New Food Aid Proposal Reforms Nothing

The Obama Administration's proposed changes to the current food aid programs won't reform them.  The changes will create additional, un-needed layers of expensive bureaucracy. The existing programs will continue to fragment and overlap. Lastly, the proposed changes will minimize awareness of valuable U.S. support. The U.S. government should be eliminating waste and promoting U.S. grown and shipped food aid instead of hiding under a sack letting others take credit for our taxpayer generosity.

Currently, the distribution of U.S. government financed food aid is controlled by the government. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) work together to place U.S. grown crops on U.S. owned, operated, and crewed vessels. The agencies know when the ships leave the United States and they know when the food aid arrives in a foreign country. This knowledge comes from the requirements placed on U.S. shippers to transmit on-sight information back to the U.S. government.

Writing a check for foreign grown crops will create a new layer of bureaucracy that may not be directly controlled by the U.S. government. USAID will have to hire additional individuals in foreign countries to process paperwork. These individuals will need to be in all of the recipient countries to ensure that the food aid arrives and is distributed in a timely and proper manner. Many of these new hires will not be U.S. citizens because of the dangerous political environments in which food aid is distributed.  These new hires could be easily swayed by their own country politics instead of following the directions issued by the U.S. government.

The proposed changes will also minimize the recognition that our country receives when donating food aid. The Washington Post recently published a story about secret support to Syrians in Aleppo.  According to the reporter, most of the Syrians didn't know that the food aid they were receiving came from the United States government. The Syrians lacked this knowledge because the current U.S. government doesn't want to advertise the assistance.

When I was the Chief Counsel at the U.S. Maritime Administration, I placed a framed USAID grain bag on my office wall because I wanted everyone to know about the U.S. government's role in feeding those in need. Providing food aid is a soft form of diplomacy and provides good will for our country. We should want those who receive our taxpayer financed aid to know that it comes from the United States. We don't want recipients to see a bag coming from another country because they will assume that the other country, not ours, financed the food.

If the Obama Administration wants to reform the program to best utilize taxpayer dollars, then it should eliminate the current duplication of effort that exists between the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development food assistance programs. The Government Accountability Office released a report in December 2012 highlighting current fragmentation and overlap. The report found that the agencies are operating in the same places with similar goals, but with different administrative structures and requirements for performance management. Consolidating the Administration's food aid programs into one agency will save taxpayer dollars and allow for more food aid to go directly to those who need it. 

U.S. grown grain, shipped on U.S. crewed vessels has helped alleviate hunger for millions of people.  We should continue to help those in need. This assistance should be cost effective and it should be to benefit of our country. We should not support others who would control our taxpayer financed aid and who would take credit for this valuable assistance.

---

K. Denise Rucker Krepp is a homeland security, transportation, and energy expert who began her career as an active duty Coast Guard officer in 1998. After September 11th, Ms. Krepp was part of the team that created the Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Ms. Krepp joined the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee in 2005 and drafted the maritime and surface transportation sections of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007. She also wrote Detour Ahead: Critical Vulnerabilities on America’s Rail and Mass Transit Security Programs (http://hsc-democrats.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20060801153711-86476.pdf). Ms. Krepp served as Chief Counsel at the U.S. Maritime Administration and Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation during the first Obama administration. She is currently a private consultant and professor at The George Washington University and Pennsylvania State University. Ms. Krepp is also on the Board of Directors for The Infrastructure Security Partnership.