Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy,
State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee,
Hearing On USAID’s FY 2007 Budget Request,
Ambassador Randall Tobias
June 8, 2006

Ambassador Tobias, we have 90 minutes to cover the entire world of USAID’s programs, so I will be very brief. 

I join Chairman McConnell in welcoming you to this Subcommittee for the first time as USAID Administrator and as the Director of Foreign Assistance.  I also want to thank you for the job you did as Global AIDS Coordinator.  My impression is that you got that program off to a good start, despite some less than helpful constraints in the law.

Yours is a heavy responsibility.  While your previous role involved some of the same countries and problems, fighting AIDS is different from reforming dysfunctional judicial systems, building potable water systems, responding to famines or hurricanes, stopping deforestation, supporting nascent political parties, or providing economic alternatives for opium growers. 

Building democratic institutions and economic systems that offer real opportunities for people to improve their lives within a just society, presents unique, long term challenges and opportunities.

Your new role will also involve more interaction with the Congress than you are accustomed to.  Some of it may not always be welcome, because in the Senate we have 100 different points of view of what’s wrong in the world and what USAID should do about it.  And you also have to deal with the House.

I hope you understand that the way we get this bill passed is by balancing the President’s priorities with the Congress’s priorities.  They are often the same, but not always.  Let me give you some friendly advice:  don’t forget who pays the bills.

You have already discovered that USAID has outstanding people.  But its staff is a fraction of the number that are needed to effectively manage programs in so many countries with so many problems.  It is also plagued by burdensome and self-defeating procurement and contracting procedures that one might expect to find in Russia, but not here.  I want to know – not today but soon – how you plan to fix these problems. 

I have long believed that the United States needs a Director of Foreign Assistance.  We need far better coordination, and I only wish your oversight extended to the international programs of other agencies besides State and USAID, like the Departments of Agriculture and Energy, the US Foreign Service and the CDC.   At the same time, there are good reasons for USAID’s autonomy, and we want to protect it.

I am concerned that there has not been nearly enough consultation with the Congress about your position or the Secretary’s “transformational diplomacy” initiative.  Your testimony today does not give us much more than the vague generalities we have heard already.  One thing we have learned over many years is that when it comes to foreign policy and foreign assistance, real reform is difficult and it doesn’t happen unless the Congress is fully on board.

We know what the problems are and there is a lot we can do to make our foreign assistance programs more effective.  But we have to work together, from the beginning, which has not been the practice of this Administration.   I hope this will be different because there is a lot at stake for all of us.

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you Ambassador Tobias for being here.

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