Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2634, Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2008

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2634, JUBILEE ACT FOR RESPONSIBLE LENDING AND EXPANDED DEBT CANCELLATION OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - April 16, 2008)

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Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Vermont, for the time that he is yielding me to discuss H.R. 2634, the Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Collection Cancellation Act of 2007. This legislation follows on the heels of legislation passed just 2 weeks ago providing aid to mostly African and Caribbean countries to fight AIDS and promote development programs in underdeveloped countries, including programs to improve food, water, the treatment of other infectious diseases, poverty alleviation programs, microcredit, schools and teachers, legal aid, agricultural assistance and biomedical research.

Today's legislation would follow up on this enormous prior financial commitment by further reducing or eliminating the debt obligations of the world's poorest nations. It attempts to accomplish this goal by creating a framework to having the debts of low-income countries owed to the United States and to international financial institutions eliminated.

To do this, this bill authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to negotiate the full cancellation of these countries' debts with the Paris Club, the IMF, and the World Bank, and to reach agreements on future creditor transparency and responsible lending.

It improves oversight by ensuring that countries receiving this debt relief have economies that are capable of redirecting their debt services payments, and requires a GAO audit of countries where illegal loans may have been made. Finally, it includes a sense of Congress that the U.S. should pay off $600 million worth of arrears to multilateral development banks.

Madam Speaker, no one in this body disputes the worthiness of this goal that is enshrined within this legislation. The reduction of global poverty and suffering around the world is a laudable goal, and it is certainly in our national interests to combat conditions that may breed the hopelessness and poverty that allows dictators and terrorists to thrive.

So it is doubtlessly important that the most heavily indebted poor countries be relieved of these kinds of crushing debt that prevents their future development, self-sufficiency and the improvement of their citizens' lives.

This policy should be implemented, along with other policies that increase public sector investment and decrease the barriers to trade with these countries, as well as ensuring that the countries eligible for this relief do not encourage terrorist activities or abuse human rights.

I am surprised, however, that Speaker Pelosi didn't see the irony in scheduling this step forward for developing nations on the first legislative week after handing them a serious defeat by turning off the fast track authority for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. In other words, here we're trying to help poor countries and now the decision is made that we won't engage in trade with them that would help their countries also grow economically free.

While giving the most heavily indebted countries relief from crushing and unserviceable debt is necessary to increase their future development, it is simply not sufficient. The economies of these countries must be more integrated with the rest of the globe to provide their citizens with real choices and development alternatives for their future, and increased trade with America is a great way of accomplishing this.

So while I appreciate the Financial Services Committee's efforts on the issue of improving conditions for the world's poorest countries, I remind my colleagues that development does not occur in a vacuum, and that by postponing the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, we have effectively told all of these countries, people who should be our friends and we should be concerned about more than just their debt, but about their economic viability, we've said that Congress is less concerned about promoting trade with them and growing their economies than it is with complying with the demands of labor union bosses in an election year.

I encourage the Democrat leadership to take a long-term and more holistic view of global poverty, recognizing that these cycles of abject poverty cannot be broken without creating the conditions that encourage private sector investment, such as respect for contracts and rule of law and that it also encourages international trade.

Madam Speaker, I believe that a broader policy of understanding poverty and the United States' role in helping to make our world better would include trade and would include encouraging the private markets around the world.

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