With the coronavirus pandemic. The total spending is about 2. 5 trillion thats already been spent. The speaker of the house proposed a new piece of legislation this week that i think the house will vote on on friday thats another 3 trillion. So its actually more than the previous four combined. And the legislation that she is proposing has a lot of items that arent directly related to the covid19 crisis. They are, as some have said, a wish list of priorities and others have said in the media that its more of a messaging bill. So well see. Among other things, it says as an example that they want to change the current law which says that youre limited in terms of how much of a federal Tax Deduction you can take for state and local taxes. Thats called the salt issue. They want to repeal that. That cost, by the way, is about 180 billion, Something Like that. And it would result in about 50 of the benefit, the tax benefit going to the top 1 of taxpayers. So if that doesnt sound like its something thats 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 our Small Businesses can get back on their feet and ensuring that our Health Care System is sound and other things. So we will 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 as republicans, democrats, house and senate. Look at what we have already spent, the 2. 5 trillion, see how its been spent. Understand what some of the gaps might be and address those gaps. But as we are working on this issue, this pandemic is continuing to wreak havoc all over the country. I mean, its been devastating. Lets just face it. We now have 30 million americans, 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 dont have a place to work. I know friends of mine, people i have known for a long time who have never been unemployed, theyre unemployed now for the first time. They are getting Unemployment Insurance for the first time. They want to go back to work, but they dont have a job right now. So thats been devastating to them, to a lot of Small Businesses. I have talked to people who have put their lives into their they have poured their lives and their resources in these businesses. A guy tells me i have been doing this for 40 years. I started with just a couple of people. I got to a few more, a few more. Now, boom, my doors are closed. Think of the movie theaters and the bowling alleys and the small restaurants, the hotels. I mean, the anything to do with travel and tourism. These businesses are in tough, tough shape. So is the beauty parlor and the nail salon and the barber shop. So this is testing our resolve, isnt it, in ways that we had never expected. And i guess thats part of the point. We never expect it because we werent prepared for this kind of pandemic. Congress again has tried to help with these four measures we have already passed, and i think they have helped. Particularly with a lot of these Small Businesses, our Health Care System has been helped. Trillions of dollars, 2. 5 trillion of taxpayer funds have gone out to try to really 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, so more stimulus. You know, giving Small Businesses the tax relief to encourage them to invest more, 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 to 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. So 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 here at home, lets not forget how we got here. And 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 got a problem here, lets not tell anybody. Which goes against all the rules. If youre 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 that 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 economies that have been destroyed by this. So 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 dont worry, theres no humantohuman transmission of this virus. No humantohuman transmission of this virus. They knew otherwise. By the way, four million cases worldwide tell us they knew otherwise. Four million cases. All started in one place, in wuhan, china. Now four million cases. So this is something that is serious and we need to address it. Were also told that the Chinese Communist party allowed people to travel from hubei province, from wuhan city. Not to the parts of china, apparently, but to the rest of the world. If they had cut off travel to places like italy and the u. K. 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 hot spots, and for american citizens and green card holders. They had to go into quarantine. That helped. That helped. But the virus was already here. Very disturbing to me is that apparently some Chinese Communist party disinformation went out claiming that america was at fault somehow. This was classic propaganda and disinformation. So its sort of 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 wouldnt let the World Health Organization experts come in for well over a month after they knew. Some say it was a few months because they probably knew at the end of last year, they must have, given the number of cases that they had. But 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 youre required to report data, youre required to have them come in when you have a virus like this that, of course, we didnt know it was a pandemic at the time, but we had a virus here that it 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, they are the ones that go in and deal with it. Instead of being an Early Warning system, in a sense, they were apologists for china. So thats 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 its not just america, the rest of the world ought to be involved in this as well. All the members of the w. H. O. Ought to be concerned, and i believe they are. About the deference that they showed to china at a time when we needed them to be on the spot helping. So we now find ourselves forced to rely on the source of the virus, china, for a lot of our p. P. E. Personal protective equipment. Think of the masks and the gloves and the gowns that our Frontline Health care workers need and others who are now interfacing with customers and working together as coworkers. We have to rely on china for this. So in order to safely treat the covid19 patients that are sick because of this virus that originated in china, we have now got to rely on china for this safety equipment. Thats 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 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, and 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 wouldnt be in the situation were in. By the way, none of this is news when it comes to chinas 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. 15 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 werent 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. It was my number one priority was china. When i was there i established for the first time a ustr, u. S. Trade representative prosecutor just for china. I also one of my recommendations was to put a negotiator in china from the u. S. Trade reps office. Its 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 partys use of whats called the confucius institutes at our high schools, sometimes grade schools, at our colleges and universities. We learned that more than a hundred 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 theyre operating in the United States. We know some of these confucius institutes have been used as platforms for economic espiona 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. Thats not something we should allow to happen here in this country. That doesnt 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 shouldnt be subject to that. These confucius institutes have also spent a lot of money in this country. So schools have taken money and they have not properly reported it. Thats what our report indicated. And as a result, the department of education is now cracking down on some of these schools to say you got at a minimum report the funding. Our subcommittee is right now wrapping up its review of three Chinese Governmentowned Telecom Firms that the f. C. C. , federal Communications System 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 f. C. C. Denied a license to china mobile to operate in the United States for these same reasons. So that investigation is coming to a head. Were going to have a report coming out soon. Well learn more about this. But again weve got to be sure were not naive, that we understand whats going on when these chinese cel Communications Firms teleCommunications Firms are here in this country. The third permanent subcommittee investigation involves anotherren assistance where 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 the way, by u. S. Taxpayers. Before the coronavirus put so much of our country on hold, we were preparing to introduce legislation that is a result of our bipartisan report and our year long investigation. That report details how china has used whats called talent Recruitment Programs, most notably whats called the thousand talents plan to steal u. S. Taxpayerfunded research. It turns out this has been going on for a long time. For 20 years this has been going on. And its helped fuel the rietz of both the chinese the rise of the of of both the Chinese Military and the economy during those 20 years. You might ask how has this happened . Well, every year federal grant making agencies like the National Institutes of health, the department of energys National Labs or the National ScienceFoundation Give out taxpayer dollars for research. By the way, its about 1150 billion a year. 150 billion a year. Its 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 has helped make the United States a world leader in innovation. So your tax dollars coming to washington, going to the department of energy, National Institutes of health, National Science foundation, out to researchers and colleges and universities and research institutes, 150 billion a year has led to a lot of breakthroughs. The open and collaborative nature of the Research 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. But what we have learned and through our report we prove is that this system is very vulnerable. Its vulnerable to theft by other countries and thats exactly whats happened 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 its been doing that is by using secret contracts here in the United States with researchers. Again, funded by tax dollars doing research, 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 paid for by u. S. Tax dollars. Its wrong. It needs to stop. And our legislation is intended to do just that. A state Department Witness had one of our Senate Hearings on the report said, and i quote, the Chinese Communist party has declared the Chinese University system to be on the front line of militarycivilian fusion efforts for technology acquisition. In other words, the Chinese Communist party has decided this talent Recruitment Program is going to be well funded. Were going to pay American Researchers to give us their stuff but also then connect them to the Chinese University system which the Chinese Communist party is using as the way to get technology, to acquire technology. Again its not a new problem. This has been going on for two decades but weve done little in this country to stop it because we have this history of being so open and accessible with our research. The f. B. I. Came to our hearing and they acknowledged this at their hearing. They said, and i quote, this is from the federal bureau of investigation, quote, it should have taken more rapid and comprehensive action in the past. End quote, to respond to these chinese talent Recruitment Programs. Yes, they should have. Yes, they should have. Fortunately the f. B. I. And the department of justice have now taken a different approach. They began stepping up their efforts this year with several recent high profile arrests and 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 number one global competitor. Thats why were introducing this legislation. Its called 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 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 probably heard about it because you may remember earlier this year, there was the shocking arrest of dr. Charles leiber, the chair of Harvard UniversitysChemistry Department who was being pied bring both paid both by harvard and the Chinese Communist party. Without his knowledge, he didnt tell harvard, dr. Leiber 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 where he got u. S. Taxpayer money. If it had been disclosed, he wouldnt have gotten the money. Thats 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 funding sources. But thats not a crime. Failing to disclose compensation from a Foreign Government is not currently a crime. We make it a crime. Thats 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 it 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. So thats in our legislation. Number two, despite 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, doesnt have anyone that handles grant oversight. Again, weve been too laxed. Thats why the bill requires the federal office of management and budget, o. M. B. , to streamline and coordinate grant making between the agencies to ensure that the billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars going toward 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. Theyll now know where the funding is, where its going, how its being used. Third, the state department is on the front lines here in vetting visa applications for visiting scholars and visiting students. But it is not permitted to deny a visit to individuals coming from overseas who are intent on stealing u. S. Research. Thats just wrong. Our Research Enterprise in this country must remain open. We agree with that. We want to attract people from around the world, of course, but weve got to have commonsense safeguards to prevent bad actors from taking advantage of our openness. So the legislation does that. It authorizes the state department to deny visas so foreign researchers seeking to access sensitive u. S. Research when its determined that doing so would pose a threat to our economic or to our National Security. The state department, by the way, wants this authority. The career officers who came and testified before us said we would like to have this authority because we know were letting people in who are coming for one reason and one reason only and thats 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 epidemic espionage. For example, we found the thousand Talents Program had recruited a member who downloaded more than 30,000 files from a department of energy and national lab. These are our top National Labs in the country, highly secreti secretive. 30,000 files were downloaded without authorization, of course, and took those files with that re that researcher took those files with him back to china. Our bill requires that Research Institutions have safeguards in place to prohibit unauthorized access to sensitive research. Theyve got to tighten it up. Finally, we found that nearly 70 , 70 of u. S. Universities 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 that repeatedly fail to disclose these gifts. Now, theres some in the University Community that dont love our legislation. I would just ask them, given whats happened, give 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 says you have to report when you receive more than 50,000 from a Foreign Government . Is that too much to ask . I dont think so. Right now theyre supposed to report. Its a higher level. And 70 of them have failed to do so. So its not too much to ask. And i would hope that the University Community will be supportive. Many are but some apparently are saying theyre going to try to block this legislation. Dont 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 its the World Health Organization rules, whether its the trade rules we talked about earlier and now with regard to this issue that were dealing with in terms of taking u. S. Research back to china to fuel chinas military, chinas 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. Were 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 at our top global competitor steals that research. Safeguarding American Innovation act is an important step for the safety and security of every america. Weve got to adapt to the fooct that china is not to the fact that china is not going to play by the rules as the rest of the world. Its been 15 years since we put out the report saying it lacks equities, durability and sustainability. Right now our number one priority is solving the coronavirus crisis. Weve got to do that, no question, that ought to be our focus. In the context of this crisis we have need to reevaluate how we do business with china. Weve got to look at this with fresh eyes. My hope is that this legislation we 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 keeping china and other nationstate competitors from stealing that research for its own purposes. We can achieve that balance, and we must. Gotten worse during the pandemic. History reminds us that when great nations confront profound challenges at home, their enemies and competent ofers do not politely pause their own efforts until the situation