Chris Sununu: “I commend the senior Senators from Vermont and New Hampshire for the fine work that they did last week in managing H.R.…”

“I commend the senior Senators from Vermont and New Hampshire for the fine work that they did last week in managing H.R. 2764, the fiscal year 2008 State Department, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act. Given how busy they were, I regret that we did not have a chance to clarify a scholarship program funded in that Act through the Middle East Partnership Initiative, MEPI. In Senate Report 110-128, the committee provides $55,000,000 for MEPI, and recommends $9,000,000 of those funds for scholarship programs for students from countries with significant Muslim populations at not-for-profit U.S. educational institutions in the Middle East. In prior year foreign aid bills, eligibility criteria for scholarship programs included those students from countries with significant Muslim populations at not-for-profit institutions of basic and higher education in the Middle East which are accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by the Secretary of Education, and that are not controlled by the government of the country in which the institution is located. Those who manage the MEPI program at the State Department added additional criteria, namely that American schools in the Middle East would be eligible only if U.S. Government dependents were enrolled in respective institutions, and only for students in the seventh through twelfth grades.”