US Lawmakers Propose Barring Chinese and Russian Citizens From DOE Labs

The Senate Intelligence Committee is proposing to prohibit citizens of China and Russia from accessing Department of Energy national labs unless they have permanent residence status in the U.S. or secure a waiver. The proposal is contained in the Intelligence Authorization Act that the committee voted unanimously in May to advance to the full Senate for consideration. The prohibition would also apply to citizens of Iran, North Korea, and Cuba.

The legislation states that while “international cooperation in the field of science is critical to the United States maintaining its leading technological edge,” the DOE lab system “is increasingly targeted by adversarial nations to exploit military and dual-use technologies for military or economic gain.”

It also states that more than 8,000 citizens from China and Russia were granted access to DOE national labs in fiscal year 2023, out of around 40,000 foreign users of the labs. Many of these visits presumably were to the labs’ scientific user facilities, which DOE historically has made available to external researchers.

DOE is pushing back against the proposed restriction. “This proposal would have a significant impact on our national laboratories,” a DOE spokesperson said. “DOE is working with the Senate Intelligence Committee and other congressional offices to provide information about the role of foreign nationals in the department’s overall scientific enterprise and more broadly, the nation’s global economic competitiveness.”

The restriction was added to the legislation through an amendment by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the top Republican on the committee. “This bill takes unprecedented steps to address counterintelligence risks to our national laboratories by prohibiting visitors from foreign adversary nations thereby protecting America’s research and competitive advantage,” Rubio said in a statement.

The House Intelligence Committee’s version of the legislation does not contain the proposal, but the House included a narrower prohibition in the version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act it sent to the Senate in June. That provision would prohibit any “citizen or agent” of China and Russia from visiting non-public areas of DOE security labs unless they are a permanent resident of the U.S. or secure a waiver.

The provision is authored by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which funds Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Labs.

Lamborn expressed concern about the Biden administration’s idea of inviting representatives of China and Russia to visit testing facilities that DOE uses to maintain the integrity of U.S. nuclear weapons.

“Proponents of this policy argue that inviting foreign observers to view our tests would encourage our adversaries to be more transparent about their activities,” Lamborn remarked when advocating for a version of his proposal that he advanced last year. “However, China and Russia have had ample opportunity to be more open about their nuclear weapons development and deployments and refuse to do so. So, allowing adversaries to observe our nuclear testing activities is allowing them to derive our methods and procedures, and this destroys deterrence.”

The Biden administration has objected to Lamborn’s latest proposal on the grounds it would “severely limit our ability to engage with Chinese and Russian experts on nonproliferation of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.”

“The existing visitor-screening process at the national laboratories and nuclear weapons production facilities are specifically designed to screen for visitor threats and prevent access to protected information,” the administration added.

This position suggests the administration will also push back on the proposal from the Senate Intelligence Committee.