Justice committee  The only thing I want to add to that is that this bill, to me, strikes an important balance in recognizing the reality on the ground, which is that when international aid organizations operate in conflict zones where terrorist groups are operating, they are going to be providing them funding.

Justice committee  When we do a comparison with other countries, it's important to remember that not every country.... All of the listing processes are quite different. The United States doesn't have the Taliban listed in the same way that we do, so they can apply broader exemptions in a different way.

Justice committee  What my research shows and what I have done in practice demonstrate that terrorist groups around the world raise money from a variety of different activities, but one of the ways they do it is by taxing aid organizations that operate in their area. That could look like acquiring resources from them.

Justice committee  You could technically do that, but the problem with terrorist organizations is that they change those rules quite often. It's really difficult to know when it is going to be 20% in one situation and 60% or 5% in another situation. They really shift around quite a lot, and every situation is really different as well.

Justice committee  I think it makes sense in regulation, but maybe not in the legislation itself, because the regulations would be easily updated.

Justice committee  It's 8% of countries worldwide, and I don't have the list in front of me. It would be Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and parts of West Africa where terrorist groups are controlling territories. It's quite an extensive list at this point.

Justice committee  Thank you very much for the invitation to appear here today. I want to start by sharing some information on why I think these changes are important. I then have a few amendments to offer. I'll conclude with a comment about a lingering issue that these changes raise that specifically relates to our listing of terrorist entities.