Ranking Member Barbara Lee Statement at the Subcommittee Markup of the 2024 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Funding Bill

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA-12), Ranking Member of the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's markup of the fiscal year 2024 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs funding bill:

– As Prepared for Delivery –

Thank you Chairman Diaz Balart, Chairwoman Granger, and Ranking Member DeLauro.

The work of the State, Foreign Operations Committee is near and dear to me. I believe strongly in the importance of lifting people up, addressing inequities and injustice, and tackling problems that our country faces by working in partnership with others. That is why the House mark we are considering today is so deeply disturbing to me.

First, as discussed last week, the allocation being presented to us today for the programs of the State Department, USAID, and other related programs is wholly inadequate. Republicans clearly understand this because they have had to make up for the absurdly low allocation by including a cynical rescission of a tax credit to our own constituents from the Inflation Reduction Act. Even with these rescissions, this bill is 12% lower than our current funding and 24% lower than what the Administration thinks we need to meet our global commitments. Global investment and engagement are more important than ever. This bill fails to meet the challenges of our time.

There is a lot in the bill about mis- and dis-information. But here are some facts. 

People are fleeing their home countries in record numbers. There are 108.4 million people forcibly displaced, the largest number in history. Yes, some of them are coming to our border, but millions are fleeing into countries even less equipped to deal with these flows.

One in every four countries have populations facing severe hunger, exacerbating conflict and instability. In West Africa, a third of the children are stunted and not able to typically develop physically and intellectually. Lack of response will affect us for generations.

600 million people are already living in areas that are unfit for human life due to climate change. They are already experiencing life-threatening heat waves, water shortages, and coastal flooding. Some of our allies are threatened with literally being swallowed by the ocean. We can pretend that it doesn’t exist, but we are all going to have to live with the consequences. 

This bill ignores these realities. It views the world in a black and white, good and evil paradigm. If we don’t like everything about an organization or can’t control all their actions, this bill prohibits funding it. It is our way or the highway. 

Believe me, that is not the approach that the government of the PRC is taking. The PRC is not applying litmus tests. They are offering help. Most people I speak to around the world would prefer to partner with the United States. But with this bill, the majority is pushing people into the arms of the PRC for help.

As the former Chair of this Subcommittee, I understand the difficulties of writing a SFOPS bill, but I am deeply disturbed by the path this takes us down. Politics is supposed to stop at the water’s edge, right? This is a deeply political bill that seeks to satisfy the most extreme among us without consideration of the real-life consequences for our national security and the well-being of our allies.

What would it truly mean to defund the United Nations? This mark would do that. The bill says it takes a hard line on countries that don’t share our values, but it removes conditions on human rights, political prisoners, and corruption on countries we know struggle with these challenges. It asks our diplomats and development professionals to do more monitoring, reporting and oversight, but shortchanges them of the funding they need for operations and staffing. The bill invites the culture wars into our foreign policy by making diversity, drag queens, and Critical Race Theory bogeymen distracting us from the real life or death challenges this world faces. 

The bill also takes a dishonest approach to the threat posed by climate change. People are confronting the impacts of human-caused climate change right now—life threatening temperatures, crop failures, floods and severe weather. They need help confronting the problem we created. Yet the majority wants to pretend that our climate finance investments are about controlling the planet’s temperature, like some sort of global thermostat. That’s now how it works. We have countries that might literally not exist in a generation because of the changes that are already happening. Failing to invest in adapting to the new reality means conflict and crisis puts Americans and people everywhere at risk.

One area that the bill does prioritize is global health, but then undercuts these investments by curtailing partnerships that would make every investment go further and be more sustainable. The World Health Organization is not perfect - no organization is – but coming out of a global pandemic that killed 7 million people globally, we are not going to participate in the one global table focused on coordination around health threats? 

Around the world, 218 million women still do not have access to the tools needed to decide when and how to have a baby and hundreds of thousands die in childbirth, but we are going to make it harder for women to access care through both policies and reduced funding? We are going to cut off UNFPA, the one partner that provides services to mothers and their babies in the hardest places?

I am most upset about how this bill attacks efforts to strengthen diversity in our foreign policy workforce. I was very proud to be the first African American to chair the State Foreign Operations Subcommittee. Mr. Chairman, I believe you are the first Hispanic member to serve as chair. This is historic and important as we talk about engagement and priorities with the rest of the world. People around the world—religious and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people—look first to the United States for support and inspiration as they seek to claim their human rights. 

The rich diversity of the United States is one of our greatest strengths. It is unimaginable to me that my Republican colleagues see a threat in considering how to make sure that our diplomats and development experts reflect and respect that same diversity.

I know many of my Republican colleagues support the investments in the SFOPS bill—because I have seen the thousands of requests Members submitted in prior years. And yet this bill is being held hostage by a small group of right-wing members that reject compromise or negotiation, and reject the value of federal investment to address America’s challenges. 

Today’s House mark would have severe consequences for United States leadership, our ability to work with others on shared challenges, and our long-term national security. The world is full of threats that don’t respect borders, from climate change, to pandemics, to assertive dictators. We can’t stick our head in the sand and hope it will all go away. 

It is deeply disappointing to me that I will not be able to support this bill in its current form. Democrats will not support a bill if it would mean turning our backs to the world’s most vulnerable women or the looming threat of climate change. We all know that, in the end, final appropriations bills will need bicameral and bipartisan support. I sincerely hope that we have an opportunity to improve this bill going forward.

I yield back.