WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan bill led by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and cosponsored by Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) to crack down on foreign adversaries’ efforts to secretly influence U.S. policy by requiring certain lobbying disclosures. The Disclosing Foreign Influence in Lobbying Act closes a loophole that the Chinese government frequently exploits to conceal its role in lobbying efforts.
“Keeping foreign influence out of our policy decisions is vital to American democracy,” said Senator Hassan. “The Senate has taken the important step of passing our bipartisan bill to prevent foreign actors from secretly influencing American politics, and I urge my colleagues in the House to quickly pass it as well.”
Federal lobbying law requires both lobbyists and the organizations that retain them to register their activities with the government to provide transparency. However, think tanks and law enforcement agencies have identified schemes in which the Chinese government has pushed its interests through lobbying. Organizations and businesses closely-connected to the Chinese government either register as lobbyists or work with registered lobbyists to promote its interests to U.S. policymakers. The Disclosing Foreign Influence in Lobbying Act makes clear that foreign governments and political parties that participate in the planning, supervision, direction or control of a lobbying effort must disclose their activity, regardless of any financial contribution to the lobbying effort.
Senator Hassan is working across the aisle to outcompete China. Last year she worked with her colleagues to pass into law the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which included $1.5 billion to strengthen telecommunication technology research and development here at home, so we can install American technology instead of using Chinese technology in telecommunications networks.
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