House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Congressman Rohrabacher is a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and as a member of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment. In both these positions he is a forceful advocate of America's international trade competitiveness and promotes maintaining a strong role for national security in U.S. foreign policy.
Rohrabacher is one of the committee's most outspoken advocates of human rights and democracy around the world. He opposed granting Normal Trade Relations status to China and Vietnam, primarily because of both countries’ dismal human rights records.
The congressman supports free trade and is working to save billions in federal money by fighting to end programs that use taxpayer dollars to insure the risks American businesses investing overseas. This includes opposing U.S. funding of the International Monetary Fund and bailouts of corrupt Third World economies by the World Bank.
Also, to protect U.S. forces overseas, Rohrabacher has promoted setting a cut-off date for American troops in Bosnia and Kosovo, and linked U.S. aid to Russia to Moscow's sale of missiles to China and Iran.
Finally, Rohrabacher led the attack on the transfer of U.S. missile technology to Communist China, which he calls the worst betrayal of our national security interests in his lifetime. Rohrabacher questioned whether President Clinton covered for American aerospace firms who passed missile technology to Red China, allowing it to more effectively target the U.S. for nuclear attack. The Pentagon reported some of these technology transfers damaged national security and put the country in jeopardy. As a result of Rohrabacher's efforts, the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China (The "Cox Committee") made recommendations to prevent such transfers from happening again.
Link: House Committee on Foreign Affairs
House Committee on Science and Technology
Mr. Rohrabacher has served as a member of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee since he first entered Congress in 1989, and served as its chairman for 8 years. Even as a junior member on the minority side, he made a name for himself as a strong advocate of strengthening America's technological leadership, especially in space and defense.
In particular, Congressman Rohrabacher fought to increase research on new space transportation technologies, which could slash the high costs of launching people and payloads into space and revolutionize America's whole space program. He quickly became the leading champion of so-called "Cheap Access to Space" and reusable launch vehicles, including the DC-X Single Stage Rocket Technology demonstrator, built in Huntington Beach by then-McDonnell Douglas.
During Mr. Rohrabacher’s 1997-2005 chairmanship, the subcommittee produced several important pieces of legislation: the Commercial Space Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-303), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-391), and the Commercial Space Transportation Competitiveness Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-405). These measures are designed to help American businesses and NASA lead our nation into space -- discovering new knowledge, creating prosperity and ensuring our security.
But the Congressman's work on the Science Committee hasn't been limited just to space. He's also fought for pure research and common sense on several down-to-Earth issues. After the watershed election of 1994, Congressman Rohrabacher became Chairman of the Science Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Environment (E&E).
Under his leadership, the E&E subcommittee increased funding authority for solar and oceans research; fought the use of government research and development funds for "marketing" commercial products; and successfully reduced wasteful bureaucracy and corporate welfare. In fact, Rohrabacher and the subcommittee reduced wasteful spending by 13 percent, for a total savings of more than $1 billion in annual savings, on the FY1996 budget authorizations for the Department of Energy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), while protecting essential energy research.
Link: House Committee on Science and Technology
Committee Assignments
