Antelope Valley Today

On September 9, 2024, Representative Mike Garcia’s bipartisan bill, H.R. 7686, passed the House unanimously. Co-led by Congresswoman Haley Stevens, this legislation updates the CHIPS and Science Act to clarify language that could have allowed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to access taxpayer-funded research at U.S. universities.

“The CHIPS Act is only as strong as its defenses against foreign exploitation,” said Rep. Garcia. “This bill eliminates confusing language in the CHIPS Act that could have allowed China to rob, replicate, and replace our innovations with their own. It's a direct, decisive move to ensure American taxpayer dollars aren't funding our CCP adversaries. We can't afford to be naive—this is about securing our competitive edge and protecting our nation’s intellectual property.”

Following extensive oversight by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and the Select Committee on the CCP, it was discovered that foreign talent recruitment programs could be used by adversaries like China to secretly recruit unwitting researchers in the U.S. and gain access to sensitive data. H.R. 7686 addresses this issue by clarifying the definition of "malign foreign talent recruitment programs" to prevent such exploitation.

Rep. Garcia urges his Senate colleagues to pass this critical legislation swiftly to protect American research from foreign threats.