David Price: “I appreciate my colleague from Florida yielding, and I appreciate the work that she and colleagues on both sides of the…”

“I appreciate my colleague from Florida yielding, and I appreciate the work that she and colleagues on both sides of the aisle have done on this bill. I want to commend them for their work. Mr. Chairman, I do want to address an amendment yet to come, one that I hope this body will reject. This is an amendment that will be offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ratcliffe). It will be an amendment to undo the bipartisan work of our Appropriations Committee. It would terminate the Open World program at the Library of Congress, which is a major outreach effort of our legislative branch in Russia and former Soviet and Soviet bloc countries. At a time when these countries' democracies and sovereignty are under threat, the Open World program, I believe, is more important than ever. This isn't President Putin's favorite activity, as others have stated. That puts it very mildly, believe me. But he has not been able to stop it. It is now more important than ever, not just in Russia but in fragile democracies and would-be democracies, such as Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia. This is the best program of its kind that I have ever seen. And I have a lot of personal experience with Open World groups that have come to Washington and have come to my district. This is a program unique in both scope and concept. Most participants aren't the people who typically participate in international exchange programs.…”