The Foreign Service Journal, June 2022

16 JUNE 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Equity for All FS Families Foreign Service Officers go above and beyond to repre- sent the United States around the world. We should be doing everything we can to ensure their families, regard- less of sexual orientation or gender identity, are afforded the same diplomatic accreditation abroad. I joined my colleagues Rep. Gregory Meeks, Rep. David Cicilline and Rep. Joaquin Castro in urging the State Department to expand opportunities for LGBTQI+ diplomats. — Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-Nev.) in a series of tweets on April 19 . Training for Diplomats The budget provides for 570 additional personnel. We’ve been concerned in the subcommittee on the State Department in regard to the ability for training Foreign Service officials. In order to do that, you have to have a training float. We have … put in a 15 percent goal on the training float … so you can have indi- viduals assigned for training without a loss of capacity within the mission. —Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), speaking to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 26 during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Review of the FY 2023 State Department Budget Request hearing. A Lack of Transparency? I am troubled that the State Department made the most significant changes in 100 years to the Foreign Service admission process without consulting Congress, the American Foreign Service Association, or seemingly anyone else. The result of this closed-door decision-making is now some of our hard-working Foreign Service officers are demoralized, and future applicants face a subjective evaluation that is susceptible to political manipulation. Reforms are always wel- come, but whatever happened to high, objective standards and transparency? —Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) in a May 3 press release. HEARD ON THE HILL JOSH unsteady transition, and de-escalate grow- ing conflict around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Secretary of State Antony Blinken created the special envoy position for the Horn of Africa in April 2021, a deci- sion many heralded as a sign that the administration was thinking strategically about its engagement and seeking to manage the entrance of influential actors in the region. That goal has taken on a renewed urgency amid reports that Rus- sia is recruiting mercenaries for its war in Ukraine from East Africa. The Russianmission in Addis Ababa has denied these claims, despite reports in April that hundreds of Ethiopians had lined up outside the embassy. Similar reports emerged fromEritrea in the same period. Consular Fee Revenue Plummets A s a result of declining international travel during the COVID-19 pan- demic, passport and visa fee revenue droppedmore than 40 percent in 2020, the Government Accountability Office reported in April. State Department officials have indicated that fee revenue may not return to pre-pandemic levels for several years. The Bureau of Consular Affairs col- lected nearly $4 billion in revenue in Fiscal Year 2019, but that sum fell to $2.3 billion in FY20. To compensate for the decrease, the bureau is drawing down on carryover funds. As standard practice, the bureau relies on this carryover fromprior years to help fund its operations, since revenue frompassports and visas peaks in the spring and summer but levels off for the rest of the year. Aside from emergency COVID-19 sti- mulus spending, the bureau has been fully fee-funded since FY13. GAO expects that the bureau’s car- ryover balances will continue to decline from Fiscal Years 2022 to 2026 if the fees it charges remain unchanged. Although travel is on the rise again, GAO noted that the State Department faces a “structural imbalance” that predates the pandemic: the bureau doesn’t retain all the revenue it collects. It sends about 16 percent to the Trea- sury Department’s General Fund, which supports day-to-day federal operations. It must also cover the cost of overseas citizen services it either doesn’t charge for, or whose fees it doesn’t keep. To mitigate these challenges, the State Department has called on Con- gress to change its fee authorities to pro- vide the agency with greater flexibility to cover its costs. GAO recommends that State assess what actions would allow it to cover future consular costs and document its cost, demand and revenue estimates.