Safeguarding American Innovation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. Madam President, I would like to thank my colleague from Ohio for working together on a bipartisan package of legislation that will increase our economic competitiveness and strengthen our national security. As chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, we are preparing legislation that will help our country respond to major cyber incidents, solidify our global leadership on artificial intelligence, incentivize domestic production of personal protective equipent to increase our ability to respond to pandemics, and strengthen ``Buy American'' laws to make sure Federal dollars support American workers and small businesses.

I would like to briefly discuss one of the bills we are working on-- my colleague's Safeguarding American Innovation Act, which takes on the threat of foreign governments stealing American taxpayer-funded research and intellectual property developed at U.S. colleges and universities. This is a serious, complex problem, and we need to make sure we get the response right. This is why we plan to advance this bill out of committee and continue working through additional changes before this bill is incorporated to the Endless Frontier Act on the Senate floor.

We intend to move a number of bills out of our committee, including the Safeguarding American Innovation Act after the recess and include them in bipartisan competitiveness legislation. If this broader package is considered on the Senate floor during the first week of the next work period, we will focus on preparing a bipartisan package from our committee's jurisdiction to be added during floor consideration.

I know my colleagues and the administration have concerns about potential overlapping authorities, visa restrictions, and the reporting requirements for foreign gifts to colleges and universities, among other issues, I believe we must work through these in a bipartisan manner. As a result of Senator Portman' s important work and others in Congress, there has been positive movement already to address these issues by both the U.S. Government and institutions of higher education, which have been educating their staff and faculty about their serious responsibilities to disclose any foreign research support they receive. I will yield to Senator Portman to discuss the process we have agreed to undertake in the coming weeks and thank him again for engaging in this collaborative process.

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Mr. PETERS. Thank you, Senator Portman. You have my commitment to work closely together on this multi-committee process. I believe we can find common ground with our colleagues and an agreement with the administration and Leader Schumer in the coming weeks. Thank you for your partnership on these important issues. I look forward to advancing an important, bipartisan Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee package and ensuring our priorities are included in the final bill passed by the Senate.

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