118th Congress International Affairs
H.R. 1819: Foreign Influence Transparency Act
Introduced
- Introduced (completed)
- Passed House (not reached)
- Passed Senate (not reached)
- To the President (not reached)
- Became law (not reached)
Summary
This bill addresses foreign influence in higher education and in certain other academic, religious, and artistic pursuits.
Current law exempts from foreign agent registration requirements a person engaging in activities in furtherance of religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits or of the fine arts. The bill specifies that this exemption applies only if those activities do not promote the political agenda of a foreign government.
Under current law, an institution of higher education (IHE) must disclose to the Department of Education (ED) a gift or contract that is from a foreign source and is valued at $250,000 or more, considered alone or in combination with all other gifts from or contracts with the foreign source within a calendar year. The bill lowers this disclosure threshold to $50,000. The bill also requires the IHE to include in its disclosure report the contents of any such contract and make the contents available for public inspection and copying.
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Additionally, an IHE that enters into an agreement with a Confucius Institute (i.e., a cultural institute directly or indirectly funded by the Chinese government) must immediately make available the full text of the agreement to the public, ED, and Congress.
Finally, the bill prohibits an IHE that does not comply with these disclosure requirements from enrolling foreign students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
Written by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.
Roll calls
No roll call votes have been held on this bill.
Amendments
No amendments were offered to this bill.
Cosponsors
- Rick Allen R-GAOriginal
- Brian Babin R-TXOriginal
- John Carter R-TXOriginal
- David Rouzer R-NC
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Other bills by Joe Wilson
History
- Introduced in the House by Joe Wilson.
Show the full action history (2 actions)
- Introduced in House
- Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Education and the Workforce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.