Devex: Congressional appropriators push back on U.S. foreign aid cuts in two hearings
“In a pair of hearings this week, United States Agency for International Development Administrator Mark Green was challenged about the administration’s proposed cuts to the agency’s budget in fiscal year 2019, with lawmakers saying the deep cuts would not stand. … Green, whose job is to defend the administration’s position, spent much of his time repeating himself as lawmakers tried to get him to say that the funds requested would be insufficient. … A trio of women, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, Rep. Nita Lowey, a Democrat from New York, and Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, all raised concerns about family planning funding, including [proposed] cuts to the United Nations Population Fund [for FY19], the need to properly evaluate the health impacts of the ‘global gag rule’ being imposed across [the majority of] global health funding and the importance of family planning policy based on science. Green said the administration was studying the impacts of the implementation of the gag rule, or Mexico City policy, and was working on a strategy to reprogram money that would have gone to UNFPA [in FY18]…” (Saldinger, 4/27).