News

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, filed an amendment to the Endless Frontier Act (S.1260) to establish a counterintelligence screening process to protect the United States against China’s and other adversaries’ efforts to engage in economic espionage and misappropriate America’s intellectual property, research and development, and innovation efforts. The amendment is co-sponsored by Senators Richard Burr (R-NC), Jim Risch (R-ID), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Ben Sasse (R-NE), all members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Rubio previously expressed concern about the lack of guardrails in the Endless Frontier Act.
 
“I am encouraged that my colleagues are prepared to make the sorts of targeted, industrial policy decisions I have been pushing for years, but those investments mean nothing if they are stolen by foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party,” Rubio said. “This amendment would provide meaningful and necessary guardrails to help protect critical research, intellectual property, and innovations. You do not need to read highly classified documents to know the threat is real — the FBI and others have said it publicly. It would be reckless and irresponsible to move forward with the Endless Frontiers Act without the significantly stronger protections included in this amendment.”
 
Rubio’s “Counterintelligence and National Security Protections” amendment would: 
 

• Establish a counterintelligence screening process jointly executed by the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, and the Director of the FBI, to protect the United States against China’s and other adversaries’ efforts to engage in economic espionage and misappropriate our intellectual property, our research and development, and our innovation efforts. This counterintelligence screening process will protect America’s research and innovation by requiring the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, and the Director of the FBI to certify that anyone receiving funds under this Act has sufficient protections against foreign government threats.

• Require that, before an applicant can obtain certification to receive funds under this Act, the applicant must disclose for the Directors’ evaluation any:
  • Foreign funding received in the past ten years;
  • Financial or in-kind support from any entity owned or controlled by China, or any entity in which China has an ownership interest; and
  • Participation in a foreign government talent recruitment program.