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    Peace & Justice
    The Episcopal Public Policy Network
    Policy Alert

    A new bipartisan bill Senate bill, the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act (S.1524), begins the process of bringing U.S. foreign-assistance programs up-to-date and ensuring that the fight against deadly poverty and disease is elevated, alongside defense and diplomacy, as a central focus of our foreign policy. Earlier this year, your emails made a difference in generating cosponsors for a companion House bill, the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act” (H.R. 2139). (Currently, there are more than 110 cosponsors of that bill.) Now we need your efforts in the Senate. The foreign-assistance system hasn’t been updated since the Kennedy Administration in 1961. While U.S. funds save millions of lives around the world each year, Congress and the President must act to maximize the impact of these programs, particularly in a time when money is tight and we are making progress on achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a mission priority of The Episcopal Church.

    For More Information

    To read the letter this message sends to your Senator, click here. Remember, you can edit any portion of this letter.

    Also, did you know that some U.S. poverty-focused foreign aid is channeled through faith groups like Episcopal Relief & Development? To contribute to ERD’s efforts to fight global poverty, hunger and disease, visit www.er-d.org


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    Please fill out the form below. The letter will be sent to legislators in your area.

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    This letter will be sent to the following individual(s):
    Daniel K. Akaka, U.S. Senator, HI, Democratic Party
    Lamar Alexander, U.S. Senator, TN, Republican Party
    John Barrasso, U.S. Senator, WY, Republican Party
    Max S. Baucus, U.S. Senator, MT, Democratic Party
    Evan Bayh, U.S. Senator, IN, Democratic Party
    Mark P. Begich, U.S. Senator, AK, Democratic Party
    Michael F. Bennet, U.S. Senator, CO, Democratic Party
    Robert F. Bennett, U.S. Senator, UT, Republican Party
    Jeff Bingaman, U.S. Senator, NM, Democratic Party
    Kit S. Bond, U.S. Senator, MO, Republican Party
    Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator, CA, Democratic Party
    Scott P. Brown, U.S. Senator, MA, Republican Party
    Sherrod C. Brown, U.S. Senator, OH, Democratic Party
    Sam Brownback, U.S. Senator, KS, Republican Party
    Jim Bunning, U.S. Senator, KY, Republican Party
    Richard M. Burr, U.S. Senator, NC, Republican Party
    Roland W. Burris, U.S. Senator, IL, Democratic Party
    Robert C. Byrd, U.S. Senator, WV, Democratic Party
    Maria E. Cantwell, U.S. Senator, WA, Democratic Party
    Benjamin L. Cardin, U.S. Senator, MD, Democratic Party
    Thomas R. Carper, U.S. Senator, DE, Democratic Party
    Bob Casey, U.S. Senator, PA, Democratic Party
    Saxby Chambliss, U.S. Senator, GA, Republican Party
    Tom A. Coburn, U.S. Senator, OK, Republican Party
    Thad Cochran, U.S. Senator, MS, Republican Party
    Susan M. Collins, U.S. Senator, ME, Republican Party
    Kent Conrad, U.S. Senator, ND, Democratic Party
    Bob Corker, U.S. Senator, TN, Republican Party
    John Cornyn, U.S. Senator, TX, Republican Party
    Michael D. Crapo, U.S. Senator, ID, Republican Party
    Jim DeMint, U.S. Senator, SC, Republican Party
    Christopher J. Dodd, U.S. Senator, CT, Democratic Party
    Byron L. Dorgan, U.S. Senator, ND, Democratic Party
    Richard J. Durbin, U.S. Senator, IL, Democratic Party
    John Ensign, U.S. Senator, NV, Republican Party
    Michael B. Enzi, U.S. Senator, WY, Republican Party
    Russell D. Feingold, U.S. Senator, WI, Democratic Party
    Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator, CA, Democratic Party
    Al Franken, U.S. Senator, MN, Democratic Party
    Kirsten Gillibrand, U.S. Senator, NY, Democratic Party
    Lindsey O. Graham, U.S. Senator, SC, Republican Party
    Charles E. Grassley, U.S. Senator, IA, Republican Party
    Judd Gregg, U.S. Senator, NH, Republican Party
    Kay R. Hagan, U.S. Senator, NC, Democratic Party
    Tom Harkin, U.S. Senator, IA, Democratic Party
    Orrin G. Hatch, U.S. Senator, UT, Republican Party
    Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Senator, TX, Republican Party
    James M. Inhofe, U.S. Senator, OK, Republican Party
    Daniel K. Inouye, U.S. Senator, HI, Democratic Party
    Johnny Isakson, U.S. Senator, GA, Republican Party
    Mike O. Johanns, U.S. Senator, NE, Republican Party
    Tim Johnson, U.S. Senator, SD, Democratic Party
    Ted Kaufman, U.S. Senator, DE, Democratic Party
    Amy Klobuchar, U.S. Senator, MN, Democratic Farmer Labor Party
    Herb Kohl, U.S. Senator, WI, Democratic Party
    Jon Kyl, U.S. Senator, AZ, Republican Party
    Mary L. Landrieu, U.S. Senator, LA, Democratic Party
    Frank R. Lautenberg, U.S. Senator, NJ, Democratic Party
    Patrick J. Leahy, U.S. Senator, VT, Democratic Party
    George LeMieux, U.S. Senator, FL, Republican Party
    Carl Levin, U.S. Senator, MI, Democratic Party
    Joseph I. Lieberman, U.S. Senator, CT, Independent
    Blanche Lambert Lincoln, U.S. Senator, AR, Democratic Party
    Richard G. Lugar, U.S. Senator, IN, Republican Party
    John McCain, U.S. Senator, AZ, Republican Party
    Claire McCaskill, U.S. Senator, MO, Democratic Party
    Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senator, KY, Republican Party
    Robert Menendez, U.S. Senator, NJ, Democratic Party
    Jeff Merkley, U.S. Senator, OR, Democratic Party
    Barbara A. Mikulski, U.S. Senator, MD, Democratic Party
    Lisa Murkowski, U.S. Senator, AK, Republican Party
    Patty Murray, U.S. Senator, WA, Democratic Party
    Ben Nelson, U.S. Senator, NE, Democratic Party
    Bill Nelson, U.S. Senator, FL, Democratic Party
    Mark Pryor, U.S. Senator, AR, Democratic Party
    Jack Reed, U.S. Senator, RI, Democratic Party
    Harry M. Reid, U.S. Senator, NV, Democratic Party
    James E. Risch, U.S. Senator, ID, Republican Party
    Pat Roberts, U.S. Senator, KS, Republican Party
    Jay D. Rockefeller, U.S. Senator, WV, Democratic Party
    Bernard Sanders, U.S. Senator, VT, Independent
    Charles E. Schumer, U.S. Senator, NY, Democratic Party
    Jeff B. Sessions, U.S. Senator, AL, Republican Party
    Jeanne Shaheen, U.S. Senator, NH, Democratic Party
    Richard C. Shelby, U.S. Senator, AL, Republican Party
    Olympia J. Snowe, U.S. Senator, ME, Republican Party
    Arlen Specter, U.S. Senator, PA, Democratic Party
    Debbie Stabenow, U.S. Senator, MI, Democratic Party
    Jon Tester, U.S. Senator, MT, Democratic Party
    John Thune, U.S. Senator, SD, Republican Party
    Tom Udall, U.S. Senator, NM, Democratic Party
    David B. Vitter, U.S. Senator, LA, Republican Party
    George V. Voinovich, U.S. Senator, OH, Republican Party
    Mark R. Warner, U.S. Senator, VA, Democratic Party
    Jim Webb, U.S. Senator, VA, Democratic Party
    Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator, RI, Democratic Party
    Roger F. Wicker, U.S. Senator, MS, Republican Party
    Ron Wyden, U.S. Senator, OR, Democratic Party

    Please email me a copy of this letter.

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    Subject:Please Cosponsor S. 1524
    Dear [Lawmaker]:

    As a constituent and an Episcopalian deeply committed to America's efforts to fight deadly poverty, disease, and hunger throughout the world, I write to urge you to cosponsor a critical new bipartisan bill that begins the process of updating our nation's foreign-aid system for the 21st Century. The "Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act of 2009" (S.1524), introduced by Senators Kerry and Lugar, represents a vital first step in the process of making something our nation does well - foreign aid - work even better. While U.S. foreign assistance represents less than one percent of the federal budget, it saves millions of lives around the world each year by helping fight extreme poverty and promote economic development. It puts children in school, helps women start businesses to provide for their families, prevents the spread of malaria and HIV, and assists farmers working to improve their crops local economies. On the other hand, the system has not been updated comprehensively since it was created in 1961 for a world facing an entirely different set of strategic and humanitarian challenges. Particularly at the present moment, when the global financial crisis has made for tight budgets everywhere, I want to be sure every dollar the U.S. spends on foreign aid is being spent efficiently to improve as many lives as possible and build a safer, more prosperous world. Specifically, it is time for Congress explicitly to elevate economic development and the alleviation of global poverty as a principal focus of American foreign policy, alongside defense and diplomacy. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign last year: "It has become clear that America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and under-funded for far too long - relative to what we spend on the military, and more important, relative to the responsibilities and challenges our nation has around the world." S.1524 begins the process of doing just that. It initiates several concrete reforms to enhance the policy, planning, and evaluation capacity of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in order to make American development programs more responsive to the needs of people living in poverty, more effective in their implementation, and more accountable to taxpayers at home. Significantly, the bill stresses the intent of Congress that U.S. development policy should be used to reduce extreme poverty and hunger and promote good governance abroad. Far from being the final say in the process, S.1524 represents only a first step. The more challenging and detailed work of revising and updating the Foreign Assistance Act will need to come later. The steps required by S.1524, however, are critical and will lay the foundation for all that is to come. As an American, I am deeply proud of what our nation has accomplished through foreign aid over the past fifty years, and I hope to see even more accomplished in the next fifty. S.1524 sets into motion the steps that will ensure this. Please cosponsor this vital legislation. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your reply.

    Sincerely,

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