mr. royce: thank you. let me respond. first of all, that i have a great deal of respect for chairman payne. we worked together for years on africa issues. we worked together on darfur, sudan, but this is the very issue why we disagree here. because all members should know that it was eritrea that was the first country to invite sudan's president to visitor tria following an arrest warrant for his crimes against humanity in darfur. now, with respect to the issue, i can think of numerous issues and times when congress has had to push and would take sudan an example, since the example i'm giving here is an example in which eritrea has welcomed al-bashir, at a time when the international community is trying to get him to prevent the crimes he's committed in darfur, we have had to push to take more assertive actions. we did that with genocide in sudan. and if my view, there's nothing wrong now, especially with respect to its state sponsorship of terrorism. i think that the assistant secretary of state for africa's words speak

mr. royce: thank you. i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. chairman, i currently serve as the ranking member of the foreign affairs subcommittee on terrorism. previously for eight years i chaired the african subcommittee, so i have long followed the issues following the horn of africa. and this particular amendment calls on the secretary of state to designate eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism. the horn of africa is a combustible mix. you have al qaeda, you have piracy, a failed state in somalia, border tensions. and a key instigator of this violence has been the government of eritrea. as the amendment indicates, u.n. report after u.n. report cites eritrea for providing arms and military training to members of the that back and that's an al qaeda-linked group that has been designated by the united states as a foreign terrorist organization. mr. chairman, if you take a look at this picture, which appeared in a u.n. report, this is the actual shabob fighter who shot down a cargo plane with that shoulder-fired missile supplied by eritrea. a

mr. royce wanted two minutes earlier. is mr. royce here? five minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. smith. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for five minutes. mr. smith: i thank my good friend for yielding. i rise in opposition to the rule. let me just say at the outset, mr. speaker, in the 1990's i served as chairman of the international operations and human rights subcommittee. at first having served as rankg member under tom lantos. then when the house went republican we switched and i became the chairman of that committee. one of the responsibilities of that committee was to write the foreign relations act, the state department re-authorization act for the country. and we worked very hard, mr. lantos and i, very diligently in crafting a bill that was, a, truly bipartisan and, b, open to virtually every amendment that members wanted to offer. i remember bringing a bill to the floor, mr. speaker, that allowed every day members just had to file their amendments in the congressional record a prepri

we'll hear from mr. royce for two minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to briefly thank mr. skinner for making this trip here to testify and also congratulate him on his recent election. he's been a leader in the european union and in parliament. he's been a leader and champion of the solvency ii directive which provides an important, yet relevant example of an effort under way to create a more efficient regulatory structure. yesterday's op-ed in the "the washington post" by larry summers and tim geithner noted the importance of international coordination among regulators and reiterated the administration's commitment to leading the effort to improve supervision around the world. unfortunately, with our fragmented regulatory regime over insurance, we are lagging at this point, not leading the rest of the world. as solvency ii works to unite the insurance markets in 27 countries and the eu, we continue to struggle with a patch work system of 50 plus state regulators. with the implementation of this directive nearing, it is becoming more appar

i yield five minutes to the distinguished the gentleman from california, mr. royce. mr. royce: i thank the gentleman for yielding. madam speaker, i rise to support this resolution. in recognizing the national center for missing and exploited children on its 25th anniversary, it is time for us to reflect on just what a role it played in terms of increasing the recovery rate over time of missing children. if you think about the last 25 years and the fact that 138,000 missing children have been recovered, returned to their families, but then in the early years, that rate ran at 62%. and now that rate is up to 97%. you begin to get an appreciation for just what the national center for missing and exploited children were able to do for humanity for these children, for these families. as mentioned, it was officially opened in june of 1984 by president ronald reagan and since its inception, it has become the leading organization worldwide dealing with the issue of missing and exploited kids. i have been pleased to support many of the initiatives that it has worked for including

mr. royce: i don't know where this ends. this cap and trade bill would give washington 17% control of the economy. nationalizing health care, which is next on the majority agenda here would give it another 16%. the federal government right now runs general motors. the government has a huge equity stake in many of our financial institutions. this congress is relentlessly plight ising our economy and this bill is a job killer and won't achieve its objectives and i'll give you an example. the bill does nothing to encourage nuclear power plant construction, a sure job creator, a source of clean energy.

speaker, i yield mr. royce who is the chairman, ranking member of the subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation and trade, member from california. as much time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. royce: i thank the gentleman. i rise in support of congressman peter king of new york's legislation. i think it's very important at this point in time to recognize as we have discussed today the importance of that relationship that we have with south korea and recognize also just how much of a test north koreans' provocative actions have been for our allies in south korea. if we think back to the after effect of the korean war and how south korea lay in ruins and think today about the fact that south korea has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, and yet we look at north korea it has the lowest. it is truly dramatic. i have been in north korea and it is phenomenal to me to see the kind of devastation that that misrule has led in terms of the p

the clerk: amendment number 15 printed in house report 111-145 offered by mr. royce of california. the chair: a recorded vote has been requested. those in favor of a recorded vote will rise and be counted. a sufficient number having risen a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. once again, members are advised this is a two-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the chair: on this vote, the yeas are 183, the nays are 245. the amendment is not agreed to. the unfinished business is the request for a recorded vote on amendment number 19 printed in part c of house report 111-143 by the gentleman from illinois, mr. kirk, on which further pr seedings were postponed and on which the ayes prevailed by voice vote. the clerk will redesignate the amendment. the clerk: amendment numbe

mr. royce: mr. speaker, news came yesterday that will laura ling and euna lee, two american journalists held in north korea, and held there since march, have been found guilty of illegally entering north korea. they have been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. these court proceedings were a cruel joke. nothing more than a kangaroo court. i know of no justice system in north korea. the two should be immediately released. as if there were any doubts, the north korean regime has shown its true colors. a hostile regime bent on destroying the lives of its own citizens and others. let's be clear. these two wouldn't have been near north korea were it not for the barbaric cruelty of its regime. ling and lee were convicted of so-called grave crimes. it is the north korean regime that commits real grave crimes against millions of north koreans every day. president obama himself must make it clear that this action cannot stand. now is the time for urgent action. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time

and i think mr. royce in his own questio questions went beyond his own bill in setting up insurance information and then his question and this is mrs. bean's bill also, what good does it do to have information if you have no authority to act upon it. i mean, i come from illinois. and one of things that we do right in that state is regulate insurance. we have the cheapest insurance rates probably in the country. mr. mcraith, my understanding and correct me, is that aig was in five pieces, five separate entities, call it what you want. and that the life insurance aspect was cordened on by fire walls by the investment side that went sour, is that correct? >> that is correct, congressman. every state has adopted what we call a holding company act. the holding company act along with our other financial regulations requires each insurer to be financially independently viable. we have very strict capital in accounting and investment requirements. one function of the holding company act is that that insurer, the l

. >> thank you, mr. royce. we will now hear from the gentle lady. >> thank you, mr. castle, i thank you for holding this hearing today. as i hope this is the first of a series of discussions on the future of the gses and freddie and fannie. as you know, we were all wanting to know whether it was explicit or implicit was resolved last fall due to overabundance of risk in the portfolios and fannie and freddie put into the federal conservatorship. since then, they have set up two gses to control the day-to-day operations, but in tight control over the other operations. i want to hear the director of fasa -- did i get that right? on the current status of the gses and the role they continue the play in the mortgage markets and the current entities. the current situation is not ideal and i want to return the gses to the private markets as quickly as possible. what shape or form this will take is unknown at this time, but it is clear that the business model was not foreseeable as it allowed the gses to take on too much risk and have the taxpayers step in when the losses wer

mr. royce. i expect that you know the answer partly yourself. in many ways any international level its countries and groups of country that's have to work together in order to get the global rules which will prevent the future systemic risks and those systemic risks as we discussed today are at the root level, the risks it takes and premiums it doesn't charge, et cetera, et cetera, we need something standardized, harmonized that we can agree with. i think the office of insurance information is a great idea, don't get me wrong, i think what perhaps you'll end up with. i think we still have a fundamental which underlies the exact way in which we approach each other over specific laws. and where there is an absence of that political bridge, there's always going to be a gap. we have to find a way through that. i suspect that behind the imagination, that this company isn't anywhere else to come up with ideas and talk to us. and we should be an open door for you. we're not going to see how you should do it. but we are a compliant group ourselves insid

mr. royce: i rise in support of this legislation. there are a few points we need to keep in mind. the first is that pakistan is a tender box. its government is very weak. social and economic trends are moving in the wrong direction, and that is fostering extremism. the pakistan government has killed many militants over the last few weeks, but the insurgency remains potent. and clearly pakistan is going to be troubled for sometime. second, this is the center, this region of international terrorism and most importantly pakistan has a growing nuclear arsenal. now, we can either stay engaged and try to shape events or go to the sidelines and see a bad situation become a possible disaster. now, third, to date pakistan has taken us for a ride. since 9/11 we've provided it with some $12.3 billion. we spent billions before that. i've been to pakistan a number of times. i have seen what's happened without conditions. i've also seen the need there. a school that i visited in the northwest frontier has now been blown up and replaced -- madrasah now educates kids there in jihad. i've been to

mr. payne: the foreign relations authorization act, which the royce amendment would designate eritrea the state sponsor of terrorism and call on the united nations security council to impose sanctions against eritrea i strongly oppose. while i certainly respect my esteemed colleague from california, ed royce, who served as an excellent chairman of the subcommittee on africa for several years and we worked closely together on many issues and i have a great deal of