Congresswoman Stephanie Bice (OK-05) recently spoke with the Washington Examiner about her new legislation, The Stop CCP Land Act, which incentivizes states to prohibit countries such as China and Russia from purchasing American agricultural land. Read more below.
Washington Examiner – Reese Gorman
Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK) introduced the Stop China’s Continuous Purchase of Land Act, which would take a state-focused approach to stop countries like China and Russia from purchasing land in America.
Her bill looks to incentivize states not to allow the sale of agricultural land to all countries on the State Department’s Defense Trade Control Country Policies List and Russia by restricting access to certain federal grants and programs that were made available in the Inflation Reduction Act.
It would also require the secretary of agriculture to submit a report to Congress on how the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act should be updated to ensure more accurate documentation, reporting, and monitoring of foreign ownership of agricultural land.
In addition, the bill would require the Comptroller General at the Government Accountability Office to submit a report “assessing the bill’s impact and report on any measures that can be taken to better secure real estate in the United States from foreign manipulation” within 90 days of the bill being enacted.
Chinese land ownership in America represents a small fraction of the total foreign land ownership in the country — less than 1%, according to a 2021 report generated by the Department of Agriculture — but the increased bipartisan interest in combating Chinese land ownership comes amid growing bipartisan concern that by buying the land China can gain control of American assets and information.
But Chinese land ownership has shot up significantly over the past decade from approximately 69,000 acres in 2011 to nearly 384,000 acres in 2021, according to USDA data. And foreign land ownership as a whole has also shot up over the past decade.
“China and the CCP make up one of the greatest threats to our country which is why it is deeply concerning that they continue to gobble up American land at an astounding rate,” Bice said in a statement. “Ten years ago, 321,000 acres in Oklahoma were foreign-owned. Today, that number has skyrocketed to 1.67 million. The Stop CCP Land Act incentivizes states to prohibit countries like China and Russia from purchasing American agricultural land. To put it simply, Americans should own American land, not foreign adversaries.”
Bice’s bill has 15 co-sponsors, all Republican, including House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX).
