[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 38 (Thursday, March 6, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1353-S1357]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, we now are in about the sixth month of the
implementation of the Affordable Care Act. We have over 11 million
people who have received health care--who previously had not been able
to receive it--either through the private exchanges, which have signed
up 4 million people all across the country; through the expansion of
Medicaid, which has reached millions more; or through all of the young
people who are able to stay on their parents' plans until they are 26
years old.
Taxpayers are saving money. In fact, CBO has redone their estimates
for the 10-year period after the passage of the Affordable Care Act to
suggest that we are now going to save $1.2 trillion on Federal health
care spending, in large part because of the reforms in the Affordable
Care Act.
Across this country millions of Americans who had been kept out of
the ranks of the insured because of a preexisting condition now have
access to health care, and tens of millions of seniors are paying less
for their health care because they get checkups for free and they are
able to access prescription drugs for 50 percent or less than the
original cost when they reach that doughnut hole. So the Affordable
Care Act is changing lives.
When you reorder one-sixth of the American economy, there are going
to be bumps along the road. No one should come to the floor--even those
of us who are the most vocal proponents of the law--and suggest there
are not going to be some people who are not going to have the perfect
experience. Of course there is no excuse for the way in which the Web
site operated for the first several months. But it is time for
proponents of this law to tell the real story, and the real story is
that the Affordable Care Act is working. It is working for millions of
Americans who now have access to health care. It is working for
taxpayers who are spending less than ever before as you look at annual
rates of growth in Federal health care spending.
Today and this week my colleagues and I are focusing on the benefits
for one specific group of patients, one specific set of families all
across this country, and those are patients and families dealing with
cancer diagnoses.
So I will start this off--I will be joined later by Senator Stabenow
and some of my other colleagues--and I want to talk first about a
family in Indiana. I will talk about some families in Connecticut as
well, but the Treinens have a story that is, frankly, not unique. They
had insurance and they thought they had really good insurance. They
didn't pay too much attention to the lifetime cap of $1 million that
was in their insurance policy because they just figured, as a
relatively healthy family, there was no way they were ever going to
spend $1 million on health care over the course of their time on that
insurance plan.
But as millions of families across this country know, cancer can
interrupt your plans, and that is what happened to the Treinens. Their
doctors diagnosed their teenage son Michael in 2007 with an aggressive
form of leukemia. The treatment called for ten doses of chemotherapy
that cost $10,000 per dose. A 56-day stay in an Intensive Care Unit
alone cost about $400,000. So Michael and his family reached that $1
million lifetime maximum in less than 1 year, and it was then left to
this brave family to go out and raise money in solicitations in their
neighborhood, in their community and all across the country, which
miraculously allowed them to bring in $865,000 in 6 days to keep their
son's treatment going.
Needless to say, that avenue is not available to every family. But
due to their ingenuity and their passion, the Treinens were able to
raise almost $1 million from private donors in order to keep their
son's treatment going. But the story doesn't end well, however, for the
Treinens. Even though money came in from all over the United States,
and as far away as places such as Germany, Michael's cancer eventually
stopped responding to chemotherapy and he died May 25, before he could
receive the transplant they all hoped would save his life.
The reality is that insurance companies have been getting away with
this practice for years--lifetime or annual limits that for 105 million
Americans were preventing them from receiving care when they really got
sick. That is what insurance really is supposed to be for. For those of
us who buy insurance, we get it in the hopes that should we get very
sick, that insurance plan will be there to help us. But with annual and
lifetime limits, when people got really sick, especially with cancer
diagnoses, that help wasn't there.
Tom Bocaccio, who is a retired police officer in Newington, CT, is
still dealing with the consequences of lifetime caps. His wife past
away after an 8-year struggle with adrenal cancer. After her death, the
husband she left behind was saddled with a $1.5 million bill because
the Bocaccios, over that 8-year period of fighting cancer, had exceeded
their lifetime cap. That changes Tom's life in a myriad of ways. He has
lost his wife, and there is no way to describe the pain that comes with
that, especially after that brave, courageous battle of almost a
decade, but now his entire life is upended by the fact that he has a
$1.5 million bill he has to pay, and he doesn't have the resources to
do that.
So first and foremost, for cancer patients all across this country,
105 million Americans no longer face lifetime limits on health care
benefits. For cancer patients, not only does that deliver financial
security, but it delivers mental and psychological security as well--to
know in the midst of dealing with this diagnosis and all the pain that
comes with confronting this disease head on, they do not also have to
worry about skimping on treatments, about cutting back on hospital
stays that might harm the recovery or treatment of the patient simply
because they are trying not to get above that annual or lifetime limit.
The benefits to cancer patients extend beyond just that protection on
lifetime and annual limits. In addition, cancer patients are going to
be able to keep their health care because of the ban on discrimination
against families and individuals with preexisting conditions.
I have spoken about the Berger family many times on this floor. They
are a family that explains exactly why we need this protection. The
Bergers, from Meriden, CT, had a son who was diagnosed with cancer
during the 2-week period in which the husband, through which the family
had insurance, didn't have a job. He switched jobs, and during that 2-
week period in which he was waiting to get insurance through his new
job, their son was diagnosed with cancer. The new insurance policy
decided it was a preexisting condition. The Bergers had to pay every
dime of that treatment and they lost everything. They lost their
savings, their home. Their lives were transformed because of the
misfortune of having a cancer diagnosis at the wrong time.
No family anywhere in the country dealing with a cancer diagnosis
will ever have to go through what the Bergers went through because here
ever after the law of this land says that if you have a preexisting
condition, you cannot be discriminated against.
There are all sorts of other benefits that matter, whether it be the
fact you don't have to pay for preventive health care any longer so you
can get a checkup without cost or clinical trials are now covered which
many cancer patients enjoy the benefit of. Life changed for cancer
patients and families dealing with cancer when the Affordable Care Act
passed.
Senator Stabenow, myself, and others had a press conference earlier
this week in which we heard the story of David Weis, a senior at
Georgetown University who was diagnosed days before his 19th birthday
with thyroid lymphatic cancer. David talks about the difference the
Affordable Care Act makes for him, not only in financial terms but in
terms of how he thinks about his future. David now can go out and get a
job, search for and pursue a career based on what he wants to do with
his life rather than based on what job will provide him with adequate
benefits to treat his cancer should it reoccur.
I have a constituent who talks about it the same way. He was 14 when
he was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. He went through treatment for
over 3 years. His family now knows that with the Affordable Care Act--
because he is only covered on his mom's policy until he is 26--after he
ages out of his mom's plan, he will be able to pursue his dreams no
matter what kind of insurance plan his prospective employer has.
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What we have learned over the years is there is a connection between
the mind and the body. If you are stressed out about things such as how
you are going to pay for treatment of your disease, it does have an
effect on your body's ability to fight that disease. Unfortunately, for
millions of families dealing with cancer, their treatment has been
restrained, their body's recovery has been curtailed because they are
obsessively--and appropriately--always worried about what will happen
if their insurance runs out.
The ACA says never again. No family will have to worry because that
will be guaranteed, and discriminatory policies of annual and lifetime
limits disappear.
I will end with the notion that it is important to remember every
time our Republican friends come down to the floor and talk about how
awful they believe the Affordable Care Act is, their proposal is to
return cancer patients and families dealing with cancer back to the
reality in which they had lifetime limits which ended their coverage--
for this family I talked about from Indiana, after only several
months--and they want to go back to the days in which families such as
the Bergers lose everything, their savings, their home, because of a
mistimed cancer diagnosis.
This week the House of Representatives voted for the 50th time to
repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act. I was a Member of that
body for 6 years, and I probably participated in about 40 of those
votes. Despite the fact I heard lots of my Republican friends come down
to the floor and say: We are voting to repeal and replace, they never
voted once to replace the Affordable Care Act because their agenda is
not to replace it. Their agenda is simply to repeal it and go back to
the days in which cancer patients were treated with this kind of
carelessness.
Our colleagues on the Democratic side who voted for the Affordable
Care Act understand there are places where it can be better. We
understand there is a process of perfecting it. But we understand--
because of families such as the Barrows, because of families such as
the Weises, the Treinens, and the Bergers--for cancer patients and the
families who love them, they know the ACA is working, and they know
they never want to go back to the days in which their lives were put in
jeopardy by a health care system which didn't work for them.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from
Connecticut for his passion and his wonderful advocacy for people who
just want to know they have health care for themselves and their
families, which is pretty basic. I thank Senator Murphy for his
vigilance, for speaking out and being here and talking about what is at
stake.
There is an ad on TV which says something like: New car, $30,000; new
house, $150,000; peace of mind, priceless. What we are talking about in
terms of access to affordable health care, getting what you are paying
for, knowing you can't get dropped just because you get sick, knowing
your child with juvenile diabetes can get care even though it would be
viewed as a preexisting condition, is peace of mind.
I can't imagine how scary it must be to sit in a doctor's office and
have a doctor come in and say: You have cancer. You have leukemia. You
have breast cancer. This is happening to people every single day, and
there are many thoughts going through their minds at that time. At some
point they will turn to the doctor and want to talk about: What kind of
treatment do I need? Is it going to be covered? How do I get it? What
is going to happen?
One in every eight women in America will develop invasive breast
cancer during their lives. It is not a statistic. These are real women,
such as my sister-in-law, such as many other people I know. They are
our daughters, our sisters, our mothers. Men as well are being given
diagnoses of breast cancer--our friends. They now have the peace of
mind of knowing they are going to be able to get the care they need at
an affordable price and they can't be dropped. There is no cap on how
long they are going to be able to get treatment, and that is priceless.
I will share a true story about a cancer survivor whose life has been
changed thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Her name is Chris G.
Chris found a lump in her breast. Every woman can imagine the
thoughts which must have gone through Chris's mind. The fear must have
been unimaginable. It was even worse for Chris because her husband lost
his job and they didn't have insurance--the worst of all possible
situations. Because she didn't have insurance, she couldn't see a
doctor to get the tests she needed. Chris didn't ignore her lump. You
can't ignore something like that. It is on your mind every single
minute of every single day. But at that moment she didn't feel she
could do anything about it because without insurance, if Chris went to
a doctor, her breast cancer of course would count as a preexisting
condition and then she would never be able to get insurance.
But now, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Chris and millions of
women like her can get the affordable insurance they need, and
marketplaces where insurance companies now have to compete for her
business give their best price for her business. These are good
policies which cover treatment women need to beat cancer and survive.
But before the Affordable Care Act, cancer would haunt these women for
the rest of their lives as insurance companies labeled their survival a
preexisting condition--no more.
Thanks to the ACA, millions of cancer survivors similar to Chris have
peace of mind--priceless. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, millions
of women have access to mammograms and other preventive services.
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, millions of women similar to Chris
will never have to worry about annual or lifetime limits on their
coverage, not being told: OK, cancer. You have eight visits. That is
it. I hope it works. That is it. No more.
In fact, the ACA flips that around. It says cancer patients such as
Chris will never be asked to spend more than a set amount of money in
total on their treatment. Once they hit that number, the insurance
company has to pick up the rest of the cost of the treatments. For
women fighting cancer, this law is a lifesaver.
There are 7,000 women in my State of Michigan alone who will be newly
diagnosed with breast cancer this year. This is why it is so important
for women to get covered, to sign up before March 31, so they can have
the health care they need this year. This is literally a lifesaving day
on March 31.
Once you are covered, you get no-cost preventive services. So you can
go in, get the checkup, get the mammogram, get other cancer screenings,
and not have out-of-pocket costs. You get again the peace of mind of
knowing you are not going to go broke because of health care. Even if
you get diagnosed with cancer, it is not: Do I get the treatments I
need for breast cancer or do I have a home for my family? Do I go
bankrupt or do I try to survive through treatments? Those are not the
choices available to women and families anymore, and there is access to
your doctor instead of using the emergency room.
One of the fallacies of health care reform is this idea of somehow we
ignore when people get sick and somehow we don't pay for it. Yet we all
know people who don't have insurance use emergency rooms. I think it is
interesting to note there is a proposal, in Georgia, where the Governor
has said: The way to fix the problem with emergency rooms is to say you
don't have to treat people. That is one way to do it, to say we are not
going to treat people who are sick, who are in a car accident or have a
heart attack.
The other way is through the Affordable Care Act, where we say:
Instead of people using emergency rooms without insurance and then
shifting all the costs onto everybody with insurance--which is what
happens now--we pay for it. We all pay for it. Instead of that
happening, we will set up a way for people to take personal
responsibility for their health care and create a way to make it as
affordable and competitive as possible. Then people will be able to go
to their doctor instead of the emergency room and be able to get the
treatment they need on an ongoing basis.
As women such as Chris can attest, cancer sneaks up on you. You can't
predict it. You can't avoid it. This is not one of those events where
you can
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say just buck it up and don't get cancer. We don't want those costs, so
just don't get sick.
We all know how ridiculous that is. Yet in some ways this is sort of
what we keep hearing in some fashion.
The reality is you can't predict it. You can't avoid it. The only
thing you can do is survive it, which millions of women are now doing
who have access to the treatments and health care they need. This is
why this new health care reform law is so important.
It is two things. It is health insurance reform, making sure those of
us who have insurance are getting what we are paying for--as we have
said before, can't get dropped, don't put artificial limits on the
number of treatments. So it is insurance reform, so you are getting
what you are paying for--what you thought you were paying for. It is
also creating a way for more affordable insurance by creating a
marketplace where insurance companies then have to bid for your
business and provide you the best bed possible. We have competition to
bring the costs down. I know for Chris, I know for women in my own
family, and I know for people across Michigan, the peace of mind that
comes with that is, in fact, priceless.
The debate on the other side is about taking that all away--not
making it better, not fixing it. Medicare over the year has been
improved. Medicaid has been improved. Social Security has been
improved. Everything that is worth doing gets started and then has to
be worked on to get improved. We are committed to doing that. But there
are 50 votes now happening in the House to take it all away and to go
back to saying good luck. If you are a woman, good luck. By the way,
being a woman is probably viewed as being a preexisting condition.
Trying to find insurance? Good luck. Good luck trying to get what you
need from the insurance companies. Peace of mind is worth fighting for,
and that is what the Affordable Care Act is all about.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Savannah Harbor Expansion Project
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss promises made
and promises broken, of hypocrisy and politics, of the difference
between the photo op speeches, press releases, and real action.
Let me start at the beginning, for those who are just joining us in
this decade-and-a-half battle. The Panama Canal is about halfway
through a $5.25 billion expansion which will accommodate the larger
post-Panamax vessels that are too large to transit the current Panama
Canal. These new post-Panamax ships are the length of aircraft
carriers. From the waterline they are 190 feet tall, or nearly twice
the height of the Lincoln Memorial. The ships can carry as many as
12,000 containers, or translated into TVs, a million flat screen TVs.
Thus, the United States must be prepared to accept these larger
vessels by 2015, when the Panama Canal expansion is complete. The Port
of Savannah in Savannah, Georgia, is the second busiest U.S. container
exporter, handling 13.2 million tons in exports in 2012 alone. It is
the busiest port on the East Coast. In order to accommodate the new
larger ships at the Port of Savannah, the Savannah river must be
deepened from its current depth of 42 feet to 47 feet.
Georgia has been working on the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project for
well in excess of a dozen years. Environmental studies have been
completed, permits have been issued, and state funding has been secured
for 40 percent of the project. It has the support of every Member of
the Georgia congressional delegation and every single leader in our
State, Republican as well as Democrat. This is a unifying bipartisan
project for us, one that will support hundreds of thousands of jobs
each year while generating billions of dollars in revenue for the
entire southeastern United States.
Until recently we had the support of the Obama administration as
well. After all, this is exactly the type of project the President has
been touting as the secret to our economic recovery. He even included
the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project as one of the four port projects
in his 2012 ``We Can't Wait'' initiative.
Vice President Biden visited the Port of Savannah along with Senator
Isakson, myself, and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx last year,
and in comments while at the Port of Savannah to the public that was
gathered, he stated: ``We are going to get this done, come hell or high
water.''
Acting U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank visited the
port in 2012, calling SHEP a national bipartisan priority for this
administration. Former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood visited
the Port of Savannah in 2011 promising to find funding for the port
expansion. In fact, in every conversation I have had with various
administration officials since this project started in 1997, I have
been assured that we would find a way to get this project done.
So you can see how confused I was to learn this week that the
administration is now stonewalling us on this project by not including
the project in its 2015 budget. It is baffling to see this
administration choose to ignore a congressional statute passed just 6
weeks ago that cleared all remaining obstructions to moving forward
with this project.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 gave clear direction to
the administration to begin construction on the SHEP project and to
request the necessary funding. The administration's position as
evidenced by the Office of Management and Budget is that they will
ignore the clear guidance from Congress and will instead request more
funding for unnecessary additional studies this year. Apparently the
administration would rather pay lip service to Georgians than deliver
on their promises. The State of Georgia has done its part, and I
commend Governor Deal and the Georgia legislature, who have committed
$265 million to start construction. We just need the Federal Government
to get out of our way so Georgia can begin construction on this very
vital project.
The administration can repair some of the damage that has been done
by finalizing the agreement between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
and the Georgia Ports Authority so that they can begin construction
with State money that under the leadership of Governor Deal is now
going to be available. Without any Federal funding at this point in
time, the State is willing to move forward.
I urge the administration to move ahead with the securing of that
agreement between the Army Corps of Engineers and the Ports Authority,
and let's begin construction.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I seek recognition to speak for 10
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Energy Policy
Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, we have now engaged in a debate over the
last couple of weeks over whether we should begin to expand a massive
exportation of American natural gas--our own natural gas--to put it out
onto the world market as a way of helping Ukraine deal with Russia.
This whole notion is constantly being invoked, like an incantation--a
talisman--that somehow or other this is some kind of a magic bullet
that will help solve the problems in Ukraine. In fact, it really is
nothing more than another aggregation encyclopedically of discredited
notions, nostrums, that have no relationship to the reality of the
global energy marketplace. These are actual arguments being made, false
premises that do not, in fact, have any likelihood of having any
substantial impact on the totality of the Ukrainian situation.
Let me give a few facts as a way of dealing with where we are right
now. The United States has already approved five export terminals that
could send 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas abroad. How much
natural gas is that? Let me tell my colleagues: It is more than twice
what Ukraine uses in a year. The United States has already
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committed to doing that. More than a quarter of all of the gas Europe
imports in a year would be ascribable to the amount of natural gas the
United States has already approved. It would be nearly as much as every
single U.S. home uses yearly. That is how much natural gas is part of
the already approved export terminals in this country.
The Department of Energy found that exporting 4.4 trillion cubic
feet--a level we will reach within the next approved export terminal--
could raise the price of domestic natural gas up to 54 percent. That
could mean that American consumers would pay $2.50 more per thousand
cubic feet. That translates into--listen to this number, I say to my
colleagues--a $62 billion energy tax every year on American consumers
and businesses.
What do I mean by energy tax? I mean that but for that exportation,
consumers' bills, corporations' bills, would be $62 billion lower per
year over the next 10 years. Can we imagine the debate here in the
Senate over increasing $62 billion worth of taxes on Americans in one
year? We would come to a standstill if we had that kind of debate. But
because it is part of energy policy, people assume it is something that
is outside the purview of what should be a great national debate which
we are having.
Let me tell my colleagues, low-cost domestic natural gas has allowed
the United States to add--let me say this--530,000 manufacturing jobs
since 2010, according to Dow Chemical. If low prices continue, we could
add 5 million more jobs in the manufacturing sector by 2020. Who says
this? America's Energy Advantage. Who is in that organization? Dow,
Alcoa, Nucor, and other major corporations. To what do they relate the
manufacturing revival in our country? Low prices. Energy that gives
them a reason to return the manufacturing jobs from overseas.
Except for the cost of labor, what is the single largest component in
a manufacturing job? The cost of energy. The lower it is, the more
likely the manufacturing company will have the jobs here in America. If
we increase the price by 54 percent or more, which is what many people
here are now proposing, we reduce the incentive for a manufacturer to
create those new jobs here in the United States.
Let me give my colleagues another fact. Every dollar invested in
domestic manufacturing creates $8 in finished products. Manufacturing
is at the heart of who we are as a country. This is something that
right now is a discussion we should have in this country--the
relationship between low-cost energy and the new manufacturing jobs we
want to see. We can generate that economic value here in America, but
if we send our natural gas overseas, that same kind of manufacturing
future can be constructed in China. Let's have that debate here in our
country.
Last month the U.S. chemical industry topped $100 billion in new
investments as a result of low-cost U.S. natural gas. According to the
American Chemistry Council, those 148 new factories and expanded
projects could generate $81 billion per year in new chemical industry
output and 637,000 new jobs in manufacturing here in the United States
by the year 2023.
Now let's go to, in my opinion, some of the complete canards that are
thrown out about where this natural gas will go if it is put out into
the free market. First of all, let me say this: We are not Russia. We
are not Venezuela. We are not a Communist country where the government
controls where energy goes. No. We are a capitalist country. We are
proud of it. The decision as to where natural gas is going to go is
going to be made by the CEOs of oil and gas companies in our country,
and they are going to send it to where they can get the highest dollar.
Let me say this right now: The highest dollar is in China. The highest
dollar is in South America. The highest dollar is not in Ukraine. So
anyone who thinks that setting up these export terminals and sending
our natural gas that could be helping our manufacturing sector overseas
is going to help Ukraine's geopolitical situation doesn't understand
the geo-economics of it, the geology of it, or the geopolitical
implications of it. They have not thought through the totality of what
happens when we take our precious resource and we start spreading it
around the world.
Some are going to argue that it helps Ukraine. Well, it is going to
help China more than it helps Ukraine. It is going to help South
America more than it helps Ukraine. It is for sure going to help the
CEOs of big oil and gas companies. That is what this debate is really
going to be all about. Because we don't captain those ships. ExxonMobil
has a tiller for those ships, and those ships are going to steer toward
where the highest price is on the world marketplace. When those LNG
tankers set sail for Asia or South America, we should know what else we
are sending abroad on those ships. American jobs will be on those
ships. They will be sailing to other countries. Fighting climate change
is on those ships, because we will burn more coal here in the United
States rather than natural gas, which has half of the pollutants of
coal. We will be increasing the greenhouse gases the United States of
America is sending up into the atmosphere.
When we are sending that natural gas overseas, we will be increasing
the cost of a conversion of our large bus fleet and our large truck
fleet over to natural gas as the fuel which makes it possible to drive
them around our country. Here are the statistics. It is quite simple.
If we move one-third of our fleet off of oil and on to natural gas as a
way of fueling large buses and large trucks, then we back out 1 million
barrels of oil--1 million barrels of oil--per day. That is a signal we
should be sending to the Middle East. That is a signal that we are
serious, that we are tired of exporting young men and women overseas
and getting nothing in return.
So let me summarize by saying this: No. 1, it is a $62 billion
consumer tax. No. 2, it slows our conversion from coal over to oil in
our utility industry. No. 3, it slows the conversion of vehicles over
to natural gas. No. 4, it slows our manufacturing revolution. No. 5, it
slows our economic recovery. Our real strength is in our strong economy
fueled by this low-cost oil and natural gas in our country.
We need a huge national debate in our country about the impact on our
economy before we start putting it out on the high seas believing,
erroneously, it is going to have some huge impact on Ukraine.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ukraine
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is one of
the most serious breaches of the OSCE principles since the signing of
the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. These principles are at the foundation of
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Russia, as a
participating state, agreed to hold these principles, including
territorial integrity of states, inviolability of frontiers, refraining
from the threat of use of force, peaceful settlements of disputes, and
others.
With this invasion, which is based, as Secretary Kerry has stated, on
a completely trumped-up set of pretexts, Russia has shown its utter
contempt for these core principles, indeed, for the entire OSCE
process--not only the OSCE but the 1994 Budapest Memorandum signed by
the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Ukraine that
provides security assurances for Ukraine, the 1997 Ukraine-Russia
bilateral treaty, and the U.N. charter, and other international
agreements. Russia's military invasion of Ukraine is also a gross
violation of the Vienna Document's confidence and security building
mechanisms which govern military relations and arms control.
So let's examine Vladimir Putin's justification for this unprovoked
invasion. He claims there is a need to protect Russian interests and
the rights of Russian-speaking minorities. They characterize it as a
human rights protection mission that it clearly is not. Russian
officials fail to show any real evidence that the rights of ethnic
Russians in Crimea--where they actually constitute a majority and have
the most clout politically--and Ukraine at large have been violated. In
fact, there is overwhelming evidence that the protests in some
Ukrainian cities is being stoked by the Russians.
Putin and other Russian officials make all sorts of unfounded
accusations, including that masked militia are roaming the streets of
Kiev, although the Ukrainian capital and most
[[Page S1357]]
of Ukraine has been calm for the last few weeks. Mr. Putin claims there
is a ``rampage of reactionary forces, nationalist and anti-Semitic
forces going on in certain parts of Ukraine.'' Yet Kiev's chief rabbi
and a vice president of the World Jewish Congress on Monday accused
Russia of staging anti-Semitic provocations in Crimea.
Mr. Putin accuses Ukraine's new legitimate transition government--not
yet 2 weeks old--of threatening ethnic Russians. Yet there is a myriad
of credible reports to the contrary. Indeed, although there has been
unrest in some cities, there has been no serious movement in the mostly
Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions to join with Russia.
The clear majority of Ukrainians wants to see their country remain
unified and do not welcome Russian intervention. All Ukrainian
religious groups have come out against the Russian intervention and
stand in support of Ukraine's territorial integrity and inviolability
of its borders, as have minority groups such as the Crimean Tatars and
the Roma.
I submit that the real threat posed by the new government is that it
wants to assertively move Ukraine in the direction of political and
economic reforms and in the direction of democracy, respect for how
human rights, the rule of law--away from the unbridled corruption of
the previous regime and the kind of autocratic rule found in today's
Russia.
As for protecting Russian interests in Crimea, the Russians have not
produced one iota of evidence that the Russian Black Sea Fleet, based
in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, is under any kind of threat. Indeed,
when the Ukrainians reached out to the Russians to try to engage them
peacefully, they have been rebuffed.
Russian authorities need to send their troops back to the barracks
and instead engage through diplomacy, not the threat or use of force.
The Russian actions pose a threat beyond Ukraine and threaten to
destabilize neighboring states.
I pointed out at a hearing we had this week in the subcommittee of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and in a hearing of the
Helsinki Commission, that if Russia can use force to try to change
territories, what message does that send to the South China Sea, what
message does that send to the Western Balkans?
Just as Poland has already invoked article 4 NATO consultations, the
Baltic States and others in the region are wary of Russian goals.
As chairman of the Helsinki Commission and a former vice president of
the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, I am encouraged to see active and
wide-ranging engagement of the OSCE to deescalate tensions and to
foster peace and security in Ukraine. The OSCE has the tools to address
concerns with regard to security on the ground in Crimea, minority
rights, and with regard to preparations for this democratic transition
to lead to free and fair elections.
In response to a request by the Ukrainian Government, 18 OSCE
participating states, including the United States, are sending 35
unarmed military personnel to Ukraine. This is taking place under the
Vienna Document, which allows for voluntary hosting of visits to dispel
concerns about unusual military activities.
Various OSCE institutions are activating, at the request of the
Ukrainian Government, including the OSCE's human rights office, known
as the ODIHR, to provide human rights monitoring as well as election
observation for the May 25 Presidential elections. The OSCE High
Commissioner on National Minorities, Representative on Freedom of the
Media, and the head of the Strategic Police Matters Unit, among others,
are all in Kiev this week conducting factfinding missions. A full-
scale, long-term OSCE Monitoring Mission is being proposed, and this
mission needs to go forward.
All of these OSCE efforts are aimed at deescalating tensions,
fostering peace and stability, ensuring the observance of OSCE
principles, including the human dimension, helping Ukraine in its
transition, especially in the runup to the May elections.
These OSCE on-the-ground efforts are being thwarted by the Russian-
controlled newly installed Crimean authorities. The OSCE Unusual
Military Activities observers have been stopped from entering Crimea by
unidentified men in military fatigues.
Also, the OSCE Media Freedom Representative and her staff were
temporarily blocked from leaving a hotel in Crimea where she was
meeting with journalists and civil society activists. The U.N. special
envoy was accosted by unidentified gunmen after visiting a naval
headquarters in the Sevastopol.
The blocking of international monitors--who were invited by the
Ukrainian Government and who clearly are trying to seek peaceful
resolutions to the conflict--is completely unacceptable and we should
hold Russia responsible for their safety.
Russia is a member of the OSCE--one of the founding members--and they
are openly violating the core principles of the Helsinki Final Act.
Russia signed on to the institutions that are available under OSCE for
this exact type of circumstance--to give independent observation as to
what is happening on the ground. Sending this mission, at the request
of the host country, into Crimea is exactly the commitments made to
reduce tensions in OSCE states, and Russia is blocking the use of that
mechanism.
The United States and the international community are deploying wide-
ranging resources to contain and roll back Russia's aggression and to
assist Ukraine's transition to a democratic, secure, and prosperous
country. Both the Executive and the Congress are working around the
clock on this. President Obama has taken concrete action and made
concrete recommendations.
As the author of the Magnitsky Act, I welcome the White House
sanctions announced today, including visa restrictions on officials and
individuals threatening Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity
and financial sanctions against those ``responsible for activities
undermining democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine.''
It was just a little while ago that we passed the Magnitsky Act. We
did that in response to gross human rights violations within Russia
against an individual named Sergei Magnitsky. What we did is say that
those who were responsible for these gross violations of
internationally recognized rules should be held accountable, and if
they are not held accountable, the least we can do in the United States
is not give them safe haven in our country, not allow the corrupt
dollars they have earned to be housed in America--no visas, no use of
our banking system. The President is taking a similar action against
those responsible for the invasion and military use against
international rules in Ukraine.
These steps are in addition to many other actions, including the
suspension of bilateral discussions with Russia on trade and
investment, stopping United States-Russia military-to-military
engagement, and suspending preparations for the June G8 summit in
Sochi. Both Chambers are working expeditiously on legislation to help
Ukraine in this delicate period of transition. We also need to work
expeditiously with our European friends and allies, and I am encouraged
by the news that the EU is preparing a $15 billion aid package.
Ukraine has exercised amazing restraint in not escalating the
conflict, particularly in Crimea. I applaud their restraint and their
action. The people of Ukraine have suffered an incredibly difficult
history, and over the last century they have been subjected to two
World Wars, 70 years of Soviet domination, including Stalin's genocidal
famine. They certainly do not need another senseless war. Nothing
justifies Russia's aggression--nothing. Our political and economic
assistance at this time would be a testament to those who died at the
Maidan just 2 weeks ago and a concrete manifestation that our words
mean something and that we do indeed stand by the people of Ukraine as
they make their historic choice for freedom, democracy, and a better
life.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
____________________