Chinese, Russian, Iranian, North Korean, and Cuban nationals have a history of stealing national security secrets. Lawmakers say it’s past time to lock the door.
Congress is taking up new legislation that would bar Chinese, Russian, Iranian, North Korean, and Cuban nationals from accessing all U.S. national laboratories in the latest attempt by lawmakers to stop adversarial nations from stealing sensitive U.S. technology and research, according to a copy of the bill exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The GATE Act, led by Rep. Pat Harrigan (R., N.C.) with a Senate companion backed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), will significantly restrict access to all 17 national laboratories run by the Department of Energy, ensuring that foreign nationals who pose significant counterintelligence threats cannot enter the compounds without expressed clearance from the DOE and FBI. The legislation would notably require that federal authorities inform Congress within 30 days every time a waiver is issued allowing foreigners from any of the five covered nations to enter a national laboratory.
The threat posed by foreigners is not theoretical. The Senate Intelligence Committee disclosed in 2024 that “approximately 40,000 citizens of foreign countries, including more than 8,000 citizens from China and Russia, were granted access to the premises, information, or technology” at national labs in fiscal year 2023 alone. Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) warned at the time that China specifically “has been actively recruiting scientists from National Labs to work on their own military programs and stealing our research using visiting students and scholars.” The senator raised additional concerns that at least several hundred Iranian nationals were also granted access to these sensitive sites.
The legislation is likely to garner broad bipartisan backing, as it addresses a security threat raised by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for years.
“America’s National Laboratories are home to some of the most sensitive and valuable research in the world, and the same countries working to steal American technology should not have routine access to the facilities developing it,” Harrigan told the Free Beacon. “China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have spent years targeting American innovation to close the technological gap with the United States. The GATE Act puts a clear safeguard around critical American research while preserving access when our own counterintelligence professionals determine it serves the national interest.”
The legislation explicitly prohibits “access to any visitor or assignee that is a covered foreign national and has sought or obtained approval to access the premises, information, or technology of the National Laboratory as of that date,” ensuring that those who might have already been granted clearance have it revoked under the bill.
A waiver can only be granted in cases where the secretary of energy, in consultation with the director of the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, determines that providing foreigners access “outweigh[s] the national security and economic risks to the United States.”
Under the Biden administration, citizens from China, Iran, and Russia made nearly 30,000 trips to American research facilities across the country. Between September 2021 and August 2024 alone, “28,028 Chinese nationals, 304 Iranians, and 1,608 Russians visited laboratories run by the Department of Energy,” the New York Post reported, citing information from Ernst’s office.
Cotton, meanwhile, petitioned the Department of Energy in late June to express “serious concern” about the agency’s “continued practice of permitting foreign nationals from China to access facilities across the National Laboratory complex and work alongside American scientists.”
Around 1,900 Chinese nationals were granted “short-term visits” to national labs in fiscal year 2025, while an additional 1,300 had “long-term research assignments” onsite, according to figures published by Cotton in the letter. Approximately 2,100 Chinese nationals enjoyed “formal employment” at some facilities, which were accessed both “physically and remotely more than 5,000 times by Chinese nationals” in that year alone.
Paul Dabbar, who served as undersecretary of energy for science from 2017 to 2021, warned after leaving office that “the Chinese Communist Party had woven itself into the U.S. government’s research and innovation efforts,” stealing sensitive research that is then used to fuel its military projects. Joint projects with Russian, Iranian, North Korean, and Cuban nationals pose a similar threat.
“Scientists from our adversaries like Russia and China should be nowhere near our national laboratories,” Cotton told the Free Beacon. “Foreign nationals in our country’s most sensitive labs pose a clear threat to our national security and should end immediately.”
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