Ranking Member DeLauro Remarks During Floor Debate on State, Foreign Operations Funding Bill

WASHINGTON –House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) delivered the following remarks on the House Floor during debate on the Fiscal Year 2027 State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs funding bill:

I thank the Ranking Member for yielding.

I want to thank Ranking Member Frankel for her leadership and work on this bill. I also want to extend my appreciation to Chairman Diaz-Balart and my friend Chairman Cole for their partnership.

Let me say a thank you to the subcommittee staff, Erin Kolodjeski, Ed Etzkorn, and Laurie Mignone on the minority side, and their counterparts on the majority, Susan Adams, Craig Higgins, Jamie McCormick, Trey Hicks, John Muscolini, Gabriella Zach, Erin McMenamin, and Clelia Alvarado. Thank you so much for all of your work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill.

It undercuts humanitarian assistance, undermines global health programs, threatens women’s health, and breaks promises to our partners and allies while surrendering influence to our adversaries.

After failing to bring this bill to the Floor for several weeks, Republican leadership have decided to attach an entirely unrelated measure that would restrict voting access for American citizens.

President Trump has insisted on this measure, despite opposition from members of his own party, because he is afraid the American people will voice their vehement disapproval of Republican-led government and the failed policies of this administration at the ballot box in November.

The president’s war with Iran has been a catastrophic failure. It has cost Americans more than $130 billion in higher prices so far. President Trump began this war with no plan, no strategy, no objective, no goal, and no understanding of the consequences.

Nearly six months into the war and the Iranian regime is still in place. The Iranian people are not free. Their ballistic missile program is intact. Their nuclear ambitions are unchanged. Their proxies are emboldened, and gas prices are rising. Their leverage is greater than it has ever been before. And President Trump has not articulated any course of action to bring this conflict to a close that is even remotely intelligible. 

The Trump Doctrine is failure followed by failure. Chaos abroad and high costs at home. And the bill we are considering today will only set us up for more failures in the future.

This bill cuts funding for global health programs, particularly in the areas of reproductive health and global health security, making us more vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks that originate abroad. 

We are seeing the consequences of this administration’s decisions to dismantle USAID, withdraw from the World Health Organization, and decimate our global health systems in real time as the current Ebola outbreak in Africa threatens to become the deadliest in history. Because it took so long to detect and due to the challenging conditions, we will likely be working to contain this outbreak for more than a year.

Aid workers are working in active combat zones, putting their own lives at risk from both infection and violence, to stop this disease from reaching our shores. And here we are, debating a bill that would further choke off resources they desperately need to keep all of us safe.

Let us not forget - the Trump administration’s choice to dismantle USAID is a moral tragedy. More than 500,000 children have died as a result of these cuts. It is unconscionable.

This bill does not provide any funding for the UN Regular Budget, abandoning one of the longest-standing institutions devoted to global peace. Undermining the UN only erodes our global influence. It also short-changes American businesses, who receive upwards of $2 billion in UN contracts both here in the United States and overseas, which is more than our dues.

The bill threatens women’s health around the globe, blocking any funds from going to the UN Population Fund, which is dedicated to reducing maternal mortality and violence against women, and extending family planning to women and girls everywhere. 

This includes work to eliminate obstetric fistula, a traumatic child-birth injury that leads to incontinence, infections, kidney disease and infertility. By failing to provide any funding for UNFPA, the conditions under which millions of women around the world live will only become worse. Approximately 260,000 women around the world died during or shortly following pregnancy in 2023. That is 700 maternal deaths every day – one maternal death every two minutes. Eliminating this funding is a moral failure.

The bill also eliminates funding for the U.S. Institute for Peace, the Inter-American Foundation, and the U.S. African Development Foundation. Each of these programs strengthen our influence abroad, helping to cultivate relationships with the next generation of global leaders and prevent crises before they arise.

This bill surrenders American influence to our adversaries. For every step backward we take, they take a step forward. Continually defunding the institutions that support America’s international presence will have serious, lasting consequences.

In less than two years, the Trump administration has squandered decades of American influence, undermining our ability to persuade other countries to support our values and interests without resorting to the use of force. This bill reduces our ability to reclaim any of that influence for years to come. 

I encourage my colleagues to oppose this bill. Thank you and I yield back.

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