Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, my ranking member, for yielding this time; and I rise in opposition to H.R. 7608, the first appropriations measure to be considered by the House for fiscal year 2021.

The measure before us today, Mr. Speaker, includes four of the 12 annual spending bills. Specifically, it would provide funding for the Departments of State, Agriculture, Interior, as well as Veterans Affairs, and their related agencies and programs.

As ranking member of the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee, I want to again offer my sincere thanks to Chairwoman Nita Lowey for her collaboration. Her decision to lead this subcommittee, as well as being chairman of the big committee, the full committee, is a testament to her dedication to improving lives around the globe.

She has been a tremendous partner in that venture for many years, and we will deeply miss her leadership of our committee and of this subcommittee. But I assure you, Madam Chair, we will continue this work in your memory because you have invested so much of your life in this subcommittee.

Division A, the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill for fiscal year 2021, includes $55.85 billion in non-emergency discretionary funding, and $10 billion in emergency funding for global coronavirus response, for a total of $65.87 billion.

Within that total, the bill includes funding for many key priorities that are critical to our national security. Chief among them is $3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Israel and continued funding at the current level for our close partners in the region, including Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia.

I am also pleased that the bill maintains funding at the current level, as has been said, for embassy security. The attacks on our embassy in Baghdad this year were a stark reminder of how we must do everything we can to support the safety of our foreign service officers working abroad.

I appreciate the Chair continuing funding to combat the flow of drugs into this country and to tackle transnational crime overseas. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl have spiked with COVID-19's growth, so we have got an epidemic now of increased overdose deaths within the pandemonium that is going on as well. These international efforts go hand-in-hand with the work we do here at home in the relentless fight against drug abuse and addiction.

Elsewhere in the bill, Divisions B, C, and D of this package include some notable areas of bipartisanship worth highlighting. I was pleased to see robust funding for clean and reliable water systems and rural broadband service, which are vitally important in my Kentucky district.

The bill also continues funding for the Abandoned Mine Land Pilot Program, a crucial economic and community development tool for regions like mine that were devastated by the war on coal.

The bill also provides critical resources to take care of our veterans, another welcome inclusion, given their great service to our Nation.

While I admire the chair's leadership in guiding this legislation through committee under the most challenging circumstances, I simply cannot support the measure in its current form.

Our committee has a proud tradition of bipartisanship and working together to fund and enhance shared priorities. However, this bill's unchecked emergency spending and partisan policy riders give me great concern, and ensure it has no hope of becoming law in its current form.

Sweeping measures that threaten the sanctity of life, like those that overturn the President's expanded Mexico City policy and weaken the longstanding protections against coercive abortion and forced sterilization, known as Kemp-Kasten, are the most concerning and controversial.

Also problematic are ill-advised investments, including the international climate funds like the Green Climate Fund, which jeopardizes American jobs.

Despite some areas of agreement, the unrestrained spending and partisan riders require my opposition to the package. I therefore urge my colleagues to oppose the bill.

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. This bill funds a number of important programs that are part of our national security. While I believe there is room for a small reduction, taking cuts across the board is not an appropriate way to carry that out.

The amendment would cut everything across the bill, indiscriminately, and that includes the $3.3 billion, as has been mentioned, in foreign military financing for Israel. Reducing funding for Israel's security by $165 million, in addition to reductions to embassy security and other key investments, is ill-advised. There is a better way.

I urge Members to oppose the amendment.

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