Grace Meng

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the victims of the devastating floods in Nepal and Tibet.

The scale of destruction is heartbreaking. This horrific tragedy has taken the lives of nearly 1,000 people, destroyed homes and livelihoods, and left families grieving the loss of their loved ones.

As search and rescue operations continue across the region, we pray for safe recovery of the more than 4,000 people still missing in the wake of this disaster, including an estimated 90 Americans.

We are committed to supporting our Asian-American communities across the United States, and especially those who live in my district in Queens, New York, as we navigate this profound tragedy. We stand with all those affected, both at home and abroad.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in a moment of silence to remember the victims, support the survivors, and honor those working tirelessly on recovery and rescue efforts.

Mr. Chair, my constituents in Queens are facing an affordability crisis, and this bill will only make it worse by endorsing a failed America-alone policy that diminishes our presence on the world stage, abandons women and girls, and guts our soft power.

This bill cuts our national security budget by another 6 percent to fund more tax cuts for billionaires and a proposed military budget now exceeding $1.5 trillion. That is a ``trillion'' with a capital T.

It comes after this administration destroyed USAID, clawed back hundreds of millions in humanitarian aid already approved by Congress, and canceled over 80 percent of our foreign aid programs. Existing cuts have already led to an estimated 760,000 preventable deaths and are projected to cause up to 23 million by 2030.

Instead of gutting diplomacy and development to pay for a record Pentagon budget, we should be growing our diplomatic presence and investing in programs that tackle conflict and instability at the roots.

By eliminating funding for the U.N., this bill would cede ground to our adversaries, letting Russia and China reshape the U.N. without meaningful U.S. influence. It also doubles down on attacks on women and girls, gutting international family planning and banning funding to the U.N. Population Fund. Instead of abandoning the world's women and girls, we should be investing in them.

It also locks in the administration's expanded global gag rule, exporting a radical rightwing agenda, politicizing aid, and targeting women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ people--people who look to America as a beacon of freedom, not repression.

Our national security budget is not waste. It is not a playground for radical social ideologies or attacks on the world's most vulnerable populations. It is a strategic investment in America's security, global stability, and the power of democracy.

For these reasons, I cannot support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Ranking Member DeLauro for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the 2026 Financial Services and General Government and National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act.

I thank Chairman Mario Diaz-Balart and Ranking Member Lois Frankel and their team for their hard work on this bill.

America is at a fork in the road in our international affairs. Over the past year, our soft power has been decimated. Millions of people in need have been recklessly cut off from vital assistance. Billions of dollars in lifesaving health and food supplies purchased by American taxpayers have been stranded in supply chains, or worse, destroyed. Thousands of public servants, including many of my own constituents, who dedicated their lives to protecting our country and projecting our soft power, were fired.

This bill isn't the one Democrats would have written if we were in the majority, but I want to share why I support it. First, it continues U.S. support for women around the world. Women are one-half of the world's population, but too many still face obstacles to economic opportunity, gender equality, and their fundamental freedoms.

This funding has been a core pillar of U.S. assistance since the 1950s, and it is lifesaving. Estimates suggest that each year, it prevents 17.1 million unintended pregnancies and saves the lives of 34,000 women and girls who otherwise would have died from complications of pregnancy and childbirth.

The UNFPA is a critical piece of that puzzle too. This bill ensures continued funding for international organizations, including UNFPA.

History has taught us that we cannot bury our head in the sand and abandon the international community without consequences for our own national security, and we certainly can't afford to leave women and girls behind. With this bill, this Congress is doing our part to make sure we don't.

Second, this bill protects U.S. leadership and taxpayer investments in global health, including scientific, medical, and agricultural research in my home State of New York.

It funds PEPFAR, which fights HIV/AIDS, well above the President's anemic request. Since 2003, this program has saved over 26 million lives. It also includes funding for programs that support the health of moms and children and fights other infectious diseases that know no borders, like tuberculosis.

Third, it takes steps to further protect American taxpayers from waste, fraud, and abuse perpetrated by this administration.

It maintains important directives on education, conservation, water, sanitation, and hygiene programs. It reins in the Trump administration and reasserts congressional oversight on the uses of funds by increasing transparency requirements. It includes provisions I championed to make sure lifesaving commodities and supplies purchased with U.S. taxpayer dollars can't simply be destroyed.

Mr. Chair, while this bill won't right every wrong, it represents Democrats and Republicans reaching an agreement that asserts Congress' authority, pushes back against this administration's overreach, and stands up for proven policies that have made our country and world safer, stronger, and more prosperous.