Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at the Full Committee Markup of the 2025 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Funding Bill

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Committee's markup of the fiscal year 2025 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs bill:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Chairman Diaz-Balart and Ranking Member Lee for your work on this bill. I would also like to thank the majority and minority staff, especially Erin Kolodjeski, Laurie Mignone and Stephanie Reed. Thank you all for keeping our names on the door.

I want to acknowledge and congratulate our dear friend, the subcommittee Ranking Member Barbara Lee on her last full committee markup. It is difficult to imagine this committee and this entire institution without Barbara Lee. Throughout her career she has fought to ensure that our nation’s democratic institutions, and our institutions of public service, are reflective of our country’s diversity. We all know her as a fearless leader, never afraid to stand for what she believes in.

As Ranking Member, Barbara Lee has been a tremendous advocate for the awesome power and influence that America wields on the global stage. Our soft power, our ability to bring other nations together for the common purposes of democracy, freedom, and human rights, is as critical to our freedom and prosperity as our defenses.

Thank you, Congresswoman Lee, for all you have done for your constituents, for California, and for our nation.

Much like last year, the fiscal year 2025 State and Foreign Operations bill resurrects the doomed isolationism of the early 20th century. Just a few months after Democrats and Republicans voted for final bipartisan 2024 funding bills, the majority proposes we decimate the State and Foreign Operations bill with a 12 percent cut from where we just were in March.

I am awestruck that the majority is once again dragging us through the same ridiculous song and dance on these appropriations bills that leads to chaos, division, and shutdown threats.

As I said throughout last year and as we proved together this spring, final spending bills will be the product of negotiations between Democrats and the Republicans in the House and in the Senate.

The majority’s topline funding levels fall short of the American people’s needs, and short of what both parties just agreed to in March, when 80 percent of the Appropriations Committee voted to pass the final 2024 Appropriations Acts.

Our starting point for 2025 must provide, at minimum, a one percent increase in defense and nondefense funding, consistent with the framework set in the Fiscal Responsibility Act that Republicans demanded. And any increase for defense beyond that one percent must be matched dollar for dollar with nondefense investments.

Democrats will accept nothing less than a one percent increase over 2024 in nondefense and defense funding. That is what the law provides for.

Let us take stock for a moment. Around the globe, America’s adversaries threaten the peace and prosperity of the free world. With wars in the Middle East and Europe and humanitarian crises on nearly every continent, the world is yearning for American leadership.

Not since the Cold War have our diplomatic influence and soft power been more critical to keeping Americans safe, yet House Republicans have proposed a bill that would diminish America’s world leadership and obstruct our ability to support our allies, deter our adversaries, surpass our competitors, maximize our influence, and continue leading the free world.

We must lead the free world. America is still the indispensable nation for any serious global action. But whether we are talking about our diplomatic strength, economic investments, or humanitarian assistance, this bill unravels the hard-fought credibility and influence we have earned to be global leaders.

This bill threatens our national security, threatens women’s health globally, hampers our response to the climate crisis, undermines our diplomatic corps by underfunding the State Department and USAID, and completely blocks support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency – leaving behind some of the most vulnerable people facing the most unthinkable conditions the world.

The majority’s bill is yet again diminishing the global standing of the United States, and what we stand for, and what our values are – for our own people and for people around the world who look to America, the world’s largest economy and oldest constitutional democracy, for inspiration and for hope.

This bill abdicates U.S. leadership at the United Nations and other multilateral and international institutions by not including any funding for the UN Regular budget, the UN Development Program, UN Women, and UNICEF. By withdrawing from these organizations, we will allow our competitors and adversaries to take our place, and to replace our influence and our values on the global stage.

And by shortchanging USAID at a time when a historic number of people are facing conflict and instability, we are abandoning the most vulnerable people in the world, and we are failing to live up to America’s ideals.

For the sake of our national security, women’s health globally, and our response to the climate crisis, Republicans must abandon their reckless and partisan path and join Democrats at the table. It is time for the majority to govern. For all of these reasons, I cannot support this bill.

Thank you, and I yield back.

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