A group of Senate and House Democrats are pressing the State Department to provide information on the Biden administration’s recent approval of two emergency arms transfers to Israel that bypassed the Congressional review process.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, led a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken seeking specifics on why the decision was made to move forward before Congress could review the weapons deals and whether the department “sufficiently considered civilian harm risks.”
“It is essential for Congress to be able to conduct oversight of these arms transfers and determine whether they are consistent with humanitarian principles and U.S. law, and whether they advance or harm U.S. national security,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Blinken.
The Biden administration in early December first approved a $106.5 million emergency Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to Israel for nearly 14,000 rounds of 120mm tank ammunition and later than month signed off on a $147.5 million deal for fuzes, charges and primers for 155mm artillery shells without the typical Congressional review process.
Following the latter arms transfer announcement for 155mm ammunition components, a State Department spokesperson explained that the FMS case was “an urgent new Israeli request currently being executed under the secretary’s delegated authority to determine that an emergency exists,” which would waive congressional review requirements.
The lawmakers in their letter note the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) requires the State Department to provide Congress with advanced notification of FMS cases for review, while the Biden administration used the emergency declaration to circumvent that process twice in a one-month span.
“It is highly unusual for the president to bypass congressional oversight through an emergency declaration. In fact, since the AECA was passed into law, an emergency declaration authority has only been used 18 times in nearly 50 years,” the lawmakers wrote.
The lawmakers also add they are “deeply disturbed that Israel’s response to [Hamas’ Oct. 7] attack included indiscriminate bombing and has killed over 22,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been civilians, including thousands of children,” and note that the emergency waiver “does not exempt the U.S. government from assessing whether arms sales” are consistent with humanitarian and conventional arms transfer policies.
“We are also troubled by the decision to provide equipment for 155mm shells, which over 30 U.S.-based civil society organizations warned poses ‘a grave risk to civilians’ and are ‘inherently indiscriminate’ when used in densely populated areas like Gaza,” the lawmakers wrote to Blinken. “In addition to the civilian harm risks inherent to the nature of these weapons, we are concerned that the weapons the U.S. provides could be used in a manner that violates of U.S. policy and international law.”
The letter requested that Blinken provide responses by February 9 on how the State Department determined these sales required the emergency transfer process, whether the conventional arms policy was applied to these sales and how the department put in place mitigation measures to ensure the reduction in risks of civilian harm.
Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) as well as Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Judy Chu (D-Calif), Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) joined Warren and McGovern in signing the letter.
Earlier this month, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) announced he plans to propose an amendment that would strike a provision in the pending supplemental spending bill that waives congressional oversight requirements for U.S.-provided Foreign Military Financing to Israel (Defense Daily, Jan. 10).
“The administration’s supplemental request proposes to lift congressional notice requirements regarding arms sales to Israel while leaving the notice mandate in place for arms transfers to other nations. I have strongly supported U.S. aid necessary for Israel’s defense, but all nations should be subject to the same standard. I’m filing an amendment to maintain the congressional notification requirement for all U.S. foreign military assistance because Congress and the American taxpayer deserve to know when U.S. arms are transferred to any nation,” Kaine, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, said at the time.