CONYERS, GOODLATTE, LEAHY, GRASSLEY Remain Committed to Good-Faith Talks to Reform Investor Visa Program Ahead of Expiration

EB-5 reforms needed to curb fraud, abuse, national security risks 

Washington, D.C. - Bipartisan, bicameral Judiciary Committee leaders today reaffirmed their commitment to reform the troubled EB-5 investor visa program ahead of its scheduled expiration on April 28, or to let the flawed program expire if reforms are not possible.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Patrick Leahy, along with House Judiciary Ranking Member JohnConyers, Jr. and Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte reiterated requirements of any meaningful negotiation as they continue to search for a compromise on EB-5 reform.  The program has longstanding, well-documented fraud, abuse and national security concerns, and has drifted away from Congress’ original intent: spurring job creation in rural and economically depressed areas.

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“Despite the well-documented and rampant abuse of the EB-5 Regional Center Program that we have exposed in recent years, we remain committed to working in good faith with our colleagues and industry stakeholders to bring about much needed reforms to this troubled program. However, as we have made clear time and time again, any reforms must contain genuine and sincere changes to allow rural and distressed urban areas, the very communities this program is supposed to benefit, to compete for investment dollars. In addition, any reforms must address the many national security and fraud concerns by containing – without loopholes – compliance measures, background checks, and transparency provisions,” the lawmakers said.

“Just a few weeks ago, we were encouraged by a reasonable proposal offered by IIUSA, the nation’s largest EB-5 industry trade association, containing significant reforms to the program. The proposal was a good faith effort to address our concerns and provide long-term stability to the program, and could have served as a basis for reform negotiations.

“As we have in the past, we remain willing to work with our colleagues and industry groups to produce meaningful reform. This must include strong transparency and anti-fraud measures, meaningful investment differentials, adjustments of the investment amounts to appropriately account for inflation, adequate set asides for both rural and urban distressed areas, and an end to the program’s abusive gerrymandering practices.” 

In a recent letter, below, to congressional leadership, the lawmakers, along with Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, stated that the program should expire absent these reforms.

U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Letter To Leadership On Reform Investor Visa Program 4-6-2017 by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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CONYERS, GOODLATTE, GRASSLEY, FEINSTEIN, LEAHY Call for Quick Action on Legislation to Provide Selection Process for Register of Copyrights

Makes Register a Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation 

Washington, D.C. -- House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)  today introduced the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act, which is the product of months of bicameral, bipartisan discussions led by Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Chairman Goodlatte, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Senate Judiciary Committee Member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

The Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act makes important changes to the selection process for the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, known as the Register of Copyrights.  Specifically, the legislation requires the Register to be nominated by the President of the United States and subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate.  It would also limit the Register to a ten year term which is renewable by another Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.

Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Senator Leahy released the following joint statement upon introduction of the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act.

Dean of the U.S, House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“We are pleased to join together in a bipartisan, bicameral effort to make important and necessary improvements to the selection process for the position of Register of Copyrights. We remain absolutely committed to working on modernizing the Copyright Office. Reforms being considered include public advisory committees, improvements to Copyright Office systems for data inputs and outputs, and copyright ownership transparency.  However, time is of the essence when it comes to the selection process for a new Register of Copyrights.

“America’s creativity is the envy of the world and the Copyright Office is at the center of it.  With the current Register serving only on an acting basis, now is the time to make changes to ensure that future Registers are transparent and accountable to Congress.  We must ensure that any new Register is a good manager and fully qualified to lead and make this office more operationally effective as he or she continues to directly advise Congress on copyrights. The next Register of Copyrights should be dedicated to serving all stakeholders in the copyright ecosystem.”  

The Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act was introduced with twenty-nine bipartisan cosponsors.

Background:  As part of the copyright review, the House Judiciary Committee held 20 hearings which included testimony from 100 witnesses.  Following these hearings, Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers invited all prior witnesses of the Committee’s copyright review hearings and other interested stakeholders to meet with Committee staff and provide additional input on copyright policy issues.  In addition, the House Judiciary Committee conducted a listening tour with stops in Nashville, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles where they heard from a wide range of creators, innovators, technology professionals, and users of copyrighted works. In December 2016, Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers released the first policy proposal to come out of the Committee’s review of U.S. Copyright law.  Additional policy proposals will be released.

Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act of 2017 by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Original Cosponsors:

Karen Bass (D- Calif.) Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) Ken Buck (R-Colo.) Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) Judy Chu (D-Calif.) David Cicilline (D-R.I.) Doug Collins (R-Ga.) Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) Blake Farethold (R-Texas) Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) Hank Johnson, Jr. (D-Ga.) Mike Johnson (R-La.) Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Steve King (R-Iowa) Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) Tom Marino (R-Penn.) Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) Ted Poe (R-Texas) John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) Martha Roby (R-Ala.) Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) Lamar Smith (R-Texas)

Reform of the U.S. Copyright Office by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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CONYERS Statement for the Hearing on, “The Department of Homeland Security’s Proposed Regulations Reforming the Investor Visa Program”

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

Thank you Chairman Goodlatte. Last Congress, I had the honor of working with you, Chairman Grassley, and Senator Leahy in an effort to reform the EB-5 Investor Visa Program. While the proposed DHS regulations would go a long way toward addressing many of our longstanding and serious concerns with the program, there is no substitute to a meaningful legislative solution.

I remain confident that we can accomplish these important legislative reforms this Congress and I look forward to continuing to work with you.

I have taken a particular interest in the EB-5 Investor Visa program because I believe it has drifted far from the program initially envisioned by Congress.  As a result the communities that need investment the most – specifically, rural and distressed urban areas – struggle to benefit from the program and are unfairly placed in direct competition with developed, affluent areas.

When Congress established the EB-5 investor visa program in 1990, the intention was to create jobs for American citizens and to bring new investment capital to the United States.  To help encourage investment and job creation in rural or high unemployment areas, the EB-5 Program offered a reduced investment level of $500,000 for projects in designated Targeted Employment Areas (TEAs).

However, as reported by the GAO, academics, The Wall Street Journal, and many other news sources, the vast majority of EB-5 investment funds are going to projects in some of America’s wealthiest corridors.  They qualify as TEAs, or economically distressed, only by aggregating census tracts across many miles, and often across natural boundaries such as rivers.

This practice has been criticized by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, noting that “the EB-5 Regional Center Program has dramatically deviated from its original purpose – to spur job creation and development in rural and high unemployment areas.”  Steering investments to projects in our cities’ well-to-do neighborhoods comes at the expense of EB-5 funds for urban and rural communities. 

According to the Center for American Progress, the Congressional District that I represent, for instance, is the second-most impoverished district in the United States.  I am pleased to say that under the Obama Administration our economic environment began to improve.  It is slow, and we have a long way to go.  But for those Americans living in my city of Detroit, and in many other cities across the country, manipulation of Targeted Employment Areas has diverted a potential source of jobs and neighborhood improvement away from those it was intended to help.

The Department of Homeland Security’s proposed rules make a number of important reforms:

First, the rules would raise the higher investment level to adjust for inflation from 1 million to 1.8 million and would raise the lower investment amount from $500,000 to $1.35 million.

Second, the rules would reduce the difference between the statutory and Targeted Employment Area investment levels and would allow for conforming adjustments based on inflation beginning five years from the effective date.

Third, the rules would significantly reign in manipulation of targeted employment areas.

I am encouraged by this development from the Department of Homeland Security and consider the proposed rulemakings as movement in the right direction. However, I must reiterate, to achieve the necessary reforms to the EB-5 program there is no substitute to a meaningful legislative solution. And, absent significant reform – either regulatory or legislative – I will not be able to support continued authorization of the program.

In closing, I want to thank the witnesses for their willingness to appear before our Committee and I look forward to an open and honest debate about the proposed regulations and the future of the EB-5 Program.

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CONYERS STATEMENT ON GRASSLEY TREATMENT OF CBC MEMBERS TESTIFYING AT SESSIONS HEARING TODAY

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Cory Booker, civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Congressman Cedric Richmond will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to Senator Jeff Sessions’ nomination for U.S. Attorney General. These Members are being required to testify as part of a third joint panel with non-Members of Congress and must sit through the hearing until the panel starts. After calling Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr., the current longest serving Member of Congress and co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, today issued the following statement in regards to the lack of courtesy typically afforded to Members of Congress who testify at hearings:

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“As the Dean of the House, former Committee Chairman and a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, I reject the lack of comity and respect afforded to my Congressional Black Caucus colleagues who will testify in opposition to Senator Sessions during his confirmation hearing. Booker, Lewis and Richmond are being required to testify with non-Members of Congress, and remain seated during the hearing for an indefinite period of time before offering their testimony during the last panel of the hearing. 

“In the past, both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees have had a relationship based upon mutual respect and courtesy. What is set to take place today strongly deviates from the high level of cooperation we’ve always bestowed one another as colleagues in the United States Congress. I urge Chairman Grassley to reconsider the tone he is setting from this moment forward. As very busy Members of Congress with packed schedules, I believe Senator Booker, and Representatives Lewis and Richmond should have been able to provide their testimony on a member-only panel at the start of the hearing.”

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CONGRESSMAN JOHN CONYERS AND SENATOR GRASSLEY QUESTION NEW PRACTICE DENYING RECORDS TO DOJ INSPECTOR GENERAL

WASHINGTON – House and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Members John Conyers, Jr. and Chuck Grassley are raising questions about a new practice by the Justice Department denying certain records to the department’s Inspector General. 

During testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in September, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, raised concerns about the FBI’s refusal to provide certain documents, such as grand jury records and material witness warrant information.  The Inspector General sought these records to determine whether the Department had violated the civil liberties and civil rights of individuals detained in national security investigations following September 11.  In addition, the Inspector General also sought records as part of the review of Operation Fast and Furious.  The Department’s refusal to provide records immediately as required by law wastes months in bureaucratic roadblocks and frustrates the independent oversight Congress created Inspectors General to provide.  Prior to 2010, the FBI and other agencies in the Justice Department routinely provided similar information to the Inspector General’s office.

Conyers and Grassley, who both voted for the original Inspector General Act, wrote in a letter to Acting Assistant Attorney General Karl Thompson, “In order to carry out audits and investigations with the independence mandated by the (Inspector General) Act, Inspectors General must have unfettered access to records of the Departments they oversee.”

Conyers and Grassley acknowledged that an Inspector General inquiry can be prevented under the law in certain limited circumstances, but they emphasized in their letter that the Attorney General is required to explain in writing to both the Inspector General and Congress why the Inspector General’s work should be impeded despite the Inspector General Act’s guarantee of access to all agency records. 

“The current practice is the opposite of the procedure dictated by the statute and unnecessarily delays the work of the Inspector General.  More importantly, it circumvents the oversight authority with regard to such disputes, which Congress explicitly reserved for itself through the reporting requirement,” Conyers and Grassley wrote.

CONGRESSMAN JOHN CONYERS AND SENATOR GRASSLEY LETTER TO QUESTION NEW PRACTICE DENYING RECORDS TO DOJ INSPEC...

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Lawmakers urge close look at Russia's IP practices

By Vicki Needham - 11/11/11 10:04 AM ET

As Russia moves to join the World Trade Organization, top lawmakers on the House and Senate Judiciary panels are pressing U.S. trade officials to examine its intellectual property practices. 

In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) expressed "serious concerns over continuing gaps and lapses in the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights concerns" by Russia. 

“There are a number of significant concerns with respect to the denial of adequate and effective IPR [intellectual property rights] protection, or the denial of equitable market access for persons that rely on IPR protection, in Russia,” the panel members wrote this week. 

The lawmakers are insisting that a "high standard accession package will be essential before both houses of Congress can consider a vote to remove Russia" from the Jackson-Vanik amendment — a 37-year-old provision crafted to put pressure on Communist nations for human-rights abuses and emigration policies, which has been "a symbol of lingering tensions in the U.S.-Russia relationship," according to the Council on Foreign Relations. 

President Obama said on Thursday that he wants to work with Congress to end the application of the amendment, which most experts argue isn't relevant anymore.  

On Thursday, Russia cleared its final hurdle for its long-awaited entry into the WTO, a move strongly backed by the Obama administration. 

"The Government of Russia must demonstrate via transparent, substantive and prompt actions its commitment to adhere fully to the obligations it will assume as a future member of the WTO," the lawmakers wrote. "Not only is the credibility of the rules-based system of international trade at stake, but should Russia fail to conform to its obligations in a thorough and timely manner, the adverse consequences for U.S. innovators and their workers will continue to be significant.”

Lawmakers citied examples such as widespread counterfeiting and piracy of hard goods, storage of pirated CDs and DVDs on several government-controlled military-industrial sites and gaps in Russian law and enforcement efforts with respect to piracy over the Internet, according to USTR's recent report on the state of global intellectual property. 

"With respect to gaps in Russian law, your report states that it is the position of the United States to urge Russia to enact online infringement legislation that addresses all forms of piracy over the Internet and provides for the swift removal of infringing content," they wrote.  

The report also encourages Russia to enact legislation establishing a specialized intellectual property court and calls for Russia’s enforcement officials to increase investigations, and for Russian prosecutors to seek deterrent penalties in judicial proceedings.

Russia remains on a watch list that identifies countries with "the most onerous or egregious" intellectual property policies and practices that have the "greatest adverse impact on relevant products of the United States," they wrote.

They also noted a separate report to Congress by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive that identifies Russian cyber-espionage as a "dangerous threat to our economy and national security."  

While they acknowledged that progress has been made since 2006, when the United States and Russia reached a bilateral agreement on intellectual protection and enforcement in Russia, they also agreed that the reports "raise serious questions about the intention and commitment of the Russian government to abide by and enforce the obligations it will assume as a member of the WTO."

"Not only is the credibility of the rules-based system of international trade at stake, but should Russia fail to conform to its obligations in a thorough and timely manner, the adverse consequences for U.S. innovators and their workers will continue to be significant," they wrote. 

Letter to Ambassador Ron Kirk From U.S. House Judiciary Regrading Violations of Intellectual Property Right...

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