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Washington DC – House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul joined other Republican committee leaders in a letter led by House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-OK) to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) urging them to prioritize passing legislation on American competitiveness through regular order. The Members stressed the need to take bipartisan, bicameral action to address the growing threats from the Chinese Communist Party’s to U.S. technological competitiveness, economic growth, and national security.

“Addressing the generational threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue – it is an American issue,” the Members wrote. “As Congress considers actions regarding strategic competition with China, we write to urge you to move any such legislation through the House of Representatives under a process of regular order, and that we do not waste this opportunity to develop strong and thoughtful policy by shoehorning it through using reconciliation.”

The full text of the letter can be found here and below.

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer,

As Congress considers actions regarding strategic competition with China, we write to urge you to move any such legislation through the House of Representatives under a process of regular order, and that we do not waste this opportunity to develop strong and thoughtful policy by shoehorning it through using reconciliation. As Ranking Members of the Committees engaged in this work, we believe it is vital that any such legislation be developed in a bipartisan, bicameral, open, and transparent process.

Addressing the generational threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue – it is an American issue. We stand ready to work with you and the chairs of our Committees to hold the CCP accountable for its actions, while also bolstering our own global leadership in innovation, including investing in American research and development, shoring up domestic supply chains, improving coordination with strategic allies, and addressing other security issues.

We are pleased to see that the Senate is working to confront the CCP’s threats to the critical nexus we have identified between American technological competitiveness, economic growth, and national security. While we may not agree on all of the policies currently under consideration in the Senate, we appreciate that there is widespread recognition of the dangers we face from Communist leadership in China, and a willingness to take action.

We now have a window of opportunity for our Committees to work together to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can move through the House and be conferenced with the Senate.

As you are aware, last year, the House Republican Conference formed our own China Task Force (CTF) to address the CCP’s campaign for global and military dominance. Over the course of six months, the CTF conducted over 60 briefings with government officials, private sector leaders, and outside experts on both sides of the aisle to develop long-term, bipartisan solutions to best counter the CCP’s harmful strategies. We regret that Democrats chose not to participate in the task force, but nevertheless, we believe that we produced strong, bipartisan solutions reflecting our respective committees’ input. Our report, which was released last September, included more than 400 policy recommendations on how the U.S. can better combat the threat of the CCP, two-thirds of which were bipartisan. We believe many of these bipartisan recommendations can help inform a legislative package dealing with strategic competition with China.

The time to act is now. Our national and economic security depends on what happens in the coming months and years. We urge you not to make this a partisan process by using budget reconciliation or other legislative gimmicks. Instead, the House should take advantage of the expertise of the relevant Committees to ensure our response addresses the full spectrum of threats from the CCP, and members from both sides of the aisle have good and well-developed ideas and should be invited to the negotiation table. This issue deserves the thoughtful discussion and debate that comes with authorizing legislative provisions and the appropriation of funds through regular order.

Lastly, in addition to investing in American innovation to keep us economically and technologically competitive, we need to include a discussion of regulatory and permitting reforms, intellectual property protection, national security and topline defense spending.

Many of our Committees are already working towards bipartisan bills to address strategic competition with China, and we hope that we can move any legislation forward as quickly as possible, in an open and transparent process.

We look forward to working with House leadership and Committee leaders on these important issues in the weeks and months ahead.

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