Two Republicans in the Florida congressional delegation–U.S. Reps. Neal Dunn and Scott Franklin–are backing U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy’s, R-NC, “Protecting Endowments from Our Adversaries Act (PEOAA).”
Dunn and Franklin are among the more than a half dozen co-sponsors which also includes U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY.
“The measure aims at pressuring large university endowments to purge their investment portfolios of Chinese entities deemed a threat to U.S. national security. The bill imposes a 50 percent excise tax on such investments when acquired, and a 100 percent tax on gains realized from such investments. It only applies to private colleges and universities with endowments worth more than $1 billion, of which there are approximately 80 in the United States,” Murphy’s office noted.
“Whether we realize it or not, we are at war with China. They have an avowed policy for world domination. We should not be feeding their machine, so it’s imperative that these billion-dollar, tax-advantaged university endowments divest from companies that are detrimental to the safety and security of the United States,” said Murphy.
“Schools may argue that these investments are ‘not against the law.’ However, many of them have a record of divesting from companies for a variety of reasons, including on the basis of Environmental Social Governance (ESG) causes. For security reasons, it is only right that we take steps to decouple,” he added.
The bill was sent to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee on which Murphy sits. So far, there is no companion measure over in the U.S. Senate.
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