“[T]he House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) [on Wednesday] approved the FY 2013 Foreign Relations Authorization Act [.pdf] that it hopes will be the first authorizing bill to pass Congress in a decade,” Casey Dunning of the Center for Global Development (CGD) writes in this post in the center’s “Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance” blog. “The bill aims to provide direction and guidance to appropriators and the administration as they fund and execute U.S. foreign affairs,” however, “[i]n an effort to pass an authorizing bill, the committee decided to completely excise the assistance part of its portfolio — 65 percent of the international affairs budget! — and authorize only State Department operations (aka, the other 35 percent),” she notes. Dunning concludes, “In keeping the focus solely on State Department mechanics and FY 2012 funding levels this year, they were able to avoid contentious debates on issues like aid to Pakistan and funding family planning, muster bipartisan support, and move the bill forward, sans a foreign assistance section. But it means they also avoid an opportunity to influence U.S. foreign aid” (6/28).