Runaway Reporting Improvement Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2848) to authorize appropriations for the Department of State for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and place any extraneous material into the Record on this measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Department of State Operations and Embassy Security Authorization Act is a measure to provide our diplomats with the tools that they need to do the job effectively, as efficiently as possible, as safely as possible, and it has been over 10 years now since the last Department of State authorization bill was passed into law. Now in the interim, our ability to exercise oversight and push for reform within the Department has been eroded. That is why it is so essential that we get this authorization into law--because it is not good for Congress; it is not good for the Department; it is not good for the taxpayer. Authorizing these programs is going to increase our oversight ability. It will improve Members' ability to legislate new programs. It will save money. It will reform old programs. And when we do not authorize, as you know, departments are less accountable; they can drift.

As Members know, the Department's failings on security were laid bare in Benghazi, Libya. The Accountability Review Board, looking into Benghazi, found:

Systemic failures and leadership and management

deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State

Department resulted in a special mission security posture

that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to

deal with the attack that took place.

That was the finding; the local guard force in place to protect Benghazi was inadequate.

The closure of 21 U.S. embassies in August and the recent closure of our embassy in Beirut demonstrate the continued threat to our facilities and personnel overseas. Indeed, this week, the Department renewed its global terrorism alert for U.S. citizens. This is why this bill authorizes full funding for embassy security.

One of the principal functions of the Department is to protect our facilities and personnel that are stationed overseas. The other body, our colleagues in the Senate, have also introduced legislation on embassy security, and we have been in consultation with them because we intend to have this signed into law.

This legislation carries much of the same language, including:

One, language requirements for diplomatic security personnel in line with the ARB report recommendations. We need the security personnel to be able to speak that local dialect.

Two, implementation of the expanded marine security guard program, including a plan to deploy these additional personnel and station them appropriately. We need the marines at the gate. We need to be able to guard the gate. It needs to be reinforced.

Three, authority to protect soft targets overseas.

Four, regulations for the reemployment of personnel to fill staffing gaps at high-risk, high-threat posts. We need that personnel to be able to get that retraining to speak the local dialect in order to help protect that facility.

Importantly, this bill contains a provision, championed by committee members Mr. Radel and Ms. Frankel, which will award local security guard contracts now on the basis of best value rather than lowest cost. For our highest threat posts, we need only the highest quality security personnel, not personnel that's going to flee in the face of a threat.

This bill also requires the Department to develop contingency plans for increasing security at high-threat posts. These plans must include options for employing additional military personnel and equipment to bolster security in response to a threat, as well as plans for a rapid deployment of assets in response to an attack. We need a rapid response force to be stood up so that they can be called into action if there's a threat in this part of the world to our consulates and to our embassies.

The strong emphasis on embassy security in this legislation, H.R. 2848, and the legislation that's over in the Senate is timely and responsive to urgent needs. Working in a bipartisan manner, this bill was able to authorize full funding for embassy security while still producing a fiscally responsible product.

Overall, this bill is a 9 percent cut from the fiscal year 2012 level, and this includes a cut of nearly 22 percent, that's $2.4 billion, in Department administration costs. Further savings to the taxpayer have been achieved by placing a cap on pay for those personnel stationed overseas by closing a bureaucratic loophole that allowed personnel to draw both a pension and a salary, except in the most extenuating of circumstances, by capping the amount of paid time off for employees and authorizing current employees to fill staffing vacancies. By doing it that way, we negate the need to hire more Foreign Service Officers.

So this bill also reforms some of the core management functions of the Department by prohibiting those convicted of fraud or embezzlement or theft or other offenses from receiving government contracts in the future. The bill also prohibits funding for the proposed Foreign Affairs Security Training Center unless there's an independent feasibility study that's completed and presented to the appropriate congressional committee.

This bill also has strong bipartisan support. When I say ``strong,'' Mr. Engel and myself have worked with Members on both sides of the aisle. We took some 11 amendments. We've worked out the differences. We got bipartisan support in the committee, and I urge my colleagues to vote for this legislation so it can be promptly sent to the Senate and then on to the President for his signature, thereby ensuring that our embassies and personnel stationed abroad are protected at a time of their greatest need.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations and, I would add, Mr. Speaker, the author of important State authorization and embassy security laws in past Congresses.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes).

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

I want to assure the gentleman from Virginia, and all Members here, Mr. Speaker, that this committee has been highly attentive to the Benghazi attack. Indeed, that's one of the reasons we're here on this bill.

To the gentleman from Virginia who spoke earlier, I would just note that if standing up a new Foreign Affairs Training Center in his district, as has been proposed, is a good use of our limited fiscal resources, then he has nothing to fear from this bill.

While there have been proposals to completely prohibit such an expenditure, they are not included in this legislation. But what our bill does do is it requires an independent feasibility study first, to assess whether current facilities are inadequate, before we spend the better part of a billion dollars on a completely new facility.

If the gentleman from Virginia is suggesting he's opposed to this legislation, then I would point out that initial estimates by the Department of State are that this new facility could cost up to $950 million--and at least $450 million.

I would also call attention to the Members of this body that Congress has not received a copy of any feasibility studies related to the proposed new Foreign Assistance Training Center--FAST-C, as it's called.

There are valid concerns that the FAST-C center is not needed and the same functions could be achieved by collaborating with the Department of Homeland Security Federal Law Enforcement Training Facility. Further, I would point out that the Federal Law Enforcement Training Facility has quoted a price nearly 50 percent lower than what it would cost to build the new FAST-C facility.

Now, before State moves forward, the Congress needs more information, and the Department of State needs to demonstrate more due diligence on this endeavor, especially in light of the recent facility construction debacles that we've seen around the world, including in Afghanistan.

I would further point out that in July, the State Department noted ``ongoing serious fiscal challenges'' and the need for ``additional due diligence in determining how to move forward with the FAST-C facility at Fort Pickett.''

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, there are serious questions about whether the existing DHS facility in Glynco, Georgia, could be used at a much lower cost to the American taxpayer.

We all understand the responsibility to represent our districts, but it should not come at the cost of blocking legislation that will answer the need, in terms of security, for our personnel overseas. Again, I would point out that this does not prohibit such an expenditure. It merely requires an independent feasibility study to assess whether or not it is appropriate.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

I thank Mr. Engel, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would point out again that, in the past, State Department authorization bills that have passed the House--even under suspension--have failed due to inaction in the other body. Now, because of the strong bicameral interest in embassy security, we have an opportunity to break this bad habit and return to our core responsibility.

Congressman Engel from New York and myself have discussed these issues not only with our Members, but with Members of the Senate. If enacted, this bill of course will only be the fourth time in the last 17 years that Congress has passed a State Department authorization.

We need to seize this opportunity to move meaningful legislation at a time when Members of this body and in the Senate understand that this is a chance to direct this issue of embassy security and provide that additional security.

I very much want to express my appreciation for the collaboration I've had with Mr. Engel, our ranking member, on this piece of legislation. This is a bipartisan bill, as he shared with you. Together, we have worked to incorporate the ideas of the members of our committee. A large number of those committee members have offered amendments that are in this legislation.

So to conclude, I would point out that H.R. 2848 is a strongly bipartisan measure. It is fiscally responsible; it is constructive in its reforms; and it is deliberate in its efforts to keep our personnel stationed overseas as safe as we can keep them.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2848, the Department of State Operations and Embassy Security Authorization Act, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to say once again, it has been a pleasure to work with Chairman Royce once again in a bipartisan fashion. I am very proud of what we have done on the Foreign Affairs Committee this year in a bipartisan fashion, and this is just another example of it. Everybody had input. All sides had corrections. We incorporated many, many different things together, and I think we have a very, very good product.

This important legislation authorizes the resources necessary to protect our dedicated diplomats and provides basic authorities to the State Department to advance United States interests and values around the world. The funds authorized in this bill support all of the State Department's global operations for less than 3 percent of the Defense Department's total budget. To me, that's a very, very wise investment in U.S. national security.

As all of us know, our diplomats and aid workers face unprecedented threats

in the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa, and other volatile regions of the world. The attack on our consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, 2 weeks ago, is a stark reminder of these very real dangers.

The bill before us today fully funds the President's request for diplomatic security. This will allow the State Department to construct six new secure embassies, support 151 new diplomatic security personnel and build facilities for 26 additional Marine Security Guard detachments.

This legislation also includes a number of other provisions to better protect our men and women serving abroad, including many that were included in an embassy security bill that I introduced earlier this year. Among other things, H.R. 2848 would enhance the coordination between the State and Defense Departments in times of emergency, require security and language training for State Department employees before they deploy to dangerous locations, and improve the process by which the State Department makes security-related decisions.

In addition, this legislation includes elements of a bipartisan bill introduced by Representatives Radel and Frankel that gives the State Department flexibility to award local guard contracts at high-threat posts on the basis of best value rather than on who had the lowest bid. In the past, having to accept the lowest bids sometimes resulted in poorly trained local security forces that endangered the safety of our diplomats and development experts.

Finally, this legislation includes another bipartisan provision, drafted by Representatives Perry and Meng, that provides additional accountability for State Department officials when their job performance is unsatisfactory.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to point out that we haven't had a State Department authorization bill signed into law since 2002. The chairman and I are both convinced that this is something that needs to be changed. That's another reason we're doing this very, very important bill.

In order for Congress to properly oversee the State Department's operations and activities, we need to resume the practice of passing our authorization bill on a regular basis and encourage our Senate colleagues to do the same.

Again, I want to commend Chairman Royce for his hard work on this legislation, and I look forward to working with him to further improve the bill as it moves through the legislative process, again, in a bipartisan manner.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), a very senior and important member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Meng), a very valuable member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, whose provision will hold the State Department more accountable, and her provision was incorporated into this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned before Ms. Frankel had worked very hard, and we incorporated some of her work into this bill as well. So I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Frankel).

It is my pleasure now to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), a former member of our committee.

I yield the gentlelady 1 minute.

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

I again would like to thank Chairman Royce for his efforts in putting this bill together.

I have a copy of the bill in front of me. It is H.R. 2848. It says:

In the House of Representatives, July 30, 2013, Mr. Royce,

for himself and Mr. Engel, introduced the following bill;

which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

I read that because I think, again, it highlights, as so many of our colleagues have said, that this bill is really Congress at its best and the committee at its best. People had concerns; we worked together, and we thrashed them out. We put together a product that those people who were most concerned with this were able to agree. I hope that that will be infectious, and perhaps we can take it out of our committee and move it to the Congress on other things that we're not having so much agreement with these days. But I again want to thank Chairman Royce.

The State authorization, an embassy security bill, is a very, very important part of our oversight of the State Department. The bill will bolster the State Department's security efforts, and who really can oppose that.

So I urge its passage. I thank the chairman again, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank, first of all, Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Eliot Engel for drafting this extraordinarily timely and important legislation. This is an essential bill, and it must be passed and signed into law.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday of this week, my subcommittee staff director, Greg Simpkins, and I returned from a 4-day trip to Nigeria, including the city of Jos, the scene of recent fire bombings of Christian churches by Boko Haram, a terrorist organization that has killed thousands of Nigerian Christians and some Muslims as well. Boko Haram-- like al-Shabaab, the cowards who slaughtered Kenyans in a shopping center in Nairobi last week--poses serious and escalating threats to indigenous Africans and American personnel overseas.

The Embassy Security Act, like the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999, a law that I authored, is designed to significantly enhance protection at our missions abroad. Significantly, more than a dozen years ago that law came to the floor on the heels of al Qaeda bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam at our embassies in 1998.

I chaired the hearings following that tragic loss of life. Admiral Crowe, who led the Accountability Review Boards at that time, testified. But it is clear that the promised action following those earlier attacks has not been fully implemented. There are serious, significant security gaps that must be remedied more than a decade later. The Royce bill does that. We seem not to have adequately learned the lessons from the terror attacks against our distinguished ambassador and three extraordinarily brave individuals in Benghazi.

The Royce-Engel bill before us today contains a number of significant provisions, including necessary security upgrades for our embassies and consulates abroad. Our embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, was constructed with the upgrades recommended by earlier legislation. Greg and I saw that firsthand this week. But so many older facilities do not meet those high standards, including lifesaving setbacks from roads and thoroughfares. Chairman Royce's bill will address those gaps in essential security features at our overseas posts.

I'm especially appreciative that the Foreign Affairs committee accepted my amendment that originally passed as a provision of my International Megan's Law 3 years ago--it passed the House, never got through the Senate, we all know that drill--which limits to 1 year or such time as the Secretary of State shall determine appropriate the period of validity of a passport issued to a convicted sex offender.

In 2008, the General Accountability Office found that some 4,500 convicted pedophiles got passports. That's every year. That's almost 50,000 over a 10-year period--the life of a passport. And the evidence suggests some may travel to places with impunity in Bangkok and all over the world and abuse children. Poverty worldwide has made this exploitation even more prevalent--more kids now are at risk. This provision will empower the Secretary of State and the President to mitigate their travel to abuse children.

This is an excellent bill. Again, I commend Chairman Royce and Eliot Engel for working in such a constructive, bipartisan way.

I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for the great work on an issue that so many of us have noted and advocated for over the years.

As a former member of this committee during the time of the Democratic majority, I still continue to have a great sense of the importance of the work. Having traveled to a number of countries and engaged with our diplomatic staff and the State Department, let me put on the record the crucial work that our diplomatic corps--our diplomat staff, the staff at the State Department, the Secretary of State--does and is engaged in for the safety and security of the American people. Their work is vital. They are partners with the defense; but more importantly, they are partners for reconciliation and coming together. It is evident by their great work of where we are in Syria, along with the President, and of course, most recently, some of the outreach that has gone on with Iran.

But my main point for speaking today is, having physically visited a number of the diplomatic sites in high-risk and high-threat posts, I am ecstatic about this legislation that provides a matrix, along with working groups for security measures and funding, along with the review of a diplomatic security, with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy, which, when I went to oversee the Algerian election, they were very much involved, as they are and as they were in Egypt, and as they were in many other places where there are difficult circumstances. And then of course to be able to enhance security for the diplomatic staff and security, to protect the civilian, but also the military. Our marines are very able, as those who are there at posts; they provide enhanced security for those particular posts.

One of the things that I am most excited about--and I thank the author of the amendment--and that is the issue of best value for security. That is a crucial bipartisan agreement that makes common sense; that on the security of our men and women who leave these shores to be instruments of peace, diplomatic engagement, and be the face of the American people in very difficult posts--whether it's Iraq, Afghanistan, or whether it may be Egypt, whether it may be Pakistan, and other places beyond--that it is our duty to ensure that the posts that they are in have the highest level of security quality, both from technology and also from the physical bricks and mortar.

So I rise today because I wanted to first acknowledge the valiant service of all of those who have served. I also want to make note of those who we have lost, who have served in the diplomatic corps in places far beyond our borders, and to thank them and thank those who serve in the State Department and who are serving as we speak; and the United States Marines, who across the world secure these very valiant public servants.

I support the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel for providing leadership and working together to get this bill done in a bipartisan manner.

This is a bill where everybody had their input and everybody gave some and everybody said what was involved, and we were able to come up with a bill that is a compromise bill that's in the best interest of all of us, especially the men and women who serve us in the State Department abroad.

There's generally two groups of individuals that we have a huge responsibility for. They are our men and women on the battlefield, who are in the military. We need to make sure that they have everything that they need for their protection and their success in their mission. Likewise, the men and women who serve as our diplomats, what huge and important jobs they have. We have an absolute responsibility to make sure that we give them everything that they need to make sure that they're secure so their missions can be successful.

That's what this bill does. It looks at the security issue in a manner to make sure that our embassies are safe and secure. For example, it establishes working groups to ensure that new or reopening posts are provided the necessary security measures and funding. We had some before that had to be closed. We want to make sure we look at it and focus so that they get what they need.

It requires a strategic review of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security to ensure that its missions and activities are meeting current and projected needs. That's tremendously important. And it authorizes the State to utilize best value rather than lowest cost for security guard contracts at high-risk and high-threat posts.

Furthermore--which I think is absolutely key--it gives full authorization for the National Endowment for Democracy, of which I once sat as a board member, to support the work of the four affiliated core institutes, including the National Democratic Institute and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, to develop

independent media, human rights protections, and other democratic institutions, values, and processes around the world. This is great work. This is work that will help democracy flourish throughout this place that we call Earth, making it a more peaceful and better place for us all to get along.

As we've seen recently, we've come a long way in the last 4 weeks in moving diplomatically and trying to resolve issues together. If we give our diplomats the kind of protection they need, then I believe that we can make sure that this place we call Earth is much safer tomorrow than it is today.

I thank, again, the chairman and the ranking member for the manner in which they have worked to resolve and bring this bill to the floor, and urge my colleagues to vote for it.