Sen. John Kerry will be questioned by his Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) colleagues this week during his confirmation hearing to become the next Secretary of State. My colleague Jenny Ottenhoff shared what she’d like to hear members ask Kerry, including a question on the future of US foreign aid. Turns out Sen.
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) will join his fellow members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a routine confirmation hearing on January 24, but this time he won’t be holding the gavel. Instead, as President Obama’s nominee to be the next secretary of state, Sen. Kerry will take questions from the committee on how he would carry out the Obama administration's foreign policy priorities.
Following President Obama’s nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) for Secretary of Defense, preparations for what is sure to be a nasty (but from both sides of the aisle!) confirmation hearing are in full swing.
In addition to budget woes, a pivot to Asia, continued crises in the Middle East, and the unknowns the next few years will bring, the new secretary is also likely to play a role in shaping US development policies and efforts.
There's some happy news for foreign aid in the new year: the White House appointed nine members to the President's Global Development Council, the US House of Representatives passed an aid transparency bill 390-0, and the fiscal cliff deal postpones across-the-board budget cuts.
The President's Global Development Council
The House was expected to vote on the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2012 (H.R. 3159) this week but didn't quite get to it before concluding business. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), requires standard monitoring and evaluation across all US foreign aid agencies and would make the Foreign Assistance Dashboard a lasting—and required—tool to track US aid spending.
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced a 923-page rewrite of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act last week. He first vowed to rewrite the bill in 2008 when he was chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, Berman has only days left in Congress and the bill won’t go anywhere before he leaves. Still, the draft captures years of thinking about the United States’ legislative approach to foreign assistance and offers a possible blueprint for co-sponsor Gerry Connolly (D-VA) or others to carry forward.
The 113th congress will be sworn in on January 3, and – thanks to term limit rules, and a number of election losses and retirements – several important committees will see major shake-ups in leadership. In the Senate, most committees will have new ranking members, and in the House seven panels, including Appropriations and Foreign Affairs, will get new chairmen.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave a stamp of approval to two pieces of US aid reform legislation before heading out for pre-election recess this week.
After a whopping forty-four months, the White House nominated a USAID assistant administrator for legislative and public affairs yesterday. Chuck Cooper, if confirmed by the Senate, would move to USAID from a similar (though not Senate-confirmed) position at MCC. The kicker? The Senate is scheduled to recess at the end of next week until after the Nov. 6 elections. This leaves two big questions: will he be confirmed at all and if so, will he have time to make an impact?
Yesterday the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) approved the FY2013 Foreign Relations Authorization Act that it hopes will be the first authorizing bill to pass Congress in a decade. The bill aims to provide direction and guidance to appropriators and the administration as they fund and execute U.S. foreign affairs. But before you pop your confetti canisters and congratulate HFAC on a bipartisan job well done, check the fine print. The bill excludes foreign assistance—all of it.