In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” today, Ranking Member Elijah Cummings called on House Republicans to join him in passing a supplemental appropriations bill to replenish the State Department’s embassy security accounts, which House Republicans voted to slash by nearly half a billion dollars over the last two fiscal years.
 
“I’m hoping that they will join me in getting emergency supplemental for our embassies so we can protect our people,” Cummings said on the show, pressing again on a request he made at the Committee’s hearing last week.
 
Since gaining the majority in 2011, House Republicans have voted to reduce embassy security funding by approximately half a billion dollars below the amounts requested by the Obama Administration.  Although the Senate has been able to restore a small portion of these funds, the final appropriations enacted by Congress in the previous two Fiscal Years have been far below the amounts requested by the Administration for embassy security, and far below the levels enacted in Fiscal Year 2010, the last year Democrats controlled the House.
 
Also on the show, Committee Chairman Darrell Issa admitted that Republicans cut embassy security funding well below the amounts the President asked for, and he suggested that Republicans would now entertain new requests.

CONTACT: Ashley Etienne, 202-226-5181