latest special counsel report, the hur report, by us looking intod said somethw he would come across to a jury as a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. that report was how he had supposedly not remembered the precise year s beau died. in the acknowledgement there's something that speaks to that. the first paragraph of the acknowledgement section in joept this was a very hard year, hard time period for me to look back upon. d uch, some of my memories of this period are shot. >> carlos lozada with his book "the washington night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. listen to all our podcasts on the free c-span now app.

>> cpan is your unfiltered view of government. companies and more, includingion comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? no, it's way more than that. ■3 partnering with a thousands community centers to create wi-fi enabled list to students from low income families can get the >> comcast supports c-span as a public serce along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. up next, a look at the potential agriculture. china poses t we hear from south dakota governor and the chair and ranking member of the house select committee on china and they discuss the acquisition u.s. farmland by china and national security concerns related to the food sector. congressman glenn thompson of

pennsylvania chairs the house agriculture committee. >> the committee comes to order and thank you forwñcn joining te meeting, the dangers china imposes to the department of agriculture. after briefemarks we'll hear from witnesses and the hearing then will be open to questions. traditionally we don't do questions with panels of our kns interested in taking a few questions. timewise, i'm not sure we'll be able to do a full round with the governor. and the second panel will be five minutes questions as normal.nd thanks to all for being here for a timely and necessary conversation about threats cna poses american

agriculture. the people's republic of china, governed by the chinese communist party, which is the strike comes from, it doesn't come from individuals. this is imposed basically where we're lynx to the chinese communist party, has gone out of its way to reduce reliance on-ively pursuing tactics that threaten our nation's ability to feed itself. these threats are multifaceted and aic and incendiary and require coordinated and proactive response. that's last few years them gather up farmland at an active rate. china's long use of legal and

regulatorytem to steal intellectual property and we've seen it from semi conductors to seeds and not to mention the scalend which china can manipulate critical infrastructure has exposed cut fastballs in american technologies. from data breaches to theft of agriculture research to ramping up disruptions of irrigation and transportation systems. in 2022, chairman comer and i with more than 125 of our republican colleagues asked the government to evaluate foreign investments to u.s. farmland and its impact on national security, trade and food security. as many of you know, in the department of agriculture estimated foreign investments in u.s. agriculture land grew to nearly 40 milliones. a few months ago we received a final report which showed congress where gaps exist in our reporting framework and how better more timely cona agencied

help increase visibility into potential national security risks related to foreign congress took a natural first step with the recent passage of the consolidated appropriations act where the bill addressed foreign owng the tracking systef it. the fact china imports as much food as the u.s. exports to the whole world makes this conversation more difficult. in recent years, the u.s. has seen record export values china for soybeans, corn, beef, chicken sorghum which are contributors which explore market diversity elsewhere. how do we stre a lance protecting our producers and consumers and every piece of agriculture value chain while keeping pace with china's do wen

one country without? mining the necessity of a strong export market? how smartly about policies that mitt great threats while protecting our best assets? today's witnesses come to the blok forward to a discussion. with that i now would like to welcome the distinguished ranking member, opening remarks he'd like to make. mr. scott: thank you, chairman. ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of today's hearings ag discuss the influence that china has on american agriculture p. but unfortunately, me the rhetoric surrounding this topic may derail us from tackling hany

contribute, hopefully not, but may contribute to violence against asian americans. i want all americans to know that we committee condemn all bigotry including race, motivated threats, and acts of violence. thisture policy, not people policy. i himself want us to keep in mind that china is an important trading partner to the united states, and we need a thorough and heavy conversation so that we can help the american ae assistants navigate this challenging and somewhat thorny and i hope everyone here today

will engage in a serious, fact-minded, fact-based conversation■ avoid fear mongering and alarmism. though i'm told that this isn't the topic of this hearing, also pleased that the recently enacted agriculture appropriations bill will help%$ usda update its outdated system of tracking■2 landownership in the united states of america. if year going to have a serious discussion, we must know china is our largest trade partner, accounting for $37 billion in

u.s. agriculture exports just last fiscal year alone. american farmers are the most efficient aroductive, and because of this, we produce far more than we americans can consume. my colleagues will often note we are inal trade deficit right now. and i'm here to tell you that alienating our trade partners t. american farmers need large markets to export their products p. and when those markets does ? our farmers. and then the american people. we saw thes administration started a trade war withhina creating■í chaos and undermining

markets for our american farmers and such a trade war of china. guess what? brazilian farmers have filled thatap exports to china as our market share decreased notrum calling for a 60% tariff on all chinese goods. this would have drastic impacts on american agriculture production. it would increase costs for consumers and would almost certainly lead to retaliatory tariffs placed on the u.s. agriculture exports. so i think it's fair to think that the u.s. being so dependent on a single export market who is also■■w strategic congressional

pet tore raises and poses a risk for our acan rm we can address this concern is to expand trade existing markets while we open new markets. increasing the market access program. that's the way to go. and foreign market development program in the farmill. and i believe that the new trade deal is critical for our american agriculture. places where i am very critical of ther agriculture technology is highly concerning to me.

a problem. marked desertion through domestic price support programs and■d ignoring w.t.o. decisions hinders access and creates an uneven playing field for u.s. farmers. and i also remain highly critical of any foreign seekingy american land near essential intelligence or our military installations p. this is now a major national protect our natil security interests. this is a national security issue of soaring magnitude to this nation. we've got to protect our farmland and not get it in the hands of for interests.

particularly china. i look forward to hearing fromod coming out of this hearing with an improved understanding of our relationship with china and how we can work together to protect america's agriculture interests. thank you. >> ieman. the chair would request other members to submit their opening statements for the record. the witnesses may begin testimony so ensure there's ample time for questions. please welcome mr. dusty johnson to introduce our first witne >> governing the nation should be a team sport but unfortunately there are a lot of free agents in politics and people don't understand the value of luckily our speaker this morning my friend, my governor, knows how■v

i don't think there's a month that goes by she doesn't show the leadership necessary to havg farmland from the chinese communist party and getting tiktok off government devices and making sure state pension program has the flexibility to divest from c.c.p. influences and making sure the farm bill priorities are right,ck hills national forenest a appropriate way, protecting mount rushmore. i could go on for an hour, sir. and i know you don't want ways i have been able to work together. so il you, i'm honored to be able to have a real south dakotan, a real leader and a real partner come on back and share some wisdom with us.

mr. chairman, the governor of the great state of south dakota, mr. thompson: i thank the governor and welcome ms. noem. n of the select committee on the chinese government party. congressman, thanks for joining us. hopefully our third witness today, and i+lnow he has scheduling conflicts initially here but hoping he'll be able to join us in time to offer his perspective, colleague of mine, of ours, someone i work with on many issues including career and nical education, the gentleman from illinois, who is the ranking member of the select committee on the chinese communist party. thank you all witne■ó us. we'll now proceed to your testimony. you'll each have five minutes. the timer is in front of you. countdown to zero when your time noem, please begin when

ready. governor noem: thank you. it's an honor to be with you kind introduction. you're a wonderful friend and doing such a great job maybe because you stole half my staff and kept them when i left th but you're a wonderful representative for south dakota. thank for you caring so passionately for all our people. chairman thompson, i have the honor of having one of former chair men on this committee sit before me, chairman lucas and was my chairman when i served in the housereentave two farm bills but serving under his leadership was a special honor and i love being a member of his team as wput■ together farm policy as i referred to as food policy for the united states of america. it's wonderful to see you again, chairman lucas, and i look and wisdom over the years.advice langing member scott and members of the committee, thank so you much for letting me be here today to discuss this topic. as a former mr of this committee, i know it very well. each day you protect not only

our nation's food supply but you are stewards of our land and it's a treasure to and every day. i come before you today and sit as the 33rd governor of south dakota. my home state is known for its g plains but the iconic mount rushmore and we have a lot to be proud of. and if you haven't come to visit us, you probably should. agriculture is the number one industry but tourism is our second largest industry. it's important to our people our land stahu in od shape and continue to produce. this year is special to me because this is the 30th year i've worked on agriculture policy. i spent policy, not just being a farmer and rancher and raising my family on the land but also being involved in meetings. at just the age oflled in an acr family farm and i got angry when i found out how our family was going to be hit tragically by the death tax a meetings to talk about policy and how it impacted

small farms. at that time the u.s. senate majority leade tom daschle, a democrat and he appointed me to serve on the farm agency state committee which is the industry that oversees alltate f south dakota. i did that many years as a young wife and mother and also as a farmer and rancher running a large operation in ourte. i was heavily involved in the implementation of federal programs in our state making sure they worked for all our ranchers there and that they were as flexibles po freedom toe how they ran their farms and to do it very well. i served on many different commissions and task years to help disadvantaged farmers, people that were in tough situations in different critical situations and as a general managerssf ran our farr many decades. i first was elected to our state legislature in 2006 and became the sistantority leader in the house p. while there i

rewrote our property tax system and ended up running for congress and was elected and served worked on two farm bills while i served on this committee and served on natural resources, on the armed services committee, educationforce committee and ended on ways and means committee when we did tax reform and was very proud to see that signed into law. in 2018 when i ran f govnor ours re-elected again last year or in 2022 and i am in my second termi think it's important for you to know that my heart is with the land and it is with our people, but when it comes to policy, that i know what i'm talking about. and i know it because i live it. today i focus of this committee is the danger china poses to american agriculture. over the years, i have witnessed this hostile communist country work to systematically work to n and decades ago started buying our fertilizer companies,

patrolling our ability to access fertilizer and bring it in the united states and thp our chemil companies as i worked on implementation of policies and programs at the state level and federal level. i watched as we sold citizenship to chinese communist members of the communist party for investment into our processing systems and now most of our processing facilities are commur chinese government. now they are coming for our land. and when they buy up our land they will complete their chain of control of our food supply. between 2010 and 2020 the chinese communist parties holding of ag land increased by 5,300%. reports show china owns 384,000 acres of u.s. ag land■úlb billi. this should be alarming to all of us. usda admits this may not even account for all tl? ld because e track of foreign interests

involved in these large transactions. in fact, there's very little reporting that happens at the state or federal level and little consequences for allowing countries who hate us from owning our land. just members of the communist party contact our state government and want to come and visit two of our processing facilitiesnd see our farms and visit south dakota. we declined all of those meetings. but just within days we received a phone call from the state department telling us that those were chinese spies. they were there to steal our intellectual property and steal our genetics and wanted to debrief us if we thank god we did not. we were told they were there to help improve our trade relations, that they were there to improve our business and exports and instead they were there to steal from the united states of america. so the threat is very real to us every single day what china is inand they have a thousands year plan to become the world dominating power in the world

and the only thing standing in their way is america. just this past summer it was clear when those chinese spies were in our state that china wants to control us and they want controlling our food supply. the chinese communist party is not our friend. they're not our partner or ally but our enemy and a rapidly expanding security threat that can't be ignored. let me be clear, they're buying up our entire food supply chain and en itself and rely on other members of another country to feed us, it becomes a national security issue. the country that feeds us will controls.mind you why we do a farm bill every year. i'm well aware that you have a priority to get that done and i'm looking forward to getting a farm bill done because that's a safety net for our farmers out there. in the past the farm bill has always been a bipartisan issue and should continue topartisan . i had the opportunity to work on two of them and it's simply a safety net for our farmers.

it's important and america decided yearsgove a farm bill ty family in this country had a safe and had an affordable food supply, that they had the ability to go to the grocery store and put food on the table for their families. if a farm her a good year he could pay his bills but if he everything. we didn't want to have a drought or a flood or something that happened that caused us to lose all our small family farms and allow us to lose the to feed ourselves. every family in this country recognizes the importance after farm bill and i know you do, too and look forward to so we contid ourselves in this country. the farm bill should be designed to help farmers and not environmental tremendousists. iope you'll con■-to focus on making sure we are working as a conservationist myself. i'm committed to protecting the abundance of our natural so-called climate smart agriculture dictated by the

biden administration does not help farmers and does not help us put food on the table or conserve our natural resources. we want wildlife habitat solutions that meet the needs of people and the state to best serve our country and our ability ourselves. the farm bill manages risk and it's a safety net and i hope you can get that done. recent media reports show the largest chinese■ holder of american ag land is shipping food and medical supplies to china to be stockpiled by the chinese military.aw when china d in north dakota they claimed was for a corn processing plant and there wasn't going to be enough corn to supply the plant and installation. they were purchasing that land on purpose for national security reasons and why i've made it a priority in my stao n't happen y watch. in south dakota we worked for two years to make sure we had a bill in place to make sure we know who is buying our land and it was from a country that hated us. china would never allow us to go to their country and buy land in

their country. they don't even allow their people to buy their land. there's no reason we should allow them to come into our country and buy our land and especially not close to our military installations. south dakota isto els worth air force base and the b-1 bomber that protected this country for the last 50 years and also home to the in operatig us as well but would be the first home of the b-21's which will be the bombing platform to protect this country for the next 50 yrs stop china and make sure other evil foreign governments don't come in and have the opportunity to buy up land epxt military installations. when we talk about food policy, please talk about it from a national security standpoint. it's important we grow here ando it in a way that protects the united states of america. and with that i yield back. mrw we'll recognize chairman gallagher. begin when ready.

mr. gallagher: thank you to meerof the committee and what an incredible opportunity to discuss the threat imposed by in particular. i want to thank the governor with her leadership for sharing the alarm about the threat and carrying the burden dealing with dusty johnson before he leaves he may not technically weigh that much but that's a heavy burden. and i believe he's from your dakota. i get it confused p. a year ago, a gentleman named)zbj guilty tog american espionage and sent to two years in prison for stealing inte monsanto subsidiary and took copies of the algorithm back to china where he worked for china's institute of soil science. here you have an example of someone stealing american technology and bringing it

directly back to the chinese communist party c.c.p.'s approao agriculture and food security in that it's not just about economic cpetition quote the ge. and they import corn, soybeans, wheat, rice. the views food security as an existential responsibility. if they invade ta would be subject to sanctions and therefore the c.c.p. would face challenges in feeting -- feeding its population. to put bluntly they're engaged in warfare against the united states and our agriculture sector is already a prime target. the governor mentioned the of u.s. farmland owned by chinese linked firms increasing more than five fold between 2010

and 2021. these are only thecquisitions we know about. there could be much more because as you all know, the federal oversight system for reporting foreign ownership is alarmingly lax and forcement is very minimal. for example, the governor referenced the fufang group soud near the other air force base in 2021 and did not report to the usda until the u.s. media startedsk that's unacceptable. if you look broadly at the insidious project, three problems emerged. the u.s. government has no way to track farm purchase by other adversaries and they are not capable of and second, upon discovering a problematic transaction, they find they have no jurisdiction despite theact in the frma bill we tried to give them

acquisition. and because the air force base in question was not listed as a sensitive site, sipius claimed they have no authority to review the transaction and that's unacceptable. and sippous can't view greenfield farmland and view it as a factor. our foreign■k able to purchase thousands of acres and they can't consider the impact on our food supply. this strikes me as something democratsright now in this congress and solve by passing something like the protecting u.s. farmland and sensitive sites from foreign adversaries act. i kn members of this committee on both sides of the aisle, ms. plot kin and i worked very productively on this issue and something we can gete in die sippous the resources it needs to make sure our foremost adversary can't buy land near critical infrastructure and u.s. military bases. it should be a no-brainer and i suggest we do better by letting

our agricultural passing bills. this would ensure u.s. taxpayer like beijing genomics institute that wants to collect genomes from plants and an we should protect us by cataloging u.s. plants and animals we need to keep american a lot of my time as chairman of the select committee on china asking why any of this matters and why you have this hearing and why we're concerned about the threat posed by the communist party. it's not that they're just stealing our intellectual pr■opty andry i really do thinking and don't think it's alarmism but a recognition of reality and if you read what the leader is saying to his party and its people, i believe the c.c.p. is preparing for a war with the united states. there's no doubt they would

prefer the fruits of war with c. that is to be sure. but they are preparing nonetheless. and he's told us repeatedly that he is prepared to necessary to achieve his lifelong ambition which is of course taking taiwan and therefore dominating the region andng the united states as the most powerful country in the world. so if we want to avoid that outcome which would be a terr a war with china would be horrific if you've ever participated in a war game. there are many on the committee that ser have to abide by the od adage, if we want peace we must prepare for war. that's the challenge, to mobilize our colleagents to do t costly but important things that put us on a path to deterring ht hearing and for letting me go a little longer. mr. thompson: thanks so much and thanks for your leadership and

testimony. i know you have a hearing to so feel free. mr. gallagher: i can imagine what rog would say if we were here. we've spent so much time together. mr. thompson: c-span is conducting the hearing and you'll hear him time delayed. we'll take an opportunity whiley at another hearing and we'll take two questions from each i'd of the die as here for the than generous with her time and so first i would recognize mr. lucas from oklahoma thank you, mr. chairman. we both agree that healthy rural america and rural america is the key to our national security.

memories are short. go back 10 years ago when you and i worked together 2 1/2 year struggle tom bill and maybe memories have numbed with time but not the way you in this committee on behalf of your constituents but in those republican committee meetings where we,■? together, battled diligently to get the attention of elected leadership about the importance of these farm bills. i grateful you backing me up the way you handled the speaker and floor leader america and production agriculture. so thank you for that tenacity, which i suspect has grown stronger in time as your role. >> understand that what you all

say matters and what you do matters, the words you use have consequences and matters in leadership. times at at my different roles that leadership needs to sit and listen and hav. we have been addicted by being offended by each other and we love to be offended and i would just listening to each other. the farm bill should be bipartisan and put a safety net out there and do it for■he of od policy. if we think the pandemic scary, what would happen if weúñur peo. we are three meals away. as governor and c.e.o. how much control just manipulating our currency and even my -- i can't get vanguard

to say china isn't an emerging market. they should give me to invest and i don't want to do that. when i look at our food supply system not our ally, we do trade with them. and i worked on trade agreements when i served on the ways and mes it noticed when we trade agreements we had friendlier neighborhoods. th i picked fights with my own fellow republicans, we got them done and we have to come back the table to feed our tables. mr. lucas: thank you for your tenacitynd i back. mr. thompson: i recognize the ranking member. >> how are you?

good to have youo with us. but tell me this, what is your opinion of trump's ppo tariff oe imports? and are your farmers the potential consequences of this? noem noem■at conversation for you to continue to have as well with the republican members to weigh in and make sure we get place. what you do in this committee is people policy and about feeding policy andeedy

folks. it is about making sure we have many farmers out on our land and we have that safety net. you have an incredible opportunity that is not happening anywhere else on capitol hill. i hope you catch that a little state called south dakota. we get one member of the house. when i came here, i>f delegation. i became friends with everybody, republicans and democrats because if i wanted to get stuff done. we were the first state to ban tiktok and after that, they banned it. you in that short time. if you listened to my statement, i hope you understand how concerned i foreign

governments coming in and buying up our land, especially our farmland. makes the agriculture committee the most powerful committee. you can do without a lot of things but the one thing withou. and i'm concerned about the■( ad buying up this farmland. and when you correlate with the number of immigr coming into in country from china, that's a long way to■ walk and get to mexico or south america to get in those trips where they are coming across our wonder about i

want to ask you how much landn o foreign interests? and i want you to know that i wa national security of high monumental interests. and we got to get to the bottom of it. how is your sta■j reacting to the buying up of land by foreign governments, particularly china in your state? gov. noem: that was the question when i became governor and we had a law that prevented evil governments buying our land but there was no reporting mechanism or no consequences and we didn't know who owned our land or

investment and nobody was reporting it and if we did find someone was purchasing land such as northor iran, russia, china, venezuela, cuba. and there are no consequences. last year i brought a bill that would allowed to create a board at the state level. that's what i wanted place and reviewed those transactions and put forward consequences to make sure it was doneeople and had more accountability and looking at real estate transactions. that bill did not pass and what we passing we added reporting mechanisms to the law we already had with consequences. i knowhen we ha bill on the books, we need to know to get the answer. mr. scott: but there are foreign

interests buying land in south dakota? gov. noem: there are countries that buying land that are friendly to the united states. some of our big processing facilitiesr smithfield farms is chinese owned and they are difficult for me to work with. mr. scott: thank you for having this hearing, i truly believe that food is now security issue. mr. thompson: i have two additional questions and then gd friend from illinois, my son and daughter-iw' congressman, mr. krishnamoorthi in a mooter think. and austin scott and congresswoma slotkin.

mr. scott: i'm going to get technical in this, the reason it is so important for us to be5/ aggressive with china on the ag issue is that this is a basic necessity. we aren't talking about toys but chemicals it takes for our food supply and the technology in our seed supply. and u.s. companies less than 10 years ago where 80% of the seed apply and today, 30% of the global seed supply. when you allow countries like china through companies like one of the largest seed suppliers in the world and chemical supplier in the world i might add, then you are putting one of your basic daily needs at suppl.

and i want to commend you for being aggressive with that. it is way past time to be with china. they are not an economic competitor anymore. they are an adversary and we have acknowledged and if tariffs are what it takes to bring manufacturing back not just to the united states and to part of what it's going to take to have self control over our basic necessities. we here during the last farm bill, one of the big discussions that we have asked for help for and not been able to get it from colleagues on the other side of the aisle is an increase in prices. producers, can you tell me what you are hearing from them about the increased in input costs and

safety net. gov. noem: if you don't address it and don't bring them up to wherhere is no safety net. and making sure you are making adjustments in the part of a farm bill, that's one of the do to manage risk. what farmers do everywhere and those who aren't farmers, they go to a bank■! and go to buy lad or a tractor and corn planter and get an operating buy seed, and chemicals. and maybe it will rain and something will back and harvest enough to pay their bills. some of the biggest gamblers in the world because they bury millions of dollars in the dirt because they believe producing is a need that america needs to have andivfety net.

because it's not just the fact they operate -- that's why they could have drought and lose their entire operation because of the risk they take. increasing those reference prices is critical to give them safety net that works and functions to get them -- that's why i talked about the farm bill as our national food policy. we decided country it was important that we always feed ourselves and don't depend on another country to feed us goodd supply. there are a lot of farmers out here and safe and affordable one because we have a farm bill and safety net program that they can stay on the land. secretary austin: i the governoe been.

secretary austin: -- ms. slotkin: food security is national security. i'm a former c.i.a. officer and two of us are on the committee and that's my entire lens. we should be able to feed ourselves by ourselves. during covid, my family is in the hot dog business and w concerned with the meat processing plants that americans don't know what it's like to see no protein on the shelves that d

the concern that would create and i live on my family farm. justo pi thread that representative gallagher mentioned, this idea of having farmland purchases through the cfius process. and again, i see it as a federal issue d your example, the intelligence community, the full weight of ash -- o insider information on a company, individuals, on their intentions does reside on the federal government. i respect your attempt to do it at the state level but you were about to meet with businessmen, that resides at the federal government a bunch of bipartisan bills on putting all purchases of farmland just not farmland adjacent to a military base but

all farmland to go through that cfius process and let our intehis was a risk or not. myself and representative blake moore went a step further said it's not just farmland and you have a company building a big manufacturing coming in to e purchase of our infrastructure, you should be putting that through that same intelligence community process to help us understand if that is a strategic threat to usaw a to se problem which is how do we make sure that nations that could be real■-dversaries are not able to purchase major infrastructure and assets in the united states? we have to make distinction and can't hit it with a giant club.

biggest purchasers of farmland i used to go there when drinking age was 19 and i'm not concerned. it limited but i do think it's bipartisan cooperation. we have to do that without deemizing people from china who are living under this government that i bet they don't like. we want t and brightest from china to be students as opposed to take information back to that's my one ask have a policy conversation and do it on a bipartisan basis. we have the will here but inot n beings with a giant brush where leaders set thei agree with you,

many things on this and ask you to take it one step from infrastructure that we know they are interested in. gov. noem: we had a lot of in sh dakota. the next question is what about commercial property. it's not they haven't beenng nes and where does it stop. we should be annualizing it. the state level.fius model a i get the privilege and opportunity to be focused on south dakota and i know what is going better than someone else who lives across the country. no offense to the federal fix anything.ry rare that and when we are doing something, i am doing it in south dakota and you are taking that aa and s

us states' rights to lead than what it grants to the federal go■nvement. by giving us the opportunity for me to fight for my people it gives other chances and the federal government. ise tiktok. by banning tiktok, dozens of states followed our lead and federal government ce and recognized the threat that tiktok was and collecting data and spying and study the american people and how informa. you know, let the states be incubators what thestitution intended us to be and the federal government can move forward and do things right. i am much more nimth federal government is. mr. thompson: i thank the governor. thank you so much for taking the time and spend some time with us and your leadership on this issue.

much appreciated. at this poi. you are excused. and i'm going to recognize my good friend from illinois who is th vice chair or the ranking member of the select committee on a mootery -- kri i think.6szlw

rrl case of theft was estimated to be $30 million because the folks in china wanted to reverse engineer the contents of this to be able to produce t same. ag technology is a prime target of i.p. theft because this is the best and most productive in the world. the select committee's bipartisan economic report released in december last year included broad recommendations on how i.p. for the ag sector, we need to

improve coordination between local and federal law and properly resource and trend the d.o.a. to prosecute these cerns addressed in our economic report. congresswoman slotkin and congresswoman henson have transformed another recommendation into the securing american ag act which would require the ag and where china has been increasingly dominating the market andg american and other suppliers. as we continue to remain in an area of uncertainty in our trade relationship with china, we need to better protect farmers with retaliation by the c.c.p. including by diversifyingrt marn farmers. now i know this committee has

been looking at the issue of land saless by c.c.p. affiliated entities especially close to sensitive and militarye have to make sure the cure is not worse than the disease. some sutions had real and harmful effects on the asian-american community as well. dozens of chinese nationals whether they are affiliated with the c.c.p. and land acquisition to sensitive sites. florida, for example, passed s.b.264 that prohibits chinese nationalsm purchasing real property in the state. this law had a serious negative impact on the asian-american. ming zoo, a political aseal yes

who was persecuted by ther3 and fled to the united states and beginning to rebuild his life in florida. since the passage of s.b., he was forced to cancel the purchase what was going to be his lesson here is very clear. when land purchase bills target individuals who are chinese im often target those outside of the intended outside. the asian-american■ legal defene found a lawsuit on equal protection grounds. laws like s.b.264 are the earli, states passed similar land laws prohibiting c immigrants from becoming land owners. those policies restricted

economic opportunities and exacerbated discrimination in every single one of those laws were repealed one by one by one.qz as you consider these land purchase laws, let's be careful. you folks don't want to that de against anybody. in that spirit let's be careful not to types of policies. thank you again for this very special opportunity■h to testify before this very distinguished committee. the select committee looks forward to working with your commte thank you again.

mr. thompson: thank you for joining us and your leadership. much appreciated. we are going to take a brief break no more than five minutes. recess. allow our first panel ofes to take their seats and we will reconvene basically as soon as witnesses get comfortably seated here and ready to go.