the fact that it's so bipartisan and eliot engel, again working side by side with the chairman to make sure a good bill is produced. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california reserves. gentleman from new york. mr. engel: i reserve my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from california. mr. royce: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to the gentleman from south carolina, mr. wilson, a member of the foreign affairs committee and chairman of the armed services he subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina is recognized for three minutes. mr. wilson: thank you, chairman ed royce, four your leadership on freemed and liberty. i strongly support the north korean sanctions enforcement act of 2016. we have seen evidence that the monarchy in north korea led by an unstable dictator has become increasingly hostile, threatening its neighbors being american allies. sadly just last week it successfully tested a long range rocket which is capable of reaching californ

the fact that it's so bipartisan and eliot engel, again working side by side with the chairman to make sure a good bill is produced. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california reserves. gentleman from new york. mr. engel: i reserve my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from california. mr. royce: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to the gentleman from south carolina, mr. wilson, a member of the foreign affairs committee and chairman of the armed services he subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina is recognized for three minutes. mr. wilson: thank you, chairman ed royce, four your leadership on freemed and liberty. i strongly support the north korean sanctions enforcement act of 2016. we have seen evidence that the monarchy in north korea led by an unstable dictator has become increasingly hostile, threatening its neighbors being american allies. sadly just last week it successfully tested a long range rocket which is capable of reaching californ

the fact that it's so bipartisan and eliot engel, again working side by side with the chairman to make sure a good bill is produced. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california reserves. gentleman from new york. mr. engel: i reserve my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from california. mr. royce: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to the gentleman from south carolina, mr. wilson, a member of the foreign affairs committee and chairman of the armed services he subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina is recognized for three minutes. mr. wilson: thank you, chairman ed royce, four your leadership on freemed and liberty. i strongly support the north korean sanctions enforcement act of 2016. we have seen evidence that the monarchy in north korea led by an unstable dictator has become increasingly hostile, threatening its neighbors being american allies. sadly just last week it successfully tested a long range rocket which is capable of reaching californ

my co-author on this bill is the ranking member, eliot engel of new york, and wanted to thank him as well. and our 27 bipartisan co-sponsors, for their support. this is the trafficking prevention and -- in foreign affairs contracting act. as many of our colleagues are aware, we just observed human trafficking awareness month. shining a spotlight on what is now tens of millions of victims every year, of what is modern day slavery. and one of the goals here was increasing the awareness of these crimes against human dignity. the scourge of human trafficking now is a worldwide challenge. and although the vulnerability may be greatest in the developing world, these crimes also occur here in our own community. i'm very proud of the work being done in southern california by members of our human trafficking congressional advisory committee. where advocates and law enforcement and service providers and faith-based groups and trafficking survivors themselves meet regularly to converse and coordinate and plan how to combat human trafficking, out of that working group come a lot of good ideas. i

feel the same way and i want to thank our senate colleagues for building upon the house bill which eliot engel and i have authored, and i also appreciate the cooperation of the bipartisan house leadership to ensure this bill's quick scheduling. it's just back from the senate. in the wake of north korea's fourth nuclear test and its recent missile launch, many of our allies also are trying to tighten the screws now on that regime in order to slow its capability to deliver this type of weapon. only days ago, south korea shuttered the industrial complex because as they observed it was giving the north korean regime the hard currency it needed in order to move forward its weapons programs. and this will end a very important revenue for the north korean regime. japan has issued a new set of sanctions as well, and china and russia should take notice and follow this example. it is time for the united states to stand with our partners in northeast asia as we press china and russia to follow suit and this bill sends the message to that regime in north korea that they must reform and they must disarm th

eliot engel, from new york for any opening comments he may have. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and to our witness, welcome to the foreign affairs committee, special envoy mcguirk. brett, i've been impressed for many years by your record of service to our country. i want to thank you for it. you've notched another remarkable achievement working to negotiate the release of five american prisoners who were wrongly held by iran, and i join the families of these men and all americans in thanking you for your efforts. today we're glad to hear from you about the fight against isis. the way the organization is adapting to challenges and growing, the united states has spearheaded a coalition of 66 partners with the goal of destroying isis. different countries play different roles, cutting off isis from its finances, stopping the flow of foreign fighters, providing humanitarian support, countering isis propaganda, joining in air strikes, building capacity of fighters on the ground. the shared burden prevents the united states from being drawn into another long war. we must defe

eliot engel from new york for any opening comments he may have. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman into our witness, welcome to the foreign affairs committee special envoy mcgurk. brad, i've been impressed for many years by your record of service to our country. he done a remarkable achievement work to negotiate the beliefs of five american prisoners held by random nature of the family and all americans. today we are glad to hear from you about the fight against isis in the way the organization is adapting the challenges of growing. the united states has spearheaded a coalition of 66 partners with the goal of destroying isis. different countries by different, cutting off the isis finance and providing humanitarian support and join in airstrikes, building capacity in the ground and a shared burden prevents the united states being drawn and we cannot do it alone. between 10,000 coalition airstrikes and the relentless local ground forces, we have seen some progress burnouts in chart two to create to run i.d., isis has lost a quarter of that territory in iraq and syria and yet

eliot engel the ranking member of this committee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary i'll throw out a few things and ask you to comment on them. first of all to continue on iran, what steps are we taking in a will we take combat iran's support for terrorism and other malign activities, what are we doing to make sure that israel will be safe as iran rearms and continues to arm hezbollah which threatens israel. with ukraine, russia is challenging our nato allies across the continent. i'm encouraged by fortunate's commitment of significant additional resources to defense of europe but i still think we need to do more. nato needs to permanently station a brigade in poland and the baltic states and every ally needs to get above the 2% requirement for their defense spending. so i'm hoping the administration will permanently commit more troops to the defense of europe and press our allies to more adequately share the burden of their defense. i would like to ask you what the administration thinks will happen next and what we're doing vis-a-vis north korea. finally i

i also want to thank ed royce and eleliot engel for quickly bringing this -- eliot engel for quickly bringing this to the floor in anticipation of bob levinson's being held by the iranians. almost nine years ago the levinson family wrote in part on helpboblevinson.com and i quote in part. they said if you pray for bob, we thank you. if you frequently follow the news stories and blogs about bob's situation, we thank you. if you have spread the word about his story and continue to do so, we thank you. we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. please continue to pray for bob. we would love to have him home for father's day. that was may 25, 2007. that, mr. speaker, was almost nine years ago. in a letter to dad also in may of 2007, bob levinson's children wrote, and i quote, dad, your seven children love and miss you very much. we're writing you this letter in the hopes you will be able to read it wherever you are and know that you are in our thoughts and prayers every minute of every day. the seven children continue, as you know, mom is our rock. she has encouraged us to take each