Executives Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to seek unanimous consent to proceed to the consideration of two very qualified nominees to USAID. They are the kind of nominees who, in previous Congresses, would have been approved, without debate, through voice vote. I will make the motion, expecting, unfortunately, an objection. Then I will proceed to comments on why I think this is incredibly damaging to the United States to not proceed forward with these nominees.

323 and Calendar No. 337; that the nominations be confirmed; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order on the nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I would just ask unanimous consent for two incredibly qualified, noncontroversial Administrators at USAID.

Isobel Coleman is the nominee to be the USAID Deputy Administrator. She is a seasoned foreign policy professional who has been nominated by the President to oversee and provide strategic leadership over the Agency's programs. She has been previously confirmed by this body by unanimous consent. for Management and Reform in December of 2014. She is a former Ambassador, and she has spent 20 years in the study and practice of global development. She has worked in the public and the private sectors.

Ms. Escobari is a regional expert on Latin America and the Caribbean. She has previously served in the exact same role at the Agency, and she has done really incredible work reinforcing U.S. support work for Peace Colombia. She has been heavily engaged in the long-term development plan for Haiti, as well as in Congress's plans to double funding for Central America to try to stem the root causes of migration.

I think it is incredibly concerning that this blockade of capable diplomats, professional diplomats, continues on the Senate floor. By this time in the Trump administration, President Trump had had 22 Ambassadors who had been confirmed by the U.S. Senate, 17 of them by voice vote. Thus far, President Biden has had 4 Ambassadors confirmed.

Today, I was asking for consideration not of Ambassadors but of professionals who oversee the expenditure of U.S. taxpayer dollars abroad. There is nothing that Senate Republicans can do to stop the expenditure of taxpayer dollars in the Caribbean or Latin America. What they are preventing is the appointment and seating of individuals who oversee that funding, who represent us abroad.

This blockade--this unprecedented blockade--has never happened before in the history of the Senate. This kind of obstruction of standing in the way of the President's diplomatic team being seated compromises our national security. It makes us weaker as a nation.

As the President heads to the G20, he doesn't have Ambassadors seated to most of the countries with which he is going to be conducting diplomatic negotiations and relations. USAID, today, only has two Senate-confirmed positions, leaving most of its top leadership positions vacant.

So forgive my sense of outrage when I listen to the minority leader come down to the Senate floor and chide the Biden administration for not having a strong enough policy in the Middle East when his minority is using its power to block Ambassadors to the Middle East and is using its power to stop an Assistant Secretary to the Middle East from being seated.

You can't have it both ways. You can't come down to the Senate floor and eviscerate the President's foreign policy and then deliberately stop him from having the personnel to conduct that foreign policy. It is like tying your buddy's hands behind his back and then criticizing him for not fighting back against a bully.

USAID is at the center of our COVID response. There is no way to protect this Nation from this pandemic or future pandemics if we don't have individuals who are confirmed at the top echelons of USAID.

I understand Senator Marshall's objection to be over questions he has about gain-of-function research that may or may not have been conducted in Wuhan.

What does Marcela Escobari--the nominee to be the USAID Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean--have to do with gain-of-function research in China?

First of all, I can show you fact check after fact check that suggests these allegations about gain-of-function research being funded in China are false, but even if the Senator thinks there is a legitimate question, what does that have to do with our ability to efficiently spend taxpayer dollars in Latin America and the Caribbean?

We just had two massive national disasters happen in Haiti. USAID is managing that response. It is spending taxpayer dollars right now.

Why wouldn't we want to have somebody overseeing that spending? Why is that a responsible exercise of U.S. taxpayer dollars to deny our taxpayers the ability to know that there is someone, confirmed by the Senate, overseeing the expenditure of their money in places like Haiti?

How do you complain about the border and then deny the President the personnel necessary to oversee migration from the Northern Triangle northward to the U.S. border?

One of the nominees we snuck through was the Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, but USAID, right now, is engaged in programming designed to stabilize the economic and security environment in the Northern Triangle. I think both parties agree that this is a key component of our strategy to prevent migration that ends in crises at the border.

Once again, the Republicans are denying the President the ability to have personnel in place that will address the border crisis. Once again, the minority is denying the President the ability to have people in place who could oversee our COVID response. Once again, the minority is denying the President the ability to have people in place who will oversee our strategy in the Middle East.

This is an attempt to decapitate American diplomacy. This is an attempt to stop the President from being able to conduct the business of the executive branch. Never before has this happened. Never before has the minority used this amount of its power to slow down the confirmation of Ambassadors.

Yes, we can spend floor time on every single one of these Assistant Administrators, but we have never done that before. When it comes to somebody like Marcela Escobari or Isobel Coleman--people who are nonpolitical, who are unquestionably qualified to do these jobs--we have approved those kinds of nominations through unanimous consent. They have proceeded by voice vote because to require hours of debate on every single one of these nominees would be to gum up the works of the U.S. Senate.

That is why we have had this informal agreement over the years. It is in order to move these kinds of noncontroversial, nonpolitical nominees expeditiously. That agreement, obviously, has fallen apart, and the cost not only comes to the reputation and the comity of the U.S. Senate but to the security of the Nation.

You cannot complain about this President's foreign policy, as Republicans, if you are, at the same time, using extraordinary powers to deny the President the ability to have diplomats abroad to represent us. It is making us weaker as a nation, and it should stop immediately.

I am very sorry that the Senator from Kansas has come to the floor to object to two incredibly qualified, noncontroversial nominees to USAID. I hope this blockade comes to an end soon.

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