphones of an investigative target. This allows national security 
operators to keep up with a target, even as she or he goes through 
burner phones.
  The lone wolf amendment allows national security operators to 
investigate targets unaffiliated with a specific terrorist 
organization. That is why they are called lone wolves.
  Combined, these tools give the intelligence community and law 
enforcement important capabilities: to surveil bad actors, to get to 
them before they get to us, and to take apart their networks. Congress 
put these authorities in place after 9/11. They have been updated with 
broad bipartisan support numerous times. Importantly, the tools have 
helped keep our country safe and strong now for nearly 20 years after 
9/11.
  There have been abuses of the FISA process unrelated to these 
provisions, which this bill also addresses. The bill puts in place 
safeguards to ensure FISA applications are accurate and complete, with 
multiple layers of approval before an application goes to the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Court. The bill also makes the FISA process 
more accountable, from the Attorney General on down. Those who hide 
information, those who engage in misconduct, or those who disclose 
information will be met with prison time.
  The bill provides a greater role for Congress to make sure there are 
another set of eyes on FISA applications.
  All together, these are significant reforms that the Attorney General 
has said will protect against abuse and misuse in the future. He went 
on to say the bill deserved broad bipartisan support, and I agree.


                              Coronavirus

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I also come to the floor today to 
discuss America's relationship with China. The coronavirus has made 
clear that our current relationship with China is built on a house of 
cards. It is simply too risky.
  We have to learn the lessons from this global pandemic. The outbreak 
has taught us that the time has come to break away from dangerous 
aspects of the relationship. By mishandling and manipulating the 
crisis, China has revealed itself to be not worthy of our trust.
  Let me be clear. The Chinese people are not to blame for any of this. 
The people of China have also suffered tremendously. It is the Chinese 
Communist Party that is at fault. The virus could have been contained 
had it not been for the Chinese Government's unscrupulous coverup. 
China knew the risk months before the rest of the world; yet Chinese 
communist leaders destroyed key evidence, they underreported the number 
of coronavirus cases, and they misled the world about its deadly, rapid 
spread. In fact, Chinese leaders silenced the heroic Chinese doctor, 
Dr. Li, who tried to sound the alarm and who later died from the virus.
  China's deceit doesn't stop there. China has repeatedly denied U.S. 
officials access to the country to uncover the truth about the deadly 
disease. Meanwhile, the Chinese Government continues to engage in a 
disinformation campaign to try to avoid blame.
  With this track record, China cannot continue to control 
international groups like the World Health Organization. The United 
States is the World Health Organization's single largest financial 
supporter. Yet, from the start, the World Health Organization blindly 
accepted Chinese leaders' false reporting, and they understated the 
threat.
  Today, America knows how dangerous it is to depend on China not just 
for information but also for essential equipment, for products, for 
materials, for minerals, and certainly for medicine. China didn't warn 
the world when the outbreak began. Instead, China secretly hoarded 
masks and protective gear. China knew that global shortages would soon 
follow. Then China threatened to cut off lifesaving antibiotics and 
other critical drug exports to the United States.
  The virus should have been contained in Wuhan, China. Tens and tens 
of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of people worldwide 
have died as a result of China's failure.
  Looking forward, America should focus on priorities right now to 
protect ourselves from future health crises.
  No. 1, not again, not ever will America rely on information from 
international health organizations. We should set up direct bilateral 
health relationships with other countries. U.S. personnel on the ground 
must include monitoring of health data in their national security 
determinations.
  No. 2, not again, not ever will we let people travel to the United 
States from countries where there is a major outbreak. We should 
restrict travel early on, just as President Trump did with regard to 
China.
  No. 3, not again, not ever will America be without an early warning 
system. Our gateway cities, in particular, need better monitoring and 
surveillance of health issues when people enter the United States.
  No. 4, not again, not ever will America rely on critical health 
equipment from China. We should encourage U.S. companies to create 
Western and American supply chains. That way our frontline workers have 
what they need in the time of crisis.

  No. 5, not again, not ever will we be exclusively sourced for 
critical drugs from China. We should diversify supply and bring home as 
much of our supply chain as possible.
  No. 6, not again, not ever will our hospitals be taken for granted. 
They should be classified as critical infrastructure and our healthcare 
workers--our nurses, our lab technicians, our first responders, our 
doctors. Critical infrastructure and frontline workers should be 
properly resourced around our Nation.
  No. 7, not again, not ever will Americans rely solely on the Centers 
for Disease Control for testing. President Trump proved that when 
called upon,

[[Page S2415]]

our private sector has an incredible multiplier effect.
  No. 8, not again, not ever will we allow public misrepresentation and 
confusion concerning an urgent health issue. The American people 
deserve timely, credible, and accurate information--the same as for 
tornadoes, hurricanes, and other disasters.
  No. 9, not again, not ever will we be dependent on China for trade 
and goods, especially not for critical infrastructure and technology.
  No. 10, not again, not ever will a previous administration leave an 
incoming administration without an updated, forward-looking bipartisan 
policy and preparedness program on pandemics and without a pathway for 
the products and equipment needed to go along with it.
  By taking these sensible steps, we will be able to protect the health 
and the well-being of the American people. These 10 priorities will 
make America and Americans stronger, safer, and more secure.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, this week, the Congress continues to work 
on a bipartisan basis to try to respond to this coronavirus pandemic. 
We have heard that the House of Representatives, under Democratic 
majority, has a new proposal. We have ideas on our side. We have 
already passed four pieces of legislation that deal with the 
coronavirus pandemic. The total spending is about $2.5 trillion that 
has already been spent.
  The Speaker of the House proposed a new piece of legislation this 
week that I think the House will vote on Friday. That is another $3 
trillion. It is actually more than the previous four combined.
  The legislation that she is proposing has a lot of items that aren't 
directly related to the COVID-19 crisis. They are, as some have said, a 
wish list of priorities, and others have said in the media that it is 
more of a messaging bill. We will see.
  Among other things, it says, as an example, that they want to change 
the current law, which says that you are limited in terms of how much 
of a Federal tax deduction you can take for State and local taxes. That 
is called the SALT issue. They want to repeal that. That cost, by the 
way, is about $180 billion--something like that. It would result in 
about 50 percent of the tax benefit going to the top 1 percent of 
taxpayers. That doesn't sound like something that is going to be 
impactful in terms of the coronavirus pandemic we face.
  I can think of a lot of better ways to spend that money, including 
more testing, including ensuring that small businesses can get back on 
their feet, ensuring that our healthcare system is sound, and other 
things. We are going to continue to work on that.
  My hope is that, as we did with the previous four, we can figure out 
a way to come together--Republicans, Democrats, House, and Senate--and 
look at what we have already spent, $2.5 trillion, and see how it has 
been spent, understand what some of the gaps might be and address those 
gaps.
  As we are working on this issue, this pandemic is continuing to wreak 
havoc all over the country. It has been devastating, let's face it. We 
now have 30 million--30 million--of our fellow Americans who have lost 
their jobs and are looking for unemployment insurance. These are people 
who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. They lost their jobs 
because the pandemic infected the economy, and they don't have a place 
to work.
  I know friends of mine, people I have known for a long time, who have 
never been unemployed and are unemployed now for the first time. They 
are getting unemployment insurance for the first time. They want to go 
back to work, but they don't have a job right now. That has been 
devastating to them and to a lot of small businesses. I talked to 
people who have poured their lives and their resources into these 
businesses. A guy tells me, I have been doing this for 40 years. I 
started with a couple of people and got to a few more and a few more. 
And now, boom, my doors are closed. Think of the movie theaters and the 
bowling alleys and the small restaurants, the hotels, anything to doing 
with travel and tourism, and these businesses are in tough shape. So is 
the beauty parlor and the nail salon and the barbershop.
  This is testing our resolve in ways that we had never expected. I 
guess that is part of the point, we had never expected it because we 
weren't prepared for this kind of pandemic.
  Congress, again, has tried to help with these four measures we 
already passed. I think they have helped, particularly with a lot of 
the small businesses, and our healthcare system has been helped. 
Trillions of dollars--$2.5 trillion of taxpayer funds have gone out to 
try to be a rescue package to help people weather this storm.
  Again, I hope the next package can be effective, not just in 
weathering the storm but also in getting the economy moving--more 
stimulus, giving small businesses the tax relief to encourage them to 
invest more and add more jobs, maybe some smart spending in terms of 
infrastructure; things like rural broadband that will create more jobs 
immediately but also bring us closer to having real access for people 
in poor areas of our country to be able to do the small business 
development, to do telehealth, to do telelearning through broadband. 
There are some things I think we can do that will actually help to 
stimulate more economic growth.
  As we work to address these problems at home, let's not forget how we 
got here. My colleague from Wyoming just talked about this, but there 
is a clear consensus now about one thing, which is that this all 
started in Wuhan, China, which is a huge city in China, Hubei Province, 
and that information about this horrible virus was concealed by the 
Chinese Communist Party. Systematically and very deliberately they kept 
the rest of the world from knowing about it
  By the way, they kept it from their own people too. To the point made 
earlier, this is not about the Chinese people. This is about the 
Chinese Government, meaning the Chinese Communist Party, deciding: Oh, 
gosh. We have a problem here. Let's not tell anybody--which goes 
against all the rules. If you are a country and you have a virus that 
is spreading, your responsibility--particularly as a member of the 
World Health Organization--is to tell your own people but also tell the 
rest of the world so that you can contain that virus. They concealed 
it, deliberately. They must be held accountable for that.
  Think of the devastation they have caused, not just in our country 
but around the world--the number of people who have died, the people 
whose lives have been turned upside down, the economy that has been 
destroyed by this.
  This information, this critical information, having been withheld 
from the Chinese people and from the world has had a devastating 
impact. At the start of this year, in January, apparently the Chinese 
Communist Party said: Don't worry. There is no human-to-human 
transmission of this virus--no human-to-human transmission of this 
virus. They knew otherwise.
  By the way, 4 million cases worldwide tell us they knew otherwise--4 
million cases. It all started in one place, in Wuhan, China. There are 
now 4 million cases.
  This is something that is serious, and we need to address it. We are 
also told that the Chinese Communist Party allowed people to travel 
from Hubei Province, from Wuhan city--not to other parts of China, 
apparently, but to the rest of the world.
  If they had cut off travel to places like Italy and the UK and the 
United States, we would not be where we are now. Luckily, our 
administration acted quickly to shut off immigration from China, from 
those hotspots, and for American citizens and the green card holders, 
they had to go into quarantine. That helped, but the virus was already 
here.
  Very disturbing to me is apparently some Chinese Communist Party 
disinformation went out claiming that America was at fault somehow. 
This was classic propaganda disinformation. It is adding insult to 
injury. Right? Not only did they not do what they should have done, to 
tell the world about this and to help us to be able to contain this 
virus--and, by the way, the World Health Organization was there to help 
them. We were there to help them. We offered to go in. They wouldn't 
let the World Health Organization experts come in for well over a month 
after they knew. Some say it was a few

[[Page S2416]]

months because they probably knew it the end of last year. They must 
have, given the number of cases they had. They also kept the experts 
out from the United States who could have been helpful.
  The World Health Organization is an international body where you have 
membership, and they have requirements where you are required to report 
data. You are required to have them come in when you have a virus like 
this. Of course, we didn't know it was a pandemic at the time, but we 
had a virus here that was concerning. Instead, it appears the World 
Health Organization, instead of being an early warning system for the 
rest of us, all around the world, which is what they should be--a virus 
starts, and they are the ones who go in and deal with it--instead of 
being an early warning system, in a sense, they were apologists for 
China.
  That is why some of us have called for an investigation of the World 
Health Organization. We have asked the United Nations to convene a 
special panel, some of us, to be able to look into this issue so that 
it is not just America. The rest of the world ought to be involved in 
this as well. All of the members of the WHO ought to be concerned. I 
believe they are, about the deference they showed to China, at a time 
we needed them to be on the spot helping.
  We now find ourselves forced to rely on the source of the virus, 
China, for a lot of our PPE, personal protective equipment. Think of 
the masks and the gloves and the gowns that our frontline healthcare 
workers need and others who are now interfacing with customers and 
working together as coworkers. We have to rely on China for this. In 
order to safely treat the COVID-19 patients who are sick and because of 
this virus that originated in China, we now have to rely on China for 
this safety equipment. That is unfortunate, and that needs to change.
  We need to produce more of this here from more reliable sources. We 
are hearing reports about delays in shipments now. We are hearing about 
poor quality products--all of this is combining to affect our ability 
to be able to respond.
  The virus has brought pain and suffering to our shores and to 
countries all around the world. Again, if they had followed the rules, 
if China had played by the rules--again, not the Chinese people who 
were also kept in the dark but the Chinese Communist Party--if they had 
followed the rules, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in.
  By the way, none of this is news when it comes to China's behavior on 
the international stage. Getting China to play by the rules has been a 
constant theme of mine and others for a long time.

  Fifteen years ago, I was a U.S. Trade Representative, and I brought 
forward the first successful case against China in the World Trade 
Organization because they weren't playing by the rules. I also wrote a 
report entitled ``Top to Bottom Review of U.S.-China Economic 
Relationship'' that made policy recommendations to improve the equity, 
durability, and balance of our trade relationship with China. My No. 1 
priority was China.
  When I was there, I established, for the first time, a USTR 
prosecutor just for China. One of the recommendations was supposed to 
put a negotiator in China from the U.S. Trade Rep's office. It is there 
now.
  Here in the Senate, as the chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee 
on Investigations, I have now led three bipartisan investigations on 
China, including the Chinese Communist Party's use of what is called 
the Confucius Institute at our high schools, sometimes grade schools, 
at our colleges and universities.
  We learned more than 100 U.S. universities had allowed the Chinese 
Government to operate these centers, which often come with 
stipulations, requiring them to comply with Chinese law--Chinese law--
even when they are operating in the United States. We know some of 
these Confucius Institutes have been used as platforms for economic 
espionage.
  By the way, since we published our report in February of 2019, a year 
ago, more than 20 Confucius Institutes in the United States have closed 
their doors. Why? Because people have looked into this and determined 
this is not just a cultural exchange. This has other aspects to it; as 
an example, not being able to teach the real history of China, as if 
things like Tiananmen Square did not exist. That is not something we 
should allow to happen in this country. That doesn't comply with our 
standards here of honesty and intellectual standards that says you have 
to teach the actual history, not what the Chinese Communist Party says 
is the history. Our students shouldn't be subject to that.
  These Confucius Institutes have also spent a lot of money in this 
country. Schools have taken money and have not properly reported it. 
That is what our report indicated. As a result, the Department of 
Education is now cracking down on some of these schools to say you have 
to, at a minimum, report the funding.
  Our subcommittee is right now wrapping up its review of three Chinese 
Government-owned telecom firms that the FCC, the Federal Communications 
Commission, licensed to operate here 20 years ago.
  We share concerns with the Justice Department regarding these 
telecommunications companies complying with U.S. law enforcement 
requests and whether these entities pose a national security risk by 
being vulnerable to exploitation by the Chinese Government and the 
Chinese Communist Party.
  Last year, the FCC denied a license to China Mobile to operate in the 
United States for these same reasons. That investigation is coming to a 
head. We are going to have a report coming out soon. We will learn more 
about this. But again, we have to be sure we are not naive; that we 
understand what is going on when these Chinese telecommunications firms 
are here in this country.
  The third Permanent Subcommittee investigation involves another 
instance where China has not been playing by the rules as it relates to 
stealing U.S. research and technology, often paid for by U.S. 
taxpayers. Before the coronavirus put so much of our country on hold, 
we were preparing to introduce legislation that was a result of our 
bipartisan report and our yearlong investigation. That report details 
how China has used what is called talent recruitment programs, most 
notably what is called the Thousand Talents Plan, to steal U.S. 
taxpayer-funded research. It turns out this has been going on for a 
long time. For 20 years, this has been going on. It has helped fuel the 
rise of the Chinese military and the Chinese economy during those 20 
years.
  You might ask, how has this happened? Every year, Federal grantmaking 
agencies, like the National Institutes of Health, the Department of 
Energy's National Labs, or the National Science Foundation, give out 
taxpayer dollars for research. By the way, it is about $150 billion a 
year. It is a lot of money.
  These are important research projects. This is a good thing for our 
country. It leads to new breakthroughs in science and technology. It is 
helping make the United States the world leader in innovation. Your tax 
dollars coming to Washington, going to the Department of Energy, the 
National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation, out to 
researchers and colleges and universities and research institutes--$150 
billion a year--have led to a lot of breakthroughs.
  The open and collaborative nature of research that is done here in 
the United States is one of the reasons we attract some of the best and 
brightest scientists and researchers from all around the world to take 
part in this research. Yet what we have learned--and through our 
report, we prove--is that this system is very vulnerable. It is 
vulnerable to theft by other countries, and that is exactly what is 
happening in the case of China.
  China has made it no secret that its goal is to surpass the United 
States as the world leader in scientific research. One way it has been 
doing that is by using secret contracts with researchers here in the 
United States. Again, it is doing research that is funded by tax 
dollars--medical research, scientific research, military research. The 
Chinese Government has actually been paying these people to provide 
information to the Chinese Government to take this research and pay for 
it by U.S. tax dollars. It is wrong, and it needs to stop, and our 
legislation is intended to do just that.

[[Page S2417]]

  At one of our Senate hearings on the report, a State Department 
witness said: ``The Chinese Communist Party has declared the Chinese 
university system to be on the front line of military-civilian fusion 
efforts for technology acquisition.''
  In other words, the Chinese Communist Party has decided this talent 
recruitment program is going to be well funded. We are going to pay 
American researchers to give us their stuff but then also to connect 
them to the Chinese university system, which the Chinese Communist 
Party is using as the way to get technology, to acquire technology. 
Again, it is not a new problem. This has been going on for two decades, 
but we have done little in this country to stop it because we have this 
history of being so open and accessible with our research.
  The FBI came to our hearing and acknowledged this. From the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation, they said that ``it should have taken more 
rapid and comprehensive action in the past'' to respond to these 
Chinese talent recruitment programs. Yes, they should have. Yes, they 
should have.
  Fortunately, the FBI and the Department of Justice have now taken a 
different approach. They have begun stepping up their efforts this year 
with several recent high-profile arrests and having charges filed, but, 
again, more laws and practices need to change to stop U.S. taxpayer-
funded research from being stolen in this way to benefit our No. 1 
global competitor, which is why we are introducing this legislation.
  The legislation is called the Safeguarding American Innovation Act--
to protect American research and strengthen our national security. The 
legislation makes five necessary reforms to address the flaws in our 
current research enterprise and to stop intellectual property theft and 
promote a more secure and transparent process that is consistent with 
the recommendations we laid out in our report.
  First, the report found numerous cases of U.S.-funded researchers who 
failed to disclose foreign sources of compensation on their Federal 
grant applications. This issue has been highlighted this year. You have 
probably heard about it because you may remember that earlier this year 
there was the shocking arrest of Dr. Charles Lieber, the chair of 
Harvard University's Chemistry Department, who was being paid both by 
Harvard and the Thousand Talents program by the Chinese Communist 
Party, it turns out.
  According to the FBI, without Harvard's knowledge--he didn't tell 
Harvard--Dr. Lieber was being paid up to $50,000 a month in salary by 
the Chinese, $150,000 annually for living expenses, and more than $1.5 
million to establish and run a shadow lab in China. Interestingly, the 
lab was in Wuhan, China. None of this was disclosed on his Federal 
grant application from which he got U.S. taxpayer money. If it had been 
disclosed, he wouldn't have gotten the money. That is just wrong.
  The criminal complaint is based on his not telling the truth to the 
Federal investigators, even though he was essentially defrauding 
Harvard and defrauding the U.S. Government's funding sources, but that 
is not a crime. Failing to disclose compensation from a foreign 
government is not currently a crime. We make it a crime. That is part 
of our legislation. The bill gives the Justice Department the ability 
to hold Federal grant recipients accountable for hiding their financial 
ties to foreign governments by failing to disclose them on Federal 
grant applications. Transparency and honesty on grant applications is 
critical to the integrity of the U.S. research enterprise and to 
stopping this theft. That is in our legislation.
  Second, despite there being more than $150 billion in taxpayer 
funding going to these Federal research agencies every year, there is 
no unified tracking process to determine where these funds go. The 
National Science Foundation, for instance, doesn't have anyone who 
handles grant oversight. Again, we have been too lax. That is why the 
bill requires the Federal Office of Management and Budget, the OMB, to 
streamline and coordinate grantmaking between the agencies to ensure 
that the billions of taxpayer dollars going to research every year can 
be accounted for every step of the way. Having this information is also 
going to save time and money for our research institutions and our 
universities. They will now know where the funding is, where it is 
going, and how it is being used.
  Third, the State Department is on the frontline here in vetting visa 
applications for visiting scholars and visiting students, but it is not 
permitted to deny visas to individuals who come from overseas who are 
intent on stealing U.S. research. That is just wrong. Our research 
enterprise in this country must remain open. We agree with that, for we 
want to attract people from around the world, of course, but we have to 
have commonsense safeguards to prevent bad actors from taking advantage 
of our openness. The legislation does that. It authorizes the State 
Department to deny visas to foreign researchers who seek to access 
sensitive U.S. research when it is determined that doing so will pose a 
threat to our economic or to our national security.
  By the way, the State Department wants this authority. The career 
officers who came and testified before us said we would like to have 
this authority because we know we are letting people in who are coming 
for one reason and one reason only, and that is to take U.S. research.
  Fourth, our report detailed a systematic lack of knowledge at the 
U.S. research institutions about the threat posed by the Thousand 
Talents Plan and other forms of academic espionage. For example, we 
found that the Thousand Talents program had recruited a member who 
downloaded more than 30,000 files from a Department of Energy National 
Lab. These are our top National Labs in the country--highly secretive. 
There were 30,000 files that were downloaded without authorization, of 
course, and that researcher took those files with him back to China. 
Our bill requires that research institutions have safeguards in place 
to prohibit the unauthorized access to sensitive research. They have to 
tighten it up.
  Finally, we found that nearly 70 percent of U.S. universities have 
consistently failed to report substantial foreign gifts as required by 
current law. Our bill ensures transparency by requiring universities 
now to report any foreign gift of $50,000 or more and empowering the 
Department of Education to fine universities. These are new fines to 
universities that repeatedly fail to disclose these gifts.
  Now, there are some in the university community who don't love our 
legislation. I would just ask them: Given what has happened, given what 
we know is happening in terms of the theft of U.S. research, are you 
really going to stand in the way of legislation that just says you have 
to report when you receive more than $50,000 from a foreign government? 
Is that too much to ask? I don't think so
  Right now, they are supposed to report gifts of a higher level, and 
70 percent of them have failed to do so. So it is not too much to ask, 
and I would hope that the university community will be supportive. Many 
are, but some are apparently saying they are going to try to block this 
legislation.
  Don't do that. That would be wrong.
  The failure to stop the coronavirus early on has highlighted how 
China does not play by the rules, whether they be the World Health 
Organization's rules or the trade rules we talked about earlier, and 
now it is with regard to this issue that we are dealing with in terms 
of taking U.S. research back to China in order to fuel China's military 
and China's economy.
  When this pandemic passes and our universities and research 
institutions reopen their doors, I have no doubt that we will, once 
again, continue to attract the best and the brightest. Why? Because our 
research enterprise is the best. We are innovators, and we provide 
funding for it, and we have such great opportunities here in this 
country to do research. People like to come here, but we cannot sit 
idly by as our top global competitor steals that research. The 
Safeguarding American Innovation Act is an important step toward 
protecting it for the safety and security of every American.
  Now, more than ever, we have to adapt to the fact that China is not 
going to play by the same set of rules as the rest of the world. It has 
been 15 years since we put out a USTR report

[[Page S2418]]

stating that our relationship with China lacks ``equity, durability,'' 
and sustainability.
  Right now, our No. 1 priority is solving the coronavirus crisis. We 
have to do that. There is no question that it ought to be our focus. 
Yet, in the context of this crisis, we also need to reevaluate how we 
do business with China. We have to look at this with fresh eyes. My 
hope is that this legislation we have talked about this evening will 
help to allow us to reset the way we conduct our research so we can 
continue to reward those who come to our shores to discover new 
breakthroughs in science and technology while we keep China and other 
nation-state competitors from stealing that research for their own 
purposes. We can achieve that balance, and we must


                          National Police Week

  Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to our police officers all 
around the country. The men and women in blue serve us every day in 
Ohio and every State represented in this Chamber. This week is National 
Police Week. In normal times, right now we would have tens of thousands 
of officers here in town. They do a big parade every year. We have them 
in our offices. We get to meet with them and thank them for their 
service. We would be able to have the opportunity to hear their 
stories--to hear some of the brave, brave stories of those who have 
lost their lives over the past year. They do a wonderful presentation 
down at the memorial to thank and pay tribute to those officers.
  Yet, even during this coronavirus, I am pleased that, this Friday, 
folks around the country will be showing their support anyway. They 
can't come here in person, but people are going to be displaying blue 
ribbons and blue lights on their homes. The service to our communities 
that these police officers give us every day has been more valuable 
during this crisis than it has ever been, and I thank those police 
officers for going out every day and putting their health right now and 
even their lives, as they always do, on the line for all of us.
  As I said earlier, I want to be sure that our municipalities and our 
counties have the ability to pay those police officers so as to keep 
them out on the street. That is why we need the flexibility in the 
Federal funding that is going out because the budgets of these 
municipalities are constrained. Because of the bad economy--because of 
the coronavirus--we have to be sure that police officers are taken care 
of.
  This week, National Police Week, is a time of pause, a time to think 
about the sacrifices these heroes make every day in order to keep our 
communities safe, which is what they do every single day. They take 
dangerous criminals and weapons and drugs off of our streets. They 
enforce the laws we write here in this body. We write a lot of laws 
here. They are the ones who are in the trenches--on the frontlines--
enforcing them. Even their very presence helps to deter crime and keep 
our communities safer. So we thank them for the risks they take for 
themselves, and we thank their families for the sacrifices they make 
for all of us.
  This week is a time to think about the police officers in our country 
who have died in the line of service over the last year. Again, this 
would normally be done in person down at the memorial, but I want to 
talk about the four brave individuals who have lost their lives in Ohio 
since we last had a National Police Week, which was a year ago.
  In January, Officer Dale James Woods, of the Colerain Police 
Department in Southwest Ohio, was tragically struck and killed by a 
vehicle while he was responding to a traffic stop. Officer Woods 
devoted his entire life to public service. He served for 15 years in 
the town's fire department--the Colerain Fire Department--and then 15 
years as a police officer. He did everything that could be asked of an 
officer. They tell me sometimes he would be staffing the dispatch 
station. The next day, he would be tracking down a lost dog. The next 
day, he would be out there helping a citizen with a complaint. He did 
everything that was asked of him with unwavering professionalism and 
the commitment that we all come to expect from our police officers.
  Officer James Woods of the Colerain Police Department, thank you.
  The same can be said for Clermont County Sheriff's Deputy William Lee 
Brewer, Jr., who died in the line of duty in February of 2019 during a 
standoff with a criminal. Deputy Bill Brewer was a 20-year veteran of 
the force. He was a local guy, someone whom everyone in the community 
knew and loved. He gave his life for that community--the ultimate 
sacrifice an officer can make. I attended his funeral and had the 
opportunity to meet a lot of his fellow officers and hear stories about 
him. I also got a chance to meet his wonderful family. I can say he was 
admired and respected by all. The turnout for that funeral was 
unbelievable.
  Last November, we lost Detective Jorge Del Rio, a decorated 30-year 
veteran of the Dayton Police Department. Detective Del Rio had been 
working with the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, on a task force to 
crack down on drugs coming into a community that had been ravaged by 
the opioid crisis. This was during a time when Dayton was one of the 
communities in the country that had the most opioid overdoses and all 
of the crime related to that, and Jorge Del Rio was there to help. He 
was shot twice in the face while serving a warrant in relation to an 
investigation into drugs. From the crime scene, investigators recovered 
cash, fentanyl--the deadliest of all the opioids--and marijuana, along 
with weapons. Detective Del Rio fought bravely for his life, but in the 
end, his wounds were too much to bear.
  This is an issue that is very personal to me. I have spent a lot of 
my time working on this drug crisis and trying to get Congress to pass 
legislation to stop this addiction so that officers like Detective Del 
Rio don't have to fight and die in fighting this scourge in our 
communities.
  I was honored to attend Detective Del Rio's visitation, where I 
joined hundreds of grateful citizens in an arena. Again, the turnout 
was unbelievable with fellow officers, DEA officers, and police 
officers. Officers came from all over the region. When I spoke with 
Kathy--his wife--and their family, I told them his sacrifice was not in 
vain and that he would always be remembered as a hero of Dayton, OH.
  Earlier this spring, we lost another hero, Springdale Police Officer 
Kaia LaFay Grant. On March 21, Officer Grant was helping her fellow 
officers chase down a suspect who was fleeing by car. During the 
pursuit, the criminal deliberately rammed his vehicle into her cruiser, 
which caused her to crash. Officer Grant's injuries, sadly, were fatal. 
An 8-year veteran of the force, she was the first ever casualty of the 
Springdale Police Department and the first female law enforcement 
officer in the tristate area to die in the line of duty in more than 
100 years. Officer Grant was only 33 years old. My thoughts are with 
her family as they deal with this tragic loss.
  Although these heroic officers were taken from us, their examples can 
never be taken away and will not be. Ohioans will remember them as 
models of bravery and service, as examples of fellow citizens who, on 
behalf of all of the rest of us, have the habit of walking into danger 
rather than running away from it.
  In our Nation's history, more than 24,000 police officers have died 
in the line of duty. Think about that--24,000. Serving as an officer is 
a dangerous job, I know, but we have legislation that we think would 
help save the lives of some of those officers who put themselves in 
harm's way.
  I was proud to join colleagues last year in sponsoring legislation 
called the Back the Blue Act. It is very simple. It says, if you target 
law enforcement officers, you are going to pay a very, very high price. 
That is appropriate. We think Back the Blue Act, which would increase 
penalties on those who would attempt to harm or kill a police officer, 
is going to make a difference because it will send a very strong 
message in helping to deter some of these crimes. Ultimately, I think 
that it will make our heroes in blue safer and help to save lives.
  Again, I urge my colleagues to join me in standing tall with our 
police officers and thanking them this week for what they do every day 
to protect us. Let's back the blue. Let's do everything we can to 
ensure that our police officers know we are with them and that we are 
at their side as they do their critical job every day to protect us.

[[Page S2419]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 12 noon 
tomorrow, the Senate vote in relation to the Paul amendment to H.R. 
6172, if offered. I further ask that at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow, the Senate 
vote on the passage of H.R. 6172, as amended, as under the order of 
March 16.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered

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