Mark Kirk

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Libyan dictator Qaddafi spoke to the U.N. for almost 2 hours. Here on the Hill on the same day, we received a State Department notification proposing $400,000 in U.S. taxpayer money for the foundations of Qaddafi's son and daughter. You heard that right. After the murders of 189 Americans aboard Pan Am flight 103 and after watching the bomber being welcomed home from Scotland, the administration is proposing donating $200,000 to Saif Qaddafi's Qaddafi Development Foundation. Recall that Qaddafi's son, Saif, organized the ``welcome home'' ceremony for the Pan Am bomber. The administration also is proposing donating $200,000 in taxpayer funds to the Waettasmeno/UNDP foundation, which is run by Qaddafi's daughter, Ayesha. She is also conveniently the head of Libya's UNDP. This is part of a $2.5 million grant proposed for Libya by the Obama administration--U.S. funding for an oil-rich OPEC nation which is responsible for U.S. national security problems across Africa.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, during the vote on H.R. 3548, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009, I was unavoidably detained--had I been present I would have voted for this legislation. Americans are struggling to make ends meet in this economy. Retirement savings are disappearing, families have seen their portfolios drop, and according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security, the unemployment rate in Illinois is at 10 percent--.3 percent higher than the national average has been in 26 years. I support giving unemployment benefits to people who lost their jobs. In tough economic times, the federal government should offer additional assistance and H.R. 3548 does that by extending unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks for individuals living in States with unemployment rates above 8.5 percent.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, when interest rates go up, the value of bonds go down. But this presents a dilemma for the newest and largest bondholder on Earth, the Federal Reserve. With interest rates low, quantitative easing policies and record spending, inflation is coming. Normally, we would expect the Fed to raise interest rates to protect the value of our dollars from runaway inflation, but now that the Feds owe over $1 trillion in bonds, an interest rate boost of only 70 basis points would trigger a loss of the entire $51 billion of the Fed's remaining net capital. Robert Eisenbeis, the former vice president for the Atlanta Fed, has highlighted this danger. With inflation coming, we do not want the losses that the Feds would have to their own holdings to stop them from doing what will be needed to protect us, and especially seniors, from next year's expected inflation.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, today I offer my strong support for the Coral Reef Conservation Act Reauthorization and Enhancement Amendments. Coral reefs are unique ecosystems that support over one million species globally, offer essential protection from hurricanes, typhoons, and tsunamis, and attract millions of vacationers each year. Unfortunately, these reefs face unparalleled dangers today from pollution, overfishing, coastal development, disease, habitat fragmentation, ship groundings, and warming waters. Ten percent of coral reefs have already disappeared from U.S. waters alone while over seventy percent of the world's reefs are threatened. If this trend continues, more than forty percent of global coral reefs will be lost in the next two to ten years. The Coral Reef Conservation Act Reauthorization addresses the coral reef crisis by taking strong actions in response to physical damages to reefs by developing scientific management strategies to promote reef resilience. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation critical to conserving our oceans' greatest treasures.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. History is not kind to leaders who sacrifice our Polish allies. News reports indicate that our administration will end plans to build the long-planned American missile defense site for Poland. That site, carefully picked by the Pentagon, is directly under the flight path an Iranian missile would take if shot at the American people. The U.N. reports that Iran has accelerated its production of uranium. And last February, Iran became the first new nation to orbit a satellite when its newest and most powerful missile worked. Iran, a state sponsor of terror, now makes the longest range missile of the terrorist world. The administration's decision is particularly ironic because Poland just announced it would be sending more troops to serve alongside Americans in Afghanistan. America is going to let Poland down, sending a message of weakness to our Polish allies and the people building Iran's new missile arsenal.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Madam Speaker, the administration is preparing to establish guidelines for the review and potential release of Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists held at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, BTIF, in Afghanistan. This facility holds over 500 of the most dangerous Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists captured on the Afghan battlefield. According to The Washington Post and The New York Times, each detainee will be given a counselor to grant rights and to review their potential release procedures. The press reports that the new guidelines were approved with a brief and limited congressional review. We know over 50 detainees released from Guantanamo Bay resumed jihad against Americans. The release of terrorists from the Bagram facility will form a clear and present danger to Americans serving in Afghanistan. I urge Members to sign our letter to Secretary Gates, asking him to delay the release of these guidelines until Congress holds hearings and especially until all of our soldiers in Afghanistan are briefed on this potential danger.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Dolph Chianchiano, Senior Vice President for Health Policy and Research, for his 30 years of service to the National Kidney Foundation. As the co-chair of the Congressional Kidney Caucus, I have come to understand the need for kidney patients to have a strong advocate, and they certainly have one with Dolph. Few people can say they have made a direct impact on the lives of millions of Americans as Dolph Chianchiano can. He has guided the NKF on almost every legislative and policy decision in the history of the Medicare ESRD program, which started 35 years ago. He helped shape the National Organ Transplant Act in 1984, the Benefits Improvement and Protection Act in 2000, the Organ Donation and Recovery Improvement Act in 2004 and Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act in 2008. These laws have helped raise the standards for dialysis facilities, establish, regulate and improve the organ donation process, and provide funding for education, early screening and life-saving treatments for kidney patients. He has been diligent to make sure that the promise of legislation becomes a reality for patients, making sure that the laws are implemented well through rulemakings and that appropriations follow the authorizing legislation. His ability to work to build support in the kidney community and his institutional memory of regulations and legislation over three decades makes his work even more profound. We know Dolph's work will continue and for that we are thankful. But today, I want to honor him for his passion, commitment and dedication to kidney and transplant patients for the past 30 years and wish him the best as we work together to improve the lives of people touched by kidney disease.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. I rise in support of this amendment. Coming from Illinois, we know the pace and timing of a Federal investigation. I think it's fairly clear that PMA and several principals will now be indicted. To protect this House and to protect the Appropriations Committee, I think having a strategic pause in the spending of this money is necessary. It's clear that PMA and its key folks with so many Federal resources now dedicated to this investigation are going to face Federal criminal prosecution. So to protect this House, this is a wise amendment to put forward to make sure that we can be beyond reproach. As someone who comes from Governor Blagojevich's State and already knows how Federal prosecutions and work goes forward, so many resources have been put forward on this case already that it is clear that an indictment is coming forward. And to protect this House, I think we should adopt the amendment.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, some are urging Congress to back a $1 trillion government health care bill because they claim 50 million Americans are uninsured. But when you hear the rest of the story, the numbers fall apart. While the Census reports that 45.7 million people lacked insurance during some portion of the year, we find that 9.5 million are non-citizens or illegal aliens, 12 million are eligible for public programs but have not bothered to enroll, 9 million lacked insurance for less than a year, and 7.3 million make over $84,000 a year but have chosen not to buy insurance. When you do that math, you find that there are 7.8 million lower- income, long-term, uninsured American citizens. But this smaller number is not big enough to justify $1 trillion and raising your taxes to rates higher than France, which is why congressional leaders hope you do not look under the hood of their bill or the numbers they use to justify it.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, the worst State for health insurance in the country is New Jersey at $5,500 a patient. The best is California at $2,500 each. California has lawsuit reform to reduce the need for expensive defensive medicine and larger insurance pools to lower average risk For this Congress, Republican moderates wrote a health reform bill to repeat these successes, lowering the costs for all Americans and expanding coverage. Indications are we will not be allowed to vote on these commonsense reforms. Instead, we will vote on a bill that is 1,000 pages long, at $1 billion a page, costing $1 trillion, raising taxes in the teeth of this recession to marginal rates higher than France. I urge Members to reject this bill and put forward a commonsense set of reforms that will lower health costs without raising taxes.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Madam Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 596, 597, 598, 599, 600, 601 and 602 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, this is what the House government health care bill creates: $1 trillion, 1,000 pages, $1 billion per page. Here is the patient, and over here is the doctor. Now, moderate Republicans have a much better plan we will put forward. Our Medical Rights Act says Congress cannot restrict the decisions of you and your doctor and eliminates the need for all of this, and puts you right next to your physician, without the need for $1 trillion in spending.

Mr. KIRK

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I'm pleased to join Chairwoman Lowey at the beginning of the consideration of this bill making appropriations for fiscal year 2010 for the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. This bill funds programs that safeguard our national security and promote U.S. interests abroad. It was first founded under the auspices of the Marshall Plan under the understanding that good diplomacy and development can dramatically reduce national security problems and troop deployments for the United States. I want to commend Chairwoman Lowey for her bipartisan work on this bill. She's listened to concerns of Members on this side of the aisle and worked to address them. I also want to thank the staff both on this and the other side of the aisle for so many long hours of work on this. That's Nisha Desai- Biswal, Craig Higgins, Steve Marchese, Michele Sumilas, Cecilia Alvarado, and Courtney Dunn. I also particularly want to thank Ann Marie Chotvacs, Mike Ringler, Alice Hogans, and Jason Small. I know that Ms. Lowey and Ranking Member Granger, who is out today, appreciate their personal office staffs' work on this bill, especially Ann Vaughan and Rachel Carter. And I particularly want to thank my staff, particularly Rich Goldberg. Now, on this legislation, we make one big key change, and that is with regard to the International Atomic Energy Agency's new report on the Iran nuclear program and related responses of the United States to their report. They showed that after producing low-enriched uranium at a rate of 40 kilograms per month over a 21-month period, Iran has now increased its stockpile by 60 percent in just 6 months, doubling its rate to over 80 kilograms of enriched uranium per month. We know that Iran's greatest weakness remains her economic dependence on foreign gasoline. And we can all agree that the United States taxpayers should not be asked to help increase the supply of gasoline to Iran, especially now, especially after what we saw after the Iranian elections. Surprisingly, this is exactly what our taxpayer dollars have been doing. In 2007 and 2008, the U.S. Export-Import Bank approved two separate loan guarantees totaling $900 million to expand the largest refinery owned by Reliance Industries Limited, an Indian company that provides roughly one-third of Iran's daily import of gasoline. In effect, the U.S. taxpayer is underwriting the increased supplies of gasoline to Iran. This bill includes the Kirk-Sherman amendment to prohibit further use of taxpayer dollars to guarantee or insure or extend credit to any company that supplies gasoline to Iran. I think that is a very important step that leads off to legislation that Chairman Berman and I have put forward that we hope, later in the year from the authorizing committee, that will begin to truly squeeze Iran and her need for foreign gasoline. Now with regard to the overall bill, I am disappointed that we have departed from the tradition of considering appropriations under an open rule. I first worked on the Foreign Operations bill of fiscal year 1984. I was taught appropriations at the foot of Appropriations chairmen Jamie Whitten and Bill Natcher. It was under these historic chairmen that we always considered appropriations bills under an open rule, protected under clause 2 of rule XXI that only monetary amendments could be offered. Now we have departed from the long tradition established by Jamie Whitten and Bill Natcher. The rule that governs this bill makes in order only eight of 89 amendments, a 90 percent death rate for amendments in the Rules Committee on what used to be an open rule. I would suggest that the partisan pressures under Speaker Wright, under Speaker Foley, were as bad or worse as now, but we are responding with highly restrictive rules that I think hurt our committee in the long run. I hope that we can address this soon and return to what I would call the Whitten-Natcher tradition. Now let me turn to the substance of this bill, the product of work of especially Chairwoman Lowey and Ranking Member Granger. The American people are aware that we face many global challenges that are well addressed in this bill. The funds provide security assistance to our allies in support countries living in some pretty dangerous neighborhoods. There is another reality of this bill and that is the financial crisis that we see and that we are helping countries through so that they do not collapse, triggering some sort of new global economic downturn. The allocation given to the subcommittee, $48.8 billion, is an amount, when strictly compared to last year's base, that is very high. But the administration has pledged to eliminate the wartime supplemental spending in favor of a regular appropriations process. If it sticks to that plan, then funding levels in this bill appear to be much more reasonable, and it includes programs for State and USAID operations that I support. I have to admit, though, I remain in doubt whether the administration really will not request a supplemental next year. In fact, I probably would lay a dollar bet with anyone that we probably will see a supplemental. I hope not. Chairman Murtha has already suggested that supplemental funds may be needed to sustain our troops because of the 302(b) allocation that his Defense Subcommittee received that in his view may not cover all of the FY 2010 needs. In that case, I hope we could restrict funding under this bill. Now, I know Chairwoman Lowey and Ms. Granger have worked together on a number of very good governance provisions such as language to strengthen oversight of hiring, training and deployment of new staff funded by this bill; and a provision that launches a comprehensive review of roughly $8 billion in global health funding provided by this bill. Too often we forget that the United States has made the largest commitment of health funding ever in the history of mankind. It is something that the United States hasn't yet received enough credit for. They also agree to language that closely mirrors the fiscal year 2008 bill which prevents U.S. taxpayer dollars from going to organizations that support or participate in involuntary or coercive methods of family planning, and that was the bipartisan commitment that Chairwoman Lowey just alluded to. The bill also includes amendments from several of my colleagues offered in full committee, particularly like a provision requiring the Secretary of State to report to Congress on deals brokered with foreign nations that receive detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, like Palau. The June 10, 2009, New York Times reported that the United States has agreed to provide Palau with $200 million in return for receiving 17 suspected Uyghur terrorists from Guantanamo Bay. Now, according to the CIA Factbook, Palau has a population of only 20,796 people. Its GDP is only $164 million. Under this commitment then, the U.S. would be paying the Republic of Palau nearly $11.7 million per Uyghur terrorist. With average incomes in the United States of $56,000, $200 million would support incomes of over 3,500 Americans; with tuition at $25,000 a year annually, it could put 7,000 students through college for a year. And $200 million also compares poorly to the cost of Guantanamo Bay itself. Guantanamo Bay, as a total facility, cost just $54 million to build. This would be four times that amount for just 17 Uyghurs. There is also an amendment in this bill for new oversight and sunset restrictions on funding provided to the International Monetary Fund in the fiscal year 2009 supplemental, and language affirming intellectual property rights protections for U.S. energy and environmental technologies, critical in the G-8 discussions right now and the coming Copenhagen discussions in which China and India have pledged to require compulsory licensing over all climate change and energy technology. Compulsory licensing is a code word for stealing U.S. patents. There will be no green jobs if that provision goes through in the Copenhagen treaty. I am very happy that the House voted nearly unanimously on the Larson-Kirk amendment to prevent that. Now, Chairwoman Lowey has also described highlights of the bill. I will simply reiterate three very important items related to our national security. This bill includes $1.4 billion for the expanded work of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a $525 million increase to support prosperity and security of our partners around the developing world, a very important program that underlies the key point you cannot have long-term development without policy reform. You can build a dam, but if the government steals everything, all you will have is an empty structure a few years later. The MCC works to address that very problem in an effective way. When taken together with supplemental funds, this bill fully funds our security assistance request for our strategic allies in the Middle East like Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, and continues the fight against illegal drug trafficking in this hemisphere. I think especially with Ranking Member Granger's full backing, we have full funding for the pending request for Mexico and Central America by providing $7 million above the request, also for continued gains made in Colombia. In summary, this bill is focused on furthering foreign policy and national security interests. It monitors the wise use of our tax dollars and achieves some fairly balanced solutions to some complex problems leading to what I hope will be a fairly bipartisan debate today. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KIRK. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw), a distinguished member of the subcommittee.

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I just want to thank my colleague from New Jersey for his leadership on this. UNRWA is an organization that is utterly irresponsibly run. Any corporation in America of UNRWA's size--which is $400 million a year-- would have an outside independent audit, and yet UNRWA has never had that--and in fact doesn't want it. UNRWA's staff has met with Republicans and Democrats up here and admitted that they, indeed, do make martyr payments to people that have carried out attacks against the people of Israel. And then we've seen all the video of mortar rocket attacks being used from UNRWA schools where UNRWA security personnel clearly could have prevented that. This bill helps increase the heat on UNRWA, one of the least accountable U.N. agencies. And I really want to thank the gentleman for his leadership on that.

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. I want to thank the gentleman because I have worked very closely with him to support I think one of the key combat-support elements of this bill, which is the National Solidarity Program of the Government of Afghanistan. We won the war in El Salvador largely through the help of a program called Mayors in Action, in which we funded programs totaling between $5,000 and then $10,000, as long as the community could come together and decide on what project. Having government services and activities in support of the El Salvadoran Government quickly undercut the insurgency and helped win a counterinsurgency campaign there. Based on the success of that program and others, the National Solidarity Program is now operating in Afghanistan. This bill provides $175 million, largely through the leadership of the gentleman from New York. When I deployed to Afghanistan in December, I spent quite a lot of time working with Monty Greer and Minister Zia, who described how this program is now in hundreds of villages throughout Afghanistan, but they had a funding shortfall. And working with General Nicholson of ISAF Region South, we put together a plan so that this bill would fund community development programs right behind the advance of U.S. troops. It has been little noticed so far in this body that 2 weeks ago the United States Marine Corps launched an offensive in the key poppy- growing region of Afghanistan called Helmand Province, and it was that funding shortfall which would have not enabled U.S. troops to have the money to do community development projects right in the wake of their advance, along with the Afghan troops. This legislation allows them to have those tools right away so that the Afghan people will see progress in community development right behind the battlefield. It makes our chances of success much greater. It makes the sustainment and expansion of the Afghan Government much more likely. And bottom line, I think it will save a number of lives, especially for those of our constituents right now working for what sometimes has been called ``Uncle Sam's misguided children,'' otherwise known as the United States Marine Corps. I yield to the gentleman who has worked with me so much with Minister Zia on this.

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KIRK. I yield myself such time as I may consume. It's also important to note that this bill carries forward the Kirk amendment that now prohibits any U.S. assistance to a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas--a terrorist organization, as designated by the United States, President Clinton, President Bush and I believe now President Obama--unless every member of the new Palestinian Government has publicly, in writing, recognized Israel's right to exist and renounced terrorism. Over 20 United States citizens have been murdered directly by Hamas, and having this provision included in this legislation I think is very important. Also, this legislation reverses the administration's proposed cut for U.S. assistance to Armenia. We provide $48 million in economic aid and $3 million in military aid for Armenia while maintaining military funding parity with Azerbaijan and providing $10 million in assistance to Nagorno-Karabakh. The bill also includes a new requirement for the administration to consult with Congress before exercising its waiver authority for assistance to Azerbaijan granted under section 907 of the Foreign Assistance Act. Now, according to the Congressional Research Service, between 100,000 and 500,000 Korean Americans still have family living in North Korea. Almost all of them have not seen their loved ones since the end of the Korean War, while many have not seen family members even since World War II. In the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries, elderly Korean Americans are forced to contact their relatives without the protection of the U.S. Embassy or help from the State Department. Families are at the mercy of a black market group of smuggling rings that control access to North Korea. This legislation urges the State Department Policy Coordinator for North Korea to make the issue of divided American citizen families who have their relatives in North Korea a priority and to establish a coordinator for this issue. One last thing I want to highlight. As the United States draws down our troop commitment to Iraq, and we have tremendous concerns about safe and secure and sustainable homes and businesses for Iraq's embattled Christian minority, this bill provides a historic $20 million dedicated to religious minorities in Iraq, a big step forward for building an autonomous administrative region for Chaldo Assyrians in the Nineveh Plain. It's an important group that we should be concerned about, especially as the United States leaves Iraq. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. We rarely do this under this legislation, but we also have an important tradition of highlighting human rights cases, especially if they set a particularly dangerous precedent. And one of the most concerning precedents is the one set by the Government of Egypt when they imprisoned Kareem Amer, who is the first blogger ever to be arrested for what he wrote on his Internet blog, calling for reconciliation between Muslims and Jews on his personal blog. He was convicted. He's currently serving in prison, and it is a particularly dangerous precedent to have set that merely what you may write in your Internet blog will land you in jail. It's interesting to me, too, that of all the Muslim countries around the world, Egypt set the precedent, and of all the countries around the world that could have set this precedent against the freedom of speech on the Internet, it was one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign assistance under this act. We have not gone to the step yet of dramatically affecting the U.S. assistance provided by this, but we do have to highlight Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman, his full legal name, and his time in jail, a very dangerous precedent under Egyptian law and one that should be highlighted here. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished minority whip, Mr. Cantor.

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I want to highlight a key provision of this bill, section 7006, which withholds 10 percent of the funding under this legislation for the Board of International Broadcasting, Radio Deewa. This is a service actually that the chairwoman and I helped sponsor and get rolling because of our perception that there was very little international broadcasting service and outside information in the main language of northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan of Pashtun. But we found that they were putting Batula Massoud on the U.S. taxpayer-funded radio, giving him a platform just 6 days after the Secretary of State put him on the Rewards for Justice terrorism list for his crimes against a number of terrorist targets, including the Prime Minister of Pakistan. So I really want to thank the chairwoman for including this because we sent a very clear signal that we want open and free communication with accurate news, but we do not give platforms to terrorists on the Rewards for Justice list of the State Department. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KIRK. Let me just say this bill also contains one last program-- and then I will close--and that is called the Near East Regional Democracy program. It used to be called the Iran democracy program, and I hope that's still exactly what it does. We're providing $40 million for this, and it's very important. Following the suppression of democracy in Iran, we're particularly concerned about key minority groups there. The Azeris, representing 40 percent of the country, including the leading candidate for president whose vote was suppressed; the Kurds that we worked with so well in northern Iraq; and the Baluch, in which a significant Iranian military presence is there. And I want to pay particular attention to the plight of the Baha'i. The National Assembly of the Baha'i Faith is located in my district; but this is the faith that was founded in Persia, now Iran. There are 330,000 Baha'is in Iran right now. Under this regime, we have now seen that they have been told to register their businesses and place of address, that this is the bureaucratic machinery that we have seen in other countries in other uniforms before. It is the machinery of oppression and potentially worse. We have seen now that just following the time President Ahmadinejad claimed that he had won the election--remembering, of course, that in 150 Iranian cities, the votes totaled more than the number of people living in those cities--that just following their claim to have won the election after only 2 hours of counting the ballots, that he moved against the Baha'i leaders, putting them on trial for their lives in that country. The Near East Regional Democracy program can help us build alternative voices in that country, all the more important. Let me close on this bill by saying that this bill has one key and major component, which is assistance to the State of Israel for us. In my view, land for peace generally means no land and even more war, as we saw with Israel's withdrawal from Gaza where an area that used to be used for agricultural produce is now used for mortars and rockets against southern Israel, especially Sderot and Ashkelon. My worry is that we might have more of that kind of adventurism by the other side further if we see instability in southern Lebanon and especially on the West Bank. This legislation helps us underscore our commitment to the Israeli Air Force, their missile defense system and, especially, to their army to at least encourage the states in that region to make sure that no adventurism like we saw, especially in 1973, can move forward against our best allies in the Middle East. My hope is that we have very strong commitment for this on the floor today and in the United States Senate because I think this bill, more than any other, makes any potential conflict in the Middle East less likely; and that is good for us all. With that, I recommend passage of the bill. I want to commend our chairwoman and our greatly missed Ranking Minority Member Kay Granger, who's out today, for bringing us a bill that adheres to the key principle that I try to follow at every possible turn, and that is the aphorism that we say, that partisanship should end at the water's edge. In my service in the United States military, I generally found that when we were being shot at, they weren't shooting at Democrats or Republicans. They were shooting at American citizens. The United States has bipartisan interests overseas, and this bill fulfills this. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KIRK. Mr. Chair, I seek time in opposition.

Mr. KIRK. I yield myself 4 minutes. I rise in reluctant opposition to this amendment. There are many parts of the amendment that I support, like moving funds away from accounts that received a significant increase in the stimulus bill in order to increase funds for safe drinking water and sanitation programs. Unfortunately, I oppose this amendment for what it represents. We are continuing the movement away from bipartisan consideration of amendments because it appears that the new practice under the Rules Committee is to take a number of Democratic amendments and put them in one group under the chairman's aegis so that it looks like we have a balanced list of amendments offered but really a much larger number of Democratic amendments are being considered. This is a very troubling practice that has now entered into the appropriations bills. Once again, I would point out, under clause 2 of rule XXI, the only amendments that are allowed under our rules on the floor are money amendments that cut or rearrange funds, not policy amendments. That gives awesome power to the committee on both sides to limit debate on this bill. It's very odd that in all the consideration of appropriations bills before, we haven't really made this a standard practice like is happening now.