President-elect Donald Trump’s Secretary of State pick says the State Department isn’t making full use of its diplomatic workforce, and plans on working with Congress to rethink its diplomatic mission.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that, if confirmed, he would work with a new congressional commission focused on State Department modernization.

“What has happened over the last 20 years under multiple administrations is the influence of the State Department has declined at the expense of other agencies, and also at the expense of National Security Councils, because it takes so long for the State Department to take action. And so, increasingly, you stop getting invited to the meetings, and they stop putting you in charge of things because it takes too long to get a result,” Rubio said at his confirmation hearing.

Rubio told lawmakers that the “core mission of the department has not been well-defined” in the modern federal bureaucracy, and that “it’s our obligation to define that.”

“We want the State Department to be relevant again, and it should be because the State Department has a plethora of talented people who are subject-matter experts and who have skills in diplomacy. And it’s not being fully utilized because, increasingly, on issue after issue, we’ve seen the State Department marginalized because of internal inertia, because of the way the structure works. We have to be at that table when decisions are being made, and the State Department has to be a source of creative ideas and effective implementation,” he added.

The Trump administration is bringing new leaders into the State Department at the same time a new reform commission into coming into focus.

Congress in the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act launched the Congressional Commission on Reform and Modernization of the Department of State. The panel will “examine the changing nature of diplomacy and the ways in which the department can modernize to advance the interests of the United States.”

The FY 2023 NDAA gives the commission 18 months to examine the challenges of modern-day diplomacy and report its findings to Congress and the president.

President Joe Biden appointed four members to the commission last October. Lawmakers gave the new commission $2 million in funding in the FY 2024 omnibus spending bill.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) will co-chair the commission with Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.). Former Committee Chairman Ben Cardin (D-Md.) championed the commission last year before his retirement.

Coons asked Rubio if the Trump administration’s push for government efficiency “will strengthen and not deplete core State functions.”

“We cannot, in my view, do more with less, given the challenges of the global moment. I think we need more investment in U.S. diplomacy and development as instruments of national power. But we also need to address efficiencies and make sure that we are streamlining and focusing the department and supporting its workforce, the Foreign Service,” Coons said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken led a diplomatic modernization agenda during his tenure, focused in part on equipping the agency with experts in cybersecurity and public health. Rubio credited Blinken’s modernization agenda with using emerging technology to make the department’s workforce more productive.

“When we talk about efficiency, the efficiency isn’t simply just saving money. The efficiency is improving performance. A key part of the State Department is customer service,” he said.

The department’s Bureau of Consular Services provides passports and visas. Its employees at embassies and consulates worldwide also provide support during emergencies to Americans overseas.

“Improving that experience for the American consumer is one of the top priorities we need to have. Secretary Blinken has begun this work, we need to build on this — how can we infuse technology, AI and the like, not simply to improve the customer service aspects of the State Department, but improve the productivity? If somehow, through leveraging technology appropriately, we can get people at the State Department to achieve three times the amount of work than they do now, because it takes less time to do these tasks, or frees them up to do other tasks. That would be an enormous win, and I hope that the commission will look at those aspects of this as well.”

The State Department says a record 170 million Americans hold a passport, and that it issued or renewed 90 million passports during the Biden administration. Applicants saw long wait times to apply or renew their passports at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the department to initiate several hiring surges.

The State Department says it’s now gotten processing times down to four to six weeks.

The Trump administration in early 2017 implemented a governmentwide hiring freeze that lasted for several months. But the administration kept a hiring freeze at the State Department in place for a year and a half, with the goal of reducing its total workforce by 8%.

The State Department grew its headcount under the Biden administration, but eventually reined in its robust hiring efforts following budget cuts.

Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) called on the Trump administration and the Senate to confirm more career Foreign Service officers.

“These are patriotic Americans who have served under both Democratic and Republican administrations and they work to advance U.S. national security interests. Delays and vacant posts hurt America’s interest,” Shaheen said.

Rubio said “time is of the essence” to fill these vacant positions, as the U.S. faces a growing number of diplomatic challenges across the globe.

“We want to have people that are highly capable, both those who we bring from what they call political appointees, but also those that are promoted from within the Foreign Service,” Rubio said. “One of the things we can do to help expedite that is to bring you people that will do a good job, who are qualified for the job or mission-aligned, but also that can move through this process quickly enough so that they can be at post and begin to fulfill their duties.”

The Trump administration is likely to roll back some State Department initiatives that started under the Biden administration.

Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) spoke out against the department’s work promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) policies under the Biden administration. Blinken appointed the department’s first diversity and inclusion officer, elevating an existing role.

Risch called on Rubio to end these DEIA policies “on day one” of the Trump administration.

“Rather than making hires or promotions based on merit and effectiveness, the department created new diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility requirements that distracted from this mission, undermined morale, and created an unfair and opaque process for promotions and performance evaluations.

The incoming Trump administration is already reshaping some of the State Department’s leadership.

Reuters reported Wednesday that members of an agency review team for the State Department have asked Marcia Bernicat, the director general of the Foreign Service and the department’s top human resources official, to resign.

Reuters has also reported that the incoming Trump team has asked for the resignation of two other career officials — Alaina Teplitz, the assistant secretary of state for administration, and Dereck Hogan, executive secretary of the department’s executive secretariat.

A State Department official said in a statement that “all presidential appointees serve at the pleasure of the president.”

“During this transition, the department will continue to fully function and represent the interests of the United States and the American people,” the official said.

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