Allow Treasury to Waive Voting Authority

Floor Speech

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Madam Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to a bill that I will be introducing this week.

My legislation allows the Secretary of the Treasury to waive voting authority for the international financial institutions on a case-by- case basis.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund receive U.S. funding and are subject to legislative oversight, which often dictates by a mandate what projects and policies they can endorse.

For example, when the World Bank takes a vote to approve a lending project, the United States may have to abstain or vote against it due to the parameters put forward by a mandate from Congress. Even further, Congress keeps adding to the mandates and has never tried to streamline them, resulting in mandates that are antiquated and can actually conflict with one another.

As a result, the Financial Services Committee has increasingly come to a bipartisan consensus that new mandates should have waiver authority and sunset clauses.

This legislation would allow the Treasury Secretary to waive a mandate and be able to properly vote on a financing, subject to a written report as to why to Congress. This means more flexibility to pursue our national interests, but also strong accountability to Congress.

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