After yesterday’s marathon session into the wee hours of this morning, the House Foreign Affairs Committee continues its markup of the FY12 State Department-Foreign Relations Authorization Act.  A number of amendments have been offered and sparked heated debate, many with impacts to the International Affairs Budget.  An amendment offered by Representative Ted Poe (R-TX), which cuts 25% of funding to the UN regular budget, passed 23-17.  Amendments attempting to restore funding for various programs, including UN Peacekeeping missions, failed largely along party lines.   An amendment offered by Rep. Berman to repeal the bill’s defunding of USAID’s Budget and Resource Management office and require the State Department to do a QDDR every four years was defeated 18-24.  You can follow the debate here.

Must Reads

USGLC in the News

Kids Chime in on Jobs Creation (FamousDC)

Kids discuss U.S. global leadership in the USGLC’s new video.

Smart Power

Water Can Be a Bridge to Peace in the Middle East (Craig and Marc Kielburger, Huffington Post Blogs)

The Good Water Neighbors project, launched by Friends of the Earth Middle East in 2001, is comprised of 29 communities in Israel, Palestine and Jordan, all learning about sustainability at facilities like the Auja EcoCenter in Palestine. Grants from local and international governments fund water projects in Good Water Neighbor schools and public buildings — a total of $70 million U.S. dollars so far — to build rainwater storage units, greywater reuse systems and ecological gardens. It’s a drop in the bucket that won’t single-handedly jump start the peace process, but creating dialogue among adversaries is an important victory.

Politics/Foreign Policy

House Panel Weighs GOP Effort to Restrict Foreign Aid (Joanna Anderson, CQ)

A House panel is poised to endorse a $22.7 billion foreign policy authorization measure Thursday, after Republicans beat back Democratic efforts to boost support for international organizations and peacekeeping missions. The GOP-drafted measure aims to curtail President Obama’s foreign policy authority… Panel members backed proposals to block assistance funds for a handful of Latin American nations, as well as funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s trilateral assistance program in South Africa. Overall, it would cut $6.4 billion from his [Obama’s] fiscal 2012 request, according to the committee.

House panel votes to defund the OAS (Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy)

The one-hour debate over the GOP proposal to cut the entire $48.5 million annual U.S contribution to the OAS is only the beginning of what looks to be a long and contentious debate over the fiscal 2012 State Department and foreign operations authorization bill written by chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). Democrats accused the Republicans of isolationism and retreat for their proposal, while the Republicans accused the OAS of being an ally of anti-U.S. regimes in Cuba and Venezuela.

House Committee Would Tie All Pakistan Aid to Security Conditions: A Terrible Idea (Wren Elhai, Center for Global Development Blogs)

American leaders from President Obama and Senator Richard Lugar down the line have told the Pakistani people that the United States has an enduring interest in their long-term success. Given the United States’ fickle history, convincing anyone in Pakistan that there is any seriousness behind that statement has been understandably difficult to say the least. For sure, the development program could be more effective than it has been, and U.S. staff in Islamabad could do much better at communicating their plans and activities. However, the fundamental foreign policy structure is correct: a steady, long-term development strategy that includes both aid and non-aid tools, separated from the constantly changing short-term security relationship. Just this week, though, something changed.

U.N.: Famine in Somalia is killing tens of thousands (Sudarsann Raghavan, Washington Post)

Famine in parts of southern Somalia has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly children, the United Nations said Wednesday in an official declaration of what aid officials describe as the worst humanitarian crisis in the troubled country in two decades… Humanitarian funding to help Somalia has declined since 2008, U.N. officials say. The United States, once Somalia’s largest donor, has reduced humanitarian funding by 88 percent, according to a September 2010 report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.