The Department Of State, Foreigh Operations And Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008
Floor Speech
THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 21, 2007)
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Mr. CUELLAR. Again, Madam Chair, I thank you for the time and I also appreciate the work that you have done in making sure that we help the Mexican Government fight the drug cartel problems that they have. We have a perfect opportunity at this time, and I think Mr. McCaul understands this since we have been working on this for a while, that they have a President now, President Calderon, th at is willing to go ahead and take on the powerful drug cartels. Being from Laredo, Texas, I see what's been happening across the river. We had, talking about one of the Congressmen, my counterpart right across Laredo in Nuevo Laredo, there was an attempt to assassinate him, he ended up in the hospital, his chauffeur got killed, because again he wanted to go ahead and fight the drug cartels.
It is extremely important that we provide this extra funding because if we don't, what you're going to have, you' re going to have a bigger problem than what we're seeing right now across the river. It has permeated not only the law enforcement, it has not only permeated also the judiciary, but it has also affected other parts of the society.
The Mexican Government wants to work with us, and I want to make sure that we work on incr easing the dollars.
My understanding is, and I am hoping that my colleague will be willing to do that, that if we can withdraw this amendment, I believe we have a commitment from the chairwoman that in conference committee she will go ahead and increase the dollars, because we need more than what's been appropriated so far, what's currently in the bill itself.
I believe we have a commitment that, Mr. McCaul, if you are willing to withdraw, together, both of us, we do have a commitment fr om the chairwoman. She has been very good at keeping her word on this.
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Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chairman, again I also want to echo what the other Members have said on your leadership on this particular bill, very important bill.
But what I want to do, Madam C hair, is point out two things that you have selected that are very important to my district, south Texas, the border area. The first one has to do with the funding that has been increased for the International Boundary Water Commission that provides funding for the levees that we have along the U.S. and Mexico border. The current budget right now is at $2 million. You have brought that up now to an amount of almost $16 million. This, again, is appreciated again by my office, my constituents, but also by Con gressmen Rubén Hinojosa and Solomon Ortiz that have levees down there. This is an issue that has to be addressed because, again, we don't want to see what happened in another part of the United States. This levee work is very important. It's important to the areas of mission, McAllen and the other areas in south Texas. This will go a long way and, again, Madam Chair, I want to thank you for that.
I also want to thank you for some report language that you added, something that, again, Mic hael McCaul and myself have been very interested in, and that is the issue of the trafficking of human, what we call human cargo, also drugs, cash and of course the missing Americans. As you know, there are people that live in the United States that have gone over across the river into Nuevo Laredo and have been kidnapped and have not been found. We've been asking the Mexican Government for years to provide us information so we can bring some sort of closure to this particular situation. And again, we hav e not gotten this, and we're hoping that the Mexican government will provide us this information as soon as possible.
But this report language, Madam Chair, that you have added will provide us this incentive and hopefully an incentive to the Mexican Government to work with us to provide us information on the missing Americans.
Again, Madam Chair, I want to thank you very, very much for adding, increasing the amount of the levees from $2 million to almost $16 million. On behalf of Congressmen Rube E1n Hinojosa and Solomon Ortiz, we thank you very much for your leadership.
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Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you for yielding. I would like to associate myself with the gentleman's remarks and his concerns that the language could, in fact, be interpreted to have a broader application, not only allowing for the provision of contraceptives.
Would the chairwoman explain her provision and clarify her legislative intent?
Mrs. LOWEY. Will the gentleman from Texas yield?
Mr. CUELLAR. I yield to the chairwoman.
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Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Chairwoman, does your amendment do anything to alter or weaken the 15 provisions currently in the underlying bill that bans U.S. funding for abortions abroad or places restrictions on the use of family-planning funds?
Mrs. LOWEY. Absolutely not. My amendment would not alter or weaken these long-standing provisions which I chose to retain in the fiscal year 2008 bill, 15 different provisions that were offered by various Members of Congress. Ev ery provision is still in this bill that prohibits the use of U.S. tax dollars for abortion or restricts family planning.
Mr. CUELLAR. I thank the chairwoman for clarification and her legislative intent that her amendment would only allow donated contraceptives to be provided to international NGOs and that no funds, no funds in this bill, will be used to provide or advocate for abortions overseas.
I also would like to be clear that I support your decision to reta in the long-standing provisions in the bill to prohibit U.S. funds from being used to provide or advocate for abortions overseas and place reasonable restrictions on the use of family planning funds.
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