Something a bit different for a Saturday. A week or two ago, some of us kicked around some ideas, which led to this post. As a step forward, I took the time this morning to do a rough draft of legislation to start some of those suggestions. Here it is:
An Act
To expedite the return of critical American research, development, and production to the United States so as to provide for increased national security and to provide opportunities to expand the American economy.
Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled.
This Act may be cited as the Restoring America’s Interest Act of 2020.
SEC. 2. FINDING.
Congress finds that —
(1) it is in the national security interest of the the United States to ensure that American industry can provide a wide variety of products, goods, and services readily and without impediment of production, transportation, or quality; and
(2) it is in the national security interest of the United States to ensure that critical products, technology, research, and development are not subject to state-sponsored or commercial espionage, or to acts designed to interfere with research, development, production, or distribution; and
(3) it is in the national security interest of the United States to ensure that tax revenues are not used to directly or indirectly provide resources and opportunities for other nations, groups, or other entities to conduct direct or indirect espionage or to have means to cause damage to the United States by having control of critical products, services, and operations.
(4) it is in the national security interest of the United States to reduce the regulatory burden on industry in order to both facilitate relocation of all phases of industry to the United States and to ensure that needless and unnecessarily complex regulations prevent effective response to future emergencies
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS
TBD
SEC. 4. MEASURES TO PROVIDE FOR RESTORING AMERICA’S INTEREST
(a) In conjunction with inputs from industry and relevant government agencies, a series of tax incentives will be developed for companies, sole-proprietors, or other businesses that
(1) move to return mining, harvesting, and other actions to produce needed industrial and agricultural products, materials, or other components needed as precursors for industrial and agricultural operations to the United States; and
(2) move to return research, development, production, and logistic operations to the United States.
(b) that same panel will also develop a series of tax incentives will be developed for companies, sole-proprietors, or other businesses who are unable to return such operations to the United States for reasons of regulation, scarcity of resources or raw materials, or other physical limitation that
(1) move mining, harvesting, and other actions to produce needed industrial and agricultural products, materials, or other components needed as precursors for industrial and agricultural operations to countries or locations within specially designated trade zones outside the United States; and
(2) move research, development, production, and logistic operations to countries or locations within specially designated trade zones outside the United States.
(c) A working group will be established to include members from the Executive Branch, appropriate government agencies, industry, and others as needed to
(1) to create these special trade zones comprised of countries who have shown commitment to free and fair trade; open, transparent, and representative government; fair treatment of the United States and its Citizens in all areas; and, who are otherwise committed to improving the quality of life for its Citizens; and
(2) for purposes of this act, transparent and representative governments can and should include constitutional monarchies and other forms of government that provide for a truly representative government; and
(3) for purposes of this act, the zones must exclude all communistic governments, oligarchies, and other other one person, one party, or similar rule; and
(4) for purposes of this act, Taiwan should be recognized as an independent entity and included in an appropriate zone.
(d) Any business entity taking part in the incentives provided may not purchase, trade for, or otherwise use equipment, technology, or other products from any company in any country specifically excluded from the trade development zones
(1) such companies may apply for an exemption for raw materials unavailable anywhere else.
(e) no agency of government may expend any resources on raw materials, products, services, or other goods from any country specifically excluded from the special trade zones; nor may they use products, services or goods of any type from such companies even if provided at no cost
(1) agencies can apply for exemption if there is no other source for the raw materials, products, services, or goods of any type, with that exemption requiring review and a formal vote by the National Security Council after review by appropriate security agencies.
(f) the ownership of companies or other business entities performing critical operations within the United States may no longer include ownership by foreign governments directly, indirectly through companies owned in whole or in part by those foreign governments, or by others acting as agents for those governments if those governments are specifically excluded from participation in the special free trade zones
(1) for purposes of this law, such companies include those doing port operations of any type, airport operations of any type, logistics operations, research and development of any type, and other operations as determined by the appropriate government agencies; and
(2) the Department of Justice is to review all previous purchases by such companies or operations as outlined above to determine legality and to review for anti-trust and similar issues.
(g) outdated and needlessly complex regulations and standards having hampered or prevented effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and, such outdated, needless, and ineffective regulations serving to prevent both the full mobilization of the private sector and preventing the return of operations from overseas, an appropriate series of working groups will be developed to review all current regulations and related operations so as to allow the Executive Branch and Congress to eliminate unneeded and/or outdated regulations, update regulations and processes current levels of technology, and reduce the regulator burden on industry by executive action or the passage of new legislation as needed
(1) all such working groups must include independent and small business representatives from the field in question, and representatives from industry shall have one more individual representative than those from government; and
(2) the agency who’s regulations are being reviewed may only have one representative in the working group, though other agencies may have representation if such expertise is required
(3) academia is limited to one representative in the working group