Rod Grams: “as the subcommittee chairman with jurisdiction over the bill before us today, I worked diligently with members on both…”

“as the subcommittee chairman with jurisdiction over the bill before us today, I worked diligently with members on both sides of the aisle, and with the administration, to craft legislation which will strengthen America's leadership role in the international arena. This package reorganizes our foreign relations bureaucracy, establishes benchmarks for the payment of U.N. arrears, and prioritizes our international affairs expenditures. We need a more effective foreign affairs apparatus, both at home and at the United Nations, in order to confront the challenges to peace and security in the future. This bipartisan agreement is the result of a good-faith effort to accommodate conflicting perspectives on how we, as a nation, should mobilize our resources. There were tough, lengthy negotiations on this package. We had to reconcile competing interests, and as a result, nobody is completely satisfied with the final product. I will be the first to say that this bill is not perfect. I would have preferred much more in the way of reforms and budget discipline. But this is a good agreement; and in this case, we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I want to reassure my colleagues that I am open to oversight hearings that would address their concerns and closely examine the implementation of the changes we have made. In order to effectively safeguard the national interest, we must reorganize our foreign policy apparatus.”