A bill supporting the goals and ideals of the Year of the Lung 2010.

Mr. Chairman, the United States now confronts the most complex array of threats in many decades, if not the entire history, of our Nation.

Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, drug trafficking and climate change all pose major challenges to our national security. And we must confront these threats in the midst of a global financial crisis with enormous ramifications both at home and around the world.

Our brave men and women in uniform are making unbelievable sacrifices to

protect our security interests around the globe. They and their families deserve our deepest respect and gratitude. But we should not expect the military to shoulder the entire burden.

The State Department and our other civilian foreign affairs agencies have a critical role to play in protecting U.S. national security. Diplomacy, development, and defense are the three key pillars of our U.S. national security policy. By wisely investing resources to strengthen our diplomatic capabilities, we can help prevent conflicts before they start and head off conditions that lead to failed states.

For years we have failed to provide the State Department with the resources it desperately needs to pursue its core missions. With the expansion of U.S. diplomatic responsibilities in the 1990s, and the more recent demands of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Foreign Service has been strained to the breaking point. Sixteen percent of all positions are currently unfilled. One in nine positions overseas is vacant.

As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently stated: ``It has become clear that America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long.''

The legislation before us today, Mr. Chairman, takes an important first step in correcting that situation. It supports President Obama's request for funding to hire over 1,000 new staff, including at least 750 Foreign Service officers; 332 of these positions will be used to immediately expand our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other strategic areas. A further 213 positions will be dedicated to improving and expanding training in critical needs languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Urdu.

The bill also provides resources requested by the administration for significant numbers of new public diplomacy officers, arms control experts, counterterrorism specialists.

And the bill has important provisions to promote more strategic thinking in the State Department and help the Foreign Service transition from traditional diplomatic framework to a more expeditionary one.

To help ensure the Department can continue to attract the best and brightest and retain these professionals over the long term, H.R. 2410 closes the pay gap that currently results in a 21 percent pay cut when junior Foreign Service officers leave Washington on assignment.

The bill also authorizes funds to pay our full dues and all recognized arrearages to the United Nations.

The legislation supports a significant expansion of the Peace Corps, an increase in international broadcasting activities, a vigorous public diplomacy effort, and a strengthened arms control and nonproliferation bureau at the State Department, which will soon be under the head of our dear colleague, Mrs. Tauscher.

In addition, the bill creates a new foundation to significantly increase the number of American students studying abroad, enhances U.S. efforts to help Mexico and other Latin American countries reduce drug violence, and addresses a number of key human rights and democracy issues around the world.

H.R. 2410 also reforms our system of export controls for military technology, improves oversight of U.S. security assistance, and requires a report to Congress on actions taken by the United States to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge.

This legislation is supported by a wide range of organizations, from the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, on one hand, to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International on the other. From the Aerospace Industries Association, the Satellite Industry Association, on one hand, to CARE, Oxfam, the Peace Corps Association, Refugees International, and the Genocide Intervention Network on the other, the Save Darfur Council, Church World Service, and the American Council on Education, a coalition of all the major public and private universities in this country all strongly support this legislation.

I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, Mr. Ackerman.

(Mr. ACKERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to one of the new members of the committee who has been of tremendous assistance on a variety of issues, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield to another new Member of the House and of the committee, a great Member, Mr. McMahon, for 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to a good friend from California who has been on the committee and has returned, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller), the chairman of the Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to my colleague from California (Mr. Schiff), a former member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the Appropriations Committee.

(Mr. SCHIFF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the very active and distinguished member of the committee, the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee.

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to a great member of the committee, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from American Samoa. He's chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, my friend, Eni Faleomavaega.

(Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, for purposes of a colloquy, I'm pleased to yield 1 minute to a former member of the committee, a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I want to manifest very clearly my intention to take up a major rewrite of foreign assistance legislation later this year, and we will address the issues raised in the Water For the World Act as part of that effort.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a friend of a very, very long time, a member of the committee as well as the Agriculture Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee--she was, then she wasn't, and now she is--and my friend from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a great member of our committee, also a member of the Science and Technology Committee, the gentlelady from Arizona (Ms. Giffords).

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield to another excellent member of the committee, former colleague in the legislature in California, the gentlelady from California (Ms. Watson), 1 minute.

I am pleased to yield an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for purposes of a colloquy.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I thank him for his suggestion. I agree completely that science constitutes an untapped and undertapped resource in America's diplomatic toolbox, and I can assure the gentleman that I am committed to enhancing our capacity in this area, collaborating with him on this effort, including further legislation as well as a role in the foreign assistance reform process that we are working on.

Will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate it.

The answer is, I certainly do agree. In the case of China, under our legislation, all satellites and related components must remain on the United States munitions list.

Will the gentleman yield further?

The gentleman's remarks are worth elaborating on. The whole notion of a domestic commercial satellite industry is very much at stake if we can't, in appropriate situations, export and arrange for those kinds of transfers, and I think it is part of what the gentleman pointed out. That is why both the Satellite Industry Association and the Aerospace Industries Association support this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to include in the Congressional Record an exchange of letters between the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform,

Washington, DC, June 9, 2009.

Hon. Howard L. Berman,

Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Berman: I am writing about H.R. 2410, the

``Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010

and 2011.'' The Committee on Foreign Affairs reported this

legislation to the House on June 4, 2009.

I appreciate your effort to consult with the Committee on

Oversight and Government Reform regarding those provisions of

H.R. 2410 that fall within the Oversight Committee's

jurisdiction. These provisions address issues related to the

federal civil service and government contractors.

In the interest of expediting consideration of H.R. 2410,

the Oversight Committee will not request a sequential

referral of this bill. I would, however, request your support

for the appointment of conferees from the Oversight Committee

should H.R. 2410 or a similar Senate bill be considered in

conference with the Senate. Moreover, this letter should not

be construed as a waiver of the Oversight Committee's

legislative jurisdiction over subjects addressed in H.R. 2410

that fall within the jurisdiction of the Oversight Committee.

Please include our exchange of letters on this matter in

the Congressional Record during consideration of this

legislation on the House floor. Again, I appreciate your

willingness to consult the Committee on these matters.

Sincerely,

Edolphus Towns,

Chairman.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order by the rule and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

My amendment makes a number of changes. Many of these are minor or technical amendments. Others address issues raised by other committees that have a jurisdictional interest in the bill. However, there are a number of other changes in my bill that are more substantive. For example, the amendment takes care of requests by Members that are generally unobjectionable even though substantive.

For example, the bill adds a provision that would allow the State Department's growing Civilian Response Corps to enhance its capability by drawing on locally employed staff who have significant expertise in unstable environments.

It includes provisions to assist in the compensation for victims of terrorism from the 1998 Nairobi bombing, drawing from a bill that we passed last year on a bipartisan basis and supported by Mr. Jesse Jackson, Mr. Roy Blunt, and our ranking member, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

The amendment also updates language currently in the bill, welcoming the end of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam. These are provisions pushed particularly by the gentleman from New York (Mr. McMahon), a member of the committee. The United States, standing with the international community, eagerly looks forward to the government of Sri Lanka's putting forward a timely and credible proposal to engage its Tamil community and address the legitimate grievances of its Tamil citizens so that peace and reconciliation can be achieved and sustained. It also includes two requests by Republican members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, including an amendment by Mr. Wilson from South Carolina, who I agreed to work with during the markup at the committee. It also increases the amount of funds for the State Department Inspector General and the National Endowment For Democracy, as suggested by the minority in their views on the bill.

This continues my efforts to include sensible Republican ideas into H.R. 2410, even though I recognize that very few Republicans appear to be prepared to support the legislation at this time.

In addition, my amendment would also begin the process of modernizing our foreign assistance program by establishing a rigorous system to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of U.S. foreign assistance.

One of the greatest weaknesses of the current U.S. foreign aid program is that it lacks a clear set of goals and objectives, and there's no systematic plan for measuring results. Under my amendment, the Secretary of State would coordinate the monitoring and evaluation activities of the various agencies carrying out foreign aid activities, and would report to the Congress on the findings and lessons learned from such evaluations.

Finally, in recent days--and this is important--there has been significant concern expressed that a provision in the bill authorizing the Office of Global Women's Issues, an existing office at the State Department that focuses on issues like education for women and girls, political empowerment, and violence against women, somehow is a basis for promoting or lobbying for abortion. That is simply not true. The bill as reported out by the committee does not refer to abortion in any way, nor does the office work on abortion issues. That office is focused particularly on women in Iraq and in Afghanistan on the issues of education and political empowerment that I just mentioned.

To reassure my colleagues, however, I have included in my amendment the following new subsection:

``Nothing in this section, and in particular the duties of the office described in subsection (c)''--that is the Office of Global Women's Issues--``shall be construed as affecting in any way existing statutory prohibitions against abortion or existing statutory prohibitions on the use of funds to engage in any activity or effort to alter the laws or policies in effect in any foreign country concerning the circumstances under which abortion is permitted, regulated, or prohibited.''

This language makes it very clear that existing prohibitions on lobbying for or using funds to promote abortion--including the Helms amendment, the Leahy amendment and the Siljander amendment--remain in effect and will continue to apply to the actions of the office. I believe this confirms that the bill does not undermine current law in any way and will reassure my colleagues on this issue.

I think this manager's amendment is a good amendment. I urge all my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

They cannot. If the gentleman is yielding on his time to me, they cannot. You know, Abe Lincoln used to tell this story: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a sheep have? And the answer is four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.

No matter how many times the specter is raised, this office cannot do and has no intention and no plans of doing anything to promote abortions, coerce abortions, fund abortions or lobby for an abortion policy.

It is an office that is focused generally on the issues of women's political empowerment: should women have the right to vote, should they be able to run for office, are they treated as equal citizens under the law. It serves as a promoter of better education for women and girls and a series of causes that you are known for caring about. And it does not. It does not.

If the gentleman will continue to yield, my view is that that office cannot do through indirection, that is by going through some agency, anything that it is not allowed to do on its own. And it is not allowed to do the things that you are concerned about. And the purpose of the manager's amendment----

I will yield more time to discuss this, if you want, but first I am going to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger), who has been waiting patiently. Then, if you want, we can come back to this.

(Mr. RUPPERSBERGER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield myself 2 minutes, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just lay out this Office of Global Women's Issues. First of all, by law, by virtue of the Helms amendment and the Siljander amendment and the Leahy amendment, it cannot and, by practice, it does not and has no intention of serving as a vehicle for either abortion policy or coercive abortion.

What does it do? It is dedicated to ensuring that women around the world can realize their potential by fully participating in the political, economic and cultural lives of their societies.

Women around the globe, and the gentleman from New Jersey knows this, women are bought and sold like commodities and trafficked across international borders for sexual exploitation. Young children are married off to men old enough to be their grandfathers and have their education and childhood abruptly ended. Girls have their bodies mutilated in the name of culture or tradition, leading to complication in childbearing and lifelong pain and incontinence. Young women are slain by their own families for perceived and sometimes fictitious infractions, simply because they are viewed less as human beings and as symbols of human honor.

Women who become infected with HIV, often because of the infidelity of their spouses, are shunned, lose their livelihoods or do not have access to the medicines that could prolong their lives and prevent transmission of the virus to their children.

I say to the gentleman, these causes and these concerns that I have mentioned have always been at the forefront of the gentleman's own concerns, and to hold this entire bill and this office hostage to a desire to change abortion law I think is unfair.

I scrupulously avoided and the committee Democrats scrupulously avoided any effort to change that law in the other direction, and I think it is wrong to try to hijack this bill to hold it hostage for those purposes.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, could I ask if the gentlelady is finished.

Our side has the right to close. Then since I'll be the only speaker and I have the right to close--

I do.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, up to 5 minutes.

I rise in opposition to the amendment. I share a lot of the ranking member's concerns, fundamentally, about the countries named in her amendment and about the issue of proliferation. But there are sort of three different levels on which I think her amendment raises serious doubts and causes me to want to oppose it.

The first is the assumption that withholding assessed contributions produces the actions we want. We've had test cases of this.

Wouldn't it have been great if the money we withheld from the U.N. population planning account had stopped coercive abortions in China?

Wouldn't it be great if the dues we are assessed to pay to the United Nations had resulted in the kinds of reforms that eliminated the questionable contact that the minority rightfully points to? There is a real challenge to this assumption that the withholding is what achieves the goal. We can wish it a lot, but it didn't always happen.

Secondly, there are some specific categories of programs here that are involved and should be mentioned because, in some cases, they make some sense. The technical assistance provided by IAEA is constructive and supportive of a number of humanitarian needs, such as the eradication of the tsetse fly in numerous African countries, the fruit fly in Panama, improving cancer diagnosis and treatment in Tanzania, Niger, Mali, Zambia and the Central African Republic, improvements in agriculture in groundwater tracing. These are the kinds of programs that are involved.

Once in a while there may be a project such as in Iran or Syria that may provide a small amount of useful experience in general nuclear science and radiology. But the most important part is to the extent that some of these programs are about enhancing safety.

The U.S. is totally free on the board to vote against those projects at the Board of Governors, and does so. The U.S. already denies extra budgetary funding for technical cooperation projects for state sponsors of terrorism, which the countries the gentlelady mentioned are.

However, the proposed amendment mandates the withholding, not of the voluntary contributions, not of the extra budgetary support, but of the U.S. regular dues to the IAEA.

So what does it do?

It hampers the Agency's primary function, which is the inspecting and safeguarding of nuclear material in foreign countries. This is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The IAEA's technical assistance program is funded entirely from voluntary contributions. The program that, understandably, concerns the gentlelady is not from the assessed contributions. It's from the voluntary contributions. The amendment is not focused on the voluntary contributions. It's focused on the assessed contributions.

So what will we do? We'll end up cutting the funds that would otherwise be used by the IAEA to ensure that states are not diverting nuclear material from peaceful to military purposes--pretty serious concern--inspections that are in the direct national security interest of the United States. That's what we're cutting.

So that's why I think the amendment, not by its intention, and not even by its focus on these programs, we could live without those programs, but its focus on cutting the assessed dues to the most important functions for the United States of the IAEA makes no sense, and I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his excellent amendment. I strongly support it because it basically works to encourage the development of the fundamental skills of the Foreign Service.

It seeks to broaden the skill set of the Foreign Service by requiring this plan to increase career incentives provided to Foreign Service officers to serve in the bureaus and offices of the Department not primarily focused on regional issues, including the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Bureau of Oceans and International Environment, and the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

It asks the Secretary to consider requiring all Foreign Service officers to serve at least 2 years in a bureau office of the Department not primarily focused on regional issues. And it takes a look at the whole issue of changing the composition of the Selection and Promotion Board to increase the participation of those Foreign Service officers with extensive experience in the nonregional bureaus. Very important. There was a tendency in the past that gets entrenched that the way you get ahead in the Foreign Service is you work in the regional bureaus, you work in the political or the economic aspect of that. And the result is that critical issues involving functional programs and these other bureaus are neglected. We want the best and the brightest in all these different areas, and we should look to remove any internal biases that disincentivize that activity.

I thank the gentleman.

Would the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

While the gentleman may have broken the podium, his amendment does not break the task force; it improves it. The Secretary of Defense should be a member of that task force, and this amendment simply establishes that rather than leave it to the Secretary of State's discretion. That's fine with me.

I support the amendment and urge its adoption. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for his amendment. I strongly support it.

A number of immigrants to the United States from the former Soviet Union worked for decades in the Soviet-run industries, contributed to the state's social security system, and expected to receive their rightful pensions when they reached the requisite age. For a variety of reasons beyond their control, they haven't received their pensions. And some of these workers were forced to renounce their citizenship when they moved to the United States.

As many of the former Soviet states refuse to pay pensions to those who are no longer citizens, these elderly individuals face a bureaucratic nightmare in seeking to reclaim their rights. This amendment expresses our sense of Congress that we should work with the former Soviet states to establish a workable system that enables the

workers to claim pensions that are rightfully theirs. It is appropriate. It's right. And I support the amendment and urge its adoption.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition even though I don't oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's amendment encourages the administration to create a Comprehensive Interagency Strategy and Implementation Plan for Sudan. I have spoken with Mr. McCaul about his proposal and agree that developing a coherent approach to the situation in Sudan is critical. The United States must make every effort to address the ongoing and interrelated crises in Sudan. The U.S. should work towards a stable and lasting peace in a region that has seen so many tragedies in recent years.

I have no objection to this amendment, and I look forward to working with Mr. McCaul on this provision as the bill moves through the process.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. Chairman, I thank the sponsor of the amendment for yielding.

It's really an excellent amendment. If we want to encourage the international cooperation that's needed in this area, I'm telling you you've got to ensure that the entrepreneurs and the innovators know that their cutting-edge breakthroughs and innovations are protected. This isn't even as much about fair return for the inventors as it is ensuring that people will keep innovating and researching and advancing the technologies because they know that ultimately they will be compensated. So it's a symbiotic relationship. The more we ensure and protect intellectual property, the more we will be able to do in achieving our very important goals with respect to the development and deployment of new energy and environmental technologies.

Last year, the United Nations reported that the global market for environmental technologies could double to $2.74 trillion by 2020 from the $1.37 trillion today because of growth in areas

like energy-efficient technologies, sustainable transport systems, and water supply and efficiencies markets.

This is a very important amendment. Again, I think it is essential to the development and deployment of these new technologies, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim time in opposition to this amendment, although I am not opposed to this amendment.

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

I don't know that we needed to say this, but I'm glad we are saying it. It goes almost without saying that any sovereign country has an inalienable right to defend itself in the face of an imminent nuclear or military attack or threat. Nothing in this amendment prohibits or constrains Israel or the United States from discussing the nature of a threat, the logic of the timing or the nature of the response. So I find this amendment a useful contribution. In a way, it states the obvious, but sometimes stating the obvious is worth doing. I plan to support the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim the remainder of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my friend, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

I am pleased to yield the remainder of my time to the gentlelady from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

I yield back my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, for the life of me, I cannot understand why the gentlelady's amendment seeks to cut what may be one of the most important processes that could take place, to learn how to do things better. I strongly oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the originator of this proposal.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Klein).

Mr. Chairman, I would like to take our time in opposition to this bill.

And, Mr. Chairman, some Dear Colleague letters sent out by a few Members earlier this week, Mr. Chairman, in order to express their support for this bill, tended to focus on the few attractive features of the bill, such as the improvements that it would make on the Merida Initiative, our vital effort to assist Mexico and other Central American countries to fight the dangerous drug cartels.

Unfortunately, supporters of this bill have remained silent or ignored its fundamental problems. And the fundamental problems on this bill are that the bill calls for exorbitant spending in the absence of true reform, and that the bill does not take the difficult but necessary step of setting priorities, either with out-of-control spending or with important international issues that are facing our country.

By our best estimate, the bill before us represents an estimated 12 percent increase in planned expenditures above the levels of fiscal year 2009. It creates 20 new government entities, offices, foundations, programs and the like. These new programs, and these new initiatives that are funded in this bill constitute expenditures that go beyond even this 12 percent increase to accounts previously funded in fiscal year 2009.

The bill also represents a 35 percent increase in State Department main salary and operating accounts. We have to ask ourselves, where is the money coming from to support the additional funding?

In the coming fiscal year alone, Mr. Chairman, fiscal year 2010, we are expected to have to pay almost $285 billion, that's billion with a B, in interest costs, just interest, not payment on the debt itself. By fiscal year 2014, our cost for interest on the debt will likely have risen to about $560 billion, again, that's with a B, in that year alone, again, for interest payments alone, not for the debt payments that will have to be made.

Our deficit in the coming fiscal year, 2010, is now projected to total an estimated $1.3 trillion. Yet the funding levels proposed by this bill seem oddly detached from the reality that our families are facing today and that our Nation is facing.

Both in committee markup and at the Rules Committee, I offered amendments that would have capped increases for next year at 3.7 percent, a 2008 annual rate of inflation. This amendment would have saved taxpayer dollars, more than $2.8 billion in authorized funds. That amendment, again, would have saved American taxpayers more than $2.8 billion, with a B, in authorized funds.

Unfortunately, this measured, calibrated approach was rejected twice in favor of the largesse in this spending bill.

In trying to justify the enormous spending increases in this bill, supporters paint a picture of a hollowed-out shell of a State Department suffering from years of neglect. Yet, according to the Congressional Research Service and the State Department's own data, funding for the State Department and related agencies doubled from fiscal year 2000 through 2008. This clearly shows that growing the bureaucracy and throwing money at the Department of State are not the answer.

Supporters of this bill further argue that the major funding increases for the hiring of new staff are necessary, even in the absence of reforms. I note that there was an effort last Congress by colleagues in the other Chamber to ascertain the levels of absenteeism at various U.S. Government agencies. The results for the State Department were impressive--in an ironic way. The Department explained that it did not specifically track absences without official leave. It was the only executive branch agency that could not provide such information. Instead, the State Department only tracks those incidents in which such absenteeism reaches such an egregious level that discipline is required.

As a result, we--and the management of the Department--have little idea if the Department's own personnel are at their posts at the times we would expect them to be. And although we realize the overwhelming majority of State

Department employees are hardworking patriots, they are the ones who should be upset about absenteeism in others. The bill before us today does not address such questions, nor does it build on earlier inquiries such as the ones I have cited. Instead, supporters of this bill focus their arguments on unfilled State Department vacancies. And these arguments, too, Mr. Chairman, do not bare careful scrutiny. Most of the so-called ``vacancies'' are the result of shifting personnel to high- priority posts rather than cuts in funding.

Furthermore, the State Department always shows unfilled positions on their books because those numbers are the result of our overseas posts' self-identified needs rather than being a budget-driven number. It is a way of saying that they would like more employees and more funding. What agency wouldn't? I expect that all Americans would identify very significant unfunded needs in our own homes and our families and our budgets.

Moreover, at a time when we need to cut the deficit, in just one little-noticed instance, this bill bypasses an opportunity to transfer several hundred million dollars to our Treasury to help us pay down our national debt. In fact, an amendment offered by my friend from Indiana (Mr. Burton) was not made in order by the rule.

Mr. Burton's amendment would have required that just half of the funds of U.S.-funded enterprise funds abroad be turned over to our U.S. Treasury when they close down their operations. By remaining silent on the disposition of such funds, Mr. Chairman, this bill would instead allow loosely overseen so-called ``legacy institutions'' to take possession of all of those funds. This bill prefers to focus on creating new U.S.-funded foundations and offices that will add hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs to the taxpayers over the coming years.

And when it comes to policy issues, Mr. Chairman, this bill does not set the priorities that we believe would best serve our Nation. Not only does this bill provide close to $2 billion in funding for the United Nations--not including peacekeeping--without requiring any reform, but it also authorizes the payment of all claimed U.N. arrears or back payments. Why should American taxpayers be asked to write a blank check to the U.N.? Why not demand specific returns on our investments? Instead, efforts to leverage our contributions to secure concrete, systematic and comprehensive reforms through the U.N. system were rejected by both the Foreign Affairs Committee and in Rules.

This bill provides an inexplicable authorization to pay a higher rate for U.N. peacekeeping than even the U.N. is charging us. The bill's assessment rate could result in the U.S. paying, in 1 year alone, more than $100 million for U.N. peacekeeping above that which the U.N. requires us to pay.

The bill also fails to take any action to address endemic corruption at the United Nations. In fact, not only does the underlying bill and the manager's amendment remain silent on the U.N.'s misuse of American taxpayer funds for activities that undermine U.S. interests, but an amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana--again, Mr. Burton-- which sought to prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from paying for the legal fees of corrupt U.N. officials was rejected at Rules and will not be considered today because, Mr. Chairman, the U.N. has decided to pay the legal fees, possibly almost $900,000, of Benon Sevan, who ran the U.N.'s corrupt and disastrous Oil-for-Food program which was supposed to help innocent Iraqis but instead was exploited by Saddam's regime. U.S. Federal and state prosecutors have charged Sevan with bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. But this bill before us does nothing to protect taxpayer dollars from bankrolling and rewarding corruption at the U.N.

The underlying bill also helps foster the culture of corruption at the United Nations by failing to leverage U.S. contributions to the U.N. Development Program, UNDP, until it accepts the jurisdiction of the U.N. Ethics Office.

The UNDP, to which the U.S. contributes $100 million or more per year, continues to be the poster child for mismanagement, corruption, and waste, from Zimbabwe to Uganda to Burma to North Korea. In fact, the United Nations Development Program had to pull out of North Korea after reports emerged that development aid was being diverted to the North Korean dictatorship. Now, unbelievably, UNDP is returning to North Korea with essentially no meaningful protections to prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from again benefiting Kim Jong Il and his corrupt cronies. Our Treasury Department has even engaged a collection agency to retrieve over $7 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars mismanaged by UNDP in Afghanistan.

We might never know about UNDP's corruption and mismanagement without the help of brave whistleblowers. Unfortunately, whistleblowers have few protections at the U.N., and the UNDP has reportedly retaliated against a number of them, including the one who exposed their operations in North Korea.

Mr. Chairman, this bill should do more in safeguarding our constituents' hard-earned dollars. Nowhere are U.N. failures which undermine U.S. interests clearer than with respect to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA. UNRWA has a strictly humanitarian mandate to provide aid to Palestinian refugees, but it continues to compromise its mandate and our U.S. taxpayer dollars. It does so by emitting propaganda against Israel in favor of Hamas, doing business with banks targeted by our government for terror financing and money laundering, and by refusing to vet its employees and aid recipients for ties to Palestinian militant groups like Hamas.

UNRWA's Commissioner-General says she doesn't even consider Hamas to be a foreign terrorist organization. And her predecessor admitted that members of Hamas were on UNRWA's payroll, saying, I don't see that as a crime. No one can guarantee that over hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. funds sent to UNRWA will not end up in the hands of Hamas. Yet, this bill takes a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil approach, refusing to demand accountability and transparency for our investments.

Supporters of this bill will claim that it strengthens nonproliferation activities at the Department of State. However, the pertinent section of the bill contains contradictory statements regarding the Department's nonproliferation and arms control infrastructure.

On the one hand, the bill asks the Secretary of State to develop a comprehensive plan to determine what the Department actually needs in terms of personnel, additional authorities and new appropriations in order to carry out its arms control and nonproliferation policies. Yet, before that plan has even been drafted, this bill removes the statutory requirement for the Assistant Secretary for Verification and Arms Control, authorizes $3 million for 25 new positions focused on arms control, and mandates other programs and activities. These provisions actually appear to be laying the foundation to reverse the reforms that were enacted by this House in 1998 under the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act.

Further, by removing the requirements for the Assistant Secretary for Verification and Arms Control, it is diminishing its importance, and targets for possible dissolution the bureau at State that was instrumental in the dismantlement of Libya's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons program. This is also the one bureau that has consistently pressed for greater disclosure by the North Korean regime on the totality of its nuclear activities.

And on the issue of North Korea, Mr. Chairman, this bill and our Congress have remained largely silent on this, one of the most grave foreign policy crises currently confronting our Nation. North Korea's leader is preparing to test yet another long-range missile which could reach Alaska, Hawaii, and the west coast possibly as early as next week. Yet, an amendment I offered in Rules to address the escalating crisis in North Korea's nuclear brinksmanship was rejected.

This amendment would have re-listed North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, as suggested by Secretary of State Clinton this past weekend. It called for full implementation of sanctions, including those imposed by the U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted after previous North Korean missile and nuclear tests, but never fully enforced. It contains consequences as called for by the administration's North Korean Special Envoy

after Pyongyang's April 5 missile test. This amendment raised great concern about Pyongyang's defiant, continuing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to Iran, to Syria, and other rogue regimes. It also pointed to the North Korean regime's horrific record on human rights abuses.

Pyongyang made a provocative and reprehensible decision just a few days ago in a secretive kangaroo court to sentence U.S. citizen journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to 12 years of hard labor in the North Korean gulag. This amendment demanded the immediate and unconditional release of our two U.S. citizens before the lifting of any U.S. sanctions or granting of diplomatic recognition.

Much of the language of my amendment had been accepted by the chairman last year and incorporated into the Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Reform Act of 2008. The Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously adopted the agreed-upon North Korea language during a markup held last May. Yet the amendment I offered to address this threat to U.S. national security interests and to our allies in the region was rejected yesterday by the Rules Committee.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, at a time when our country faces a range of threats in our own hemisphere, this bill does not set out a comprehensive approach to those threats. The bill also displays a willingness to put our national security interests in the hands of the vaguely defined ``international community.''

Mr. Chairman, because of the fundamental weaknesses and the core problems with this bill that have not been addressed, I will not be able to support this bill. I urge my colleagues to also oppose H.R. 2410 and vote ``no'' on final passage.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, who had very good amendments to offer yesterday.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis), a member of our Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), a member of our Foreign Affairs Committee.

(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, we seek to reserve at this time.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve our time.

I continue to reserve.

I continue to reserve my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), our Republican Conference Chair and a member of our Committee on Foreign Affairs.

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I would like to give the remainder of my time and any time that the chairman of the committee has to the wonderful gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), who is going to be in a colloquy with our esteemed chairman.

I have an amendment at the desk.

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

The prospect of an Iranian regime brandishing nuclear weapons is a nightmare scenario that we must stop if we are to avoid being forever threatened with destruction. But the problem, Mr. Chairman, is not confined to Iran. Following in its footsteps are countries such as Syria, whose clandestine nuclear weapons program is only now coming to light.

We and our allies must use the means at our disposal to prevent these and other rogue regimes from realizing their deadly ambitions. We have an opportunity today to cut off an important source of assistance to the nuclear programs of Iran, Syria and other regimes, the help provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the very organization charged with preventing nuclear proliferation.

The Government Accountability Office recently released a scathing report on the State Department's near total lack of oversight regarding the nuclear assistance that the IAEA provides to member states, especially to Iran, Syria, Cuba and Sudan.

The GAO report noted that from 1997 to the year 2007, the International Atomic Energy Agency's Technical Cooperation Program provided over $55 million to these state sponsors of terrorism, supposedly for ``peaceful purposes.'' But as the GAO report notes, nuclear equipment, technology and expertise can be dual use, which means capable of serving a peaceful purpose, but also useful in contributing to nuclear weapons development.

The GAO report criticizes offices at the State Department for having little or no idea what these programs actually consist of, much less working to stop the most harmful among them.

Unfortunately, the bill before us contains no language that addresses this serious problem, despite its authorization of the administration's full request for over $100 million to be given to the IAEA.

The bill before us does not mandate that the State Department take immediate action to implement the recommendations of the GAO. It does not require our representatives at this Agency to do anything to prevent additional nuclear assistance from going to Iran, from going to Syria, other enemies of the United States. It does not even mention the problem, Mr. Chairman.

By contrast, an extensive section of H.R. 2475, an alternative Foreign Relations Authorization Act that I introduced earlier this year, was devoted to reform the United Nations, including addressing the specific problems of preventing the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear assistance going to state sponsors of terrorism and countries in violation of their IAEA obligations. But none of that language was included in the bill that we are considering today. And that is why, Mr. Chairman, I'm offering this amendment.

What would this amendment do?

It would apply direct and unambiguous pressure on the International Atomic Energy Agency to halt its assistance to those countries of proliferation concern by withholding from the U.S. contribution almost $4.5 million.

Why that amount?

That is equal to the amount that the Agency spent on nuclear assistance to Iran, Syria, Cuba and Sudan in the year 2007, the most recent fiscal year for which figures are available.

Opponents of my amendment may counter that denying funds to the IAEA for any purpose will weaken its nonproliferation efforts. But let me be clear, Mr. Chairman: this amendment does not affect safeguards or inspections.

It is stunning to stand here and be forced to say that the International Atomic Energy Agency's technical nuclear assistance is adding to this threat; but it is, and we cannot let it continue.

Unfortunately, we cannot expect the cooperation of this Agency, the IAEA, in fixing this problem because the Agency's attitude was summed up by a senior official who, when pressed to explain the continuing assistance to Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism, even as they defy the Agency and the U.N. Security Council, stated that ``there are no good countries and there are no bad countries.''

Faced with this extraordinary situation, Mr. Chairman, our only option is to use our financial leverage to force the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop helping our enemies' nuclear weapons programs. The threat that we face from Iran and the multiplying nuclear powers around the world grow every day.

If we are to defend ourselves, we must use every leverage that we possess to stop this menace before it becomes a reality. My amendment is an opportunity to do just that.

I ask my colleagues for their support.

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

Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. If I could ask the chairman how much time I have left.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim time in opposition, even though I do not oppose the substance of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment by the gentleman from Colorado has three main components, none of which I find inherently objectionable.

Most significantly, it would require the State Department to report to Congress with a plan on providing appropriate career incentives for Foreign Service officers to serve in nonregional bureaus of the Department, such as the human rights and refugee-focused bureaus.

And, secondly, it would clarify that some of the new public diplomacy efforts required by the underlying bill also should make use of the Internet for online research. And even while some question the fiscal wisdom of the underlying provisions, these changes do not exacerbate those flaws. I do not intend to oppose this amendment.

I yield back.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition even though I do not oppose the substance of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of Congressman Nadler's amendment, which, as he explained, expresses the sense of Congress that the United States should continue working with all former states of the Soviet Union to come to an agreement whereby each former state of the Soviet Union would pay the tens of thousands of beneficiaries who have emigrated to the United States the pensions for which they are eligible and entitled.

Over the past several decades, many of the tens of thousands of immigrants who had come to the U.S. from these former Soviet Union states had earlier earned pensions working in their former home countries; however, most often they have been unable to collect what is owed to them.

I support Congressman Nadler's amendment to work with the government of the former Soviet states to come to agreements whereby these states would pay the pensions to those entitled beneficiaries who have emigrated to the United States. It's the right thing to do. Further, Mr. Chairman, it would likely result in a lighter burden for U.S. taxpayers and the programs that their taxes fund to aid the elderly.

I ask unanimous consent to claim time in opposition even though I do not oppose the substance of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentlelady from California and the gentleman from Florida.

With the fall of the Taliban, Afghan women came back from the brink. But the gains made since 2001 have been fragile. We recognize that any prospect of better lives for the women of Afghanistan and girls are inherently linked to the success of the development and reconstruction of their country.

Furthermore, we all desire greater levels of accountability, quality, and impact from foreign development assistance to Afghanistan, all aimed at creating the enabling environment necessary to sustain women's development successes, their security, and their basic rights.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment has that noble purpose. It would require the Inspectors General of the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction to include the impact that U.S. development assistance has on the social, economic, and political empowerment of Afghan women as part of their auditing and reporting requirements.

I support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, at precisely the same time as President Barack Obama continues to assiduously assure Americans, including graduates at Notre Dame University last month, that he wants to reduce abortion at home and abroad, his administration is aggressively seeking to topple pro- life laws in sovereign nations, a clear, deeply troubling contradiction.

First Mr. Obama rescinded the Mexico City policy, a pro-life Reagan- era executive order, that ensured that the $500 million in population control funds appropriated by Congress each year only went to foreign nongovernmental organizations, family planning organizations, that did not promote, lobby or perform abortions as a method of family planning. As a result of Obama's new policy, pro-abortion organizations are now flush with cash and will continue to get hundreds of millions of dollars annually to push abortion around the world, all of it decoupled from pro-life safeguards.

I mentioned the Mexico City policy, which is not on the floor today, for context to underscore what is actually happening 24/7 in the Obama administration. Add to this the fact that the administration has stuffed pro-abortion activists, a literal who's-who from the abortion rights organizations, in key gatekeeper positions, and you get the idea and see that abortion is a serious undertaking by this administration. Even the gatekeeper, the woman--and a fine woman--who heads up the U.S. Agency For International Development, Wendy Sherman, used to be the director of EMILY's List. So every dollar of foreign aid goes through the person who used to be the director of EMILY's List.

Yet Obama's international abortion agenda is unpopular and getting increasingly unpopular with the American public. The Gallup Poll found that by a margin of 65 percent to 35 percent, Americans opposed his rescission of the Mexico City policy. And I would note parenthetically that the most recent Gallup Poll from May 15th indicates that Americans are clearly trending pro-life, with 51 percent calling themselves pro- life and 42 percent calling themselves pro-choice. America is changing. It is evolving in favor of life.

In late April, Mr. Chairman, we received our distinguished Secretary of State at the Foreign Affairs Committee and I raised some issues that concerned me with her. I noted that she had recently received the Margaret Sanger Award in Houston on March 27th, and then in her speech, which was on the U.S. Department of State's Web

site, she quoted that she was ``in awe of Margaret Sanger.'' She said that ``Margaret Sanger's life and leadership was one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race and that Sanger's work both here and abroad was not done.''

I pointed out that Sanger's legacy was indeed transformational, but not for the better if one happens to be poor, disenfranchised, weak, disabled, a person of color, an unborn child, or among the many so- called undesirables, the disabled that Sanger would exclude and exterminate from the human race.

Sanger's prolific writings dripped with contempt for those she considered unfit to live. I have actually read many of Sanger's articles and books. She was an unapologetic eugenicist and a racist who said, ``The most merciful thing a family does for one of its infant members is to kill it.''

She also said on another occasion, ``Eugenics is one of the most adequate and thorough avenues to the issue of racial, political and social problems.''

In her book, ``The Pivot of Civilization,'' Sanger devoted an entire chapter which she entitled ``The Cruelty of Charity.'' Imagine that, a chapter, ``The Cruelty of Charity,'' explaining a shockingly inhumane case for the systematic denial of prenatal and maternal health care for poor pregnant women.

She said, and I quote in pertinent part, ``Such benevolence is not merely superficial and nearsighted.'' She said, ``It conceals a stupid cruelty and leads to a deterioration in the human stock and the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents.''

So it is to me and many Members who are pro-life extraordinarily difficult to understand how anyone could be in awe of Margaret Sanger, a person who made no secret whatsoever of views that were antithetical to protecting fundamental human rights of the weakest and the most vulnerable, and to suggest that her work remains undone around the world, which the Secretary of State has done, is deeply troubling.

So I asked our Secretary of State, is the Obama administration seeking in any way to weaken or overturn pro-life laws and policies in African and Latin American countries, either directly or through multilateral organizations, including and especially the United Nations, the African Union, or the Organization of American States? And I also asked her, does the United States' definition of reproductive health include abortion?

Secretary of State Clinton was very clear, she was not ambiguous, and in a radical departure from President Bush said that the administration, the Obama administration, was entitled to advocate abortion anywhere in the world.

Secretary Clinton went on to unilaterally redefine the term ``reproductive health'' to include abortion, even though that definition isn't shared by the rest of the world, including and especially in countries in Latin America and in Africa. That is important, because the term ``reproductive health'' is found in numerous UN consensus documents and action plans and in the laws of countries worldwide.

On March 31st, for example, the UN Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Population, Refugee and Migration Bureau, told the UN that the U.S. Government seeks to achieve universal access to reproductive health and the promotion of reproductive rights. In light of the Secretary of State's statement, that clearly means universal access to abortion on demand.

By foisting abortion on the developing world via a new government Office on Global Women's Issues, the Obama administration is squandering America's political capital to enable the purveyors of death to descend upon nation after nation to promote their deadly wares.

Section 334 of the underlying legislation establishes an Office for Global Women's Issues, and I suggested that we limit it, that it not become a war room at the Department of State for the promotion of abortion. If so, the predictable consequences are more dead children and more wounded women.

Even Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute has said that in most countries it is common, after abortion is legalized, for abortion to rise sharply for several years. Sharply. Contrary to what President Obama says about reduction, the numbers go up.

I would like to ask the distinguished chairman, you know I asked those questions of Secretary of State Clinton. Do you believe that such activity, promotion of abortion, is prohibited under current law as referenced by your amendment? Can this new office promote these kinds of activities?

Reclaiming my time, on the issue of multilateral organizations like the Organization of American States, the African Union and others, the United Nations, what can the role of this new office be vis-a-vis the abortion issue and those multilateral organizations?

Will the gentleman yield 1 minute on his time?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, even though I do not oppose the substance of the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of this amendment. I thank my friend and colleague for offering it.

Today David Goldman is once again back in Brazil. He is back at the Brazilian Supreme Court, which he and I visited together last February, trying to get the justice that the Brazilian courts keep delaying and denying. Today David Goldman is tenaciously trying to reclaim his son from a child abductor.

Mr. Chair, as many Members know, almost 5 years ago David Goldman's 9-year-old son Sean was abducted by his mother to Brazil. For 5 long years, David has sought relief in the Brazilian courts with the aid of an extraordinarily talented legal team and a local grassroots organization called Bring Sean Home. Mark DeAngelis runs that group, and I would encourage everyone to Google it. Go check it out. Look at the information that is contained in that Web site because it is

truly remarkable what this grassroots organization has done to provide support for David, to lift his often discouraged spirits as he's gone through this Byzantine process in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro.

It is particularly outrageous that since the death of Sean's mother, Sean has been illegally held by her second husband, a man by the name of Lins e Silva, a wealthy and very well-connected lawyer who, by the way, does family law. If ever there was a case of abusing family law, the David Goldman case is it. Lins e Silva refuses to return Sean to his father David, but, heedless of the damage he does to Sean, endlessly delays, obstructs and abuses the judicial system.

Last Tuesday, after a court had ordered the abductor, Lins e Silva, to turn Sean over for immediate return to the United States, within 48 hours a member of the Brazilian Supreme Court, responding to an appeal by a Brazilian political party, suspended that order. I have read Judge Pinto's return order--not all 82-pages, but the parts that were translated into English from Portuguese. It is a remarkable finding by a judge of a Brazilian Court. He talks about there not just being the first kidnapping by the mother, who sadly has passed away, but a second kidnapping, that occurred when a man who was not Sean's father took custody of a son that was not adoptable, and just grabbed him as if he was some kind of commodity. It is outrageous. That judge recognized that. He also acknowledged the extreme emotional and psychological harm that is being done to Sean Goldman each and every day. Court-appointed psychiatrists did an extensive battery of tests and reviews of Sean Goldman and found that the continued absence of David, the real father, has caused incredible emotional harm, which is compounded each and every day.

Mr. Chair, David, again, is now before the Supreme Court; and this political party is actually questioning the constitutionality of The Hague Convention itself and its applicability to the laws of Brazil. To me, that seems as if--and it is--that Sean is being taken hostage. If they want to review whether or not that signing of The Hague Convention comports with their own domestic laws and their constitution, do so. But don't take a 9-year-old American boy as hostage while you adjudicate that consideration.

Mr. Chair, we have to speak frankly about the situation in Brazil. I think this Congress has done so, as have our friends in the Senate, as has the White House. Generally speaking, the Brazilian judicial system enables international child abduction by Brazilian citizens. This is not an exaggeration. I invite you to read the State Department's April 2009 Report on Compliance with The Hague Convention. It just came out, just off the presses. The report documents in detail what it describes as patterns of noncompliance for Brazil, as well as for other countries. Brazilian courts, it notes, have a disturbing pattern of legitimizing abductions by claiming the abducted child has become ``adapted to Brazilian culture.'' In other words, for many of Brazil's courts, if you abduct a child and manage to keep him or her in Brazil long enough, in defiance of The Hague Convention, he or she becomes yours.

And the administration of Brazilian President Lula connives at this outrage. It is complicit. It has done precious little to mitigate the damage being done to American children, especially David Goldman's son, Sean, in Brazil.

Again, I support this amendment strongly, and I urge my colleagues to stay tuned to this. We have to bring Sean home.

Mr. Chair, Chairman Berman and the entire Foreign Affairs committee are to be commended for bringing an excellent bill to the floor.

These much needed reforms reflect Congress' strong support for strengthening U.S. diplomacy and are consistent with the new vision for global engagement championed by President Obama.

As a former Peace Corps volunteer, I am very pleased that H.R. 2410 authorizes $450 million for Peace Corps.

I'd like to express my appreciation to Chairman Berman and Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for including Peace Corps in the their bill and for supporting a substantial increase that will help send volunteers to the 20 countries that have already requested Peace Corps volunteers.

Recently, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs called for 300 to 600 new volunteers in Sub-Sahara Africa to work on agriculture as a step toward America reasserting global leadership in the fight against hunger and food insecurity.

The Chicago Council notes that ``The Peace Corps' presence goes a long way toward convincing people that America knows about their circumstances, is committed to partnership to lift them out of poverty and is willing to send hard-working Americans, experienced in agriculture, to live and work with them for an extended period.''

Rwanda's President recently wrote, ``We view the return of the Peace Corps as a significant event in Rwanda's recovery. These young men and women represent what is good about America; I have met former volunteers who have run major aid programs here, invested in our businesses, and I even count them among my friends and close advisors.''

Peace Corps volunteers live and work in the poorest communities in countries around the world. The work that they do day in and day out is the finest expression of American generosity and solidarity that our government has to offer.

I enthusiastically support H.R. 2410 and urge my colleagues to vote for the bill.

Thank you, Chairman Berman, and thank you, Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

I rise not on this amendment but just to make a comment on the Peace Corps because I was just thinking, as hearing about the amendment, that had we fulfilled John F. Kennedy's dream in the 1960s to have 100,000 Peace Corps volunteers serving overseas throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and this decade, we might have avoided the disaster in Sudan. And I want to commend the committee because on the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, which is in 2011, we have now only 6,000 volunteers serving in 78 countries, and the price tag of that is less than one weapons system. It's a drop in the bucket; $350 million for that incredible service that we are having from our country.

And what I want to commend the committee on and all of them is the strong support for strengthening U.S. diplomacy with a consistent new vision for a global engagement, and I think that's the global engagement that President Obama has promised this country and is now seeing delivered. And with that, this bill authorizes an increase in Peace Corps funding and will allow the Peace Corps to build to the point where we have 20 countries that are asking for Peace Corps volunteers.

We have about 12,000 people a year that volunteer to go in the Peace Corps, that sign up, and we can only take 4,000. That's all we can afford. So all of these 20 countries have been waiting in line and haven't been able to get attention to adding Peace Corps. And what's interesting is that, as I have sort of dealt with some other issues here, for example, on food hunger in sub-Saharan Africa, I just recently read a report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. It called for 300 to 600 new volunteers in sub-Saharan Africa to work on agriculture as a step toward America's reasserting global leadership in the fight against hunger and food insecurity. The point was that the only way you're going to really deliver that effort is by getting people who are going to live in the community, who are going to live on the ground and work with people in the fields, and the only organization we have that does that in the Federal Government is the U.S. Peace Corps.

I don't know if you saw it today, but what the committee did in strengthening this provision of the bill, the new Rwanda President, Paul Kagame, who is the President of the Republic of Rwanda, wrote a letter, and I will just paraphrase parts of his letter:

``We view the return of the Peace Corps as a significant event in Rwanda's recovery. These young men and women represent what is good about America. I have met former volunteers who have run major aid programs here, invested in our businesses, and I even count them among my friends and close advisors.''

He goes on to say: ``While some consider development mostly in terms of infusion of capital, budgets, and head counts, we in Rwanda place equal importance to relationships between peoples who have a passion to learn from one another, preparing the next generation of teachers, administrators, and CEOs to see the exchange of values and ideas as the way to build the competencies of our people and to create a prosperous nation.

``We will do this because we see that the only investment with the possibility of infinite returns is in our children, and because after a couple of years in Rwanda, working and learning with our people, these Peace Corps volunteers will be our sons and daughters, too.''

There is no more loved organization in the world than the United States Peace Corps. And at this time when American image abroad has been suffering in many ways, it keeps growing in this particular service. So as a return Peace Corps volunteer, I am very thankful and delighted that this committee grew the Peace Corps to the demand out there in the world and among the Americans who want to serve. I want to thank you for that.

I will submit President Kagame's statement in the Record.

A Different Discussion About Aid

The United States of America has just sent a small number

of its sons and daughters as Peace Corps volunteers to serve

as teachers and advisors in Rwanda. They have arrived to

assist, and we appreciate that. We are aware that this comes

against the backdrop of increasingly scarce resources, of

budget discussions and campaign promises, and of tradeoffs

between defense and domestic priorities like health care and

infrastructure investments. All that said, I believe we need

to have a different discussion concerning the potential for

bilateral aid.

The Peace Corps have returned to our country after 15

years. They were evacuated in 1994 just a short time before

Rwanda collapsed into a genocide that killed over one million

people in three months. Things have improved a lot in recent

years. There is peace and stability throughout the nation. We

have a progressive constitution that is consensus-driven,

provides for power sharing, embraces diversity, and promotes

the participation of women, who now represent the majority in

our parliament. Our economy grew by more than 11 percent last

year, even as the world entered a recession. We have chosen

high-end segments of the coffee and tea markets in which to

compete, and attract the most demanding world travelers to

our tourism experiences. This has enabled us to increase

wages by over 20 percent each year over the last eight

years--sustained by, among other things, investment in

education, health and ICT.

We view the return of the Peace Corps as a significant

event in Rwanda's recovery. These young men and women

represent what is good about America; I have met former

volunteers who have run major aid programs here, invested in

our businesses, and I even count them among my friends and

close advisors.

Peace Corps volunteers are well educated, optimistic, and

keen to assist us as we continue to rebuild, but one must

also recognize that we have much to offer them as well.

We will, for instance, show them our system of community

justice, called Gacaca, where we integrated our need for

nationwide reconciliation with our ancient tradition of

clemency, and where violators are allowed to reassume their

lives by proclaiming their crimes to their neighbors, and

asking for forgiveness. We will present to them Rwanda's

unique form of absolution, where the individuals who once

exacted such harm on their neighbors and ran across national

borders to hide from justice are being invited back to resume

their farms and homes to live peacefully with those same

families.

We will show your sons and daughters our civic tradition of

Umuganda, where one day a month, citizens, including myself,

congregate in the fields to weed, clean our streets, and

build homes for the needy.

We will teach your children to prepare and enjoy our foods

and speak our language. We will invite them to our weddings

and funerals, and out into the communities to observe our

traditions. We will teach them that in Africa, family is a

broad and all-encompassing concept, and that an entire

generation treats the next as its own children.

And we will have discussions in the restaurants, and

debates in our staff rooms and classrooms where we will learn

from one another: What is the nature of prosperity? Is it

subsoil assets, location and sunshine, or is it based on

human initiative, the productivity of our firms, the

foresight of our entrepreneurs? What is a cohesive society,

and how can we strengthen it? How can we improve tolerance

and build a common vision between people who perceive

differences in one another, increase civic engagement,

interpersonal trust, and self-esteem? How does a nation

recognize and develop the leaders of future generations? What

is the relationship between humans and the earth? And how are

we to meet our needs while revering the earth as the womb of

humankind? These are the questions of our time.

While some consider development mostly in terms of infusion

of capital, budgets and head counts, we in Rwanda place equal

importance to relationships between peoples who have a

passion to learn from one another, preparing the next

generation of teachers, administrators and CEOs to see the

exchange of values and ideas as the way to build the

competencies of our people, and to create a prosperous

nation.

We will do this because we see that the only investment

with the possibility of infinite returns is in our children,

and because after a couple of years in Rwanda, working and

learning with our people, these Peace Corps volunteers will

be our sons and daughters, too.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the bill, H.R. 2410, and thank the gentleman from California, our distinguished chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for his leadership and for his ability to bring this bill before the floor. Although there are several portions of the bill that my subcommittee had a part in introducing, I am especially appreciative for the inclusion of one of the provisions to rename the South Pacific Scholarship Program in honor of one of our distinguished late Members of this institution, the late Congressman Phil Burton, who was chairman of the Subcommittee on Territories and Insular Affairs. He was a voice for Pacific Island nations and territories.

Beyond American Samoa, the late Congressman Phil Burton, who served as a U.S. Congressman from 1964 to 1983, worked every day of his life to ensure social justice and human dignity for all of the people, and the people of the Pacific are especially grateful for his services. Unbeknown to many of our colleagues, Chairman Burton was also the driving force in recognizing the importance of certain items in the Pacific region which our country declared as a strategic trust immediately after World War II, and this was done before the United Nations.

Formally known as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Chairman Burton, in consultations with the Department of Defense, the State Department and Interior and several other Federal agencies and key officials of the administration, he played a pivotal role whereby as a result of these consultations resulted in the Congress approving certain compacts of free association for the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and a coveted relationship between the United States and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I might note also that the President of Palau has consented in helping us in terms of dealing with the Uyghur people that hopefully that this might be resolved and worked out.

Congressman Burton was also instrumental in helping establish the Pacific Island Development Program that is now an integral part of the East-West Center.

Mr. Chair, I rise today to commend the gentleman from California, the Honorable Howard Berman, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for his leadership in offering H.R. 2410, the State Department Authorization bill, and I thank the gentleman for including a number of my provisions in the base text.

I am especially appreciative for the inclusion of my provision to rename the United States-South Pacific Scholarship Program (USSP) in honor of my mentor, the late Congressman Phillip Burton who, as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Territories and Insular Affairs, was a voice for Pacific Island populations, and made it possible for American Samoa's Governor and Lieutenant Governor to be popularly elected rather than appointed by the Secretary of the Interior.

In 1951, President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 10264 which transferred administrative responsibility for the islands of American Samoa from the Secretary of the Navy to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary of the Interior, in turn, appointed our Governors.

In 1960, the people of American Samoa adopted a Constitution. The Constitution was revised in 1966 and was approved by the Secretary of the Interior on June 2, 1967. In 1967, the Revised Constitution of American Samoa provided for an elected Legislature, or Fono, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. However, it did not provide our people with the right to elect our own Governor and Lieutenant Governor and, at the time, American Samoa was the only remaining offshore area of the United States which did not have a popularly elected Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

On June 10, 1976, Congressman Phil Burton took notice of American Samoa's situation and introduced a bill to make it possible for our Governor and Lieutenant Governor to be popularly elected rather than appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. As staff counsel the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Congressman Burton instructed me to draft this legislation which the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed by a landslide vote of 377 to 1.

Instead of sending his bill to the Senate, Congressman Burton decided to consult further with the Secretary of the Interior, Rogers C.B. Morton, about American Samoa's unique political status as an unincorporated and unorganized territory which was and is unlike the organized territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands. As a result of their consultations, the two agreed that Secretary Morton would issue a Secretarial Order (No. 3009) authorizing the American Samoa Government to pass enabling legislation to provide for an elected Governor and the Lieutenant Governor.

Secretary's Order No. 3009 amended American Samoa's Constitution to specifically provide for an elected rather than an appointed Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Secretary's Order 3009 was also in keeping with the will of the majority of voters in American Samoa who voted in favor of electing their own Governor and Lieutenant Governor in a plebiscite that was held on August 31, 1976.

Furthermore, Congressman Phil Burton introduced legislation on August 2, 1978 to provide that the Territory of American Samoa be represented by a nonvoting Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. I also was tasked with drafting this legislation which became Public Law 95- 556 and was made effective October 31, 1978.

Beyond American Samoa, the late Congressman Phillip Burton, who served in the U.S. Congress from 1964 to 1983, worked every day of his life to ensure social justice and human dignity for all people, and the people of the Pacific are especially grateful for what he has done for us. Congressman Burton's service as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Territories and Insular Affairs indirectly impacted U.S. foreign policy in the South Pacific region, and it is only fitting that the USSP, which Congress established at my request in 1994, will now be renamed some 15 years later in honor of my mentor, if the Senate also agrees to acknowledge and honor the late Congressman Burtons' service.

I also thank Chairman Berman for accepting my request to recognize Kazakhstan's commitment to nonproliferation and for offering to host a nuclear fuel bank.

My office also worked closely the Foreign Affairs Committee to establish a Central Asia Scholarship program for public policy internships, and to establish scholarships for indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central and South America.

I also appreciate the Committee's support of my efforts on behalf of Pacific Island States. Diabetes, a seriously debilitating disease, has reached epidemic proportions in the Pacific Islands States including the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. While recognizing that simple, relatively low-cost means already exist to reduce the incidence of diabetes significantly through appropriate prevention and treatment programs, these programs have not as yet reached the Pacific Islands so as to effect a major reduction in the incidence of diabetes. In order to contribute to the improvement of health conditions, the authorization I requested will provide assistance for health services designed to prevent and treat diabetes in the Pacific Islands, and also for safe water and sanitation.

I also thank the Committee for including language which I offered regarding West Papua. I continue to believe it is necessary for the Secretary of State to report on the 1969 Act of `Free' Choice, the current political status of West Papua, and the extent to which the Government of Indonesia has implemented and included the leadership and the people of West Papua in the development and administration of Special Autonomy. I also believe it is necessary for the Administration to report to the appropriate Congressional committees the extent to which the Government of Indonesia

has certified that it has halted human rights abuses in West Papua.

However, in consideration of Indonesia's presidential elections scheduled for July 8, 2009, I asked Chairman Berman to pull the West Papua language from the bill so as not to influence the outcome of the elections. I thank Chairman Berman for agreeing to my request to remove this language, and I am hopeful that once elections are finalized that Indonesia will renew its commitment to implementing Special Autonomy.

Again, I thank Chairman Berman for his leadership and support in moving this legislation forward, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 2410.