'What's Been Happening Is Backwards': Lois Frankel Grills Sec. Rubio On The State Dept. Budget

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At a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) questioned Sec. Marco Rubio about his budget proposal.

Transcript

00:00to the distinguished ranking member. You're recognized.

00:04Thank you. And I agree, Mr. Chairman, in terms of Iran, no enrichment, but no funding proxies.

00:10We've got to stop their terrorist activities. Mr. Secretary, we all like efficiency,

00:16and every president has a right to review programs. But with all due respect, it just

00:22seems to me what's been happening is backwards. Congress, we created USAID as an independent

00:29agency. Then without Congress, the administration has unilaterally dismantled USAID. Now you're

00:37bringing some functions, you say, over to the State Department. So I just want to ask you about

00:44what's going on with all these people who are working, first of all, who are working for the

00:48USAID. There are thousands of them all over the world, I understand. Some have been brought back,

00:54some haven't, and they have been what's called, I guess, some are waiting until June or July and

01:01they will be permanently fired. Maybe you can give me those statistics. Under Title V authorities,

01:07if an agency function is transferred to another agency, you must hire the employees from the old

01:12agency first. Is that something that you're going to do? Well, first of all, you're right about

01:18employees are in staggered return status. Some of them, frankly, are because their kids are finishing

01:22school or some medical need or a pregnancy. And so we wanted to be accommodating. We've actually

01:26allowed some to come back as late as September, October, depending. As far as the function is

01:31concerned, well, the function will be the same. In essence, humanitarian assistance, food aid,

01:35but it'll be conducted out of the State Department and with new contracts. And we are in the process

01:40today of hopefully by July 1st having personnel in place to assume these responsibilities. And some of

01:46them will be former USAID employees. In fact, we're involved in the interview process now.

01:50I can't give you a percentage of how many will be. There are some others that maybe have not done,

01:54we're not working at USAID that are interested in applying. And there are some individuals within

01:58the State Department that perhaps have done development work in the past that would seek

02:02to transfer to that as foreign service officers or career civil servants that could fill that role.

02:07But I can tell you for certainty that we have had numerous, large number of former USAID or soon

02:13to be former USAID employees applying for employment in the State Department in these different

02:18bureaus that we're setting up. So I understand what's underway. What I don't understand is why,

02:23what was the rush about? I mean, to just upset people on a mission working, dedicated,

02:31no fault of their own. You've turned their lives upside down. But not only that,

02:35disrupted all kinds of programs and won't go through that. Why was such a rush to do that

02:40without coming to Congress and working with us as partners? Because I'll tell you,

02:45it's, it's, it's maddening. You want us to give you money for another budget. It's, it's like,

02:52it's, and you want us to rubber stamp these actions.

02:55Well, I would say that, um, these are reforms that people have talked about for a long time.

02:59As I said, multiple secretaries of state have wanted to bring the function of foreign aid,

03:03humanitarian assistance, the like, under, all of it under the umbrella of the State Department,

03:07and it never happened. And so I think in this case, quite frankly, there's just a real impatience

03:12to get to reform and to restructure. When you move at that pace, obviously, there's going to be

03:16some disruptions, as there have been. Um, I've talked to several of you during this period of

03:21time about some of this in the process, and it was a lot of hard work, but we feel like we've

03:25turned the corner and are now heading in the direction of building something that we'll be able

03:28to deliver on the national interests. Well, let me just say, in this case, uh, not having patience is

03:36not a virtue. And I, I really hope that you're going to halt some of these actions

03:41till we can actually work with you. Uh, I, there are, as, as our, uh, ranking members said,

03:48there are congressionally directed programs like family planning, democracy, education,

03:52women, peace, and security. Are these things that you are planning to continue in the State

03:57Department? Yeah, nothing that is statutory has changed in the organizational, uh, changes.

04:02We do not touch any statutory, um, functions. Um, obviously, if Congress passes, uh, uh, an authorization,

04:10you know, or an end or return reorganization, uh, obviously, and we would hope it would look

04:14a lot like ours. If we could work with you on it, then that would be ideal because it would

04:17make some of these changes permanent. The thing is, you haven't, we don't, we don't know

04:21what your plan is. This doesn't sound like you know what your plan is yet. So how do you

04:25know what your staffing needs are? I mean, you're firing all these people before you, we even

04:30know what the plan is. Well, that's in USAID. There's been no real, I mean, we've, about

04:34180 employees is the only numbers that have been released from the State Department because

04:38we got rid of an entire Bureau, the Global Engagement Center, and one other. So that,

04:42that's different from USAID. I think that's what you're referring to in terms of the large

04:46numbers. As far as our plan, well, we, here's what we did. We sort of sent a proposed

04:50organizational structure, and we're now receiving comments as a result of that proposal, including

04:56from members of this committee and your staff, and people inside of our building, and then

05:00we hope to bring you a congressional notification on reorganization on the basis of that comment

05:04period. I'm getting hammered, but I, Mr. Chair, I do, I do, I just have one very important

05:10question left, very quick, which is this, because we want to work together. But I want to ask you

05:15whether you will commit yourself to using the funds that we put in to the congressional directives

05:25of this and the next budget. Well, that's a decision OMB will have to bring before you in terms of

05:31what they seek to do with the remaining funds that are on, at this point, unspent. All right,

05:35we, we're, we're going to move on, and again, thank you.

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