VIDEO: Sen. Moran Questions Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Food for Peace Program

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) - a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs - this week questioned U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the Food for Peace program and the administration's decision to waive Russian oil sanctions.

"In Senator Boozman's and Senator Klobuchar's Farm Bill, we hope to make the transfer of Food for Peace to USDA permanent," said Sen. Moran. "We appreciate the transfer that has been made administratively. Let me ask you if there's just things that I should know, the committee should know, in regard to that transition - anything that is being left behind, are there problems in delivering the food aid, what role does the State Department still play?"

"I think the role the State Department will always play is because our embassies - and in some cases, we do have Department of Agriculture people embedded in our embassies - I think ultimately our embassies will always serve as a key liaison point with host countries that are recipients or maybe in need of recipients," responded Secretary Rubio. "There may be some issues in terms of bringing in the aid or bringing in the Food for Peace assistance into those countries that we would have to navigate with the host country."

"But by and large, we felt that the transfer made sense," continued Secretary Rubio. "It had long been advocated for by many representing agricultural states because truly at the end of the day, the Food for Peace program is an American agricultural program to benefit the world - to use what we've been blessed with as part of a tool of our foreign policy. We just felt it would be better executed - we agreed it would be better executed through the Department of Agriculture. So, we commit to doing everything we can on our end to facilitate the transition and then facilitate implementation."

Sen. Moran also questioned Secretary Rubio on the administration's decision to waive U.S. sanctions on Russian oil sales.

Click HERE to Watch Sen. Moran's Full Questioning

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