Florida Rep. Michael Waltz (R) took to the House floor this week to oppose the America COMPETES Act, calling it “partisan” legislation. Sharing his speech in a press release to bolster opposition, Waltz condemned the legislation, calling it “another attempt to impose the Democrats’ out of touch agenda on America.”
While Waltz notes that the United States is “in desperate need of a competitiveness bill,” he added that “the Chinese Communist Party is trying to overtake us and intends to overtake us as the global leader in science and technology because they know that leadership in science directly equates to a stronger economy, a more secure homeland, and greater influence in the ethical standards that underpin all of our emerging technologies.”
The lawmaker, who has been a sharp critic of the Communist Chinese Party (CCP), stressed that the United States must counter China’s attempts “to overtake us,” and he asserted that the current bill is not the proper response to the pressing global matters. Instead, he disregarded the legislation as not being “focused on the problems at hand.”
“Instead of addressing competition and the threat from the Communist leadership in China, this bill now corrupts good, solid bipartisan work that I was personally proud of with thousands of pages of irrelevant policies,” lamented Waltz, questioning “what kind of China bill mentions coral reefs more than China?”
Calling on other lawmakers to oppose voting in favor of the bill, he also asked them to “encourage Democratic leadership to get serious about the threat from China, stay focused on that threat and go to conference with a clean, bipartisan competitiveness bill and set our country up for the continued economic success that Americans deserve.”
Waltz is the Ranking Member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology.
