Delays in the Senate and the Obama administration have left the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with only one of its twelve Senate-confirmed posts filled, CQ.com reports today.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs boosted funding for State Department educational and cultural exchanges in FY 2011 by more than $19 million, to $654.277 million. The counterpart House Subcommittee funded exchanges at only $635 million for FY 2011.

Funding intended to increase access to study abroad was included in the FY 2011 Labor/HHS/Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill (S 3686) reported out this week by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Included within the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays funding in the bill is $2 million “to expand access to study abroad.” The goals of this $2 million allocation, as noted in the bill’s report language, include:

Reps. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Paul Tonko (D-NY) introduced last Friday the Excellence and Innovation in Language Learning Act (HR 6036), a bill that would authorize $400 million in funding for FY 2011 for the teaching of foreign languages to K-12 students. The sponsoring Representatives hope that the bill will become part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or “No Child Left Behind,” in the Department of Education.

As he promised to do back in June, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), introduced legislation yesterday to create a professional exchange program between the U.S. and Muslim-majority countries. According to an SFRC press release, the International Professional Exchange Act of 2010 (S.

As previously reported by the Alliance , the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs approved legislation last week that would boost Department of State educational and cultural exchange program funding in FY 2011 by more than $19 million.

Senate appropriators have approved legislation that would boost Department of State exchange program funding in FY 2011 by more than $19 million, amidst a significant overall increase in funding for the Department.

Deficiencies in U.S. federal foreign language capabilities, especially within defense-related agencies, could be reversed and overcome with an increased and sustained national focus on K-12 language learning, concluded several panelists at a Senate hearing today on improving government language proficiencies.

“If you speak to a man in a language he understands, you speak to his head,” Nelson Mandela once said. “If you speak to him in his own language, you speak to his heart.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee cut $2.6 billion from the FY 2011 International Affairs Budget yesterday, lowering the total available for the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs bill to $54.056 billion, down from the President’s requested level of $56.656 billion. Appropriations Committee chair Daniel Inouye (D-HI) said that the cuts came as a result of the “severe economic difficulties facing our nation”