‘This Is An Every Day, All Day Reassessment’: James Risch Praises Ongoing State Department Restructuring

4 months ago

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Sen. James Risch (R-ID) discussed the State Department’s efforts to optimize toward global dominance in business and diplomacy.

Transcript

00:00Thank you for pointing out the fact that we beat ourselves up a lot over this that

00:05or the other thing but there's no more generous country on the planet than the

00:09United States of America or the United States American taxpayers. We have done

00:14tremendous amounts and we and we really do not get the appreciation for it.

00:19You're pointing out of how the votes at the UN go or ones that those votes are

00:26to be taken note of. I'm always impressed however when I'm dealing with other

00:30countries and they're looking for something like building a nuclear plant

00:34or something like that that they really want to deal with Americans. That's what

00:38they want to do. Why is that? Because we are who we are and that I think it's

00:43really important to stress that who the American people are what our values are

00:47and one of the things that distinguishes us from other countries on the planet is

00:53the fact that we have a rule of law and you deal with China you have no rule of

00:58law. You're at the you're at the beck and call and at the mercy of the Chinese

01:05Communist Party and people know that businessmen know that and that's why they

01:10want to deal with America. Look when you're doing management like this changes as I

01:15said are always difficult I get that and the other thing that I would point out

01:20and that that I think you didn't talk about and I'd like you to talk a little

01:24bit about this is not a one-and-done. This is a everyday all-day reassessment of

01:29where you are what you're doing and this obviously is a big step to start with glad

01:34to see it. I'm assuming there's going to be a phase two at some point in time talk

01:40about the ongoing efforts after this initial step is over. Sure thank you for

01:46that question Mr. Chairman. We will like any large organization we need to continue to

01:51review and evaluate how we operate and how we are effectively delivering on the

01:58president's policy priorities all over the world. This reorganization was informed

02:03by the senior leadership and the career foreign service and senior civil servant

02:10officials who were at the department. We asked them what works what doesn't work how

02:14would you like to operate what are the pain points in that you've experienced

02:18getting things done and these are people who served in Republican and Democrat

02:21administrations and gave us some really good feedback about where they would like

02:26to see reforms implemented at the Department of State. We told them this

02:31reorganization we wanted to focus on our domestic footprint make sure you know we

02:36were doing what we needed to reorient the department and focus it on the

02:41critical foreign policy function it's designed to deliver on and we're going

02:46to continue to do that it's going to be an iterative process the entire time we're

02:50here is looking at how things work how they don't work and we're always going to

02:53be finding I think inefficiencies and how things happen that's just natural in

02:57any large department organization in the government or in the private sector I

03:01you know I've served in both and government isn't home to inefficiency you

03:05have plenty of that going on in the private sector as well but it's it is

03:09incumbent upon leaders of any organization to look at how they're

03:12delivering and come up with opportunities to improve thank you I'm

03:19always impressed when I go out out of the country and for that matter here about

03:23how State Department employees are probably the least partisan of any

03:28government agency that there is and I'm always impressed with the way they the

03:34way they conduct themselves the way they treat us when we're out in the

03:39field and and I have to say that I'm glad to hear what you said and that is

03:44that these people were consulted about going forward what works and what doesn't

03:48work because I have found them never to be bashful when you ask them what what

03:53can we do better so I'm glad to hear that I assume you're familiar with my

03:57secure embassy construction and counterterrorism act tell me I haven't been

04:04fully satisfied with the way that it's been implemented and the the embassy in the box

04:11legislation of both of those tell me your thoughts on those place thank you that

04:16thank you for that question mr. chairman we just on boarded a new head of the

04:21office of overseas building operations someone who has extensive experience in

04:26this area and you know I've discussed with him the this act and also just our

04:31desire to engage in you know what we've called expeditionary diplomacy making

04:36sure that our ambassadors are engaging with the foreign governments that they

04:41are sent to post to engage with engaging with the local business communities and

04:45population and doing everything they can to advance America's national and foreign

04:51policy and security and economic interests it's hard to do that if you are you

04:56know hunkered down in a bunker that is masquerading as an embassy certainly there are

05:01parts of the world that are very dangerous there are high threat environments and

05:04you need to have a really secure kind of environment but to the extent that we can

05:09find safe ways to make sure our ambassadors and our diplomats are getting out and

05:15engaging you know looking at what our friends and allies in in those countries

05:19are doing and how they're going about their business I think is a good way to

05:22inform what we're doing and also just the cost that goes into some of these

05:27construction projects are just really too high you know the requirements that we

05:32have you know there's a lot of security requirements as as you know but figuring

05:37out how to make those sort of replicatable so we're not reinventing the wheel in

05:42every country where we go to build a an embassy or a consular post to ensure that

05:47we can have more companies bid on these I mean someone told me we only have like

05:53there's only two general contractors that are able to fulfill our needs and

05:57build embassies overseas and that is not a recipe for a competition or driving

06:02cost down when you when you have a duopoly so we want to find ways to

06:06increase competition while building safe secure embassies for our diplomats

06:13overseas well thank you I appreciate that and your point is well taken that every

06:17single construction project is is different in that the security of every

06:23country is different there's some that like you say you're you've got to build a

06:27very secure environment and others not so much so we appreciate your attention to

06:32that for that Senator Shaheen

‘This Is An Every Day, All Day Reassessment’: James Risch Praises Ongoing State Department Restructuring

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