FY 2010 Appropriations Slowly Getting to the Finish Line
More than a month into fiscal year 2010, House and Senate Appropriators would like to finish all the FY10 Appropriations bills sometime before Thanksgiving, but reaching this goal is looking increasingly unlikely. While the House has passed all 12 appropriations bills, the Senate still hasn’t acted on five bills, including the $48.7 billion FY10 State, Foreign Operations bill.
At the beginning of November, Congress passed another continuing resolution to keep the federal government open through Dec. 18th at current spending levels. This week, the Senate is working on its ninth bill, the $133.9 billion Military Construction-VA bill. Five bills have yet to be considered, including the FY10 State, Foreign Operations bill, which funds the largest portion of the International Affairs Budget. Given competing legislative priorities and the rapidly dwindling days Congress will be in session, it looks like several of the remaining bills may be wrapped up into an omnibus appropriations measure, as has often occurred in recent years.
Senate Passes USAID Resolution
On Monday, the Senate passed a non-binding resolution (S. Res. 312) calling on the Administration to fill the USAID Administrator position as quickly as possible. Today, the President nominated Dr. Rajiv Shah to be the Administrator. The resolution also called on the Administration to empower USAID to be the primary development agency of the United States. The resolution was passed by voice vote and comes just before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is preparing to mark-up legislation to strengthen USAID next week.
S.1524, the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act, bipartisan legislation introduced by Sens. Kerry (D-MA), Lugar (R-IN), Menendez (D-NJ), and Corker (R-TN), would strengthen the capacity, transparency, and accountability of USAID by establishing an Assistant Administrator for Policy and Strategic Planning and create a Bureau for Policy and Strategic Planning, and also establish an independent Council on Research and Evaluation of Foreign Assistance, whose primary responsibility would be to review and evaluate development programs across the entire federal government.
