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Remarks of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
Ranking Member, Committee on Foreign Affairs
Full Committee Organizational Meeting
January 28, 2009
I want to join Chairman Berman in welcoming our Members, both new and returning.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you and all of our wonderful colleagues this 111th Congress.
I know that we will continue this Committee’s longstanding tradition of bipartisan cooperation in promoting our nation’s interests and ideals in an increasingly challenging world.
We on the Republican side of the aisle share your desire to see the Committee on Foreign Affairs be effective and relevant to the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, particularly through the responsible exercise of our oversight responsibilities.
Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the staff on both sides for their work on drafting the Oversight Plan we are considering today.
It is a carefully negotiated document that captures priorities on both sides, with the aim of laying out an appropriately expansive description of the topics likely to receive Committee attention over the next two years.
Of course, given the event-driven aspects of foreign policy, all of us here would agree that this plan is just that – a general plan –meant to frame, but not constrain, our likely activities during this Congress, as is recognized in the first paragraph of the Plan itself.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for including a clarification in the Oversight Plan to address our request that the Committee conduct a more extensive series of hearings on the issue of comprehensive reform of our foreign aid programs and structure.
As we all know, there are a range of serious, complex issues related to any effort to reform foreign aid.
We stand ready to roll up our sleeves and exercise our obligations as elected representatives of the American people.
Comprehensive hearings will afford us critical opportunity and, unlike roundtable discussions or informal briefings, will bring the discussions into the public domain to let the American people witness first-hand the critical work that this Committee is engaged in to make our foreign assistance programs more effective, transparent, and accountable.
We wholeheartedly support the Committee’s Oversight Plan.
In the spirit of collegiality that has characterized the work of this Committee, we also do not have any amendments to the proposed Rules package.
I want to thank the Chairman for consulting with the minority on the proposed changes to the Committee Rules for this Congress, and for incorporating some of our requests.
First, I want to thank the Chairman for honoring our request to add a new Rule 9 requirement that the Committee promptly post on its website the recorded votes on bills and amendments considered at markup.
The timely availability of this information will add another level of transparency to our proceedings, allowing the public to more closely follow our Committee’s important work, and bringing the prior Rule 9 (which allowed public inspection of those documents at Committee offices) into the 21st Century.
In order to accommodate unforeseen technical difficulties, the final text of the proposed rule allows up to five business days for posting, rather than the two-day timeframe we originally sought.
Second, I appreciate that the Chairman did not expand the Rule 6(a) language relating to staff questioning of witnesses at public hearings, although I had hoped that our request to completely remove staff questioning authority would have prevailed, as such authority does not appear in the rules of other similarly-situated committees.
As the Chairman and I have discussed, I have grave reservations about the practice of allowing staff to question witnesses on the record at official Committee hearings, for a number of reasons.
Perhaps most important, we have just been re-elected by the people of our districts, who have entrusted us with such official duties, which should not be delegated to unelected staff.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, during our organizational meeting last Congress, Chairman Lantos and I conducted an extended colloquy on his intended use of the then-new Rule provisions regarding consultation prior to the issuance of Committee subpoenas, minority access to subpoenaed documents, and the Chair’s authority to postpone votes.
Mr. Chairman, can you confirm that your intent regarding the use of those provisions is the same as that expressed on the record by the late Chairman at our January 23, 2007 organizational meeting?
Chairman Berman, let me say in conclusion how much I have appreciated your cooperation and fairness in this organizational process.
I am pleased to accept the changes you are proposing to our Committee Rules.
111th Congress Oversight plan (PDF 163KB)
111th Congress Rules of Procedure (PDF 60KB)
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