During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) discussed increased transparency for foreign development investments.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you very much. I would like to recognize Representative Zinke for your
00:04five minutes of questioning. Well, thank you for coming. So a couple
00:09things. One, I agree with flexibility. I agree with equity. I'm not sure
00:14percentage I would agree with you on. I think it should be aligned with the
00:18policy of the United States or the executive and the Congress. So it is
00:23that from where our policy is driven and should be driven. So a couple things.
00:28USAID's come up a lot and of course USAID's gone through a lot of scrutiny
00:34as it should. But when you have transgender medical clinics in India or
00:42condoms for Taliban and we can go through the list after list after list
00:47after list. So some of it then is spread to you because you have a relationship
00:53with them. So on your loans, do you have a single database? Because when I was in
01:00Interior, I went in and I canceled every loan until I could figure out where
01:05they're going. It took us a while and we're seeing the same thing
01:09with USAID canceling it. So you haven't been in the papers lately. Do you have a
01:16database of where your loans are? Are your outstanding loans? Yes. Is that
01:23database accessible to the United States Congress? It should be. I believe that
01:30there are some platforms like the FATA. Yeah so technically DFC is I believe
01:39required to report to the foreignassistance.gov dashboard under FATA,
01:44the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, which BUILD Act was
01:47extended its purview to. Right now it's just reporting grant and technical
01:52assistance on that dashboard because there's been some. I've heard this
01:56from multiple. It's amazing. The Department of State does not have a list,
02:01the one that's a database that you can query on loans, on grants. And if you
02:10have one, I would love to see it. Yes. And what fidelity because a lot of things
02:15are just titles and this is whether you love or hate them. DOGE, what it has done
02:20is open up files that that when you and I were in Congress we couldn't access.
02:25When I was a secretary I couldn't access the files. Well evidently just a few can
02:32and and trying to run ahead if there's files out there I would like you to
02:39share them so you can see and defend you. Sorry just to clarify DFC does post it
02:44has two databases actually on its website that have project-level data. Now
02:49they're a little bit lagged so we're missing the most recent data but you can
02:53query and search. One of them has more fields than others you get more level
02:57greater granularity but I think those are both areas where Congress should
03:00push the DFC for even greater transparency. And I'm you know and
03:04perhaps you know we want to make every loan a billboard for debate right
03:09because we give you the authority and we should for you to make a deal. You
03:13know as long as it's in line with the US policy and I agree with that. I think the
03:17chairs you know or the and the ranking members should have access to see what I
03:22think that's that's fair and prudent so I'd like to see that. Lastly up close to
03:26five meter target we could go to a government shutdown. So what does that do
03:32to you? I just want to know a government shutdown how does it affect your mission
03:37if we go to a government shutdown? Sir? Well I don't work for him so I know what
03:44do you what do you think he would do? Well it'll do like any other government
03:47shutdown it just you press a reset button everything's got to start all
03:51over all those contracts that were negotiated if the government shuts down
03:54they have to renegotiate all those contracts it's a waste of money and
03:58let's hope we don't do that and as far as the oversight all those loans are on
04:03a book somewhere and Inspector General and they have a board of people that
04:08approve these things it's up to Congress when you get the Inspector General report
04:13to hold them accountable you know we always talked about transparency and
04:16accountability up here it's happened under this administration and if you
04:21don't like what they did shame on us because we didn't act it's happened we
04:25can't change that let's move forward and make it better. Well if I could just add
04:29to that businesses are have every right to understand there needs to be some
04:37certainty and predictability about contracts they have to the extent that
04:42we have a stop-and-start funding system in our government that impacts private
04:46sector partners of our government it damages our capacity to attract new
04:53business I'm hoping around that point and with that I wish you a lot a lot of
05:01luck I know I know you have a lot of influence on there and for the record I
05:04do agree with the program but it needs it needs greater scrutiny like anything
05:09else you know we can justify taxpayer dollars when we know about them and we
05:15should have that debate whether whether we should or shouldn't but we never
05:18should have debate with fraud abuse and waste and that we should all stand firm
05:23on and with that I yield back. Thank You representative Zinke and with respect to
05:28your question about transparency if you go I think on dfc.gov website you will
05:37see the list of countries where DFC is funding those projects and if you click
05:42on each country it will also give you a whole list of the programs that is
05:46already being funded so I think that would be a helpful tool there.