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Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, fellow Senators, I rise today to urge an affirmative vote on all three of the next appointments that are up.

The first one is Nicholas Burns to be Ambassador to China; and next is Mr. Toloui, who is up for Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs; and also Mr. Hussain, who is up for Ambassador for International Religious Freedom. The Foreign Relations Committee has looked at all three of these very closely.

Let me spend just a moment with Mr. Burns. I have known Mr. Burns since his postings in Europe many, many years ago. If you are looking for a bipartisan person to put in the position, this is your guy. When I knew him, he was working for an administration, a Republican administration.

He has done an outstanding job, has an outstanding reputation amongst the cadre of Ambassadors, and I would urge that we confirm him and have him in place in China. This is a tough posting, as we all know, at the current time. We have got a lot of issues that exist between us and China, and certainly Ambassador Burns is the one to carry our water there.

The other two I can tell you that, without hesitation, both have been scrubbed by the committee and been asked the questions that are appropriate for both of these positions. We feel very comfortable in recommending them to the body.

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