Bill Foster · TranslatePolitics.com

House of Representatives

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027

2026-07-22

“I want this amendment to fail. I worked at a government lab. We had Russian scientists there. They helped us. We knew who the spies were. It was funny. The real spies are in China. We need to be friends with smart people from other countries. A lot of them work in our labs. We trust them. Trump's government said this is a bad idea. A ban would hurt science in our country. I don't usually agree with Trump. I agree with him on this. This ban is too hard. I want scientists to come here. This is a bad change. Vote against it.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Chair, this amendment is unnecessary, and I urge everyone to oppose it. The Department of Energy Laboratories are on to this problem, and they have been on to it for decades. Prior to serving in Congress, I spent over 20 years at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where we had Russian collaborators during the heart of the Cold War. Some of the very first experiments that were done at Fermi National Lab had Russian participants, and we had incredibly competent scientists coming and visiting. It was actually kind of amusing. When you had a group of Russian collaborators, there would be five brilliant scientists and then one guy who was not a very good physicist. He was the KGB guy, and everyone laughed about it. We had this under control. It was also a huge benefit to the United States not only because of the brilliant assistance we had to grow our science program, but also, frankly, as a source of intelligence assets because these brilliant scientists would go back to Russia, and we would maintain interesting communications with them. That is especially important today because China has basically installed the surveillance state. It is very difficult for us to maintain human assets in China, but this is one of the only opportunities that we have to actually develop high-level scientific assets. From that point of view alone, this is a wrong amendment. It is not just me who feels this way. Donald Trump's Department of Energy opposes this, and I will just read verbatim their comment on it: ``This amendment effectively imposes an outright prohibition on access to DOE national laboratories for all foreign nationals from countries of concern, regardless of their mode of access. While intended to address security concerns, this sweeping restriction will severely disrupt the national laboratory research and development ecosystem and key administration research priorities,'' from the Trump administration. ``The Office of Science and other DOE lab-stewarded programs have a significant number of international scientists and engineers who serve as employees, users of SC scientific user facilities, or collaborative visitors. These individuals already undergo indices checks and extensive, multi-layered risk mitigation measures prior to receiving Laboratory access. By bypassing these tailored, risk-based protocols in favor of a blanket ban, this amendment will disrupt essential scientific human resources who greatly contribute to domestic scientific competitiveness.'' Mr. Chair, it is not often that I agree with the Trump administration, but they pretty much nailed that one. This amendment is unnecessary and counterproductive. Mrs. Hinson's amendment has identified a concern about the impact of foreign nationals from countries like Russia, China, and Iran, but principally China. However, this amendment is just unnecessarily restrictive on our national laboratories. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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