Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues to rise today in strong support of the Missing Children's Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2023. This bill is the Senate companion to H.R. 5224, which I co-led with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bean), a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. This bipartisan legislation renews the Missing Children's Assistance Act and makes critical updates to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC, to find missing children, reduce child exploitation, and prevent child victimization. Since Congress first authorized the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children through the MCAA in 1984, NCMEC has assisted in over 400,000 cases to successfully recover missing children. In 2022 alone, NCMEC assisted law enforcement, families, and child welfare agencies with 27,644 cases of missing children who were recovered. Again, NCMEC operates critical programs to help these children, including a 24-hour toll-free hotline, a cyber tip line to report suspected child exploitation, and a forensic science unit to help find long-term missing children. NCMEC is also essential to combat child abuse and exploitation online, which is growing at an exponential rate, as we heard from my colleagues on the floor a few minutes ago. Unfortunately, the Missing Children's Assistance Act and the authorization of NCMEC expired at the end of fiscal year 2023.…”