Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CAREY. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of my amendment and the underlying bill, the DETERRENT Act.

Foreign influence on our universities and colleges is a serious threat, and I am concerned foreign adversaries are targeting our Nation's students.

The DETERRENT Act ensures that we have transparency, accountability, and clarity in how foreign actors are involved with our universities and colleges.

My amendment will improve this important bill by revising a provision in the underlying legislation that creates a public, searchable database of staff or faculty who have disclosed gifts or contracts from foreign entities.

While I support transparency and accountability for our university faculty and staff to ensure foreign entities do not have undue influence over university research, policies, or instruction practices, it is important we balance that with the need to protect the privacy of an individual faculty or staff member at our institutions of higher education.

This commonsense amendment simply changes the underlying bill's public database by removing the personally identifiable information of faculty and staff who are listed in the database as a result of reporting gifts or contracts with foreign entities.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. CAREY. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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