[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 192 (Wednesday, December 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8574-S8576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE
Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, when President Obama was sworn into
office, the Nation's average price for a gallon of gasoline was under
$2. We all know that is not the case today. In most parts of the
country, gas remains well over $3 a gallon. In my home State of
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Arkansas, the price of gas ranges anywhere from just under $3 to $3.50
a gallon. The reason it stayed at a steady price is because there is a
decreased demand because of the poor economy.
Business owners will tell you that when the price of gas hits $3.50 a
gallon, it truly does affect how decisions are made. When it hits the
$4 mark, things start to shut down in terms of the economy because the
average person's disposable income is going to the gas pump instead of
local businesses.
Our country at this time lacks an energy policy. We are also facing a
jobs crisis of enormous magnitude. And our President is standing in the
way of one project that can help address both of these problems: the
Keystone XL Pipeline.
The proposed 1,700-mile pipeline would transport 700,000 barrels of
oil per day from Canada to U.S. refineries in the gulf coast. Canada's
oil sands are among the largest oil reserves in the world. As global
demand for oil surges and Canada increases production, the addition of
the Keystone Pipeline will ensure that Americans benefit from reliable
and secure oil from our largest trading partner and trusted ally.
The $7 billion pipeline cost will be paid by the Keystone consortium
and will fund nearly $\1/2\ billion in salaries. It will result in the
purchase of $6.5 billion worth of materials, services, and other local
economic activity. None of this will be funded with any Federal money.
It is a no-brainer.
Some of these jobs are in my home State of Arkansas. Welspun Tubular
Company, which makes pipes for the oil industry, has been producing
pipe for the Keystone project. Unfortunately, due to the
administration's delay on Keystone, the company has already begun to
lay off workers in Little Rock. They have 500 miles of pipe that was
produced for the project, ready to go, that is just sitting in the
facility.
By delaying the start of the project, it is putting Americans out of
work instead of putting Americans to work. Delaying this project costs
thousands of well-paying jobs when Americans need reliable employment,
and it hurts Arkansas businesses that have invested millions of dollars
to help produce the pipeline. It is also a major step backward for
energy policy goals of reducing our dependence on oil from unstable
regimes.
When it comes to energy policy, I am kind of a T. Boone Pickens guy.
I firmly believe that if it is American, we need to be using it. This
goes for not only renewable forms of energy but the vast amount of
fossil fuels we have been blessed with throughout the United States and
directly off our shores. If we use what we have here in a responsible
manner, we can be better positioned to pick and choose from whom we
import our remaining oil.
Importing oil from Canada would accelerate America's independence
from overseas oil by increasing the petroleum trade with one of our
most reliable allies, one of our most reliable friends, instead of
depending on the likes of Saudi Arabia and hostile regimes such as
Venezuela for much of our oil. The amount of oil provided through this
project is equal to half the amount we import from the Middle East. I
doubt that anyone in this body would argue that any of the countries we
import oil from in that region are more stable than Canada.
President Obama needs to quit pandering to the radical
environmentalists. He needs to do what is best for the country, not
what he perceives is best for his reelection. The Keystone Pipeline is
what is best for America. Let's move forward.
Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ
Mr. McCAIN. Today the President of the United States traveled to Ft.
Bragg, NC, to mark the end of the war in Iraq and to pay tribute to the
more than 12.5 million men and women of our Armed Forces who have
served and fought there since 2003. Those Americans deserve all of the
praise and recognition they receive, for they have given up their
comfort and safety. They have given up less demanding and more
lucrative jobs. They have given parts of their bodies and cherished
parts of their lives. They have given the quiet little sacrifices that
often go unmentioned but often hurt the most: the anniversaries spent
alone, the birth of a child missed, the first steps not seen, and the
first words not heard.
They have given all of that, and always they are prepared to give
more. They deserve to be honored by us all. I know the President's
words of praise and appreciation for our troops today were sincere and
heartfelt. I have every reason to believe he will do all in his power
to keep his promises to take care of our troops and their families at
home and to never forget how those noble Americans have done far more
than their fair share for the betterment of our Nation.
The President is a patriot and a good American, and I know his heart
swells with the same pride and sense of awe all of us feel when we are
in the presence of our men and women in uniform. These are humbling
feelings, feelings of wonderment and gratitude, and they unite all
Americans whether they supported the war in Iraq or not.
But let me point out a fact the President did not acknowledge today,
which is this: Our men and women in uniform have been able to come home
from Iraq by the tens of thousands over the past 3 years, and not just
come home but come home with honor having succeeded in their mission
for the simple reason that the surge worked.
All of this is possible because in 2007, with the war nearly lost, we
changed our strategy, changed our leaders in the field, and sent more
troops. This policy was vehemently opposed at the time by then-Senator
Obama and now President of the United States and his senior leaders
right here on the floor of this Senate.
On January 10, 2007, the day the surge strategy was announced, then-
Senator Obama said:
I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is
going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think
it will do the reverse.
On November 15, 2007, when it was clear to GEN David Petraeus and
Ambassador Ryan Crocker and many of us that the surge was working,
then-Senator Obama said:
The overall strategy is failed because we have not seen any
change in behavior among Iraq's political leaders.
Finally, on January 28, 2008, when it was undeniable the surge was
succeeding, he had this to say:
President Bush said that the surge in Iraq is working, when
we know that's just not true.
At the time the President's preferred alternative was to begin an
immediate withdrawal and have all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of
2009. I will let future historians be the judge of that proposed
policy. All I will say is that for 3 years, the President has been
harvesting the successes of the very strategy he consistently dismissed
as a failure. I imagine this irony was not lost on a few of our troops
at Fort Bragg today, most of whom deployed and fought as part of the
surge.
The fact is, the President has consistently called for a complete
withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq at the earliest possible date,
and he has never deviated from this position as President. Indeed, he
always reaffirmed his campaign promise to end the war in Iraq and
withdrawal of our troops. So perhaps it should not have come as a
surprise when the President announced in October that he was ending
negotiations with the Iraqi Government over whether to maintain a small
number of U.S. troops in Iraq beyond this year to continue assisting
Iraq security forces.
I continue to believe this decision represents a failure of
leadership, both Iraqi and American; that it was a sad case of
political expediency triumphing over military necessity, both in
Baghdad and in Washington; and that it will have serious negative
consequences for Iraq's stability and our national security interests.
I sincerely hope I am wrong, but I fear that GEN Jack Keane, who is
one of the main architects of the surge, could be correct again when he
said recently:
We won the war in Iraq, and we are now losing the peace.
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Let me be clear. Like all Americans, I too am eager to bring our
troops home. I do not want them to remain in Iraq or anywhere else for
a day longer than necessary. But I also agree with our military
commanders in Iraq who were nearly unanimous in their belief that some
U.S. forces, approximately 20,000, should remain for a period of time
to help the Iraqis secure the hard-earned gains that we had made
together.
All of our top commanders in Iraq, by the way, chosen by the
President of the United States--all of our top commanders in Iraq--
General Petraeus, General Odierno, General Austin, all of them believed
we needed to maintain a presence of U.S. troops there, and they
consistently made that clear to many of us during our repeated visits
to Iraq.
On February 3, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, GEN Lloyd
Austin, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Jim Jeffrey testified to the
Committee on Armed Services that for all of the progress the Iraqi
security forces had made in recent years--and it has been substantial--
they still have critical gaps in their capabilities that will endure
beyond this year. Those shortcomings included enabling functions for
counterterrorism operations, the control of Iraq's airspace, and other
external security missions, intelligence collection and fusion,
training and sustainment of the force.
Our commanders wanted U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond this year
to continue assisting Iraqi forces in filling these gaps in their
capabilities. Indeed, Iraqi commanders believed the exact same thing.
In August, the chief of staff of Iraq's armed forces could not have
been any clearer. He said:
The problem will start after 2011. The politicians must
find other ways to fill the void after 2011. If I were asked
about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians, the U.S.
Army must stay until the Iraqi Army is fully ready in 2020.
During repeated travels to Iraq with my colleagues, I have met with
all of the leaders of Iraq's major political blocs, and they too said
they would support keeping a presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. So let's
be clear. This is what our commanders recommended, it is what Iraqi
commanders recommended, and it is what all of Iraq's key political
leaders said privately that they were prepared to support. So what
happened? What happened?
Advocates of withdrawal are quick to point out that the current
security arrangement which requires all U.S. troops to be out of Iraq
by the end of this year was concluded by the Bush administration. That
is true. But it is also beside the point. The authors of that agreement
always intended for it to be renegotiated at a later date to allow some
U.S. forces to remain in Iraq.
As former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose State Department
team negotiated the security agreements, has said:
There was an expectation that we would negotiate something
that looked like a residual force for our training with the
Iraqis. Everybody believed it would be better if there was
some kind of residual force.
So if that is not the reason, I ask again: What happened? The
prevailing narrative is that the U.S. and Iraqi leaders could not reach
agreement over the legal protections needed to keep our troops in Iraq.
To be sure, this was a matter of vital importance. But while this may
have been a reason for our failure, the privileges and immunities
issues are less causes than symptoms of the larger reason we could not
reach agreement with the Iraqis. Because of his political promise to
fully withdraw from Iraq, the President never brought the full weight
of his office to bear in shaping the politics and the events on the
ground in Iraq so as to secure a residual presence of U.S. troops. This
left our commanders and our negotiators in Baghdad mostly trying to
respond to events in Iraq, trying to shape events without the full
influence of the American President behind them.
Last May, I traveled to Iraq with the Senator from South Carolina,
Mr. Graham. We met with all of the major Iraqi leaders. All of them
were ready to come to an agreement on a future presence of U.S. troops
in Iraq. But as Prime Minister Malaki explained to us, the
administration at that time and for the foreseeable future had not
given the Iraqi Government a number of troops and missions that it
would propose to keep in Iraq.
For weeks after, the administration failed to make a proposal to the
Iraqis, and when the Iraqis finally united in August and publicly asked
the administration to begin negotiations, the response from Washington
was again characterized by delay. This ensured that a serious
negotiation could not begin much less succeed.
I know Iraq is a sovereign country. I know it has an elected
government that must answer to public opinion. I know there could be no
agreement over a future U.S. military presence in Iraq if Iraqis did
not agree to it and build support for it. So this is as much a failure
of Iraqi leadership as it is of American leadership. But to blame this
on the Iraqis does not excuse the fact that we had an enormous amount
of influence with Iraq's leaders and we did not exercise it to the
fullest extent possible to achieve an outcome that was in our national
security interest.
In fact, in the view of many, they deliberately refused to come up
with a number. They deliberately refused to engage in serious
negotiation with the Iraqis, with the ultimate purpose of fulfilling
the Presidents's campaign pledge that he would get all U.S. troops out
of Iraq.
That is not a violation of sovereignty. That is diplomacy, that is
leadership. Leaders must shape events and public opinion not just
respond to them, and starting in early 2009, from their desire to
accelerate our withdrawal from Iraq faster than our commanders
recommended, to their hands-off approach to the Iraqi process of
government formation last year, to their record of delay and passivity
on the question of maintaining a presence of U.S. troops beyond this
year, this administration has consistently failed at the highest level
to lead on Iraq.
I say again, perhaps this outcome should not have been a surprise. It
is what the President has consistently promised to do, and that
decision makes good political sense for this President. But such
decisions should not be determined by domestic politics. The brave
Americans who have fought so valiantly and have given so much did so
not for political reasons but for the safety and security of their
fellow citizens, for their friends, for their families, for their
children's future, and for us.
This is a decisive moment in the history of America's relationship
with Iraq and with all of the countries of the broader Middle East.
This is a moment when the substantial influence we have long enjoyed in
that part of the world could be receding--in fact, it is receding. We
cannot allow that to be our Nation's future. We must continue to lead.
We must not let short-term political gains dictate our longer term
goals. We need to continue working to shape a freer, more just, and
more secure future for both Iraq and for people across the Middle East,
for it is in our own national security interest to do so.
Over 4,000 brave, young Americans gave their lives in this conflict.
I hope and I pray--regardless of these decisions made in large part for
political reasons--that their sacrifice was not in vain. I hope their
families will not mourn the day their sons and daughters went out to
fight for freedom for the Iraqi people.
Unfortunately, it is clear that this decision of a complete pullout
of U.S. troops from Iraq was dictated by politics and not our national
security interests. I believe history will judge this President's
leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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