Pascrell and DeLauro Push Urgent Action to Protect American Jobs and Supply Chains

Official statement to Senate Banking Committee seeks support for National Critical Capabilities Defense Act

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Reps. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) today urged the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to move swiftly to protect American jobs and supply chains and enact their watershed legislation, the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act (NCCDA), submitting an official joint statement into the record for the committee’s hearing on “Examining Outbound Investment.”

“We cannot be weak-kneed when it comes to standing up to our adversaries, starting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. We must take all necessary steps to protect the United States supply chain and our national security from foreign adversaries. While we are encouraged by support from the Biden Administration on this issue and have encouraged executive action, we continue to believe that statutory provisions, like the NCCDA, are essential to safeguard our Nation’s critical capabilities, national security, and American workers,” Reps. Pascrell and DeLauro urged the Senate Banking Committee.

In a July hearing, Senate Banking Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) committed to working with colleagues to address the issue of outbound investment in a vehicle separate from the CHIPS package, which has now been signed into law by President Biden.

Reps. Pascrell and DeLauro are lead sponsors of the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act, which will create a National Critical Capabilities Committee. Once enacted, the committee will be empowered to review and block certain U.S. production offshoring, development, or manufacturing of identified critical national capabilities being made within adversarial nations including China and Russia. The legislation encompasses the production of medical supplies and medicines, articles essential to the electrical grid, and areas vital to U.S. national security, among others. The National Critical Capabilities Defense Act was included in the trade title of the America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act (America COMPETES Act) that passed the House of Representatives on February 4, 2022. Pascrell joined House and Senate leaders to urge President Biden to take executive action modeled after the NCCDA that would protect American workers and supply chains.

The full text of the members’ statement is below.

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT-03) and Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09)

Statement for the Record United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Hearing on “Examining Outbound Investment”

September 29, 2022

Thank you, Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Ranking Member Pat Toomey (R-PA) for holding this important hearing on the issue of examining outbound investment. We wish to thank Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and John Cornyn (R-TX) for co-leading the Senate version of the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act (NCCDA) and our House co-leads Representatives Victoria Spartz (R-IN-05) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-01).

In a July hearing before this committee, Chairman Brown, you committed to working with your colleagues to address this issue in a vehicle separate from the CHIPS package, which has now been signed into law. We appreciate this step to honor that commitment by holding this hearing today.

We are House champions of the NCCDA. Our legislation would create a new trade tool that brings a whole-of-government response to review a tailored set of outbound investments in specific sectors. This screening process for outbound investments and the offshoring of critical capacities and supply chains would ensure that the United States can quickly detect and address supply chain vulnerabilities and prevent the offshoring of critical production capacity and intellectual property to our foreign adversaries like the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation.

As you may know, our bill was included as part of the House-passed America COMPETES Act and is under discussion by conferees in the conference committee. The common-sense proposal has strong bipartisan and bicameral support and was recommended as part of the most recent unanimously approved report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

As champions for American workers, we hope you would agree that we must do more to fix our frayed supply chains and empower our government with the authorities to act to address these problems. We cannot be weak-kneed when it comes to standing up to our adversaries, starting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. We must take all necessary steps to protect the United States supply chain and our national security from foreign adversaries. While we are encouraged by support from the Biden Administration on this issue and have encouraged executive action, we continue to believe that statutory provisions, like the NCCDA, are essential to safeguard our Nation’s critical capabilities, national security, and American workers. We seek your support for our efforts and continued partnership to these ends.

Thank you for your attention to our comments. We look forward to working together with Members of this committee, and bicameral colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact an outbound investment review mechanism in the 117th Congress.

###