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Case 22-1426, Document 79, 06/29/2023, 3536060, Page48 of 93 35 reflecting clear congressional intent to apply to pre-en- actment conduct).® Legislative history confirms this conclusion. In ini- tially enacting a special statute of limitations for child sex abuse offenses, Congress sought to “mak[e] it eas- ier to prosecute offenders who commit sex crimes that may be difficult to detect quickly.” Weingarten, 865 F.3d at 54. But that limitations period proved to be “in- adequate in many cases.” H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-66, at 54. Tellingly, the conference report offered the ex- ample of a child rapist who “could not be prosecuted” because he was “identified ... as the perpetrator one day after the victim turned 25.” Jd. Given that Con- gress bemoaned those offenders who escaped prosecu- tion because the limitations period had expired, there is every reason to believe that it intended to preserve the ability to prosecute pre-enactment offenders whose limitations period had not yet expired. See United States v. Sure Chief, 438 F.3d 920, 924 (9th Cir. 2006) (concluding that in enacting the 2003 amendment, 8 Maxwell’s only response regarding the statute’s text is that the words “would” and “shall” are “forward- looking.” (Br.54). But those words readily apply in de- scribing the application of the 2003 amendment to pre- enactment conduct. Consider an offense committed against a 16-year-old in the year 2000. The statute of limitations then in effect indeed “would ... preclude prosecution” nine years in the future, once the victim turned twenty-five. The 2003 amendment ensured that “[n]o” such “statute of limitations ... shall pre- clude such prosecution during the life of the child.” DOJ-OGR-00021695