Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew was questioned during an April 29, 2014 hearing in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government the department’s inadequate response to the January Omnibus Appropriations requirement on delays for humanitarian license approvals. The report was due in March. In the bill Congress asked Treasury to send recommendations for how it will reduce wait times for licenses granted to permit humanitarian aid in places like Somalia. Rep Jose Serrano (D-NY) told Lew he would like to see a “more thorough response” than what Treasury submitted.
U.S. counterterrorism law requires aid groups to get a license from Treasury before operating in areas controlled by terrorists. In the case of Somalia, most of the neediest civilians were located in areas controlled by al-Shabaab, a designated terrorist group. During the hearing, Secretary Lew argued that the “issuance of licenses in Somalia has been a very challenging undertaking.” But he declined to give any specific timetable for a more thorough response the reporting requirement.
A May 2013 report from the UN and USAID noted that legal restrictions on aid were a contributing factor to the high death rate in the famine. A review of the Somalia Famine Timeline demonstrates that Treasury had adequate advance warning of the famine, indicating that the challenges Lew refers to were political, not administrative or logistical.
License delays occur in other conflict zones as well. One anonymous charity that provides education and psycho-social support to children in the Palestinian territories waited two years to receive a response from Treasury on a license request. Treasury declined to provide a license, citing only a “lack of foreign policy guidance from the U.S. Department of State” as their reason.