Providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 107) making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2005, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 802, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 107) making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2005, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am doing something today that I had hoped throughout the year could have been avoided, and that is a continuing resolution because the Congress has not completed all of its appropriations bills. Before I get into that, though, I think it is important that I say just a brief word about the Committee on Appropriations in the House and the House of Representatives.

The House Committee on Appropriations reported every one of its bills by July 22. Today is September 29. The House has passed 12 of those bills, and all of those bills have been at a level within the budget resolution, the budget resolution which in fact we do not really have. We did not pass a budget resolution this year, and finally about 6 weeks after we should have passed it, we passed a deeming resolution that did allow us to set a 302(a) allocation and our 302(b) allocations.

The House has done a good job. Unfortunately, only one of those bills has actually become law because the House and the Senate must agree on legislation before it can be sent to the desk of the President for his signature. That has only happened on one bill, despite the fact the House has passed 12 appropriations bills and several supplementals.

This continuing resolution would keep the government functioning at existing levels until November 20, 2004. This will allow Congress to recess for a brief period of campaigning for the election which happens on November 2. But we will be back. We will be back the week of November 15 in order to conclude the balance of the appropriations bills.

The Senate has passed a total of six appropriations bills. We will have one of those in conference, hopefully tomorrow, the homeland security bill. There are four other bills that we believe we can conference and report to the House sometime next week before we adjourn for the election. In the meantime, an omnibus bill is going to be necessary. Between the October 8 recess and November 15, the appropriations committees in both Houses will work to conclude the work on an omnibus bill so the Members will have a chance to vote on it prior to sine die adjournment.

The CR includes a continuation of funding for all agencies except those included in the Defense appropriations bill because it has already been enacted into law. We are continuing to work on the other bills, as I mentioned.

Let me say something about what is included in this CR, because there are some anomalies that are time sensitive that must be taken care of. As I said, the CR will go to November 20. As in past continuing resolutions, it does not permit any new starts, and it restricts obligations on high initial spend-out programs so the annualized funding levels in this bill will not impinge on our final budget deliberations.

It includes provisions that allow for the continuation of programs and fee collections that would otherwise expire, such as entitlements under the food stamp program, Medicare part B premium assistance, certain child nutrition programs, the WIC program, and certain SBA loan programs.

The CR also allows for continuation of Department of Defense authorities that expire on September 30. We have worked with the Committee on Armed Services to ensure that these authorities are extended through the period of the CR, and they include something very important to the families of those of our military who were wounded in Iraq, Afghanistan and who are in hospitals or in VA hospitals getting treatment for their wounds. The authority to pay for travel and transportation benefits for those family members and clothing allowances for the military personnel injured during these operations would expire on September 30, tomorrow, at midnight. We provide a correction for that by extending that provision for the period of this

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think earlier my first comment was that I am doing something today that I am reluctant to do and I hoped I would not have to do it, and that is to ask the House to pass a continuing resolution inasmuch as the appropriations process has not been concluded.

There have been some criticisms of the majority party leadership in the House. It is easy to criticize anybody, but I would suggest that our leadership has done a pretty good job, considering the fact that we are a bicameral legislature. We have two bodies in this Congress, and one body cannot determine totally the legislative program, any more than the other one can. So as hard as our leaders have struggled to try to make the process work, they have had some difficulties with their counterparts in the other body.

I want to make sure that the Members know that the Committee on Appropriations, and I will repeat this from what I said earlier, completed all of its work, reported all of its bills, by the 22nd of July. That was quite a long time ago. We passed 12 of the appropriations bills, plus a supplemental. There is still one other appropriations bill remaining that has some difficulties that will be dealt with at a later time, probably in the omnibus bill.

And we have worked in a bipartisan fashion. We have tried to keep the minority party at the subcommittee level advised every step of the way. We have tried to make sure they knew what we were planning to do, and to get their input. We did not surprise anybody.

I think that good proof of that bipartisanship, Mr. Speaker, is that we have developed a pretty good record here in the committee and in the House. For example, our appropriations bill for Interior passed on June 17 with a vote of 334 to 86. The Homeland Security bill passed on June 18 with a vote of 400 to 5. On June 22 we passed the defense appropriations bill, 403 to 17. The conference report later was passed with a vote of 410 to 12. On June 25, the energy and water bill passed 370 to 16.

On the 8th of July the Commerce-Justice-State Department bill passed with a vote of 397 to 18. On July 12, the legislative branch bill passed with a vote of 327 to 43. The agriculture bill passed on the 13th of July, 389 to 31. On the 15th of July, the foreign ops bill passed 365 to 41. On the 20th of July, the District of Columbia bill passed 371 to 54. On the 22nd of July, the military construction bill passed 420 to 1.

We then passed on September 7 a supplemental to deal with Hurricane Charlie, which was devastating to certain parts of my State of Florida. We passed that on a voice vote. On the 9th of September we passed the Labor-HHS bill, 388 to 13. On the 22nd of September we passed the transportation appropriations bill, 397 to 12.

So I make the case that the House has worked together very well, majority party and minority party. The committee has worked together very well, majority party and minority party. But we are only half of the equation. We are the House of Representatives. We are the people's House. The other body, for whatever their reasons, did not pass these bills, and we cannot pass a bill in the House and send it to the President without having the other body agree to it, or at least go to conference and have an agreement on what that conference decides.

So, all in all, the criticisms of the House leadership I think are not really in order, but I understand that we are getting close to election time, so I am not offended by that. I just do not think that the criticisms really stand.

Our leadership has worked hard with us to pass these good bills with good votes. I do not like the fact that we did not complete our work. But I would say, again, the House Committee on Appropriations and the House of Representatives, we completed our work, except for one bill that will be held to become part of the omnibus appropriations bill. So, all in all, criticize if you like, but the House has done a really good job in getting its work done.

Now, because we have not concluded the bicameral work on these bills, it is important that we pass this continuing resolution. None of us want the government to shut down, and, without a CR, as of midnight tomorrow night the end of the fiscal year comes and goes, and without an appropriations bill, people would not be reporting to work on Friday.

So we are going to pass this CR now, the other body is going to pass this CR, and we are going to get it to the President in plenty of time so there will not be a government shutdown. We are just not going to do that anymore. We had an experience with that some years back. We are not going to do that again. That is not responsible, and it is important that we meet our responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, I would just appeal for a good strong vote on this continuing resolution. I ask for a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, this motion to recommit actually would be an appropriations bill. The continuing resolution merely extends existing appropriations. All of the issues in this motion are in the process of being considered on regular appropriations bills.

For example, I would remind the Members that we had the issue of the military housing cap in our appropriations bill that our committee strongly supported; but on a point of order raised by the Committee on the Budget, we lost that section of the military construction bill. But as we produce the military construction bill in conference, that provision will be in there.

The other issues in this motion are VA medical, children's health, higher education; all of these issues are being addressed as we address the balance of the appropriations bills.

So this motion to recommit, if it were successful, and I hope it will not be, would actually turn this into an appropriations bill that would likely require conferencing and probably would not be concluded by midnight tomorrow night, just because of the amount of time it takes to conference a bill and go to the other body and then come back here for conference, and then to appoint the conferees. We are running a deadline as of midnight tomorrow night.

So I would hope that while all of these are very important issues in this motion, and, frankly, I am supportive of all of the issues that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) would have in this motion to instruct, this is not the place to do it. This is a continuing resolution that has to be on the President's desk and signed before midnight tomorrow night. We just really do not have the time to deal with these issues on this bill. We will deal with all of those issues on the other bills that will be working through the Congress in the next few weeks.

So, Mr. Speaker, having said that, basically all I can say is that I would urge the Members to oppose this motion and to get on with the passage of the continuing resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 8 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the basic job of Congress is to pass the annual budget and appropriation bills in order to keep the government running and to fund the most important functions of government. To do that under our processes, we are first supposed to pass a budget resolution which sets the outline for spending for the coming year, and then we are supposed to follow that on by passing 13 appropriation bills which fill in the blanks in detail.

This continuing resolution is here because, on the domestic side of the budget, none of that has happened. We have passed only one of the 13 appropriation bills that were supposed to pass by the end of the fiscal year. That is for the Department of Defense. But even other national security bills have not been passed, and certainly, nothing has been passed that meets our obligations on the domestic side of the ledger.

The majority party controls this body by a very narrow margin. Ordinarily, if this institution were being run in a rational way, that would mean that the majority leadership would try to reach out, broaden its base of support for basic legislation by making an occasional compromise here and there so that we can broaden the number of people who are willing to support whatever products they bring to the floor. That has not happened either.

When I chaired this committee, we had a bipartisan allocation between the 13 subcommittees. Both parties agreed on how much should go into each of those 13 appropriation bills. That is why we were able that year to finish every single appropriation bill by the end of the fiscal year. The minority has not been afforded that opportunity this year because the majority leadership has been held captive by the most extreme members of the majority party caucus. As a result, they have produced highly ideological appropriation bills which have provided little incentive for other members of their own party to support those bills.

The domestic appropriations have been so stingy in the area of education, in the area of health care, in the area of veterans' health, in the area of law enforcement, and in the area of transportation that their Republican counterparts in the Senate have not wanted to pass those bills. If we take a look at the appropriation bills that have passed the Senate, those bills contain about $7 billion more on the domestic side of the ledger than the appropriation bills in this House. We could probably have reached bipartisan agreement if that $7 billion had been made available here. But oh, no, it was so necessary for the majority party to preserve every single dollar to provide $128,000 tax cuts for people who make a million bucks a year that they were not willing to provide additional funding in the area of health and education and the like.

So now we have what I call a duck-and-run approach to governance. The majority party does not want a vote on the level of veterans' health care funding, so the veterans' appropriation bill is not even coming to the floor. And the majority party is avoiding having to choose between the wishes on the Senate side and the wishes on the House side by simply going to a continuing resolution which ducks all of these questions until after the election. This strategy is being followed either by design or as the result of sheer incompetence, and I am not sure which.

I want to make it clear, as did the minority whip, that that does not apply to the gentleman who chairs the committee. He got every single bill out of his committee on time and passed them out of the House except for VA/HUD, and even though they were extremely short on necessary funding, on the minority side, we indicated that even though we strenuously objected to the stringent limitation of funding in a number of areas, we still procedurally cooperated with the majority party to toss those bills over to the Senate in the hopes that rationality would prevail and we would wind up with a product that could be supported when those bills came by the conference.

But at this point, I guess the bill that passed the House last week is a perfect metaphor for this session, because there was an internal triangular fight within the majority party in this House on that transportation bill, and, as a result, we passed a transportation bill that had been stripped of aid to states for highways, it had been stripped of the mass transit programs, it had been stripped of the funding for airport construction and development. So the only thing left in the transportation bill was the title of the bill.

If you take a look at other legislation, national parks, the President made a promise when he campaigned 4 years ago that he would send down a 5-year plan to attack the maintenance backlog in our national parks. Well, it is 4 years later, folks, and what has happened? The President and this Congress have provided only 12 percent of the funding needed to meet those backlog needs.

As the gentleman from Maryland indicated, we have done nothing to deal with the problems of 45 million Americans who have no health insurance. We have done nothing to expand Pell grants, even though the President in

his spectacularly disingenuous performance at the Republican Convention told the world that we needed more money for Pell grants, even though his administration has blocked the increase in Pell grants for the last 2 years.

So, Mr. Speaker, the fact that this continuing resolution is here today is a monument to ideological zealotry. It is also a monument to institutional failure. This Congress is failing to meet even the most basic and minimal expectations that the country has for it by way of doing our routine business. This is governing in a pitiful way, and I wish that I could say something more positive about it, but, indeed, I cannot.

We have no choice but to vote for this resolution in order to keep the government functioning, but this is a pitiful way to run a railroad or a legislative body.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

For the moment I am, yes.

Mr. Speaker, if Members oppose this motion to recommit, they will deny 28,165 renovated homes for military families throughout the military housing privatization initiative. If they oppose this motion to recommit, they will deny many of America's veterans access to VA health care, which ought to be their right. This motion would provide an additional $2.5 billion above the President's request to help cut waiting lists, renovate crumbling VA facilities and ensure timely quality health care for America's veterans.

The FBI is the Nation's lead agency for domestic counterterrorism, yet it is the only component of our national security apparatus that will not have its funding for fiscal year 2005 in place. The motion would ensure that the FBI gets its funding now, not later.

Failure to pass this motion to recommit would also shut down the Terrorist Threat Integration Center and the Terrorist Screening Center. Neither received funding in last year's spending bill, so neither would have their funding extended by the continuing resolution without this motion.

The motion to recommit, Mr. Speaker, would also eliminate the nearly $1 billion in special student loan subsidies being paid to lenders that instead could be put to better use by helping students and families afford a college education. This House passed that amendment earlier this month on the Labor-HHS bill in the form of the Kildee amendment.

Also, Mr. Speaker, failure to pass this motion to recommit would deny health insurance to 750,000 children who could be covered under the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. Currently $1.1 billion of SCHIP funds are available to States to provide health insurance to children. These funds were accumulated while the SCHIP programs were just being organized, but current law requires that these funds be returned to the Treasury if they are not used by October 1. With more than 8 million children lacking health coverage, it makes sense to give States more time to use these funds and enroll children in the SCHIP programs. We ought not be robbing these funds from children's health insurance programs because of an arbitrary deadline.

We also by this motion would provide additional funding for education and health care programs funded by the Labor-HHS-Education bill. We ask that in each case in the education and health area that this bill be adjusted to reflect the higher of the numbers between the House and the Senate bill. The result of that, for instance, would be to add $367 million to NIH to maintain momentum in research on diseases like cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, et cetera. We also would try to deal with the section 7 small business loan program that was dealt with by this House on a similar motion several weeks ago.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge support for the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to express some concerns about the provisions in the continuing resolution allowing for the reprogramming of $3.46 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds.

I would first like to take a moment to express my appreciation and respect for all military, civilian, and contractor personnel stationed in Iraq today. They are working to bring democracy and stability to Iraq in an atmosphere of extreme danger, and I have great admiration for their courage. We owe them a great deal for their sacrifices.

This bill addresses the administration's request to shift $3.46 billion within the $18 billion Congress approved for the reconstruction of Iraq. This shift moves funds away from essential rebuilding efforts in the water and electricity sectors to deal with the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and the upcoming elections. The bill specifies new amounts for the various sectors of reconstruction assistance while retaining the underlying set of requirements for congressional notification and reporting.

I have great respect for General Petraeus and his staff who have put together this new plan. I am hopeful that the reprogramming will help address the dire security situation that has hindered much of our reconstruction work. But if we examine the facts, we find that since the start of combat operations in Iraq, 1,050 soldiers have been killed, 7,532 wounded; and since the end of major combat operations which the President declared on May 1, 2003, 909 have been killed and 6,990 wounded.

The statistics on the security situation are equally as staggering. In March of this year there were an average of 20 insurgent engagements per day. By September that number had increased more than fourfold, to 87 per day.

President Bush said earlier this month, and I quote, ``What is critical is that the President of the United States speak clearly and consistently at this time of great threat in our world, and not change positions because of expediency or pressure.'' We have given the President what he requested because we need to move aggressively to address the security situation. However, the administration must be honest with the American people.

Before the war, we had the distinct impression from both the President and Vice President that the length of U.S. deployment and the cost of reconstruction would be minimal. Their assessments were hopelessly naive and ignored the lessons of history. Today, 1 year after Congress provided the $18 billion in reconstruction funds, only slightly more than $1 billion has been spent. The insecure environment has

slowed the pace of reconstruction to a crawl. It has become crystal clear that we have no coherent plan to win the peace.

The administration claims that there are 100,000 Iraqi security forces trained and operating in Iraq today and that 145,000 will be trained by January. The facts are that 22,700 security personnel have received enough basic training to make them minimally effective at their tasks. Only 8,200 police have even received a basic 8-week training course. At the current pace of training, we will not have the current 90,000-man force trained until February 2006. Today, only 4,800 Iraqi Army personnel have been trained and equipped. By mid-October we may reach 8,000. Only eight of the 45 existing Iraqi National Guard battalions have reached initial operating capability. No border enforcement personnel have received centralized training.

Despite administration claims to the contrary, Iraq is becoming less secure. The difficulties in training and recruiting Iraqi security forces means even these modest goals will be difficult to attain. Holding elections in January has become a cornerstone of the President's plan to democratize Iraq and has been a critical factor in gaining support across Iraqi society for the interim government.

However, a stalemate between the Electoral Commission and the Ministry of Finance has meant that the commission has received only $7 million of the $232 million in Iraqi funds set aside for them. Many of the critical elements for conduct of the elections, such as procurement of vehicles, voting equipment and ballots are incomplete and voter lists have not even been created yet. No actual parties have formed. There is no process in place for that to happen. The U.N. has yet to deploy enough people to Iraq to supervise the process. We all know of the necessity of these promised elections, but many obstacles remain.

Beneath these numbers is the sad fact that overhead costs on all reconstruction activities in Iraq are now ranging between 30 and 50 percent. This means that for every dollar we appropriate for reconstruction, we only get 50 cents' worth.

We need to get this right. The battle for global stability and security is larger than Iraq. If American strategists cannot outsmart the terrorist insurgents, if we let them derail the bright future we have promised the Iraqi people, there will be serious consequences for U.S. national security objectives.

I hope that this shift in funds helps to win the peace in Iraq and that this plan will succeed where others have failed. I remain firmly committed to bringing stability to Iraq and fighting terror. American lives are at stake. But we must be honest with each other about the pace at which progress can occur and stop the deliberate distortions.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, today, our Republican friends are waving a white flag, announcing what has become so obvious to so many, that they have surrendered to their own intransigence, that they cannot get their work done.

The sad fact is that the gentleman presenting this bill is not responsible for this failure. In fact, his leadership of the committee was consistent with doing our work on time. But his colleagues did not assist him in that effort.

This continuing resolution is nothing less than an admission of failure by the House Republican leadership. But it is a fitting capstone to the least productive session of Congress that I have been a part of since I was elected to this body in 1981.

We are setting a record today, Mr. Speaker, but not a record that any of us can be proud of. So far, and all of my colleagues ought to listen to this, so far in this second session of the 108th Congress, we are on course to work fewer days, 93 as of today, than any other single session since 1948; 1948 was the famous ``Do Nothing Congress.'' This Congress is doing even less than the ``Do Nothing Congress.''

Yet while this Republican Congress keeps banker's hours, it has failed to enact a budget. It has failed to enact a comprehensive energy bill. It has failed to enact intelligence reform. It has failed to enact a bill to eliminate European Union trade sanctions on American manufacturers. And it has failed to enact and pass a highway bill, a reauthorization which would create 42,000 American jobs for every $1 billion spent on repairing and building highways, repairing and building bridges, and fixing and providing for mass transit systems in America so that commerce and people could move effectively.

And now, now, this Republican leadership must pass this continuing resolution because it has enacted only one

of 13 appropriation bills within the time frame established for it. This is the leadership that said in the Contract with America that we are going to bring efficiency and effectiveness to the management of the House of Representatives.

Joe Scarborough the other day said in an article, ``We said all this and we lied.'' Joe Scarborough, conservative Republican from Florida.

I intend to vote, of course, Mr. Speaker, for this continuing resolution, as the chairman will, because it is necessary and responsible to do so. But let no one be mistaken, this CR is far more than a mere formality. The Republicans' failure to pass appropriation bills on time has real-world consequences to real people, to States, localities, municipalities and every individual.

Because they failed to enact the Homeland Security bill, critical funding for the SAFER program is not available, money to hire additional firefighters and emergency response teams. That means fire departments across the Nation will be delayed in their efforts to hire, recruit and retain firefighters.

Because they have failed to enact the Transportation-Treasury bill, nearly $1 billion in airport improvement grants is not available. That means airport security fencing and the construction of airport rescue and firefighting stations will be delayed. Because they failed to enact the Commerce, Justice, and State bill, $658 million in worldwide security upgrades at U.S. facilities, for instance, in Kabul, Afghanistan, are not available.

Mr. Speaker, the list goes on. The majority's failure to pass appropriation bills on time will delay funding for everything from construction at Veterans' Administration facilities to humanitarian assistance to the victims of genocide in Sudan, to additional funding for food safety inspections here at home.

Mr. Speaker, in February, former House majority leader, the majority leader in the last Congress, commented ``Republicans own the town now.'' What he meant was Republicans control the presidency, the House and the Senate. Democrats cannot stop and, frankly, cannot get it to go so that the failure lies solely at the desk and feet of the Republican leadership in both Houses. But everyone can see today their record is not an enviable one, notwithstanding the fact that they own the town. It is an embarrassment. The American people deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, I will vote for this continuing resolution. It was originally scheduled to be until October 8. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and I have a colloquy at the end of every week, and in that colloquy last week, I asked the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) how long this CR was going to be. He said he did not know specifically but he thought October 8. But they have decided, no, it will be November 20, after the election, after the American people will be able to make a judgment on what they are really going to do. How sad. How failing in our responsibility to this institution, to the American people and to our Nation.

And I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I do rise in support of House Joint Resolution 107 to provide continuing resolutions for the operations of the United States Government. A number of sections in this continuing resolution do apply to the foreign operations appropriations and many of these items have a direct bearing in our war on terrorism.

Section 117 allows Pakistan, our vital ally in the war on terror, to continue to be eligible for U.S. assistance during the period of the CR. As we know, Pakistan's active participation in the war on terror is critical to U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. Section 119 allows the Millennium Challenge Corporation to offer a limited assistance to those countries that meet some of the criteria for MCC assistance but cannot yet get over the threshold of the criteria that is required for that. The administration is working more slowly than I think a lot of us would like to establish which countries would be eligible for this additional special assistance.

Section 123 allows the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to follow through on transactions to promote the private sector and greater employment opportunities for Iraqis during the period of the CR. Ideally, these transactions will help create some of the preconditions for stability as Iraq moves towards elections in January.

The heart, Mr. Speaker, is section 133. This will enable the Secretary of State to rebalance the assistance in the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund with a significantly greater amount, $1.8 billion, going to train and equip Iraq's security forces. The legislated change is necessary because the supplemental enacted last November allocated funding for specific sectors with flexibility for transfers between sectors. This sectoral allocation was intended to provide transparency and to improve oversight of the use of the funds.

However, due to circumstances that have developed on the ground, the flexibility in current law is insufficient to allow the State Department to provide significantly greater funding for security and employment activities, and I think we all understand that security must be the top priority.

Section 134 provides the Agency for International Development with the authority to use $90 million from within already appropriated amounts for the costs of operating its assistance programs in Iraq. Effective implementation of these programs is important if we are to help Iraq's economic and political systems evolve.

Finally, section 135 allows the U.S. to continue its leadership in pushing for reduction of Iraq's debt. It provides former Secretary of State James Baker with the tools for upcoming debt negotiations in the Paris Club this fall. It would enable the U.S. to forgive nearly $4 billion of debt owed by Iraq, thus spurring vastly greater amounts of debt forgiveness by Iraq's other creditors. This section also makes the modest technical changes to allow the Secretary of State to take responsibility for future reports to Congress on Iraq's reconstruction and to enable greater congressional oversight over the use of agency administrative expenses in Iraq.

On balance, I think this is a good bill and provides some important considerations to keep the foreign policy of the United States moving forward. I urge my colleagues to support this joint resolution.