On the recordDecember 30, 2012
I thank the gentlewoman and appreciate her yielding me this time. I want to thank Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Berman, and House leadership for getting this bill to the House floor, and also Mr. Connolly from Virginia for his support of this legislation. {time} 1820 Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3159, the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, is a simple, bipartisan bill. We have, in fact, equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats as cosponsors of this legislation. Last year, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed this bill unanimously as an amendment to the state authorization bill. This bill does two things: it increases monitoring and evaluation of our foreign aid programs, and it also increases transparency of foreign aid. Our foreign aid can do some good to other countries, but there are also problems with American foreign aid. Unfortunately, we do not keep track of what we're spending, and we don't ask for real results. Since the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, foreign aid programs have spread across 12 departments, 25 agencies, and almost 60 Federal offices. There are so many Federal Government programs that they often don't know what each other is doing, and many Federal Government programs don't even keep track of what they're doing. According to an independent study commissioned by USAID in 2009, agencies don't assess the impact their aid is having on foreign countries: Do we know if our money actually helps people?…
