[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7737-7738]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        NOMINATION OF MARK GREEN

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, as ranking member of the Appropriations 
Subcommittee on the Department of State and Foreign Operations, I 
welcome the nomination of Ambassador and former Member of Congress Mark 
Green to be the next Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International 
Development.
  Ambassador Green brings a wealth of experience to this important 
position. He has been president of the International Republican 
Institute since 2014. In 2013, he was president and chief executive 
officer of the Initiative for Global Development, and before that, he 
served as senior director at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a 
network of 400 businesses, nongovernmental organizations, policy 
experts, and others supporting the role of development in U.S. foreign 
policy. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania from 2007 to 2009. 
While there, he led a mission of more than 350 Americans and Tanzanians 
and was ultimately responsible for some of the largest U.S. overseas 
development programs. Prior to his serving as U.S. Ambassador, Mark 
Green served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, 
representing Wisconsin's 8th District.
  Ambassador Green also served on the board of directors of the 
Millennium

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Challenge Corporation, after being appointed to that position by 
President Obama. He is currently on the Human Freedom Advisory Council 
for the George W. Bush Institute and cochairs the Consensus for 
Development Reform, a coalition of policy and business leaders devising 
new principles for making development policy more effective and growth-
oriented. He is a board member of WorldTeach and a member of the 
Council on Foreign Relations.
  Since 1989, as either chairman or ranking member of the subcommittee 
that provides the funding for USAID's operations and programs, I know 
the critical role that it plays in promoting and protecting U.S. 
interests around the world. Its field missions are its greatest 
strength, and countless lives have been saved, conflicts avoided, and 
government institutions strengthened, thanks to the global health, 
social and economic development, and democracy programs administered by 
USAID. These programs are not charity. They are essential and 
complementary to the roles played by our diplomats and soldiers.
  President Trump has talked about ``America First.'' We all want this 
country to be the best it can be, but slogans are not a substitute for 
effective policies. Creating jobs at home is not, by itself, a foreign 
policy. The United States cannot remain a leader in the global economy, 
where the gravest security problems we face can only be solved by 
working with other countries, if we reduce our engagement with the 
world. The vacuum we leave will quickly be filled by our competitors, 
and it will be difficult if not impossible to recover lost ground.
  At a time when OMB is proposing to slash USAID's budget and downgrade 
its overseas presence, the nomination of Ambassador Green is a positive 
signal. If confirmed, I look forward to working with him and 
subcommittee Chairman Graham, as well as with our House appropriations 
subcommittee counterparts Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Lowey, to 
ensure that USAID has the resources it needs to continue and expand its 
presence and impact around the world.

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