On the recordJuly 17, 2018
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Sherman for yielding and for the leadership that he has provided on this issue. Certainly, I want to thank the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Ed Royce, who has been working on this issue for so many years. I want to thank him and the ranking member of the committee, Mr. Engel, for all of the work that they have done. In particular, I want to thank my co-chair, Mr. Fortenberry, for his leadership. I remember talking about this particular bill at the very beginning, and here we are about to pass very important legislation. Certainly, I want to join Mr. Fortenberry, Mr. Ed Royce, Mr. Engel, myself, Ms. McCollum, and the rest of the cosponsors on this bipartisan bill that promotes sustainable economic development, combats wildlife trafficking in Africa's critical Okavango River Basin, which supports more than a million people in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, and which is home to several threatened wildlife species, including the largest remaining elephant population in the world. {time} 1630 Today, that region is at a near breaking point due to the not very well thought of development activities, and we have got to make sure that we act together.…





