[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 17, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3712-S3715]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
2015--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued
CLOTURE MOTION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 428, H.R. 4660, an act making
appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice,
Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2015, and for other purposes.
Harry Reid, Barbara Mikulski, Richard J. Durbin,
Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, Richard Blumenthal, Robert
P. Menendez, Debbie Stabenow, Christopher Murphy,
Patrick J. Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod Brown,
Patty Murray, Tom Harkin, Tom Udall, Christopher A.
Coons, Robert P. Casey, Jr.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate
that debate on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 428, H.R. 4660, an
act making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice,
Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2015, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Casey)
is necessarily absent.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 95, nays 3, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 200 Leg.]
YEAS--95
Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Barrasso
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Donnelly
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Fischer
Flake
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hagan
Harkin
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Johnson (WI)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Risch
Roberts
Rockefeller
Rubio
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Scott
Sessions
Shaheen
Shelby
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Toomey
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Vitter
Walsh
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--3
Heller
Lee
Paul
NOT VOTING--2
Casey
Cochran
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 95, the nays are 3.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Nominations
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to speak to the 42 very well-
qualified and very patient nominees who, through no fault of their own
and certainly no fault of the Foreign Relations Committee and no fault
of their records of service to this Nation that have been established,
are trapped on the executive calendar, unable to assume their appointed
posts because the Republican leadership has chosen obstructionism as a
political tool. They have consciously chosen the strategy to do
nothing, pass nothing, approve nothing, and leave, most importantly in
my view, key diplomatic posts unfilled for months, threatening in many
cases national security and our ability to conduct foreign policy.
Those who say that Congress is broken are wrong. The Congress isn't
broken, but if the Republican leadership wants you to believe it is,
they use every parliamentary tool to make certain, among other posts,
we cannot fill key foreign policy positions. And the world waits,
American foreign policy waits, diplomacy waits, and our allies wait to
let these nominees and their families have some closure and get to
work.
The blame for these posts being left vacant with these people being
in political limbo rests squarely on the shoulders of the Republican
leadership. It is not a problem with Congress or the Democrats or the
President or with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Never, to my
knowledge, has this body as a political strategy obstructed en masse
the appointments of noncontroversial career Foreign Service officers
who have worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Never.
Never have we held up appointments to so many ambassadorial
positions, State Department positions, USAID positions, and
representatives to the multilateral development banks. Eighteen of the
forty-two pending nominees are ambassadors who would fill important
posts in the Czech Republic, Bosnia, Albania, Gabon, Mauritania,
Cameroon, Niger, Sierra Leone, Djibouti, and Kuwait. Nearly 20
percent--20 percent--of our total ambassadorial presence in Africa is
being held up by the Republican leadership. All of them have waited on
average 280 days--280 days--for Senate action. That is unfair to them.
It is unfair to their families. It is bad policy. It is unnecessary,
irresponsible, and completely unacceptable. And it has to end. It harms
our regional coordination on issues such as food, security, and
counterterrorism.
We are seeing what is happening across Africa, particularly northern
Africa, and we have a challenge. We have a challenge that involves our
national interests and our national security. You cannot promote the
solutions to those challenges if you don't have an ambassador on the
ground in those countries. Let us remember that U.S. leadership plays a
major role in supporting peace and security efforts alongside our
development, democracy, and humanitarian goals across Africa and around
the world, preventing us from being able to project power and
leadership, leaving us--in my view--vulnerable from a national security
standpoint.
In West Africa, the Nigerian terrorist organization Boko Haram is
perpetuating a brutal campaign of violence
[[Page S3713]]
and fear, kidnapping young women and taking advantage of porous borders
with Niger and Cameroon. The United States is leading an effort with
our international partners to improve regional coordination to address
both this threat and serious development challenges in the region.
Unfortunately, the Senate has yet to confirm the ambassadorial
nominees to Niger or Cameroon. We need to fill these ambassadorial
positions in order to promote our interests and our coordination in the
region in pursuit of some of these goals.
Mauritania has been a key partner in addressing the terrorist threat
posed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, in Africa's volatile
Sahel region.
Let's not forget that the East African Nation of Djibouti holds U.S.
Africa Command's Combined Joint Task Force--Horn of Africa and is the
U.S. military's only enduring infrastructure in Africa, Camp Lemonnier,
home to some 4,000 U.S. servicemembers and civilians.
Our cooperation with Djibouti supports counterterrorism efforts
against Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in
nearby Yemen and anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. Al-Shabaab
recently carried out its first terrorist attack in Djibouti, targeting
a restaurant frequented by westerners. Yet our ambassadorial nominee,
Thomas Kelly, remains unconfirmed.
In addition to supporting peace and security efforts in Africa, the
United States also plays a key role supporting democratic governance
across the continent, which in turn contributes to greater stability.
Niger and Namibia are set to hold Presidential elections within the
next 9 months and both ambassadorial nominees have yet to be confirmed
by the full Senate.
At a time when stability in parts of Africa is tenuous, at best, with
conflicts, famine, and the ever-increasing threat from criminal and
terrorist organizations, it is simply not in our national interest to
have the President's nominees--many of them career Foreign Service
officers--in many cases held up for political reasons for nearly a
year--a year in so many cases.
U.S. leadership in international organizations is being negatively
affected. In fact, the nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for
International Organization Affairs was reported to the Senate on March
3. Her nomination is not the least bit controversial, and yet she has
not been confirmed.
Nominees for posts at the United Nations have been pending for
months, including the nominee to be U.S. Representative to the U.N.
Conference on Disarmament, who was reported out on March 11. These gaps
have affected our credibility around the world, and they are affecting
U.S. national security.
It is worth understanding that this list is not static. We are
constantly adding nominees to the Executive Calendar. We held hearings
for an additional five nominees last week. Four more had their hearings
today, chaired by Senator Cardin--who is here on the floor with me and
has done an exceptional job in this regard--including our nominees to
be ambassador to Korea and Vietnam. Simply stated, the backlog is
weakening America's role in the world.
The vast majority of these nominees are uncontroversial. They have
passed committee by voice vote, not even a recorded vote, and are
nominations that normally would have gone through the Senate en bloc by
unanimous consent. Holding them hostage is simply wrong on every level.
Never has one party stood in the way of full and complete conduct of
foreign policy, and it is time the American people understand who is to
blame for the dysfunction that is holding them hostage for political
reasons. And as we hold up action on these nominees, the world is
convulsing. The days are filled with a steady stream of breaking-news
stories, disheartening images, trending tweets of reports of unrest in
Ukraine, Iraq, Venezuela; mass atrocities in Syria, South Sudan, the
Central African Republic; heart-wrenching accounts of kidnapped girls
in Nigeria and alarming events of violence against women in Egypt,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world. That is the daily
diet of what we see unfolding across the world.
American leadership is expected by the international community during
this challenging period, and it is in fact something that is in our own
national interests and national security interests.
Some complain that the United States does too much and others argue
that we don't do enough, but always the debate in foreign affairs is
centered on our Nation and the vital role we fill within the
international system. We live in a new world defined by technological
advancement and rapid globalization, but we are history-bound by a
deeply imbued duty to provide moral clarity when it appears lacking, of
serving as a lighthouse to a community of nations undergoing profound
transformation.
In one very particular arena, we are failing this charge. We are
leaving our embassies without the tools they need, without the
necessary leadership to pick up that metaphorical hammer.
Using obstruction as a political tool, we are being forced to turn
from our vital responsibility of confirming ambassadorial nominees to
conduct American foreign policy. That means turning from our
responsibility in everything from providing emergency services for
Americans abroad to responding to humanitarian crises around the world,
to supporting U.S. businesses and our commerce agenda overseas. The
lack of confirmed ambassadors is crippling our global agenda.
Consider this: Key U.S.-held positions at the World Bank,
International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other
international financial institutions are not filled.
Seizing the opportunity, Russia and China are actively lobbying IMF
members to reduce U.S. ownership share in the bank. Just recently,
Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director said: ``I wouldn't be
surprised if one of these days the IMF was headquartered in Beijing.''
No nation can hear what we have to say if we are not there, if we
have no voice. It is not an overstatement to say our national security
is affected by Republican noncooperation. One example is the Assistant
Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation
tasked with monitoring and verifying our arms control agreements
remains empty, and that affects our ability to design and implement a
potential agreement to halt Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program.
Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing for
the nominees to serve in Egypt, Iraq, and Qatar. Imagine those
countries not having a U.S. ambassador during a time when they are
going through massive turmoil and change--some of them, not all of
them, but Iraq is certainly going through turmoil. We will soon vote to
approve these Foreign Service officers, but there is no guarantee they
will be confirmed expeditiously by the Senate despite the very obvious
need for a constant U.S. presence in these Nations. Iraq is on the
verge of civil war and we have no way to confirm Stu Jones, a very
qualified nominee who is currently serving in Jordan for the post to
replace Robert Beecroft, who is headed to Egypt but is currently in
Iraq.
That this scenario is even a possibility, given their pending
assignments, concerns me and should concern all of us. Perhaps their
fate will be similar to the nominee to Kuwait, who has not received a
confirmation vote for nearly 200 days.
The Emir of Kuwait recently made a historic visit to Iran. Persistent
reports link wealthy Kuwaiti donors to a variety of extremists,
including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria--the ISIS, which is
threatening Iraq. Yet we lack the ambassador's ears and eyes on the
ground to provide the analysis we need.
Of the 42 unconfirmed nominees, almost half are career ambassadors,
who, as I said earlier, have served this Nation for a lifetime on
behalf of Democratic and Republican administrations. Some were already
confirmed, as I said earlier, in the past by the Senate and served as
ambassadors in previous posts.
So let me conclude by saying since becoming chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, we have debated and voted to approve 125
nominees, oftentimes unanimously and without discord.
[[Page S3714]]
But apparently the pricetag for Leader Reid executing what some call
the nuclear option to get anything done in the Senate is the Republican
leadership's intransigence that gums up the Senate proceedings,
particularly holding ambassadorial nominees hostage and in so doing
harming our national security objectives. This standoff is having very
negative and real implications in the world that is beset by chaos and
in need of American engagement. It has to end and it has to end now.
It is not about a Republican or a Democratic divide in terms of
importance. This is about the national interests and security of the
United States. If we are not in our embassies abroad as a leader, we
can do all the diplomacy and efforts from the State Department, but at
the end of the day the person on the ground every day and engaging with
the leadership of that country and promoting American ideals, values,
and interests is the ambassador. In the absence of an ambassador, we
cannot be heard. I don't want the United States not to be heard.
I see my colleague from Maryland, a distinguished member of the
committee who has held so many of these hearings for nominees and has
done a fantastic job on behalf of the committee. He is going to speak
next. As the chair of one of our key subcommittees, it is critical, as
you will hear from him, that we have our nominees so our interests can
be represented.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, first, I thank Senator Menendez for his
incredible leadership on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. What
Senator Menendez did not bring out is the number of hours our committee
has had hearings on each one of these nominees.
We take the nomination process very seriously--the committee does--
under Senator Menendez's leadership. We have a complete record on the
background and experience of each of President Obama's nominees. We
have vetted them, gone over everything, and we have had hearings.
As Senator Menendez pointed out, today I chaired a hearing where we
considered the nominations for our Ambassadors to Algeria, Vietnam, and
the Republic of Korea as well as an Assistant Administrator for USAID
for Asia. That hearing lasted an hour and a half, many questions were
asked. The record is open through Thursday so members of the committee
can ask additional questions.
Many times additional questions are asked for the record. We get
those responses, and we then analyze all of that information and go to
a committee markup where every member of the committee has a chance to
debate each nominee. As Senator Menendez has pointed out, in most cases
they have been approved by our committee by unanimous votes, and many
times it is not recorded because there is no controversy.
In many cases these are career diplomats, and in other cases they are
people who have an extraordinary background to add to the service of
their country, and we are very blessed that they are willing to step
forward to take on the ambassadorship or membership in a key national
organization to further U.S. foreign policy. That is the record.
So what happens after we act? Senator Menendez has expedited these
nominations as quickly as he could do it in carrying out the
responsibilities of the Senate to advise on these nominations. But what
has happened afterward is that they cannot get a Senate vote and not
because of any meritorious objections to the confirmation. They are
just being backlogged in order to gum up the operations of the Senate.
There is no policy reason or substantive reason for the delay in the
consideration of these nominations.
This is foreign policy for the United States. This is in the best
interests of the United States. It is hard for the public to understand
and it is hard for this Senator to understand why we would hold up
having a confirmed ambassador heading up our embassy in any country in
the world but particularly those countries that are critically
important to U.S. interests. We should have a confirmed head of our
embassy in every country.
As far as it is affecting U.S. interests, let me give you what I
think is obvious, and the Presiding Officer understands this. Our
national defense strategy depends upon not just our soldiers and our
weapons, it depends very much on diplomacy and development assistance.
The diplomacy--and to a large extent the development assistance--is
managed by our embassy in the host country and the CEO of that embassy
is the confirmed ambassador, and in many cases we don't have a
confirmed ambassador. We don't have an ambassador because the Senate
has not confirmed that position.
For months we have gone without confirming an ambassador after the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee has recommended a confirmation, and
that is why we have come to the floor to talk about that. This does
affect our national security interests.
Senator Menendez pointed out a very obvious fact; that is, the face-
to-face interchange of our ambassador and the country he or she is
representing that gives the United States the best opportunity in that
country. That is how you do diplomacy. You don't do diplomacy through
letters; you don't do diplomacy through long exchanges from one country
to another; you do it by being in that country--by your personal
commitment to that country. That is why we have our embassies and our
ambassadors. When we don't have a confirmed ambassador--when we don't
have the CEO of that embassy there--we miss that personal face-to-face
interchange which is critically important.
Just think for a moment. Here we are trying to make an important
contact in a foreign country, and we may meet with the Prime Minister
or the Foreign Minister, and we don't have an ambassador to be our
representative or to be there to supervise the diplomacy that is taking
place.
What many people are not aware of is that our embassies are more than
just the ambassador dealing with current foreign policy issues. We have
a host of functions that are carried out under the supervision of our
ambassador who, as we pointed out in many cases, is not there because
we have not acted. Maybe we are interested in what is going on with
U.S. business. We have a lot of economic interests around the world.
We are in a global economy. American businesses depend upon our
embassy being there for them to fight for the government contracts on a
fair, level playing field so they can conduct their business
internationally. They depend upon an embassy to be at full strength.
Because of global competition, we are fighting every day for job
opportunities for Americans and American companies.
In too many countries we don't have that person there fighting for
our businesses because the Senate is not active because those on the
other side of the aisle have prevented us from taking up these
ambassadors for confirmation, even though there has been no controversy
surrounding their individual confirmation, and that is hurting U.S.
business interests.
There are many citizens who travel abroad. They expect to have the
full service of their embassy if they need it or if they get sick or
they need the services of our embassy for whatever it might be. They
depend on that embassy, and they want the CEO to be present in that
embassy in order to fight for their interests.
That confirmed ambassador is not there today because the Republicans
have denied the vote in the Senate to confirm that position. We are not
at full strength to protect Americans who are traveling abroad. Our
participation in environmental opportunities is very much dependent
upon the functioning of our embassy.
Our humanitarian efforts depend upon the functioning of the embassy.
Our eyes and ears on the ground depend upon the functioning of the
embassy. Our development assistance programs are run out of the
embassies. In many cases the CEO is not there because of the
obstruction by the Republicans in the Senate who are not allowing a
vote on noncontroversial nominees. Because these nominations have not
taken place, we are not at full strength.
We are hurting our country. We are hurting our interests. We are
hurting our business interests, our security interests, and our
leadership on environmental issues. As Senator Menendez
[[Page S3715]]
pointed out, they are not just ambassadors to countries, they are
ambassadors to international organizations.
We are not at full strength on economic international organizations.
We are not at full strength on arms control negotiations because we
don't have our key person there--not because that person is
controversial, not because the President has elected someone who is
controversial but to the contrary. Almost all of these nominations are
noncontroversial and waiting for months because the Republicans will
not allow a vote.
Somebody said: OK. Don't we need a lot of floor time to debate this?
Look at the record. Look how much floor debate has been spent on
approving these nominations. I am willing to wager--although we can't
wager on the floor of the Senate. I am willing to point out that if we
bring these nominations to floor consideration, in almost every case
there will be virtually no debate, and they will be approved by an
overwhelming majority, if not a unanimous vote.
We are hurting our country. We are hurting the reputation of the
United States. We are supposedly the major power. Yet we can't get a
CEO confirmed to head our embassies abroad.
It is also unfair to the people who are making a sacrifice for public
service. As Senator Menendez pointed out, a large number of these
nominees were ambassadorships or career diplomats. These are not
political appointments, these are career people who have made their
career serving their country.
Many have young families. What do they do about school enrollment in
September? Do they enroll their children in the school where they are
now or do they wait to see if they will be confirmed and enroll them in
the country in which they will be serving? Why are we putting people
who are serving their country through that type of uncertainty and
anxiety? But we are. We are, by failing to move in a timely way the
nominations that have been brought forward to us.
I will just mention one other example. I started with the hearing I
chaired today on behalf of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
dealing with four nominees. One was the Ambassador to Vietnam. I was
just recently in Vietnam. I met with our current Ambassador, Ambassador
Shear. I mention that because he has been nominated to be Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Asia, so he is leaving Vietnam. We had a
hearing today on the next Ambassador to Vietnam--a well-qualified
career diplomat. The question is: Are we going to have the orderly
change of command in Vietnam, a country critically important to U.S.
interests? We are negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.
Part of that involves good governance changes that we expect in
Vietnam. We expect our Ambassador to be there to negotiate these
issues. The question is: Will we have that orderly transfer?
Two career people seeking to move forward in their careers are being
held up by inaction on the floor of the Senate.
I come to the last point I wish to make. Yes, we are hurting the
United States in not having these confirmed CEOs. It is creating
unfairness to the families of people who want to serve our country--and
the uncertainty that is there. But it is also hurting the Senate
because it is our responsibility to act on Presidential appointments.
It is our responsibility to act in a timely, thoughtful way. We are not
carrying out that responsibility. By the Republicans obstructing votes
on the President's nominations on key foreign policy positions, we are
not carrying out our responsibility--an oath that we took to serve in
the Senate to protect the interests of this country. It is our
responsibility to act on these nominations in a timely way, and we have
not done that because of the obstructionism of the Republicans.
I urge my colleagues to put our national interests first. Let us move
forward with our responsibility. The committee has carried out its
responsibility and, quite frankly, the chairman has carried that out in
a very bipartisan way. We have had cooperation between Republicans and
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We have carried
out our responsibility. Now it is time for the Senate to carry out its
responsibility, for the Republicans to allow us to vote in a timely way
on this backlog of nominees for critical foreign policy positions. I
urge my colleagues to allow us to move forward in the best interests of
our country and in respect for those who have stepped forward to serve
our country, to carry out the responsibilities we all swore to uphold
in the Senate.
With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________