Ed Royce: “I begin by thanking Representative Darrell Issa, a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the former…”

“I begin by thanking Representative Darrell Issa, a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the former chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, for authoring this very straightforward piece of legislation. When catastrophe strikes overseas, America's first responders deploy all over the world. They assist in some of the most difficult and damaged environments that we could only imagine: the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2014 flooding in Paraguay, earlier this year following the earthquake in Nepal. Rushing to the front lines of human need, leaving their own families, they represent the true face of American compassion. The gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) is at the cutting edge of this issue, and his trips to visit these spots speak on an issue that he knows of very well when he says that these brave men and women have saved countless lives on this planet over the years. This bill that he has written, the First Responders Passport Act, is an important amendment to the Passport Act of 1920, allowing the Secretary of State to waive passport fees for those first responders who have volunteered to serve our country and volunteered to travel abroad to aid others in their time of greatest need. Currently, the passport fee waiver can only be exercised for a very limited group, largely comprised of officers or employees of the U.S. traveling abroad on official duty.…”