cardin: as i mentioned earlier, elise mellinger is a pearson foreign officer fellow. let explain what that means. she's an experienced member of the department of state's foreign service, she has served in india and indonesia, singapore, she is a person who has served our country for many years and she's a career diplomat at the state department. and for the past year, she's been assigned to my senate office and as -- acted as a valuable member of my staff. now, that helps a career -- our career diplomats understand the congressional process better but it also gives us the opportunity to have an experienced individual who really understands the workings of diplomacy to be in our office and help us carry out our responsibility. in elisea's case that was particularly helpful to me because at the beginning of this year i took on the new responsibility as the chair of the east asia and pacific subcommittee. throughout my career in congress i've spent a lot of time on europe, i've chaired the u.s. helsinki commission, traveled extensively to europe, but it was a new ventur