Anti-Terrorist Financing

One of the most daunting issues we face in the current global political reality is halting the flow of dollars illegally making their way to terrorist organizations around the world. While Congress has taken significant steps towards improving our ability to monitor and disrupt the financing of terrorist activities, terrorists' proven track record of moving money through innovative means requires that we make further progress in this critical counterterrorism area.

As a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, Congressman Lynch is particularly concerned with tracking and halting the flow of funds to terrorist groups. Congressman Lynch is the Democratic Chairman of the bipartisan Task Force on Terrorism and Proliferation Financing. The main goal of the task force is to strengthen our national anti-terrorist finance strategy by holding hearings and roundtable discussions involving security and finance experts, as well as representatives from the Departments of State, Treasury and Justice. The task force also educates Members of Congress and their staff on the status of national and international efforts to track and stop the flow of funds to terrorist groups.

In April 2009, Congressman Lynch led a bipartisan Congressional Delegation to the Middle East to further explore the problems of terrorist financing. The trip included meetings in Israel, India and Morocco with high ranking government and banking officials to explore anti-terrorism financing methods.

Additionally, Congressman Lynch introduced H.R. 1856, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Reauthorization Bill of 2009. The bill provides essential funding to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), based in the Department of the Treasury, to prevent the abuses of financial crime, including terrorist financing, weapons of mass destruction proliferation, and money laundering. The bill has been referred to the House Financial Services Committee.