On the recordApril 28, 2021
I rise to voice my strong support for the confirmation of Ambassador Samantha Power to be the next Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. I am confident that she brings the talent, skill, and experience required of this office and is the right person to lead this pivotal agency at a critical point in America's return to global leadership. Ambassador Power has worn many different hats throughout her sterling career--advocate, academic, advisor, and diplomat. But that trajectory has been propelled in large part by her time as a journalist, where she saw the day-to-day experiences of those living in places struggling against the tides of war, famine, genocide, and disease. She witnessed, first-hand, the tireless efforts of USAID Foreign Service officers working in partnership with local stakeholders to uplift and empower communities around the world. And those early experiences seeing the work of USAID and the challenges the agency faces continue to guide her path. Like Ambassador Power, I spent the early part of my career seeing global conflict up close. As a staffer working on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1988, I travelled to Iraq after Saddam Hussein used poison gas against the Kurdish people. It's a trip that Ambassador Power recounts in her first book, A Problem from Hell, which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 2003--and it's a trip that animates so much of the work I do in the United States Senate.…
