Pryce Hails Passage of Bipartisan CFIUS Bill

February 28, 2007

Pryce Hails Passage of Bipartisan CFIUS Bill
Pryce Key Player in Bill’s Timely Success

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Columbus) served as a key figure in passing legislation today to reform the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Pryce was coauthor of the National Security FIRST Act (HR 556) which mirrored legislation that passed unanimously during the 109 th Congress. From the outset of the 110 th Congress, Pryce worked with a bipartisan group of House Financial Services Committee members to ensure timely consideration of this measure deemed critically important to our nation’s economic and national security.

Upon passage, Pryce said of the CFIUS reform bill:

“I am immensely proud of this bipartisan effort to ensure protections are in place to deliberatively assess what foreign trade deals are in both our national security and homeland security interests,” said Pryce. “Businesses investing in the United States deserve certainty that the process by which deals are reviewed is objective and straightforward. This legislation ensures that we continue to protect America’s national and economic security, while promoting beneficial foreign investment and the domestic job creation that comes with it.”

“For the public to have full faith in a CFIUS-reviewed transaction, it must be confident that high-level officials within intelligence community have thoroughly reviewed it, and that the Committee has sufficient time to analyze its implications. I urge the Senate to follow the House’s lead on this issue and make CFIUS reform a pressing priority.”

While CFIUS has been in quiet existence for more than fifty years, it became the subject of much controversy last year when it approved Dubai Ports World (DPW) of the United Arab Emirates to manage six U.S. ports. After several Congressional hearings into the matter, DPW withdrew its proposal.

As foreign investment is essential to our national and state economies, it is imperative that concerns over security implications not force America to withdraw from the global trade market:

Foreign Investment Creates Jobs in Ohio
(Courtesy of the International Trade Administration, 12/2006)

In 2004, foreign-controlled companies employed 203,600 workers in Ohio, the eighth largest total among the 50 states. Major sources of Ohio's jobs in 2004 included Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, and Canada.
Almost half of these jobs (46.7 percent, or 95,000 workers) were in the manufacturing sector in 2004. Foreign-controlled companies accounted for 11.5 percent of total manufacturing employment in Ohio in 2004 (one of every nine manufacturing workers).
Foreign investment in Ohio was responsible for 4.3 percent of the state’s private-sector employment in 2004.

Pryce is Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises of the House Financial Services Committee. During the 109 th Congress, Pryce Chaired the Domestic and International Finance Subcommittee (DIMP) which had oversight of CFIUS and held the first Congressional hearings into the Dubai Ports transaction.

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