Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007 - 1
FOREIGN RELATIONS AUTHORIZATION ACT, FISCAL YEARS 2006 AND 2007 -- (House of Representatives - July 19, 2005)
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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank the very distinguished chairman for yielding me this time. I would echo the statements of the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) in applauding Chairman Hyde for his extraordinary leadership on the Committee on International Relations. He is the best and the most effective chairman I have ever seen, and I want to thank him for his leadership.
Mr. Chairman, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for 2006 and 2007 is a comprehensive 332-page bill. With 11 titles, it authorizes funding for the State Department, international broadcasting, education and exchange programs, peacekeeping, international organizations and much, much more. H.R. 2601 funds the all-important framework by which the United States carries out its foreign aid and foreign policy programs and authorizes U.S. contributions to the United Nations, NATO, the OSCE, and other vital international organizations.
The cost of the bill is $10.8 billion for fiscal year 2006, $10 billion for 2007, with some costs in the outyears totaling $1.9 billion, for a total multiyear price tag of $22.3 billion, and it is within budget.
As chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Relations, I chaired eight hearings on issues related to the bill, and the full committee met twice for consideration of these provisions. There were 10 amendments considered during markup in our subcommittee and another 52 amendments considered during the full committee. This bipartisan bill, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) pointed out, passed 42 to 0, and the rule today permits 39 additional amendments for consideration.
The legislation, Mr. Chairman, puts a heavy emphasis on security and authorizes $1.5 billion for security-related construction at U.S. missions, $690 million to increase security for diplomatic personnel and $930 million for border security programs.
This funding continues the work begun after the devastating terrorist bombings in the late 1990s of our two U.S. embassies in Africa. Subsequent to that, Admiral Crowe, who headed up the Accountability Review Board, reported that some 85 percent of our missions at the time were vulnerable. Since then, Congress has stepped up and provided funding to try to close that gap.
This bill continues that work and includes funding for 55 additional diplomatic security personnel positions and 55 new consular positions. Under the capital security construction program, eight new embassy compounds in Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Ukraine, Rwanda, Zambia, Mozambique, Bosnia, and for St. Petersburg in Russia, and four USAID annexes in Nigeria, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Georgia would be funded.
The bill also increases funding for minority recruitment, and continues the annual report on minority recruiting efforts at the Department of State. It increases the ceiling on differential pay for hardship and danger at a time when we are operating new posts in extremely dangerous locations. It supports human rights efforts at the Department through targeted funding for the Office of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; promotes programs to fight anti-Semitism, protects religious freedom in OSCE countries; provides a permanent authorization for Radio Free Asia; and funds scholarships for outstanding individuals from the Southern Sudan region to study in the United States.
Given the unparalleled threat to the United States and to the world from the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons, strengthening our nuclear nonproliferation effort is an important and vital piece of this legislation. Title VII of the bill revises and strengthens strategic export controls and mandates a comprehensive review of U.S. strategic exports, including arms and dual-use items. Its aim is to ensure that U.S. military superiority remains, and that terrorist states and organizations are denied the means to advance their nefarious goals.
The bill also states that U.S. national interests would be advanced by a stronger International Atomic Energy Agency, or the IAEA, including ensuring that a recurring delay in the U.S. annual payment is corrected.
Title VIII upgrades policies related to the elimination of the U.N. nuclear black market and establishes that nonproliferation is a condition of U.S. foreign aid. The bill mandates that countries must be fully cooperative with U.S. efforts to eliminate the nuclear black-market network, again as a precondition to receiving U.S. foreign aid.
One title, title VI, the ADVANCE Democracy Act of 2005, authored by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), creates a new office at State to work with democratic movements, establishes an annual report and a list of countries, countries that are either undemocratic or democratic transition countries, and launches a more robust coordinated effort to systematically promote democracy.
Mr. Chairman, I am grateful the committee has included a number of provisions that I proposed, including services for overseas children suffering from autism; a global prevalence study on autism; steps to promote human rights and democracy in Vietnam, Belarus, and Zimbabwe; support for a strengthened rule of law in Northern Ireland, as well as assistance to maternal and child victims of Chernobyl; and the creation of a program to repair and prevent the tragic condition of obstetric fistula.
Mr. Chairman, I urge strong support for this bill.
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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding me time.
Madam Chairman, despite almost universal acknowledgment of the problems that exist within the U.N. human rights system and in its peacekeeping operations, there has been little reform, a lot of talk, but very little actual reform. This amendment is needed to help end this deplorable state of affairs.
Even U.N. officials like Kofi Annan have said, "Unless we remake our human rights machinery, we may be unable to renew public confidence in the U.N. itself." No truer words have ever been spoken. It is a mess and it must be rectified.
But it is not just the Commission on Human Rights that is broken. Other U.N. bodies, especially the treaty bodies, have strayed from core mandates and failed to act against severe violations of human rights. Groups like CEDAW and others, without absolutely any mandate, promote a right to abortion, nothing mentioned about the unborn child. They promote violence against children and they call it a human right. Nowhere in their documents, including the CEDAW Convention, can that be found.
Let me also point out that the Hyde amendment mandates that countries that fail to uphold the Human Declaration of Human Rights should be ineligible for membership on the Human Rights Commission or any followup, like the Human Rights Council that is being proposed.
We will get rid of those items where Israel is singled out by itself at these Human Rights Commission meetings for all kinds of false charges and slander, and other countries like Sudan or the People's Republic of China get away unscathed.
The Hyde amendment also mandates that the Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC, abolish secret voting, which has led to all kinds of abuse. Like I said, we would no longer allow members, rogue nations with despicable human rights records, to be a part of it.
The Hyde U.N. Reform Act also focuses on the area of peacekeeping. I would ask Members, look at this legislation that is pending before you, H.R. 2601. It doubles the amount of money available for U.N. peacekeeping, doubles it. I will give you the numbers if you would like to hear them. We go from $483 million to $1.035 billion. We are for peacekeeping. We want to assure that the kind of abuses that we have seen in Congo, in other countries are stopped, and hopefully this legislation will help to do that.
Every single reform that has been proposed is eminently doable, if and only if the political will is there to effectuate it.
We need to ensure accountability and transparency in the $1.2 billion in taxpayer money we spend on peacekeeping every year.
The Hyde amendment does it. We need a U.N. that speaks strongly and clearly for the universal respect and observance of fundamental human rights and the dignity and the worth of every human person, the equal rights of men and women, as the foundation for freedom, justice, and peace. The Hyde amendment promotes that.
More high-sounding words will not help the U.N. reform itself. As the chairman said a moment ago, we have seen resolution upon resolution here, as well as in New York at the U.N., and what happens? It dies a slow and ceremonial death because it never gets acted upon. We are giving it a push, a real prod. This will not end peacekeeping as we know it. I think it will make it transparent and, hopefully, make it much more effective and stop the horrific abuses that have been committed by U.N. peacekeepers in places like Congo.
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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. POE. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to commend my friend from Texas for a very constructive amendment which the committee supports. This provision seeks to alleviate the plight of hundreds of thousands of Burmese who have been forced to flee from their native villages by the repressive policies of the military dictatorship in Rangoon, the same dictatorship that represses Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. This amendment would facilitate the provision of much needed food, medical and other humanitarian relief, and I thank the gentleman for offering it on the floor today.
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AMENDMENT NO. 10 OFFERED BY MR. SOUDER
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the majority, we welcome and support the amendment by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder). The links between drugs and terrorism and the overall future of a democratic Afghanistan are self-evident and important. It is critical that we take down and extradite to the United States those kingpins and warlords in the drug trade who are affecting our Nation here at home and poisoning the new democracy in Afghanistan and fueling terrorism at the same time.
The Souder amendment will let us know whether we are getting cooperation and support from the government of Afghanistan on this critical part in the fight against illicit drugs: extraditions.
According to DEA, there are four pending U.S. requests for extradition from the government of Afghanistan, including one major kingpin. We need to know if we are getting cooperation on these requests, and if not, why not. I support and strongly urge adoption of the Souder amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SOUDER. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I want to assure the gentleman that the committee stands ready to work with the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) to ensure that he gets the cables he has requested. It is an important part of the gentleman's work and our Congressional oversight function. We will work very closely with the gentleman on this.
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