Ed Royce: “Thank you very much, Chairman, for yielding. I rise in support of this resolution, of which I am an original cosponsor.…”

“Thank you very much, Chairman, for yielding. I rise in support of this resolution, of which I am an original cosponsor. I think Members are very rightly concerned now, as the same technology that's used to put a satellite into space is also used to launch a ballistic missile. This experiment by North Korea is definitely an advance for them. It is definitely a threat to the region. It is definitely a threat to the United States because what we're talking about here are three-stage ICBMs. It is estimated that North Korea has spent $3 billion since 1998 on that missile program, which is the amount of money that would have bought enough corn to feed that country over the last 3 years. I have been to North Korea, and I've seen the malnutrition. Instead of feeding its people, it continues to plow billions of dollars into its military. That's the type of despicable regime we're dealing with--where $3 billion went into this project instead of feeding the population. This is why the House has passed legislation to prohibit the United States from giving food aid to North Korea. When we do so, money is fungible, and we have found in the past that that aid is both used to feed the military and it's sold on the exchange for hard currency. U.S. policy towards North Korea--hoping that North Korea will give up its weapons for aid--has been a failure. It has been a bipartisan failure, frankly, for decades, and it has gotten us now to this point.…”