To repeal certain foreign affairs reporting requirements.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1157) to provide for certain authorities of the Department of State, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1157, as amended.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1157, the Department of State Authorization Act of 2021, which I have introduced alongside my good friend and partner, the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike McCaul.

H.R. 1157 is a comprehensive, bipartisan measure that builds on the work of several prior Congresses to broadly authorize the management and operation of the Department of State. This sort of bill should be a regular part of our work.

However, it has been nearly two decades since the State Department authorization bill was enacted into law. With every passing year, this represents another missed opportunity to ensure the Department of State and our Nation's diplomats have the comprehensive support they need to advance America's interests around the world.

While we have made progress over the last couple of years, including in 2019, when the House passed an earlier version of this bill, we must finally seize the historic opportunity to do what we have failed to do in the past 10 Congresses.

Diplomacy and development are critical tools for advancing the United States' foreign policy and national security objectives, for protecting human rights and the rule of law around the world, for deepening relationships with America's longstanding partners and allies, and for forging new relationships around the world.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten the globe, it has reminded us once again that diplomacy and development are central to solving global

conflicts and emergencies, keeping us safe and healthy, and enabling our countries and our communities to thrive.

But at the State Department, there are also several vexing management challenges that have gone unaddressed for too long, and the politicization, neglect, and slashing of resources we saw during the previous administration made it harder for our diplomats to do their jobs. We must not only build the State Department back, as President Biden says, we must build it back better.

To be clear, diplomacy and development are not just about policy, but about the brave and dedicated public servants who work tirelessly to keep our country safe. Yet, while the Department of State represents the interests of the American people abroad, it has not looked like the America it serves. So, among the many important management-related provisions in H.R. 1157, I am particularly proud of those aimed at ensuring a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce.

This bill mandates disaggregated and transparent data collection and provides for vital tools to improve the ability of the State Department to recruit, promote, and retain personnel. It pushes for greater transparency and inclusivity in filling senior leadership roles and seeks to address the black box of assignment restrictions accompanying some State Department employees' security clearances that have negatively impacted Asian Americans and other people of color.

It also ensures that the Department can pay its interns, exposing many more young Americans from across our great country to the important work that the Department does around the world and ensuring a strong and diverse pipeline of talent over the long term.

By shoring up other institutional accountability and management safeguards, including to ensure cooperation with the inspector general's investigations, the bill will also help to prevent the politicized targeting and impunity that has caused so much harm to the members of the workforce and their morale.

We can, and we must, move this bipartisan legislation forward and get Congress back on track to doing right by our great diplomats, our development professionals, and the American people we all serve.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure so that we can move it one step closer to the President's desk.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume for closing purposes.

Let me thank Ranking Member McCaul for his partnership in bringing this bipartisan bill to the floor. I join him in also recognizing former chair Eliot Engel and what they attempted to do in the previous Congress to make this happen. It would not have happened had we not had the work and the continuous cooperation of both of our staffs in putting this bill together, so I am thankful to them.

When we talk about H.R. 1157, the Department of State Authorization Act of 2021, it is going to make the State Department better prepared to conduct diplomacy and meet the challenges that we have of the 21st century.

Congress must make authorizing the Department of State a regular part of its legislative efforts. As the ranking member said, just as much as we pass bills for defense and NDAA, we must be sure that we are passing the State authorization bill.

What happens and will happen by passing this bill, we can ensure that State has the tools that it needs so that it can be more effective, more resilient, and more reflective of the America it represents abroad. This should be, and I hope all of my colleagues join me and Ranking Member

McCaul in supporting this bill in a unanimous way.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I want to commend my good friend and colleague, Chairman Meeks, for his strong bipartisan approach on this measure to authorize the State Department. As he mentioned, it has been 20 years since Congress has authorized the State Department. This is our obligation under Article I of the Constitution, and for 10 Congresses, we have failed in that mission.

I am very proud today that, working with the chairman, we are going to get this thing done and send it over to the Senate. 2002 was the last time. In the nearly 20 years since that authority lapsed, we have seen too many taxpayer dollars wasted on inefficient hirings and procurements, an expanding bureaucracy, and an outdated IT system that left us vulnerable to cyberattacks from our adversaries.

It is a fundamental duty of the Foreign Affairs Committee to pass an annual authorization bill, just like we pass a national defense authorization bill. This is necessary to fulfill our constitutional oversight responsibilities and our obligation to be good stewards of the people's money.

For these reasons I am proud, again, of this bipartisan effort our committee has produced, as we often do. It will address numerous longstanding difficulties. It will fortify the Department and our diplomats with the tools needed to fulfill their missions to promote America overseas and enhance our security abroad.

Among other important reforms, the bill before us will modernize the State Department workforce, eliminate outdated reports, bolster embassy and information security, strengthen the State Department's diplomacy and anticorruption efforts, and reassert the Article I prerogatives of the United States Congress.

As the United States faces growing challenges around the world, we need our Secretary and diplomats to know that Congress supports them, and that is precisely what this bill does.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank, again, Chairman Meeks, for his great leadership and his team and staff for working with mine. This type of collaboration has been a hallmark of our work on this committee, and I know that it will continue to be so.

Again, this bill having lapsed for nearly 20 years, it is long overdue. This bill deserves our unanimous support.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Kim), an esteemed member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I think this is a momentous day for the Congress. I want to thank my friend and colleague, Chairman Meeks, for his great leadership in bringing this long-overdue authorization bill to the floor.

I also want to thank former chairman Eliot Engel, who I worked with very closely to get an authorization bill passed out of the House, just to see it fail in the Senate. I hope the Senate will not allow that to happen again. This is really desperately needed. It is a momentous day for the House. It is critical. It is bipartisan. It reclaims our constitutional prerogatives of the Congress and the full oversight role of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. I think it demands our unanimous support.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to stand in support of H.R. 1157, the Department of State Authorization Act of 2021. I want to thank Chair Meeks and Ranking Member McCaul for their efforts to reform the State Department, including offering improved job and skills training opportunities for foreign service officers.

I am honored to have two amendments included in this bill, the first of which I introduced separately as H.R. 1244. Today many foreign service officers and State Department staff spend an outsized amount of their time complying with duplicative and outdated reporting requirements mandated by Congress.

H.R. 1244 repeals those requirements to streamline the flow of information from State Department to Congress and allow our foreign service officers to spend more time working toward accomplishing America's foreign affairs objectives.

I want to thank Mr. Connolly for also working with me on this initiative, and I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 1157.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.