In 2021 the Fufeng Group, a Chinese food manufacturer, bought 300 acres of farmland near Grand Forks, North Dakota in order to build a milling plant. They paid 2.6 million dollars for the land. That land is only twelve miles from the Grand Forks Air Base, which is home to some of America’s most sensitive military secrets. Last year both the BBC and NPR reported that the Chinese had already purchased 380,000 acres of farmland in the United States.

After the purchase of land was made near the Grand Forks Air Base, a memo circulated throughout the air base classifying the purchase as a national security threat to the United States and alleging that the purchase fits a pattern of Chinese subnational espionage campaigns seeking to use commercial economic development projects to get close to Department of Defense installations.

Nebraska is one of the states where China wants to purchase more farmland. Without going into too much detail, we have already seen nefarious Chinese characters disguised as Americans arrive in Western Nebraska with suitcases full of cash ready to purchase farmland on the spot, especially near our missile silos. One such character even tried to masquerade as the leader of a new Christian sect.

I share these things today in order to alert the public about this growing threat to our national security and to inform the good people of Western Nebraska that the Legislature is addressing the issue this year. Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering is leading the way. LB 1120 is Sen. Hardin’s personal priority bill and last week the bill was debated on the floor of the Legislature and it advanced to the next round of debate on Select File with strong support in the Legislature.

Once it becomes law, Sen. Hardin’s bill will require those seeking to purchase land within a ten-mile radius of a military installation to file an affidavit with the register of deeds in the county stating under penalty of perjury that the purchaser is not affiliated with any foreign government or a nongovernment person determined to be a foreign adversary. The sale of the land will get held until the affidavit has been filed.

Sen. Hardin attached an amendment to the bill making it the sole responsibility of the purchaser to determine whether or not the affidavit is required. The reason for the amendment is to protect innocent landowners in Nebraska, who should not be tasked with the burden of having to determine if the affidavit is required. That burden of responsibility will reside solely with the purchaser.

Sen. Hardin also amended the bill in order to require that a copy of the affidavit be sent to the Nebraska Attorney General. Dislodging nefarious Chinese agents from real estate can get expensive, especially for sparsely populated counties in rural Nebraska. These matters should be adjudicated by the State Attorney General, and Sen. Hardin’s amendment will make that point clear.

The time to act on matters of national security is before it ever becomes a problem. We know that our enemies want to infiltrate our country. We have seen spy balloons crossing our nation, foreign agents entering the country through our porous southern border, cybersecurity threats, and now purchasing our farmland. Once LB 1120 passes into law, Nebraska’s counties will have an important tool for deterring these kinds of threats to our national security, and for these reasons I co-sponsored the bill along with 18 other State Senators, who all see the need for this bill.