[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 148 (Wednesday, September 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4605-S4609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



             Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am very pleased to be on the floor 
today with my colleague Senator Hirono to express our strong support 
for the nomination of Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta to be Ambassador at Large for 
Global Women's Issues at the Department of State.
  The position that Dr. Gupta has been nominated for leads the Office 
of Global Women's Issues, which is charged with advancing the rights 
and empowerment of women and girls around the world through U.S. 
foreign policy, so looking at our foreign policy through a gender lens 
that recognizes that women are half of the world's population.
  Not only does the Office of Global Women's Issues prioritize policies 
and programs to advance the status of women around the world, it 
ensures that U.S. policies incorporate a gender lens at all levels of 
policy and decision making.
  The last 2\1/2\ years of the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated why 
this office is more important than ever before. Around the world over 
those last

[[Page S4606]]

2\1/2\ years, the gender gap has grown as a result of the pandemic. 
Girls are dropping out and staying out of school at a higher rate than 
boys. The female labor force participation rate has declined, with 
women not only holding less secure jobs but also taking on more unpaid 
work at home with childcare and housing.
  Gender-based violence has increased to such an extent that UN Women, 
the U.N. body charged with advancing the rights of women globally, now 
warns of what they call a ``shadow pandemic'' of violence.
  These are issues of great consequence to half of the world's 
population. They cannot be an afterthought. Gender equity, equality, 
and the empowerment of women and girls must be a focal point of U.S. 
foreign policy, and that is exactly what the Ambassador at Large is 
intended to facilitate.

  Unfortunately, this position has been unfilled for too long. Over the 
past 5 years, beginning in the Trump administration, the position of 
the Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues has been filled for 
only 1 year, so 20 percent of the time over the last 5 years.
  During that time, we have endured an unprecedented global pandemic. 
We have ended a 20-year war in Afghanistan. We have watched as Vladimir 
Putin launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. We have experienced a 
supply chain crisis and suffered a global food shortage. And in every 
single one of these crises, women have been more acutely affected than 
men and affected in a different way than men.
  During the pandemic, women, who make up almost 70 percent of the 
healthcare workforce, have been those who have been on the frontlines 
of providing care for the sick and vulnerable.
  With the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, women's rights have been 
rolled back at an unprecedented rate, and we have seen--90 percent of 
the households in Afghanistan have food insecurity, and women are 
experiencing the greatest part of that.
  Displacement from the war in Ukraine has left millions of women 
vulnerable to human trafficking, even as Russia continues to shell 
their homes and communities.
  The food insecurity from the supply chain crisis and global food 
shortage has reinforced our understanding of what we have seen for too 
long: that in times of hunger, it is women who eat last and who eat the 
least.
  Through all of these crises, the Office of Global Women's Issues has 
been without a leader to spearhead its work to ensure that women's 
needs are incorporated in every aspect of the U.S. response to these 
crises. Now, why does that matter? Well, not only do women make up 50 
percent of the world's population, but what we know is that where women 
are empowered, they contribute, give back more to their families. They 
give back more to their communities. The countries that empower women 
are more stable; they are more economically secure.
  This is a policy that is important not only to our foreign policy 
writ large but to our national security. That is why we need to fill 
this position and why we urgently need to confirm Dr. Gupta.
  Dr. Gupta has spent her career in service to gender equality and 
women's empowerment. She knows better than most the impact that unfair 
gender norms and inequalities have on women and the importance of 
prioritizing women's leadership.
  What is so unfortunate is that Dr. Gupta is being punished for her 
personal views on women's reproductive choices. As the result of those 
personal views, those groups who oppose women's reproductive choices 
are spreading falsehoods instead of facts. They are doing that, and 
unfortunately, too many of our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle have been willing to listen to those falsehoods without really 
looking at the facts. This sets a very dangerous precedent for all 
future nominees.
  Let me be clear. The Office of Global Women's Issues does not lead on 
sexual and reproductive health and rights, nor does it provide 
information about abortion services.
  When former President Trump nominated someone to lead the Office of 
Global Women's Issues, I and my pro-choice colleagues in this body 
didn't ask her what her position was on choice because we knew that was 
not the mission of the Office of Global Women's Issues, and she was 
confirmed. And I think by all accounts, people thought she did a good 
job in the short time that she was there.
  So why are my Republican colleagues spreading these falsehoods? They 
have said that Dr. Gupta has advised the World Health Organization to 
support abortion as a human right. They have alleged that Dr. Gupta 
gave a speech saying that abortion should be an essential service. They 
have alleged that the administration has plans to include abortion in 
the mandate of the Office of Global Women's Issues. Let me be clear. 
There is no truth behind those allegations.
  If you missed it, let me say it again. There is no truth behind those 
allegations.
  We cannot let this idea that because somebody has a personal position 
on an issue that affects them, that that means they cannot be 
considered for a position within the government. You know, based on 
that criteria, I wouldn't be able to be considered for any position.
  So for the sake of Dr. Gupta's nomination today and for the sake of 
all of those qualified women candidates who are going to come before 
the Senate in the future, we can't let this divisive move become the 
status quo. We have to correct the record. We need to approve Dr. 
Gupta, and we need to get the Office of Global Women's Issues back 
operating at full capacity.
  With that, let me yield to my colleague from Hawaii, Senator Hirono.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. I rise today in support of Dr. Gita Rao Gupta's 
nomination to serve as Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues, 
and I am glad to be here with my friend from New Hampshire to argue for 
her confirmation.
  As head of the State Department's Office of Global Women's Issues, 
the Ambassador at Large leads our diplomatic efforts to promote the 
rights and empowerment of women and girls around the world. Who can 
argue with that kind of a mission?
  From supporting women's economic participation to combating domestic 
and gender-based violence, this work is critically important, and Dr. 
Gupta is well-suited to take on this important task. Dr. Gupta has 
spent her life working to empower women across the globe. She has led 
several nonprofit organizations focused on advancing gender equity and 
has served as cochair of the World Bank's Gender-Based Violence Task 
Force.
  But for months now, Republicans have blocked consideration of her 
nomination. Why? Not because she is unqualified. Dr. Gupta's record is 
impeccable, and her qualifications are clear. No, Republicans are 
blocking her nomination simply because she supports the fundamental 
right of all women to make decisions about their bodies and their 
futures, including the decision to get an abortion.
  Apparently, it is no longer enough for my Republican colleagues to 
push their extreme anti-abortion agenda. Now that they have overturned 
Roe v. Wade, they are opposing anyone who expresses support for 
abortion access even if it is their personal view and not one they are 
going to be pushing forward in the position that we are being asked to 
confirm them for.
  Last year, the Republicans did the same thing to President Biden's 
nominee to be Deputy Administrator of the Small Business 
Administration, SBA, opposing his nomination because of their 
opposition to SBA's totally lawful PPP loans to Planned Parenthood 
clinics providing critical healthcare to communities across the 
country.
  The Republicans, I have to say, have been on a tear about ``How dare 
SBA provide these lawful PPP loans to Planned Parenthood?'' Apparently, 
it escapes their notice that these are lawful loans.
  So Republicans' opposition to Dr. Gupta's confirmation is a dangerous 
position and one that threatens the health, safety, and prosperity of 
women here in the United States and around the world.
  For example, my Republican colleagues raised concerns about the state 
of women and girls in Afghanistan, and yet in another example of their 
hypocrisy, they are opposing a nominee who would be in a position to 
actually help support these women.
  As Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues, Dr. Gupta will 
bring

[[Page S4607]]

decades of experience to empower women, improve their economic 
security, and end violence against women and girls.
  There is no legitimate reason for anyone to not support her 
nomination to this important role. The chaos and fear across the 
country generated by the Supreme Court's Roe decision is spilling over 
to block this nomination.
  I thank Senator Shaheen for her focus on Dr. Gupta's nomination and 
her dedication to women and girls at home and abroad, and I urge my 
Republican colleagues to do the right thing for a change and end their 
bad faith obstruction of Dr. Gupta's nomination.
  I yield back to my colleague from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Thank you, Senator Hirono, and thank you for your 
eloquent remarks about Dr. Gupta's qualifications and the importance of 
having someone who has those kinds of qualifications at the Office of 
Global Women's Issues.
  At this time, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee be discharged and the Senate 
proceed to the following nomination: PN1578, Geeta Rao Gupta, to be 
Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues; that the Senate vote on 
the nomination with no intervening action or debate; that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that no further 
motions be in order to the nomination; and that any related statements 
be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. HAGERTY. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. HAGERTY. Dr. Gupta received a tie vote in the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee. There is a Senate process that has been agreed to 
by both parties by which the leader can discharge a nomination with a 
tie vote from this committee to bring it before the full Senate, if he 
so chooses.
  I am saying this as a person who has been put through 30 hours of 
cloture himself when I served in the executive branch and went through 
this very process.
  We should not break from Senate process and procedure with regard to 
Dr. Gupta's nomination. Members should have the opportunity to vote, 
and the majority leader can schedule it.
  Additionally, I think the vast majority of Senators from both sides 
value the economic empowerment of women everywhere around the globe. 
The previous administration made economic empowerment for women 
worldwide one of its signature initiatives.
  I served as a diplomat at that time in the previous administration, 
and the senior Senator from New Hampshire was a valuable partner in 
many of our efforts, which I very much appreciate.
  So I think that there is a goal we share, but there are valid 
concerns on our side that the current administration is tainting this 
worthy goal and dismantling the bipartisan achievements of the previous 
administration. We deserve to have a better understanding of what this 
administration is doing before we rush ahead and totally bypass the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee to confirm the person who will be 
the chief implementer of this administration's policies.
  I am not comfortable giving consent to expedite consideration of this 
nominee.
  Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I can buy that answer. Senator Hagerty 
and I have worked together on the Foreign Relations Committee. I voted 
for you to be an Ambassador. I thought you did a good job in that role, 
and I think you are doing a good job now.
  But the fact is that taking up floor time to deal with qualified 
nominees at a time when we have limited floor time, when we have a 
position that needs to be filled, when we have a minority position on 
the Foreign Relations Committee in opposition to authorizing 
permanently the Office of Global Women's Issues tells me it is 
something more than that, and I think Dr. Gupta's stalled nomination is 
emblematic of the intransigence on confirming President Biden's 
nominees for the Department of State.
  That obstructionism is undermining our diplomatic efforts. It is 
demoralizing to employees at the Department of State who have dedicated 
their lives to U.S. foreign policy, and I know you understand that 
because you headed an Embassy. You know how critical our employees are 
who manage our foreign policy.
  Eric Rubin, a former Ambassador to Bulgaria, recently spelled out 
what this means for U.S. diplomacy and national security, and this is 
the concern that we all ought to have.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record this article from Puck News.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                            [Sept. 6, 2022]

                  Washington's New Crisis of Diplomacy

                            (By Julia Ioffe)

       As of this writing, it has been 593 days since an American 
     ambassador has inhabited the Villa Taverna, their official 
     residence in Rome. Ever since the financier and Republican 
     donor Lewis Eisenberg moved out at the end of Donald Trump's 
     administration on January 21, 2021, no one has replaced him. 
     President Joe Biden never nominated anyone, which raised 
     eyebrows both in American foreign policy circles and in 
     Italy. The Romans I've spoken to are furious and see it as a 
     sign of unprecedented disrespect, especially at a time when 
     Washington is asking its European allies--including countries 
     dependent on Russian gas, like Italy--to hold the line on 
     anti-Russian sanctions. ``It's the only G7 country with no 
     U.S. ambassador,'' one American diplomatic insider told me. 
     ``I know the Italians are unhappy and they should be, given 
     the situation politically and what's going on with Russia.'' 
     Given that Russia is rumored to have had a hand in the 
     collapse of Mario Draghi's sanctions-friendly coalition 
     government this summer, the fact that Washington doesn't have 
     a representative on the ground is more than embarrassing. 
     It's downright negligent.
       Currently, the United States is represented in Italy by 
     Shawn Crowley, who is the charge d'affaires. That's fine, but 
     a charge doesn't have the same rank and status as an 
     ambassador, and receiving countries have all kinds of 
     protocols and rules about who can meet with whom. Usually, a 
     charge has a much lower ceiling for whom they can meet than 
     an ambassador; the rank itself can be quite limiting. ``The 
     Italians,'' noted the diplomatic insider, ``are very protocol 
     conscious.'' As are the Ukrainians--so much so that, despite 
     all the aid the U.S. has poured into his country, President 
     Volodymyr Zelensky refused to meet with the American charge 
     d'affaires until a real American ambassador, Bridget Brink, 
     arrived in Kyiv this May.
       Why has Biden left the post in Rome unfilled for so long? 
     It's been an open secret in Washington that the president is 
     holding the spot for Nancy Pelosi, the first Italian-American 
     Speaker of the House and a minor celebrity in Italy. The 
     idea, apparently, was to give her a nice, cushy retirement 
     gig after Republicans take over the House. But why not 
     nominate someone, like a career foreign service officer, to 
     serve in the post, and then shoo them out once Pelosi ripens 
     to the idea? All ambassadors, after all, serve at the 
     pleasure of the president. I asked spokespeople at both the 
     State Department and the White House about this, but they 
     wouldn't--and couldn't--explain to me, even off the record, 
     what the hell is going on there, not even after Fox News 
     published its own story about the Pelosi rumors on Tuesday.
       Pelosi's people, meanwhile, offered a familiar line: Why 
     would Pelosi go get another job when she could just retire to 
     Napa, and play with her grandkids? ``Fox is just trying to 
     start shit,'' one source close to the speaker told me. 
     ``There are no conversations with the White House. And I've 
     just heard [Pelosi] say `S.F. is heaven on earth' one too 
     many times to believe that she would realistically want to 
     spend her post-Speaker life anywhere but home with family.'' 
     Which is also the exact kind of thing you might say before 
     you take a job like that.
       The Italian imbroglio is just the tip of the diplomatic 
     iceberg. Over a year and a half into Biden's administration, 
     more than 20 percent of American ambassadorships remain 
     unfilled. Nearly 40 of them have a nominee that is pending 
     confirmation, including for strategically vital posts, like 
     the Czech Republic, Latvia, and the Netherlands--all crucial 
     allies in holding the line against Russia on Ukraine. There 
     is no American ambassador in Saudi Arabia, a fraught but 
     important ally, and there hasn't been one since Biden's 
     inauguration. India, the world's largest democracy, hasn't 
     had an American ambassador since then either. The current 
     nominee, L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti, has been in confirmation 
     purgatory for more than a year, held up over allegations that 
     he knew about his chief of staff's alleged sexual predations. 
     In limbo, too, is the nomination for the ambassador to the 
     U.N.'s Conference on Disarmament. Apparently, the U.S. Senate 
     does not consider nuclear disarmament a pressing matter.
       Fifteen more posts are completely vacant, with no nominee 
     anywhere in sight. The abandonment of some places, like Cuba 
     and

[[Page S4608]]

     Afghanistan, make some sense. Other places, like Ethiopia, or 
     Estonia, which is a crucial NATO ally, do not. ``There is no 
     reasonable explanation for why more than 20 percent of our 
     ambassadorships overseas remain unfilled,'' said Eric Rubin, 
     president of the American Foreign Service Association, which 
     tracks such things. ``This is not a world in which we can 
     coast and assume that the rest of the world will wait for us 
     to sort out our parochial difficulties. No other country 
     leaves key diplomatic posts vacant so frequently and for so 
     long.''
       The problem, though, is that there is an explanation. In 
     fact, there are several. It began with Trump gutting the 
     State Department and the career foreign service. The people 
     he had nominated to represent the United States were 
     comically unqualified if not outright problematic. Once Biden 
     came in, Washington expected him to right the ship. He had 
     been, after all, an old member of the Senate Foreign 
     Relations Committee and a vice president that had handled 
     some of the most complex foreign policy matters under 
     President Barack Obama. He boasted about his foreign policy 
     chops as well as the coterie of smart, experienced advisors 
     he was bringing in with him: the best and the brightest.
       And yet, here we are, more than a year and a half later, 
     and one-fifth of the president's ambassadors remain 
     unconfirmed or even unnominated. The first problem for Biden 
     was the Presidential Personnel Office, which, in true 
     Democratic fashion, decided that if the previous 
     administration was going to nominate people with criminal 
     records or ongoing lawsuits for ambassadorships, they were 
     going to do things with extra diligence. Chief of staff Ron 
     Klain also decided he had to vet every single nominee, too, 
     slowing the process even further. Meanwhile, over in Foggy 
     Bottom, the State Department decided that its people also 
     had to be extra vetted by diplomatic security, because 
     everyone now had a digital footprint and social media 
     presence.
       Then, last July, Texas Senator Ted Cruz took it upon 
     himself to wage a one-man campaign to kill the Nord Stream II 
     project by putting a blanket hold on all the Biden 
     administration's State Department nominees unless the White 
     House got the German government to kill its pipeline. Since 
     the Biden administration was not about to do so, this created 
     a massive backlog--and that was before Missouri's Josh Hawley 
     instituted his own blanket hold, in September 2021, on State 
     and Defense Department nominees unless Secretary of State 
     Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and National 
     Security Advisor Jake Sullivan resigned for, in his view, 
     bungling the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
       Needless to say that never happened. By the time these 
     holds were lifted early this year, the backlog had grown 
     massive. And time on the floor of the Senate of the 117th 
     Congress, which will gavel out on January 3, 2023, had grown 
     ever more precious.
       But before that, let's pause to talk about how 
     ambassadorial nominees get to the floor of the Senate for a 
     vote.
       First, they have to be approved by the Senate Foreign 
     Relations Committee, which is currently headed by New 
     Jersey's Bob Menendez, a Democrat, and Idaho's Jim Risch, a 
     Republican. Both men are steeped in foreign affairs and 
     appear to all outside observers as serious thinkers about 
     world events. But according to people who have regular 
     dealings with the Foreign Relations Committee, they have a 
     relationship that is closer to something out of Mean Girls. 
     They are, as one source familiar with the committee described 
     them to me, ``like oil and water.'' They have been known to 
     be so laser-focused on messing with each other, in fact, that 
     they regularly inhibit the functioning of the Committee. Said 
     one Senate staffer familiar with the workings of the 
     Committee, ``It's an open secret that the challenges in their 
     working relationship often impedes us from working together 
     constructively on foreign policy and national security 
     issues.''
       But there are other issues for ambassadorial nominees to 
     navigate inside the Committee, especially if they're female. 
     There is only one woman senator on the committee, New 
     Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen, and so the women Biden has 
     nominated often run up against the proclivities of the old 
     men of the Senate, especially of the Republican persuasion. 
     ``There is certainly a layer of unconscious bias that is 
     holding back a number of women, that isn't there for the male 
     nominees,'' said the Senate staffer. This includes ``spouses 
     saying things about Trump'' or ``the way in which women talk 
     and represent themselves, where Republicans have been 
     viscerally opposed to just how the women communicate.'' 
     According to two sources, Sarah Margon, who had run the 
     Washington office of Human Rights Watch and was nominated to 
     lead the State Department's Office of Democracy, Human 
     Rights, and Labor, ran into trouble when she met with Senator 
     Risch, who pressed her repeatedly on her position on the BDS 
     movement. She opposed it, she said repeatedly. Afterwards, 
     Risch told colleagues he didn't like Margon's tone. (A 
     committee spokesperson contended that, ``The issue was not 
     and has never been her `tone,' it was her answers to the 
     questions themselves.'' The spokesperson did not, however, 
     explain what was wrong with the answers.)
       Other women have been pressed by Committee Republicans on 
     their stances on abortion, even if the position they are 
     nominated for has nothing to do with women's health, let 
     alone abortion. This happened, for example, with Dr. Geeta 
     Gupta, who was nominated to be the Ambassador to the Office 
     of Global Women's Issues. The post, and the office, deals 
     with women's security and economic empowerment, and has 
     nothing to do with women's health, let alone reproductive 
     rights. Yet Gupta was held up by Republicans on the Foreign 
     Relations Committee over her alleged support of abortion, 
     sending Shaheen into a righteous fury. ``Republican 
     grandstanding that held Geeta Gupta's nomination from 
     advancing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July 
     is a pivotal example of this gross display of partisan 
     politics,'' Shaheen said in an email. ``Republicans prevented 
     her nomination from proceeding to fill the urgently needed 
     role as Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues because 
     of their obsession over women's health and access to 
     abortion--neither of which are under the jurisdiction of this 
     role. Senate Republicans are putting our security in danger 
     and our credibility on the world stage at risk--it needs to 
     end now.''
       The guiding assumption seems to be that if they are women 
     and Democrats, then they are automatically rabid abortionists 
     and will use whatever diplomatic role to advocate for it, 
     from Kyiv to Kinshasa. ``Women nominees tend to face more 
     rigor from Senate Republicans and are frequently questioned 
     about extraneous issues like their views on abortion,'' 
     another Senate Democratic aide told me. ``Some of this 
     happens in public during hearings, but the majority of times 
     it takes place behind closed doors when there are no cameras 
     around to catch a senator and his staff go after women over 
     issues well beyond the scope of the position for which they 
     were nominated.''
       Once upon a time, ambassadorial nominees could count on 
     cruising through the Senate on a vote of unanimous consent. 
     They would be advanced as a block of nominees and voted 
     through as a block, and people would only get singled out if 
     they had truly bungled their meetings with senators. The 
     feeling at the time was that the President of the United 
     States deserved to pick his ambassadors just as he deserved 
     to pick his cabinet secretaries and the Senate was there only 
     to weed out the truly rotten apples.
       No more. If a nominee even makes it out of committee for a 
     floor vote, they are voted on individually, it takes several 
     hours, and any senator can use the opportunity of their 
     nomination to extract something from the administration. 
     Some, like Hawley, have asked for the resignation of cabinet 
     secretaries. Others have asked for small, stupid things like, 
     for example, a visa for a friend in exchange for waving a 
     nomination through. That is to be expected of Republicans who 
     will do whatever they can to impede Biden's agenda, but even 
     some Democrats have caught on to the game. They have also 
     learned that they can use any nomination to extract some 
     choice morsel from the administration, whether it's a pet 
     issue or something they can flaunt to constituents back 
     home.
       As a result, every single State Department confirmation 
     hearing, ambassadorial or otherwise, now resembles a hostage 
     negotiation. ``This is not how the system is supposed to 
     work,'' said one insider the process. ``You're not supposed 
     to negotiate for individual unrelated reasons. But people 
     have started treating this as normal. I think nominations 
     will look like this forever from now on.''
       Because of this, and because there are only four working 
     weeks left on the Senate calendar before the midterms, 
     Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made it crystal clear to 
     his conference that ambassadorial nominees are now at the 
     very back of the line. Why spend hours on the ambassador to 
     Azerbaijan when you can ram through another lifetime judicial 
     appointment to balance out the work done by Mitch McConnell 
     when he had the majority? ``You only have a certain number of 
     hours a week,'' one Senate aide familiar with the process 
     told me. ``The more we're spending it on ambassadorial 
     nominations, the less we're spending it on judges.'' Added a 
     Senate Democratic staffer, ``It has been made clear that, 
     through the midterms, the floor will be tied up with judicial 
     nominees.''
       After the midterms, whether the Democrats hold the Senate 
     or not, it will be a new, 118th Congress and that means all 
     the ambassadorial nominations now floundering in senatorial 
     purgatory will have to be resubmitted, and the process will 
     begin again, from scratch.
       Both the White House and State, in their official 
     statements to me, emphasized the number of ambassadors they 
     were able to confirm, despite the unprecedented obstruction 
     they're facing in the Senate. Things are actually going 
     pretty well, they say, all things considered. But privately, 
     the tone is very different. People worry about recruiting and 
     retention. Who in their right mind would want to go through a 
     process like this? Others worry about the irreparable harm 
     this is doing to our relationships with allies and 
     adversaries abroad, especially after the calamity that was 
     the Trump presidency.
       ``It's baffling to our foreign interlocutors because they 
     don't have these confirmation processes, and our inability to 
     field ambassadors when there are so many crises around the 
     world is unbelievable to them,'' one former State Department 
     official told me. ``It's also having a huge impact at State 
     on morale and retention. I think because there's so much 
     uncertainty over how long it takes to get confirmed, the 
     currency of an ambassadorship is being devalued. You have 
     people

[[Page S4609]]

     waiting for a year or more to get confirmed. People have quit 
     jobs for these posts. Others are waiting inside State, stuck 
     in limbo forever. I heard of someone who considered retiring 
     while waiting to be confirmed.''
       Eric Rubin, himself a former ambassador to Bulgaria and 
     deputy chief of mission in Russia, is worried about what 
     message this is sending to the two countries most eager to 
     weaken and replace America on the world stage: Russia and 
     China. ``The U.S. no longer has the largest diplomatic 
     service, China does,'' Rubin told me. ``The U.S. no longer 
     has the most embassies and consulates abroad, China does. We 
     have to stop tying one hand behind our backs in our efforts 
     to represent our country and advance its security and 
     prosperity.''
       Or, in the words of the diplomatic insider, ``It's 
     malpractice.''

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Ambassador Rubin put it very starkly. He said:

       The U.S. no longer has the largest diplomatic service. 
     China does.

  He concluded by saying:

       We have to stop tying one hand behind our backs in our 
     efforts to represent our country and advance its security and 
     prosperity.
       It's malpractice.

  It is malpractice.
  The fact that too many people in this Chamber are dragging their feet 
on allowing Ambassadors to be confirmed, on allowing diplomats with the 
Department of State to be confirmed, on allowing other high level 
people throughout government to be confirmed because, only, of their 
opposition to the Biden administration is just untenable, and it is 
against our national security.
  So I think it is time now for the Senate to do its job to confirm Dr. 
Gupta. So let's move forward. Let's get our foreign policy with respect 
to gender throughout the world back on track.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. HAGERTY. Madam President, I have great respect for my colleague 
from New Hampshire. I worked very hard on the WGDP initiative that was 
put in place by the previous administration. It has the potential to do 
so much good.
  I am very concerned about elements of that being dismantled right 
now, and I would like to remind my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle that this is a matter of priorities.
  Again, I will reiterate that I was put through 30 hours of cloture. 
The rules have been improved since then to reduce that amount of time. 
I think it would be a total of 4 hours in this case, yet the priorities 
set by the leadership of the other side indicate that they don't care 
as much about these positions because they won't even schedule it.
  It is certainly within the Senate majority leader's power to do that. 
Rather, the Senate majority leader would rather prioritize seating the 
Postal Board of Governors than putting Ambassadors into place.
  So I have difficulty with this argument, and, with all due respect, 
my objection stands.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.