Bill Foster

“I want the House to pass this bill. It requires federal bank regulators to review their technology every five years and fix any gaps. New technology like AI can make bank runs and fraud happen faster, so regulators need modern tools to keep up.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Stutzman for his partnership on this legislation and my colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee for their unanimous support of the bipartisan FUTURES Act. The FUTURES Act takes important first steps to modernize the financial regulatory regime and ensures that regulators have appropriate tools for the 21st century. It requires Federal banking regulators and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to regularly review their technological systems and procurement practices to ensure that they are well-equipped to address emerging threats. Agencies will examine whether they have access to the right information when they need it and whether they have systems in place to identify rapidly emerging risk. The bill then asks regulators to develop a plan to address any technology gaps that they identify, requiring additional reviews every 5 years. As we saw with the bank failures in 2023, 24-hour banking tools and social media-fueled panic can intensify bank runs and increase the risk of contagion. Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors attempted to withdraw $42 billion from the bank in 24 hours, with more than $100 billion in additional withdrawals requested before it was shut down and put into receivership by the FDIC. This bill comes at a time when financial institutions and regulators are responding to new opportunities and challenges stemming from emerging technologies. Artificial intelligence and agentic commerce have great potential benefits for consumers and businesses, but they also have the potential to supercharge cybersecurity risk, contagion, and fraud, and can destabilize our financial system far more quickly than in years past. At the same time, these technologies provide tools that regulators and financial institutions can use to improve and simplify bank supervision, to identify suspicious activity, and to improve the quality of customer service. Maintenance of a well-regulated financial system requires continual investment in new tools, a workforce with the necessary technical skills, and streamlined procurement rules that allow regulators to keep up with rapid developments in the private sector. I support this forward-looking and bipartisan bill, and I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes.’’”

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“We should stop making the penny and use the dollar coin more. But we should put Abraham Lincoln on the new dollar coin so his face stays on our money.”

“Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I agree it makes perfect economic sense to retire the denomination of the penny and, in fact, reemploy the dollar coin in ordinary commerce. As a Representative of Illinois, I cannot but mention the fact that the loss of the image of Abraham Lincoln on coins we often use is a tragedy that we can and should avert. The way to do that is to simply place the image of Abraham Lincoln on the newly minted dollar coin, a win-win every way you look at it.”

“Vote against this amendment. It bans scientists from countries like China and Russia from working at our national labs. We already check these scientists carefully before they work here. Working with them helps our own research and gives us useful contacts in those countries. Even the Trump administration opposed this ban because it hurts American science.”

“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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