Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. America Competes Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to strongly support Mr. Lucas' motion to instruct conferees on the American COMPETES Act.

The House-passed version of the bill should really have been called-- as a number of my colleagues have mentioned--the American concedes act. Democratic leadership cobbled this legislation together from mostly partisan bills without Republican support, in stark contrast to what our colleagues in the Senate did.

As ranking member of the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over China, I am deeply disappointed by the partisan nature and the substance, in many ways, of this House-passed bill.

Competing with China should not be a partisan issue. On every front, the Chinese Communist Party is aggressively challenging the free world and our belief that open societies and free markets, and, yes, rule of law are the way to a prosperous and equitable civilization.

After decades of inaction, it is time to reevaluate our basic approach toward engagement with China. The Democrats' bill doesn't do that. When Republicans attempted to amend the bill to make it better, the Democrats rejected virtually every one of those attempts.

I would like to highlight two particularly concerning omissions from the House bill. First, we should have adopted provisions to modernize and strengthen our relationship with Taiwan which, by the way, got bipartisan support in the Senate.

Second, we should also have used the opportunity to advance strong export control policies to ensure that our critical technologies do not advance the PRC's own drive for technological supremacy.

Moving forward, as we seek to bridge the gap between the House and Senate bills, let's have these three priorities in mind. First, the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, is an adversary. No amount of cajoling or diplomacy is going to get them to drop their hegemonic ambitions. They want to be the top dog.

Second, the legislation must not include irrelevant pet projects like money for the U.N. climate slush fund.

Third, at a bare minimum, we must ensure that any new technology or grant funding doesn't end up going to China. A bill aimed at competing with the Chinese Communist Party that simultaneously funds their military modernization simply makes no sense.

Mr. Lucas' motion to instruct would go a long way towards making sure that American tax dollars don't go to fund the Chinese Communist Party. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support it.

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