[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 7 (Tuesday, January 12, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S52-S63]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FEDERAL RESERVE TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2015--MOTION TO PROCEED
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 2232, which the
clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 289, S. 2232, a bill to
require a full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks by the
Comptroller General of the United States, and for other
purposes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 2:30
p.m. will be equally divided between the two leaders or their
designees.
The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to secrecy. I
rise today in support of auditing the Federal Reserve. I rise in
opposition to the lack of accountability at the Reserve, an institution
that has for too long been shrouded in secrecy. The objective of the
Federal Reserve Transparency Act is simple: to protect the interests of
the average American by finding out where hundreds of billions' worth
of our dollars are going.
The Federal Reserve has the ability to create new money and to spend
it on whatever financial assets it wants, whenever it wants, while
giving the new money to whichever banks it wants. Yet if the average
Joe and Jane from Main Street printed their own money, they would be
imprisoned as counterfeiters.
[[Page S53]]
Nowhere else but in Washington, DC, would you find an institution
with so much unchecked power. Creating new money naturally lowers
interest rates, or the price of using money. Put another way, the
Federal Reserve's unchecked printing press creates a price control on
the cost of using money.
Throughout our country's history, price controls have never worked,
and the Fed's price control on interest rates has also not worked.
Think back to the housing bubble. Artificially low interest rates led
to many individuals buying, selling, and investing in the housing
industry. This in turn led prices to soar, which ultimately led the
economy to spiral down to the great recession of 2008.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed has increased its balance
sheet from less than $1 trillion to over $4 trillion. Although the Fed
has created trillions of new dollars, it has become apparent that most
of this money is not finding its way into the hands of average
Americans. From 2009 to 2012, the incomes of the top 1 percent
increased by a whopping 31 percent, while everyone else's income
increased by only 0.4 percent. The reason for this is simple: Big
banks, corporations, and government entities receive the Federal
Reserve's money long before anyone else, and they bid up the price of
assets before any of the rest of us can get to purchase them.
Former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh once referred to the
Fed's easy-money policies as the reverse Robin Hood effect. ``If you
have access to credit--if you've got a big balance sheet--the Fed has
made you richer,'' he said in an interview. ``This is a way to make the
well-to-do even more well-to-do.''
The side effect of this uneven distribution of money is painfully
apparent to anyone who shops at a grocery store. Over the past 15
years, the price of white bread has increased by over 50 percent, while
the price of eggs has more than doubled. The cost of housing has also
appreciated significantly in many areas. When adjusting for inflation,
the price of housing in San Francisco has increased by 58 percent over
just 25 years.
Real household income for regular Americans has declined 10 percent
over the past 15 years. Higher rent and higher grocery bills cause low-
income workers to incur more loans and credit card debt, which involve
far higher interest rates than what the banks and Wall Street are
currently paying. These low-income workers do not get the luxury of
receiving the Fed's newly created money first, nor do they have the
luxury of receiving the near-zero interest rates the wealthy do. As a
result, one thing is for certain: The Fed's price control on interest
rates acts as a hidden tax on the less well-to-do.
The Fed also exacerbates income inequality by paying large commercial
banks $12 billion in interest. This is a departure from nearly a
century of practice. While individual savers earn practically no
interest, the big banks are given $12 billion per year in interest.
There often is a revolving door between the Fed, the Treasury, and Wall
Street. It is a revolving door in a building that is all too eager to
enrich big banks and asset holders at the expense of everyone else.
I think it is about time we pull back the curtain to uncover this
cloak of secrecy once and for all. Who is receiving the loans from the
Fed today? To whom is the Fed paying interest? Are there any conflicts
of interest about how these payments are determined? Are there any
checks and balances on the size of these payments?
The Federal Reserve Act actually forbids the Fed from buying some of
the troubled assets they bought in 2008; yet they did it anyway.
Given all of these unanswered questions and given the sharp increase
in the risk of the Fed's balance sheet, it is unquestionably necessary
for the Fed to be audited more thoroughly than it has been in the past.
Audit the Fed is just 3 pages long, and it simply says that the
Government Accountability Office, the GAO, which is a nonpartisan,
apolitical agency in charge--that they be allowed to audit the Fed, a
full and thorough audit.
Currently the GAO is not allowed to audit the Fed's monetary policy
deliberations or the Fed's Open Market Committee transactions. The GAO
was also forbidden from reviewing agreements with foreign central
banks. During the downturn in 2008, trillions of dollars were spent,
much of it or quite a bit of it on foreign banks, and we are not
allowed to know what occurred, to whom it was given, and for what
purpose. The Fed audit in its current form is virtually futile.
When these restrictions were added to the audit in the 1970s, the GAO
testified before Congress, saying: ``We do not see how we can
satisfactorily audit the Federal Reserve System without the authority
to examine [its] largest single category of financial transactions and
assets. . . . ''
To grasp just how limited the current audit is, recall that in 2009
Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson asked then-Fed Chairman Ben
Bernanke which foreign countries received $500 billion in loans from
the Fed. Bernanke was unwilling to name which countries or banks
received half a trillion dollars' worth of funds.
That is right. The Feds swapped half a trillion dollars to foreign
countries in secret and did not even have the decency, under testimony
before Congress, to report the details. But it gets worse. Democratic
Senator Bernie Sanders asked Bernanke: Who received $2.2 trillion that
the Fed lent out during the financial crisis? Again, Bernanke refused
to give an answer.
In the 2011 Dodd-Frank law, Congress ordered a limited, one-time GAO
audit of Fed actions. During the financial crisis, that audit uncovered
that the Fed lent out over $16 trillion to domestic and foreign banks
during the financial crisis.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an extra 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, does Senator Paul--how much time do we
have?
Mr. PAUL. I would be happy to ask unanimous consent for equal time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Paul's time has expired. The time of
the majority has expired.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I only need 5 minutes, so I am willing to
cede whatever remains so he can have enough time, but I would like to
reserve 5 minutes, and I lift my objection.
Mr. PAUL. Well, the unanimous consent would be to have 5 extra
minutes and to give the Senator as much time as he needs to conclude.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. PAUL. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that it is absurd that
we do not know where hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of our
money is going. In fact, last year my audit the Fed bill received the
support of nearly every Republican in the House and over 100 Democrats.
Some say an audit will politicize the Fed. I find this claim odd
given the support of both sides of the aisle for the bill. The GAO is
nonpartisan, independent, and works for Congress. It does not lean
Republican or Democratic, and it is not interested in influencing
policy. I can't seem to understand how a simple check by the GAO to
ensure that there are no conflicts of interest will politicize
anything.
Instead of criticizing a standard audit, though, maybe the
individuals who work at the Fed and within our central bank should
begin curbing their own actions. Unlike the actions of current Fed
officials, my bipartisan bill will not politicize anything. I simply
want the Fed overseen to ensure that our central bank isn't picking
favorites, and I want to ensure that it remains solvent.
Like every agency, the Federal Reserve was created by Congress and is
supposed to be overseen by Congress.
Auditing the Fed should not be a partisan issue. Regardless of one's
monetary policy views, regardless of whether one thinks interest rates
should be higher or lower, everyone can and should agree that for the
sake of the country's economic well-being, we need to know what has
been going on behind the Federal Reserve's cloak of secrecy. It is time
we quit this guessing game. It is time we audit the Federal Reserve
once and for all to restore transparency to our Nation's checkbook.
[[Page S54]]
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I do not support Senator Paul's bill to
audit the Federal Reserve.
In 2010, I supported an amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial reform
legislation included in the final law which required an audit of the
Federal Reserve's actions during the financial crisis. That report was
released in 2011 and found no significant problems with the Fed's
activities.
Dodd-Frank not only authorized the 2011 audit, it also expanded the
scope for future GAO audits which any Member of Congress can request.
Also, the Fed includes an independent audit of its financial statements
within its annual report to Congress.
The Federal Reserve has taken independent actions in recent years to
be more transparent about its operations. Since 2009, the Fed has
publicly released its economic projections, and since 2011, the
chairman has held quarterly press conferences following Federal Open
Market Committee meetings. Two recent studies found the Fed to be one
of the most transparent central banks in the world.
Transparency and openness in government is essential to a healthy
democracy, but by requiring more audits and more disclosures, we risk
politicizing a nonpartisan institution that plays a uniquely
significant role in the global economy.
Fed Chairman Janet Yellen recently wrote that a similar bill that
passed the House of Representatives ``would politicize monetary policy
and bring short-term political pressures in the deliberations of the
FOMC by putting into place real-time second guessing of policy
decisions. . . . The provision is based on a false premise--that the
Fed is not subject to an audit.''.
Since there are already many means for audits, disclosure, and
transparency at our disposal, I do not support Senator Paul's bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the audit the Fed bill.
One of the things that we learned around here as new Members of the
House and Senate--and I served with the Presiding Officer almost my
entire time in the House, and we learned this--is that if you can name
the bills here, you have a tremendous advantage. You call the estate
tax the death tax, even though about 1 percent of Americans pay it, and
you may have won the debate. Calling this bill audit the Fed--and how
can you be against auditing the Fed--may win the debate, but this time
I don't think so.
I am concerned in this way. It won't make the Fed stronger. It won't
make the Fed more effective. It won't make the Fed more accountable. It
will impair the Fed's functions. It will give conservative Members of
Congress more tools to second-guess the Fed's decisionmaking. It will
make the system ultimately less sound, flexible, and responsive.
Think about what happened in 2009. President Obama took office. We
were losing 800,000 jobs a month. Congress passed the Recovery Act,
passed the auto rescue, which mattered so much to the Presiding
Officer's State, to my State, and, frankly, to the Senator from
Kentucky and his State too, but then, with the changing time and the
elections of 2010, this Congress engaged in austerity, and we saw what
that meant. It took a Bush-appointed Federal Reserve Chair, Ben
Bernanke, who engaged in enough pump priming, if you will, through low
interest rates and then QE to get the economy going.
I think we asked ourselves, would we have wanted a Federal Reserve
then where Congress had its tentacles in monetary policy? Congress
failed on fiscal policy. Chairman Bernanke and now Chair Yellen have
had to move on monetary policy in that way. I don't want to
straitjacket this Congress and straitjacket the Federal Reserve by
doing that with Congress.
I know some of you have supported audit bills in the past. Many
supported the Dodd-Sanders amendment during Wall Street reform. But
this one is different. It doesn't include provisions to review the
Independent Foreclosure Review Program process, and it doesn't include
protections on some of the sensitive information that GAO could review,
such as transcripts.
What this is about, in addition to Congress meddling in monetary
policy, is ultimately this: We know the Fed is charged with a dual
mandate--to deal with the tension between combatting inflation and
combatting unemployment. We know that in past years the Fed has leaned
far more toward the bondholders and Wall Street in combatting inflation
than it has toward Main Street in employment and combatting
unemployment.
We also know that with the pressures in this town, when President
Obama signed Wall Street reform, the chief lobbyist for the financial
services industry said it is now half time, meaning that conservative
Members of this Congress, people in this Congress influenced by Wall
Street, would immediately go and try to weaken these rules going
directly to the agencies.
We will see the same thing here. We will see many Members of Congress
pushing the Fed to side with the bondholders and Wall Street on
combatting inflation rather than siding with Main Street and small
businesses and workers in dealing with unemployment. That is
fundamentally the biggest problem with the Paul proposal. I ask my
colleagues to defeat it.
I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has been yielded back.
Cloture Motion
Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The senior 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,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 289, S. 2232, a bill to require a
full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System and the Federal reserve banks by the Comptroller
General of the United States, and for other purposes.
Mitch McConnell, John Barrasso, Roy Blunt, John Cornyn,
Cory Gardner, David Vitter, Shelley Moore Capito, Rand
Paul, Johnny Isakson, Steve Daines, Patrick J. Toomey,
John Boozman, Chuck Grassley, Mike Crapo, Mike Lee,
David Perdue, Rob Portman.
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 S. 2232, a bill to require a full audit of the
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal
reserve banks by the Comptroller General of the United States, 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 senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats) and the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Franken)
is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 53, nays 44, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 2 Leg.]
YEAS--53
Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Cochran
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Flake
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kirk
Lankford
Lee
McCain
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sanders
Sasse
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--44
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Corker
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Peters
Reed
Reid
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
[[Page S55]]
NOT VOTING--3
Coats
Cruz
Franken
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 53, the nays are
44.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted
to complete my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Scrub Act
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to take up a
piece of legislation that I am sponsoring which has recently passed the
House of Representatives, the Searching for and Cutting Regulations
that are Unnecessarily Burdensome Act--or SCRUB Act.
Federal regulations today impose--by some estimates--a crushing
burden of $1.88 trillion on our economy. That is roughly $15,000 per
household and more than the entire country's corporate and individual
income taxes combined. Excessive and often unnecessary rules imposed by
unaccountable Washington bureaucrats strain family budgets and create
conditions where small businesses struggle to create jobs.
Nevertheless, the regulatory burden keeps growing year after year.
The Code of Federal Regulations is now more than 175,000 pages long and
contains more than 200 volumes. Since 2008, regulators have added on
average more than $107 billion in annual regulatory costs. And as we
near the end of President Obama's time in office, Americans should be
prepared for a deluge of new rules. As has been widely reported, about
4,000 regulations are working their way through the Federal
bureaucracy, with some experts predicting their costs to exceed well
over $100 billion.
Every President since Jimmy Carter has affirmed the need to review
our existing regulations to make sure that they are efficient and no
more intrusive and burdensome than is absolutely necessary.
Nevertheless, administrations of both parties have failed to make
meaningful reductions in the regulatory burden, with some retrospective
review efforts even adding costs to the economy. Most notably,
according to a study by the American Action Forum, the Obama
administration's much-touted efforts to review old rules actually added
more than $23 billion in costs on the economy and mandated nearly 9
million additional hours of paperwork.
With family budgets stretched thin and our economy badly in need of
job creation, we need to act to turn this longstanding bipartisan
commitment to effective retrospective review into a reality. But to do
so, we need to take the responsibility of reviewing old rules away from
the bureaucrats who keep failing to make the reductions to the
regulatory burden. That is why I have joined my colleagues, the junior
Senators from Iowa and Missouri, to introduce the SCRUB Act.
The SCRUB Act establishes a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission to
review existing Federal regulations and identify those that should be
repealed to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens. It prioritizes for
review regulations where major rules have been in effect more than 15
years, impose paperwork burdens that could be reduced substantially
without significantly diminishing regulatory effectiveness, impose
disproportionately high costs on small businesses, or could be
strengthened in their effectiveness while reducing regulatory costs. It
also sets other basic, commonsense criteria for recommending repeal of
regulations, such as: whether they have been rendered obsolete by
technological or market changes; whether they have achieved their goals
and can be repealed without target problems recurring; whether they are
ineffective; whether they overlap, duplicate, or conflict with other
Federal regulations or with State and local regulations; or whether
they impose costs that are not justified by benefits produced for
society within the United States.
Once the commission develops a set of recommendations, our bill
requires that these recommendations be presented to the House and the
Senate for approval by joint resolution. If Congress votes to approve
the commission's recommendations, repeal must take place.
Mr. President, I have served long enough to know that Washington's
preferred solution to a tough problem is to create a commission that,
once established, is rarely seen or heard from again, no matter how
compelling its recommendations. Therefore, I want to lay out a few key
features of how SCRUB avoids the pitfalls of so many do-nothing
commissions as well as the problems encountered with other attempts to
implement retrospective review.
First, our bill sets a hard target for the commission: the reduction
of at least 15 percent in the cumulative costs of Federal regulation
with a minimal reduction in the overall effectiveness of such
regulation. The Obama administration's efforts at retrospective
review--perhaps by mistake, perhaps by design--lacked a quantified cost
reduction mandate. The result was the manipulation of the review
process into a charade in which highly suspect new benefits were touted
as a reason for adding costs. Our bill structures the retrospective
review process in a way that prioritizes cost cutting while maintaining
a responsible respect for benefits by calling for a minimal reduction
in general overall effectiveness.
Second, our bill does not artificially limit what costly and
unjustified regulations could be repealed. Under some superficially
similar but fundamentally unsound proposals for retrospective review,
review would be arbitrarily limited by time or subject. Such limits
would not only seriously hinder the prospect of meeting a meaningful
cost reduction target, but also put numerous regulations off limits for
review just because they have seen minor tweaks after a certain
arbitrary cutoff.
Third, our bill guarantees an up-or-down vote on the Commission's
package of recommendations as a single package. This element of our
bill represents the single most important feature that distinguishes it
from a do-nothing commission that far too often characterizes
Washington's approach to intractable problems. We should be under no
illusions that every single special interest in town is going to fight
to preserve the favors they have won by manipulating the regulatory
process over the years, and gathering the votes to get the Commission's
recommendations enacted will certainly be a difficult endeavor.
Following the models of other successful means by which Congress has
addressed situations in which the costs are concentrated but benefits
are widely dispersed, it is absolutely vital that the Commission's
recommendations be packed together as a single bill and not subject to
dismemberment by amendment.
Further, to put it simply, an up-or-down simple majority vote
requires an actual viable pathway to repealing these regulations.
Subjecting the package to the supermajority threshold would represent
nothing but a death knell for the prospect of repealing these onerous
rules. Moreover, because extended debate in the Senate exists to allow
Senators to modify a proposal under debate, the lack of amendment
opportunities seriously undermines the rationale for subjecting it to
the supermajority threshold typically required to end debate. And this
carefully tailored exception to the cloture rule is hardly a wild
departure from precedent; rather, it follows the precedents set by
numerous other pieces of legislation such as trade promotion authority
and the Congressional Review Act, both of which have long earned
bipartisan support.
Fourth, for any given regulation, the Commission is authorized to
recommend either immediate repeal or repeal through what we call cut-go
procedures, whereby agencies, on a forward basis, would have to offset
the costs of new regulations by repealing Commission-identified
regulations of equal or greater cost. These procedures allow immediate
repeal in the most urgent cases and staggered repeals of other
regulations to assure a smoother process for agencies and affected
entities.
Mr. President, a process such as cut-go proves critical for two
particular reasons. First, it provides an avenue for addressing the
many regulations on the books that impose unjustifiable costs in
pursuit of a legitimate goal. While some regulations on the books
[[Page S56]]
could undoubtedly be repealed without any meaningful negative
consequences, numerous others provide important protections but in an
inefficient and costly manner. The cut-go process allows agencies to
repeal costly rules and replace them with more sensible ones--for
example, prescribing performance standards instead of specific,
oftentimes outdated technology--in a manner that reduces costs on the
economy while maintaining or even improving regulatory effectiveness.
Second, the cut-go process holds agencies accountable to Congress's
laws, a perennial problem in the regulatory process. Bureaucratic
agencies--so often devoted to increasing their own power and
insensitive to the costs they impose on the economy--frequently use the
excuse of limited resources to avoid retrospective review. By imposing
a reasonable limit on prospective rulemaking until an agency complies
with congressionally enacted repeal recommendations, cut-go ensures
that the agency cannot simply ignore its duty to repeal.
Mr. President, these are just a handful of the numerous reasons why
the SCRUB Act provides a uniquely visible pathway to accomplishing the
longstanding bipartisan goal of repealing outdated and ineffective
regulations. I wish to thank my colleagues from both sides of the
aisle--and both sides of the Capitol, by the way--who have joined in
support of this bill, especially Senator Ernst for her leadership on
this issue on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Even though she has only been in the Senate for a year, her strong and
effective leadership on this issue has been a model for how to hit the
ground running. I call on my colleagues in the Senate to follow the
House's lead and pass this effective, commonsense approach to rooting
out unjustifiably burdensome regulations. Also, as I understand it, the
House has passed this bill just today.
Religious Liberty
Mr. President, I also wish to address another subject--the subject of
religious liberty. Congress is convening for the second session of the
114th Congress at a moment in time rich with significance for religious
freedoms. January 6, for example, marked the 75th anniversary of
President Franklin Roosevelt's famous ``Four Freedoms'' speech. During
the depths of World War II, President Roosevelt used his 1941 State of
the Union Address to describe a world founded on what he called ``four
essential human freedoms.'' One of these is the ``freedom of every
person to worship God in his own way.''
At the end of the week, on January 16, it is Religious Freedom Day.
It commemorates the 230th anniversary of the Virginia General
Assembly's enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.
Thomas Jefferson authored the legislation and, after he left to serve
as U.S. Minister to France, his colleague James Madison secured its
enactment.
Of his many accomplishments--and Jefferson had a lot of
accomplishments--Jefferson directed that three of what he called
``things that he had given the people'' be listed on his tombstone. One
of them was the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which laid the
foundation for the protection of religious freedom in the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Mr. President, last fall I delivered a series of eight speeches on
the Senate floor presenting the story of religious freedom. I explained
why religious freedom itself is uniquely important and requires special
protection. At no time in world history has religious freedom been such
an integral part of a Nation's character as it is here in the United
States.
The story of religious freedom includes understanding both its status
and its substance. The status of religious freedom can be summarized as
both inalienable and preeminent. As James Madison put it, religious
freedom is ``precedent, both in order of time and in degree of
obligation, to the claims of civil society.''
Madison also explained that religious freedom is the freely chosen
manner of discharging a duty an individual believes he or she owes to
God. As we have affirmed so many times in statutes, declarations, and
treaties, it includes both belief and behavior in public and in
private, individually and collectively.
Tonight, President Obama delivers his final State of the Union
Address. According to the Washington Post this morning, President Obama
will speak about unity, about coming together as one American family.
Until very recently, religious freedom was such a unifying priority.
Last month, I described to my colleagues the unifying statement about
religious freedom called the Williamsburg Charter. Published in 1988,
it brought together Presidents and other leaders in both political
parties, the heads of business and labor, universities and bar
associations, and diverse communities to endorse the first principles
of religious freedom.
The charter boldly proclaims that religious freedom is an inalienable
right that is ``premised upon the inviolable dignity of the human
person. It is the foundation of, and is integrally related to, all
other rights and freedoms secured by the Constitution.'' It asserts
that the chief menace to religious freedom is the expanding power of
government--especially government control over personal behavior and
the institutions of society. And the charter also declares that
limiting religious freedom ``is allowable only where the State has
borne a heavy burden of proof that the limitation is justified--not by
any ordinary public interest, but by a supreme public necessity--and
that no less restrictive alternative to limitation exists.''
Congress made these principles law 5 years later by almost
unanimously enacting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act--an act that
I had a great deal to do with. One way to know the value of something
is by the effort made to protect it. In RFRA, government may burden the
exercise of religion only if it is the least restrictive means of
furthering a compelling government purpose. That is the toughest
standard found anywhere in American law. By this statute, we declared
that religious freedom is fundamental, it is more important than other
values and priorities, and government must properly accommodate it. The
Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion supporting RFRA was the
most diverse grassroots effort I have ever seen in all of my years in
the U.S. Senate.
Five years after RFRA, Congress unanimously enacted the International
Religious Freedom Act. Twenty-one Senators serving today voted for it--
12 Republicans and 9 Democrats. So did Vice President Joe Biden and
Secretary of State John Kerry when they served here. That law declares
that religious freedom ``undergirds the very origin and existence of
the United States.'' It calls religious freedom a universal human
right, a pillar of our Nation, and a fundamental freedom.
That is what unity looks like. With a Presidency no less than any
other aspect of life, however, actions speak louder than words. While
President Obama has paid lip service to religious freedom, as I assume
he will in his annual Religious Freedom Day proclamation this week, the
actions of his administration tell a different story.
In 2011, the Obama administration argued to the Supreme Court that
the First Amendment provides no special protection for churches, even
in choosing their own ministers. The Court unanimously rejected that
bizarre theory. The administration ignored religious freedom and RFRA
altogether when developing the Affordable Care Act and its implementing
regulations. When religious employers argued that the administration's
birth control mandate did not adequately accommodate their religious
freedom, the administration fought them all the way to the Supreme
Court. The Court again rejected the administration's attempt to
restrict religious freedom.
Yesterday, 32 Members of the Senate and 175 Members of the House of
Representatives filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court supporting
religious organizations that are again arguing that the Obama
administration's birth control mandate violates the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act. I want to thank my friend from Oklahoma, Senator
Lankford, for working with me on this important project. I know
religious freedom was important to him when he served in the House and
he is already a leader on this critical issue in the Senate and I am
pleased to see him in the chair today.
This mandate requires religious organizations to violate their deeply
held religious beliefs or pay crushing monetary fines. The plaintiffs
in these cases
[[Page S57]]
include Christian colleges, Catholic dioceses, and many organizations
that minister to the elderly and disadvantaged as part of their
religious mission. They want to provide health insurance for their
employees and students in a manner that is consistent with their
religious beliefs.
The Obama administration, however, is working hard to make those
religious groups knuckle under to its political agenda. It provides
blanket exemptions for churches that do not object to the birth control
mandate but denies exemption to religious employers that do object. The
administration exempts for-profit companies employing more than 44
million workers, including some of America's largest corporations, even
if they have no objection to the mandate. Yet it is fighting to force
compliance by religious nonprofit organizations that do object to the
mandate on the basis of deeply held religious beliefs. Not only is that
policy simply irrational, but it treats religious freedom as optional.
Here is how I put it last month: Subjugating religious beliefs to
government decrees is not the price of citizenship. To the contrary,
respecting and honoring the fundamental rights of all Americans is the
price our government pays to enjoy the continued consent of the
American people.
If that is true, then religious freedom must be properly respected
and accommodated. And I believe it is true.
Religious freedom should be a primary consideration, not an
afterthought. Religious freedom should be given the accommodation that
a preeminent right requires, rather than begrudgingly be given the
least attention politically possible.
If our leaders wish to abandon the religious freedom that undergirds
America's origin and existence, they should say so. If Members of
Congress now reject what they once supported and insist that religious
freedom is less important than the political reference of the moment,
they should make that case.
If the Obama administration wants to repudiate treaties we have
ratified, asserting that religious freedom is a fundamental human
right, the President should be upfront about it.
As with many things that happen in the twilight of a Presidency, I
expect to hear much in the State of the Union Address tonight that
speaks to President Obama's legacy. What will he be remembered for?
What great principles or causes will be associated with the Obama
Presidency?
Part of President Roosevelt's legacy is that State of the Union
Address 75 years ago that affirmed that practicing one's faith is an
essential human freedom. What a tragedy to have President Obama be
remembered for hostility to--rather than protection of--religious
freedom.
In the coming days, I will be presenting to each of my Senate
colleagues the collection of speeches on religious freedom that I
offered on the floor last fall. I hope they will encourage us in
Congress, as well as our fellow citizens, to unite in our commitment to
this fundamental right.
This is important. Even though we may agree or disagree with certain
religious beliefs, they still ought to have the right to believe them.
They still ought to have the right to worship the way they want to. The
fact of the matter is that is what has made America the greatest
country in the world--bar none. I don't want to see it destroyed
because we are doing everything we can to undermine religious freedom
in this country. I refuse to allow that to happen, and I hope my
colleagues will take this seriously as well. I know a number of them
do, including the current Presiding Officer.
I just want everybody to know that as long as I am in the Senate, I
am going to be fighting for religious freedom and I hope that all of us
will also.
God bless America.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
ObamaCare
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, tonight President Obama will be coming
to Congress to deliver his final State of the Union Address. His
advisers have been all over television talking about what the President
is planning to say. Tonight, I expect President Obama will talk a
little about the health care law. Last year in his State of the Union
Address, the President bragged--he actually bragged--that more people
have insurance now than when he took office. I expect he will probably
say something similar tonight.
I wish to talk a little bit about the other side of the story. I want
to talk about what President Obama is not going to say tonight to the
American people. The President is not going to admit that many
Americans are actually worse under his health care law. He is not going
to say that under the health care law there is a very big difference
between health law insurance and being able to actually get health
care. The President focuses on the word ``coverage'' and, as a doctor,
I focus on the word ``care.''
The New York Times had an article about this just the other day. The
article on page 1 of Monday, January 4, says: ``Many Holdouts Roll the
Dice And Pay I.R.S., Not an Insurer.'' They would rather pay the
penalty to the Internal Revenue Service rather than pay the insurance
company. Why?
Turn to page A9 of the same day, January 4, 2016: ``Many Who Refuse
Insurance See I.R.S. Penalty as Most Affordable Option.'' The most
affordable option for the American people is not the Obama health law
insurance. It is actually paying the IRS the penalty. The article tells
the story about a number of different people. One is named Tim Fescoe
from Culver City, CA. He and his wife had an insurance plan that cost
them more than $5,000 a year, but it came with a deductible of over
$6,000 for each of them--$5,000 for the policy, $6,000 for the
deductible for him and another $6,000 for her. Well, they decided to
drop the insurance last year.
Mr. Fescoe told the New York Times: ``It literally covered zero
medical expenses.''
I wonder if President Obama is going to talk about this man tonight,
Tim Fescoe. Will we hear anything about him in his speech tonight? Will
the President point to him in the gallery as somebody who the President
claims to have helped by making insurance so expensive and so
unaffordable that it was much better to just pay the penalty than deal
with what the mandates of the President's health care law call into
play? Is he going to talk about the deductibles and how the out-of-
pocket costs have become so high for Americans all across the country?
The article also talks about Clint Murphy of Sulfur Springs, TX.
Clint Murphy expects that he will have to pay a penalty of about $1,800
for being uninsured this year. The article says that in his view,
paying the penalty is worth it if he can avoid buying the President's
law health insurance, a policy that costs $2,900 or more.
This man in Texas went on to say: ``I don't see the logic behind
that, and I'm just not going to do it.''
Is President Obama going to talk about these people--people who think
that it is better to pay the steep IRS penalty than buy the President's
expensive and, in many ways, useless insurance? There are millions of
Americans in this same situation as Clint Murphy, as Tim Fescoe, and
other people who are mentioned in a story in the New York Times. If the
New York Times is writing about it--they are supporters of the health
care law--even they are pointing to the damage that this very unpopular
law continues to do to the American people.
According to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, about 7
million Americans were finding it cheaper to pay the tax penalty than
to pay for this unusable insurance. Look at this chart. Of those people
who don't get subsidies and are not eligible for subsidies, 95 percent
would pay--all of these people--less for the tax penalty than for an
ObamaCare bronze plan, which is the cheapest level of plan that there
is.
So for people who don't get a subsidy from Washington, 95 percent of
them would pay less by paying the tax penalty than they would for an
ObamaCare bronze-level plan with high deductibles and high copays--so
high that the people who look at it say: It is unusable.
[[Page S58]]
Now, remember, again, these bronze plans are the cheapest option, and
the people are just saying no because even the cheapest option under
ObamaCare is more expensive than dropping insurance and paying the
penalty. Bronze plans are the ones most likely to have a $5,000 to
$6,000 deductible per individual on the plan.
Do we expect President Obama to talk about any of these things
tonight or any of these people who have been harmed by his law?
After the President gives his State of the Union Address, much has
been made that he is going on a tour of America. He is going to visit
Baton Rouge, LA, and Omaha, NE. What the President may not know and
certainly won't mention is how much ObamaCare premiums have increased
in those States he is going to visit.
In Louisiana, prices for the benchmark silver plan on the ObamaCare
exchange went up over 9 percent this year. In Nebraska, the same
benchmark silver plan rates went up almost 12 percent this past year.
Now that is for the people who are willing to actually shop around and
switch their insurance from last year to try to hold down the costs.
Remember when the President said this: If you like your plan, you can
keep your plan. Well, if you only want a 9-percent or a 12-percent
increase, you can't keep your plan. You have to try to shop around and
switch to a different plan, maybe even change your doctors and the
hospital you go to. That is the only way you can find rates of
insurance that still go up a lot but don't go up even higher by staying
with what you had.
The President probably won't mention that when he goes to Louisiana
or Nebraska. He probably won't mention either that the ObamaCare co-ops
in both of the States that he is visiting collapsed last year--
fundamentally collapsed. Tens of thousands of people lost the insurance
they had in those States, and now the taxpayers are on the hook for
over $100 million.
The law has not come anywhere near what President Obama promised the
people of Louisiana or the people of Nebraska or the people of America.
All across the country, the American people know that ObamaCare was not
what they wanted. They know that it has never been the right answer for
the problems in our health care system. That is why majorities in both
Houses of Congress voted recently to repeal the key parts of the Obama
health care law. We passed the legislation, and we sent it to the
President's desk. When President Obama vetoed the bill, he rejected the
judgment of the American people.
In his speech tonight, I expect the President to continue to pretend
that there are no problems at all with American health care under his
law. Well, Republicans are going to keep offering solutions to fix
health care in America. Almost 6 years ago President Obama sat down
with Members of Congress to try to sell us his health care law. I was
part of that roundtable discussion. I told the President at the time
that low-cost catastrophic plans could be a good option for people as
long as they could use health savings accounts to help pay their day to
day medical bills.
The President had no interest in that idea or in any of the
Republican ideas that we brought forward that day.
So now, under his law, people are left with the equivalent of
catastrophic coverage and they are paying far too much for it because
of all of the law's mandates. On top of that, the law cuts back on
health savings accounts. The law specifically cut back on that so
people all across the country have fewer options to help them pay for
their care.
Republicans are going to continue to bring up better ideas. We will
talk about real solutions that give people more options, not more
mandates. We will talk about the ideas that help people get the care
they need from a doctor they want at lower costs, not just as the
President talks about coverage--coverage that most Americans find they
cannot use.
Tonight President Obama is probably going to make a lot more
promises. When he does, I think everybody should remember Clint Murphy
from Sulfur Springs, TX, who doesn't see the logic in paying for
overpriced ObamaCare insurance. They should remember all of the broken
promises from the health care law and all of the hardworking Americans
who have been hurt by the Obama health care law. Even though President
Obama won't admit it tonight, America can do much better. If the
President won't say it, then it will be up to Congress to lead on the
issue. That is exactly what Republicans intend to do. President Obama's
speech tonight will be looking to define his legacy. Tonight and for
the rest of the year, Republicans will be offering solutions for the
American people.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to enter
into a colloquy with a number of my colleagues, including Senators from
Virginia, Florida, and New Jersey.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Delegation To The Middle East and Implementing the Nuclear Agreement
With Iran
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I have just returned from a trip to the
Middle East--an absolutely important and eye-opening trip at this vital
moment when the threat of extremism, the threat of violence, and the
risks posed to regional stability by Iran and its regional ambitions
could not be clearer. Senator Gillibrand of New York led this
delegation, and a group of eight of us had an opportunity to visit
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Austria.
Let me begin by saying that all of us were deeply moved and concerned
when we heard this morning news of a terrorist attack in Istanbul,
literally in an area we had just visited Saturday morning. I reached
out, as have a number of others on this trip, to express our
condolences and concerns both to the Turkish Ambassador, the American
Ambassador, and to others we met with on our visit there.
This is just another brazen reminder of the instability raging
throughout the Middle East and of the threats to our concerns and
interests and to regional stability posed by terrorism.
I invite the Senator from Virginia to join me in making some comments
based on his insights and his experience on this trip. The very first
place we visited left an important and lasting impression on me. We
visited with the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in
Vienna to hear about their progress towards implementing the nuclear
deal with Iran and what they are going to be doing, now and in the
future, to ensure full, thorough, and valuable inspections of the
entire cycle of Iran's nuclear efforts.
If Senator Kaine would offer any additional comments as a member of
the delegation and someone who joined in the trip, what were some of
the things that the Senator saw and what were some of the concerns that
the Senator came home with that we ought to share with our constituents
and colleagues?
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware for the
opportunity to engage in a colloquy. It was a remarkable visit with
eight Senators to Israel, Vienna, Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia, to
dig into two issues that I would like to address. The issues are Iran
and the war against ISIL.
With respect to Iran, since the conclusion of the negotiation and the
green light for the deal to go forward, there have been some positive
developments and there have been some troubling developments. I wish to
spend time talking about both.
On the positive development side, because of the deal that the United
States and other nations entered into with Iran, as of yesterday they
have permanently decommissioned the plutonium reactor at Arak, which is
one half for them to make a nuclear weapon. That is a very positive
result of the negotiation.
Second, they have disabled a huge percentage of the centrifuges,
which was also a requirement under the agreement--the centrifuges that
are used to enrich uranium, another path to nuclear weapons.
Third, Iran has worked with the IAEA to structure the level of
inspections. Under the inspections required by the agreement, Iran will
be the most inspected nation in the world, because the inspections will
not only go to nuclear sites, but they will go to the entire supply
chain of uranium mills and uranium mines. Those are inspections not
required of any other nation.
[[Page S59]]
The IAEA is ready to move forward on those inspections.
Finally, there is the last bit of positive news, which in my view,
personally, is the most compelling. Iran took more than 28,000 pounds
of low-enriched uranium, which is sufficient for multiple nuclear
weapons. Because of this deal, they have shipped that uranium out of
Iran. It is held in a facility in Russia that is closely monitored
24/7, 365 by the IAEA. So any movement of that material will be
understood.
Having that nuclear material--sufficient for multiple nuclear
weapons--out of Iran's hands and out of that country would not have
happened without this deal, and it makes the world safer.
There are some challenges. In October, Iran fired a missile, and a
number of us on the Foreign Relations Committee immediately wrote to
the President and Secretary of State that we think this violates a
separate U.N. Security Council resolution. The United Nations empaneled
a team of exports to dig into the factual and technical evidence, and
they concluded in mid-December that Iran had in fact fired a missile in
violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution separate from this
deal. We all think it is very important--for both Congress and the
administration and our global partners--to make sure that there is a
consequence for that. Whether we supported the deal or didn't, the
strategy should be strict enforcement and strict implementation,
requiring that Iran meet every last detail--not only of the deal but of
their other international obligations. We need to continue to press the
administration and Congress to do that.
So on Iran, that was basically the gist of the conversation. We had a
lengthy discussion with Prime Minister Netanyahu, where we said: Look,
we disagreed on the deal. But now the important thing is to make sure
we implement it and we are strong and united on implementation issues.
I think that is critically important.
Finally, I have a word about ISIL. Everywhere we went in the region
we heard about the threat of ISIL. The bombing this morning in a
tourist square in Istanbul, where some of us were standing just 72
hours ago, although all of the investigative work hasn't yet been done,
clearly has the earmarks of an ISIL-related bombing, much as the
bombings in the Sinai, in Beirut, and the attacks in Paris. So it is
very critical that we take this seriously because we are not only
seeing ISIL extend their field of battle beyond Syria and Iraq; we are
seeing them engage in one-off or rogue terrorist activities around the
globe.
The U.S. is at war with ISIL, and we have been at war since August 8,
2014. We are in the 17th month of that war. We have spent billions of
dollars, we have deployed thousands of troops, and we have seen both
American hostages and servicemembers killed in this war. But as I hand
it back to my colleague, I will conclude and say that Congress has been
strangely silent during this war. It is Congress under article I that
should declare war, and yet we have not been willing to have a debate
and vote--even as we are deploying people, even as Americans are being
killed, even as we are spending billions of taxpayer dollars. The only
vote that has taken place in this body on the war directly on the
authorization question was in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in
December of 2014. It was a vote to move forward to an authorization.
But when it came to the floor, it got no action.
I am reminded of the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats, who talked about a
time where ``the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of
passionate intensity.'' We see every day efforts that ISIL is, at
worst, filled with passionate intensity. I believe America is the best.
I believe Congress should be the best. Yet we have been strangely
silent and have lacked conviction in the face of an enemy that is
dangerous and threatens us abroad and at home.
With that, I hand it back to my colleague, the Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia for his
service on the Foreign Relations Committee and for his real leadership
on the question of our prosecution the war against ISIL and the roll of
this Senate in confirming that we are in fact engaged in a conflict,
for his role on the Armed Services Committee, and for the important and
tough questions he asked on our visit to the four countries that I just
referenced in opening. I appreciate the Senator detailing the four
different, big positive moves forward that are happening as the JCPOA,
the Iran nuclear deal, moves towards into full implementation.
I wish to encourage my colleague from Florida, the second-most senior
Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, to also offer his thoughts on
how this deal contributes to our security and what concerns are
remaining.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President and my fellow Senators, I just want to
point out what the Senator has already brought up and underscore that
the fact is that the plutonium reactor in Arak has now been filled with
concrete. The fact is that 12 tons--or 24,000 pounds--of enriched
uranium has been shipped out of Arak to another destination, mostly to
Russia.
Before the agreement, it would only take 3 months to build a nuclear
weapon. Now, it would take at least 12 months. So we would have a 1-
year advance notice in order to determine what we needed to do to deter
Iran.
May I say it is irritating that we are going to continue to deal with
an Iran that is going to do things that are going to provoke us. And
they have certainly done this in the Strait of Hormuz just a few days
ago, doing a live-fire exercise while we have the aircraft carrier
battle group going through the Strait of Hormuz--not even 29 miles
wide. That is a provocation. There is the provocation of shooting off
two missile tests, which is a violation of U.N. sanctions. I hope the
President will follow through and sanction them for that, regardless of
their protests that say: Oh well, then, you are violating our nuclear
agreement.
No, it is a nuclear agreement. They have now stretched the time to 12
months before, if they decided today that they wanted to build a
nuclear weapon. That was the whole purpose of the nuclear negotiations
in the first place--to take off the table that Iran would be a nuclear
power and upset the balance of power in that part of the world.
I thank my colleague for yielding. I thank all of my colleagues for
making these insightful comments.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Florida.
I would invite my colleague from New Jersey, who also joined us in
the Middle East and is on the homeland security committee, to offer his
comments on how the Iran deal actually contributes to regional and
global security, and I ask what remaining concerns there are that we
have to tackle together.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, first, I echo the concerns of my
colleagues here. It was extremely valuable to be able to travel with
Senators Heitkamp, Kaine, and Coons as part of the eight-Member
delegation to the IAEA, and meet with the individuals in charge of the
inspections, as well as to go to Israel, and meet with Benjamin
Netanyahu in a private setting about the concerns Senator Kaine
articulated. In addition to that, we visited with other allies: Saudi
Arabia, as well as Turkey.
Let's be clear. As has been said already, we are seeing important
steps being taken that, in the immediate term, reduce the threat of a
nuclear-armed Iran. The steps they are taking are definitive,
measurable, and specifically aligned with the JCPOA.
It is important to understand--whether it is moving uranium out,
blocking their plutonium pathway, and setting up the inspections regime
along the entire supply chain--that these are all important steps
toward implementing the JCPOA. But I want to make two very clear
points.
The first point is that last summer, as I and many of my colleagues
were immersed in evaluating the JCPOA, the Administration promised
clear and firm responses to even the smallest violation. Like many of
my colleagues, this played a role in my decision to support the nuclear
agreement. We expect to see a follow-through on that promise of
accountability. We expect enforcement. If we allow Iran--as this
agreement goes on--to push the bounds and cross the lines laid out in
this deal without a response, we are undermining the strength of this
agreement
[[Page S60]]
and, I believe, actually putting in jeopardy the security of the
region.
The second point I want to make relates to the provocative behavior
Iran is engaging in right now. Separate and apart from the nuclear
sanctions that will be lifted, there are other sanctions in place for
other issues related to Iran's behavior. Iran is a dangerous actor and
has proven so throughout that region. They are a state sponsor of
terrorism and other destabilizing activities in that region. While the
immediate threat of the nuclear issue might be off the table, they are
still a regional threat.
So when we have clear transgressions that are measurable, that have
been done in violation of international law--such as two separate
instances of ballistic missile testing--there must be a response. I am
calling on the administration not to hesitate any longer. We must
respond with sanctions appropriate to these violations of international
law. To not do so, to me, is unacceptable.
The U.S. must make the consequences for Iranian regional aggression
clear and follow with robust response, if necessary. We cannot lose
sight of Iran's use of surrogates and proxies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon,
and Yemen to further undermine the security of the region. Let's not
lose sight of the fact that there are Americans being held in Iran
right now, such as Siamak Namazi, a graduate of Rutgers University in
New Jersey, arrested in October, and being held by the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard for, as of yet, unspecified reasons. Let's not
forget about Jason Rezaian, who continues to languish in jail without a
clear and justifiable rationale for his imprisonment, as well as Saeed
Abedini, Amir Hekmati, and Robert Levinson. These Americans are being
held by a regime for no justifiable reason.
These are particularly egregious violations. In my opinion, Iran
should be held accountable. So I repeat, the Senate should collectively
call on the administration to take action against Iran and to sanction
Iran for their violation of Security Council Resolution 1929.
I want to finally say that my colleagues and I observed in our
meetings with Israeli officials, as Senator Kaine mentioned, an Israeli
administration that understands the nuclear deal will go into
effect. Let's make sure it is enforced. Let's make sure we have the
eyes and ears in place so we can make sure the nuclear threat is
removed. But let's stay united with Israel and our other allies in
holding this dangerous actor to account if they violate international
law, if they threaten their neighbors, if they engage in destabilizing
activities, if they support terrorism. We must share intelligence. We
must double down our efforts to interdict the movement of arms. And we
must work together for a larger piece in that region.
With that, I will turn it back to Senator Coons.
Mr. COONS. I wish to thank my colleague from the State of New Jersey
and to briefly recognize a success in the fall, in September--a raid
off the coast of Yemen that seized a large cache of Iranian arms
destined for the Houthi rebels who are working to undermine the
legitimate Government of Yemen. This massive weapons shipment of 56
tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided TOW missiles, and the
associated sights, mounts, tubes, and batteries--those are all the
different components for these advanced and sophisticated anti-tank
weapons--was successfully interdicted in international water. This is
an example of what my colleague the Senator from New Jersey was just
talking about, which is the need for more and more aggressive and more
successful interdiction to push back on Iran's destabilizing actions in
the region.
I am grateful now to be joined on the floor by my colleague from the
State of New Hampshire, who is also my colleague on the Foreign
Relations Committee, who wants to contribute to our conversation today
about the positive progress that is being made in the implementation of
this deal and what remains ahead in the work we have to do to make sure
we are implementing it effectively.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague
Senator Coons and others on the floor today, especially those of you
who had a chance to travel to the Middle East. I didn't get a chance to
go with you on this trip. But, like Senator Kaine, I do serve on both
the Armed Services and the Foreign Relations Committees, and I
supported the nuclear deal with Iran because I was convinced and
continue to be convinced that it is the best available option for
preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
As my colleagues have already spoken to, to some extent, we already
see the effects of this nuclear deal in Iran's actions. On December 28,
Iran shipped over 25,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia,
including the removal of all of Iran's nuclear material enriched to 20
percent that was not already fabricated into reactive fuel. We know
this was one path for Iran to get a nuclear weapon. They have removed
this low-enriched uranium. It is in Russia.
The IAEA has increased the number of its inspectors on the ground in
Iran. They are deploying modern technologies to monitor Iran's nuclear
facilities, and they have set up a comprehensive oversight program of
Iran's nuclear facilities. The IAEA is now inspecting all of Iran's
declared nuclear facilities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and they
will have access not just to the facilities where we know Iran was
trying to build a weapon but also to the uranium mines and mills, which
will give the IAEA and the rest of the world complete access to the
entire nuclear fuel cycle.
The Iraq reactor, which has been spoken to already, will be
completely disabled. Its core is being filled with concrete. Once the
IAEA verifies that Iran has completed the steps related to the Arak
reactor, Iran's plutonium pathway to a bomb will have effectively been
blocked. Iran has been dismantling its uranium enrichment
infrastructure, including the removal of thousands of centrifuges.
Again, taken together, these and other steps will effectively cut off
Iran's four pathways to a nuclear weapon, and they will push its
breakout time to at least a year for the next 10 years.
What should Congress be doing? My colleague from New Jersey, Senator
Booker, was very eloquent in talking about some of the actions that we
need to take, both Congress and the administration, to continue to
address Iran's terrorist activities throughout the region. But I think
one of the other things we ought to be doing as a Congress is
confirming key Obama administration foreign policy and national
security nominees because many of these nominees are critical as we
look at the implementation of the Iran agreement. They are critical as
we think about what we need to protect this country, to protect our
national security.
I would ask my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator
Murphy, what does it mean that we have failed to confirm Adam Szubin as
the Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial
Crimes? I was a cosponsor, with Senator Rubio, of the Hezbollah
sanctions bill, the additional sanctions we can put on Hezbollah to
limit their activities, and yet we are still missing one of the key
players in making that work at the Treasury Department. What does that
mean, I ask Senator Murphy, the fact that Congress has failed to
confirm these nominees?
Mr. MURPHY. I thank Senator Shaheen for the question. I would hope
that regardless of how any individual Senator voted on this deal, we
would all be rooting for its success because success in the end is an
assurance that Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon. But the results of
this Senate failing to confirm Adam Szubin as the Under Secretary for
Terrorism and Financial Crimes undermine the implementation of not only
this important achievement but also of all our efforts to try to root
out the financial sources of terrorism all around the world.
The fact is that this gentleman, Adam Szubin, is particularly
qualified for the job. There is no one on the Republican side who has
raised any individual objection to him. He has been doing the job very
well for the United States under President Obama. He was the senior
advisor to this appointee under President Bush's administration. He has
done and worked in this field under both Republican and Democratic
Presidents. It seems as if it is just politics that are holding this
up. He is not
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the only one who is on that list. Laura Holgate has been appointed to
be our U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. offices in Vienna, which includes
the IAEA. She was nominated on August 5. Her nomination hasn't even
gotten out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Wendy Sherman's
replacement, Tom Shannon, was nominated on September 18. His nomination
is on the floor today. We could vote on that this week if it was our
pleasure.
If we want this agreement to succeed, if we want to make sure Iran
does not get a nuclear weapon, if we want to cut off the flow of funds
from Iran to groups like Hezbollah, then we actually have to have
people in place to do those jobs.
I wanted to quickly come to the floor to make the point that in
addition to the important points that are being made by my colleagues
about the success so far of the agreement with respect to
implementation, if we all are hoping that the end result of this is
despite the predictions of many Republicans that Iran doesn't obtain a
nuclear weapon, then we have to have these people in these important
roles.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Would my colleague yield for another question briefly?
I didn't give the date that Adam Szubin was nominated, and he has been
before the banking committee. Does the Senator have that information to
share with everybody?
Mr. MURPHY. I said that Holgate was August 5, and Shannon was
September 18. Adam Szubin has been before the banking committee since
April 16. He is a few months away from being before the Senate for
almost a full year in a job that we can all agree is one of the most
important when it comes to protecting the national security of this
country. That is pretty astounding.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. I thank all three of my colleagues on the Foreign
Relations Committee. I will close and yield back to Senator Coons with
saying that I would hope that one of the things we would all agree to,
as Senator Murphy has said, is that regardless of where we stood on the
Iran nuclear agreement, the goal now is to make sure that is
implemented in a way that makes sure that at least 10 years from now we
have at least a year's breakout before Iran--if they decided to do
that--could go back and have a nuclear weapon. I would hope that we all
share that as our most important priority with respect to Iran.
I yield back to my colleague Senator Coons.
Mr. COONS. I thank my colleagues from Connecticut and from New
Hampshire. I invite my colleague from North Dakota, who also serves on
the homeland security committee and who was part of our delegation that
just had the opportunity to travel to Israel, to Saudi Arabia, to
Turkey, and to Austria, and in Austria to hear from the IAEA.
The references just made by my colleagues on the Foreign Relations
Committee were in one part to the vacancy in the position of the U.S.
Ambassador to the U.N. offices in Vienna. I want to reemphasize that.
Ever since August 5 of last year, that mission the Senator from North
Dakota and I just visited that is responsible for directing and
supporting the work of the IAEA to the extent the United States helps
fund it and supports it and is a participating member--they have been
waiting for a new confirmed ambassador for more than 6 months.
I wish to invite my colleague to make comments based on her
experiences and her reflections based on this recent trip.
Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, thank you to my great friend from the
State of Delaware. I wish to first make a comment on Adam Szubin
because I also serve on the banking committee and have had a chance not
only to meet with him personally but to witness the excellent testimony
he provided during his confirmation hearing.
We all see very smart people. They come through and they agree to
serve their country in these appointed positions which frequently get
bogged down here. And not taking anything away from anyone else who has
ever appeared before the banking committee, I would say that he is one
of the brightest America has to offer. He has a wonderful family, he is
deeply devout in his religion--he is Jewish--and a friend to Israel, a
friend to this country, using his enormous talents to keep this country
safe. There is nothing that would recommend that we not confirm Adam
Szubin in one of the most critical positions we have in the Treasury
Department. If we are serious about stopping Iran from getting a
weapon, if we are serious about enforcing a regime of sanctions, then
we need our best and brightest. He clearly is our best and brightest.
One of the points I want to make coming to the floor is that we
cannot allow incremental creep, incremental violations, small, little
violations. You know how it is. We are all parents, and we watch kids
take advantage and take advantage until pretty soon we don't really
have the role anymore of a parent. We want to make sure that when we
are enforcing this agreement and when we are looking at this agreement,
we send a clear message from the very beginning, which is we will not
tolerate a breach.
I think it is disturbing that somehow this has become such a partisan
issue. We should all be on the floor today encouraging the
administration to not let this agreement be eroded by the failure to
enforce.
An agreement is only as good as the enforcement capability, and we
need to fund the IAEA. We need to make sure they have adequate
resources. My great friend from Delaware has suggested a long-term
strategy for funding. We need to make sure they have the political
support, not just in this body, but across the world to do the right
thing.
We have been talking about the reason we, in fact, agreed to allow
this agreement to go forward, and the biggest agreement was the
enforcement regime. We believed that because of the unprecedented
access that the IAEA would have in Iran, we would know more about this
program and we would have access to more. We were reassured about that
access when we went to Vienna. We were reassured that, yes, they were
not going to back down, but if they do back down and don't give access,
we need enforcement. We should all be joining together to talk about
what that enforcement should look like, how we fund that enforcement,
and what a difference it could make.
I share a level of optimism that we are moving in the right
direction, but being someone who has negotiated deals, I know it is not
over when you sign on to the agreement. It is never over when you sign
on to the agreement. It is going to take a level of absolute myopic
focus on enforcement to make sure we realize the promise of this
international agreement and that we work with our allies and work with
our colleagues. We can't do that if we don't have people in those
positions who can have a dialogue and speak for the administration, and
we certainly can't do it if we allow an incremental breach.
I am joining with my colleagues to provide a unified voice that says:
We stand ready to do what it takes to enforce this agreement and
prevent breach and make sure we realize the promise of the joint
agreement.
Mr. BOOKER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Ms. HEITKAMP. I will be glad to yield to the Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BOOKER. I was with the Senator when you heard from Prime Minister
Netanyahu about the priorities and the partnership between our two
nations, including support for the Iron Dome and David's Sling. What
was also critical, was our cooperation to prevent terror tunnels. One
of the other challenges we had before this deal was even executed, was
Hezbollah's vast arsenal of rockets that could be fired toward Israel.
Those missiles are getting more sophisticated and their range is
getting longer.
I don't think people put the connection together between the
importance of us doing the work of the Treasury Department to stop the
flow of money that can purchase those weapons and have Israeli citizens
scrambling for bomb shelters. When we say a name like Adam Szubin, most
folks in America have no idea who he is and the work that he is doing.
Now that the Senator has been to Israel, I wonder if she can make the
connection as to why the work he is doing is so important to stop the
growing sophistication and source of those missiles.
Ms. HEITKAMP. I thank my good friend from New Jersey for that
question. The surest way to prevent acts of terror is to make sure acts
of terror
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are never funded. That takes an international banking sophistication
and an understanding of every potential loophole you have in every
country out there, and that is what Adam Szubin does. He spends all day
getting briefings and reports about where those potential failures
could be and how to plug those holes. How do we do what is necessary to
unfund terrorism? Whether it is ISIL--ISIS--Hezbollah or Hamas, we need
to take away the money. That is the surest way toward success.
If we do not confirm someone in this critical position, what is the
message? I will be the first person to say that if he is not up to the
job, let's find somebody else, but after having met him and watched his
testimony and the level of dialogue he has not only with the Democrats
but also with the Republicans--this isn't about the caliber of this
gentleman to serve our country. It is about a political fight over this
deal. The deal is done--not done, but the deal is in its infancy. If we
are going to realize the promise of this deal and the commitment this
country made, we absolutely need people in place to make sure this deal
is enforced, and that is in fact Adam Szubin.
My colleagues who were on the trip with me know we received a number
of briefings that went to the heart of taking a look at the
international banking system, where the weakest links are, and how we
can attack those weakest links in shutting down the terrorist network
for financing this terrible behavior.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues who have come to the
floor to join with one voice in recognizing the very strong progress
that is being made so far in implementing the JCPOA, in implementing
the nuclear deal with Iran.
I wish to particularly thank my colleague from North Dakota who has
taken her experience on the banking committee to help us understand why
it is so important to have confirmed senior administration figures who
can enforce the sanctions that were on the books before this deal, were
enforced during this deal, and should be enforced going forward.
In closing, let me briefly make some reference as to what that means.
The JCPOA was an agreement about constraining Iran's nuclear program,
but the sanctions the United States has on the books to stop Iran's
support for terrorism, to stop Iran's ballistic missile program, and to
stop Iran's human rights abuses or to hold them accountable and
sanction them for those abuses will remain on the books.
I will briefly mention that during the negotiation of the JCPOA, the
Treasury Department, where Adam Szubin is the nominee to be the top
sanction enforcement person, utilized multiple authorities and
sanctioned more than 100 Iranians and Iran-linked entities, including
more than 40, under its ongoing terrorism sanction authorities.
Just this past July, three senior Hezbollah military officials were
sanctioned in Syria and Lebanon because they provided military support
to the Assad regime. In November, the Treasury Department designated
procurement agents and companies in Lebanon, China, and Hong Kong, and
just this last week, on January 7, the Treasury Department targeted a
key Hezbollah support network by designating a Hezbollah financier and
member, Ali Youssef Charara, and Spectrum Investment Group.
As my colleague from New Jersey has said, we are all optimistic that
the administration will take the next step and soon impose sanctions in
response to recent ballistic missile launches.
I celebrated earlier because I recognized the success the
administration had in interdicting a weapons shipment from Iran to the
Houthis rebels, their proxies in the region. The fundamental point is
this. If we want to have the positive successes of the JCPOA, and if we
want to continue to have the opportunity to constrain Iran's nuclear
program and its bad behavior in the region, we have to be vigilantly
engaged in oversight and in support for the enforcement of that
agreement and for our exercise of the prerogatives and capabilities the
American Government has to push back on Iran.
I think by working together in a bipartisan and responsible way, we
can get this done. There are folks in this Chamber who opposed the deal
and folks who supported it, but what we heard on our recent delegation
trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey was that our regional allies
are looking for clarity--clarity that the United States stands together
in fighting Iran's regional ambitions to support terror and in
constraining Iran's nuclear program. We can do that best by confirming
these nominees, by funding the IAEA, by exercising the sanction
authorities that this administration and this Congress have put in
place, and by continuing to make progress under this agreement.
With that, I thank my colleagues and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
The President's Economic and Foreign Policies
Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, tonight President Obama will deliver his
final State of the Union Address, a closing argument for his
Presidency. This President, who promised change, will attempt to point
to his administration's accomplishments, as many Presidents have done
in the past. However, this will prove to be difficult because Georgians
and Americans have seen change but in the wrong direction.
When President Obama took the White House, he promised fiscal
responsibility, but right now he is on track to more than double the
debt in his tenure. He promised to work together in a bipartisan way,
but he used the Democratic supermajority in those first 2 years to
force through ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank on the American people. He
promised to bring us together, but he has served to divide us as a
country. He promised to focus on defeating terrorism, but he created a
power vacuum in the Middle East for others who wish to do us harm.
There is no denying it, under this President's failed leadership, the
American people have had a tough several years.
Today more Americans have fallen into poverty under this Presidency.
Too many individuals and families have seen their health care premiums
and their deductibles rise to points where they can no longer afford
them. Our national debt is almost $19 trillion, which is well past any
reasonable tipping point, and we have a global security crisis on our
hands that makes the world possibly more dangerous than at any point in
my lifetime. These are all symptoms of the President's failed economic
policies as well as a lack of leadership in foreign policy.
Even by his own accord, the President has saddled our country with an
irresponsible amount of debt which he described in the past as
unpatriotic. Before he took office, then-Senator Barack Obama reviewed
President Bush's tenure in office saying:
The way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to
take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of
our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion
for the first 42 presidents--number 43 added $4 trillion by
his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt
that we are going to have to pay back--$30,000 for every man,
woman, and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic.
Those are the words of this President, Barack Hussein Obama.
Let's be clear, under this President, our national debt has ballooned
to almost $19 trillion from $10 trillion. That means that President
Obama has added almost $9 trillion already and is on track to more than
double this debt before he is through.
Before President Obama leaves office, he will have nearly added as
much debt as all of the other Presidents before him. This is even more
outrageous when you factor in how much revenue or tax dollars the
Federal Government has collected.
In 2015, we collected over $3.4 trillion in taxes for our Federal
Government. This is more than any year in our history. Washington does
not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem, and it is
focused on the wrong priorities.
Equally concerning, this massive debt isn't interest free. If
interest rates were to rise to the 30-year average of only 5.5 percent,
the interest on this debt would amount to over $1 trillion each year.
That is more than twice what we spent on all nonmilitary discretionary
spending. It is more than twice what we spend on our military and
defending our country. It is totally out of control and this is
unmanageable.
In reality, this debt crisis will only get worse because this
President and
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Washington have not tackled the government's largest expense--mandatory
spending programs such as Social Security and Medicare. This debt
crisis does not only present a fiscal problem, it is inextricably
linked to the global security concerns we are seeing today.
In order to have a strong foreign policy, we have to have a strong
military, but to have a strong military we have to have a vibrant and
growing strong economy. There is no secret that down through history
the countries that have had the strongest militaries, and therefore the
most secure foreign policy, are those that had the most vibrant
economies of their day. Under this President's foreign policy
decisions, he has created a power vacuum and put the country in a much
weaker position.
Today our enemies don't fear us and our allies don't trust us. Just
three decades ago we brought down the Soviet Union with the power of
our ideas and the strength of our economy. Look at the world today.
Over the past 7 years, we have seen the rise of a global security
crisis that is unrivaled in my lifetime. We have seen the rise of
traditional rivals such as China and Russia grow more aggressive. We
have seen North Korea and Iran actually collaborate on nuclear
proliferation. We have seen Syria cross red lines and terrorism fill
power vacuums in the Middle East and around the world.
Last week North Korea claimed to have successfully completed its
fourth nuclear weapons test with a much more powerful weapon than they
possessed before. This is a sobering and stark reminder of the true
consequences our country faces when our President shows weakness in the
face of these radical regimes. And not only have we witnessed
weaknesses, but we have also seen this President naively trust a
country like Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism
today.
Since President Obama announced his dangerous Iran deal in July
despite strong bipartisan opposition, Iran has actively accelerated its
ballistic missile program and continued financial support for terrorism
in the region, in violation of the very sanction we just heard on this
floor.
Iran has fired rockets near U.S. warships, fomented unrest in Yemen,
taken more Americans hostages, refused to release an American passenger
who has been held for 3 years, convicted an American journalist of
spying, banned American products from being sold in Iran, and renewed
its support for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.
From the beginning, President Obama didn't listen to military advice
and prematurely pulled our troops out of Iraq, creating another power
vacuum. ISIS, of course, we now know, grew into that power vacuum and
sprouted influence not only in the Middle East but in Africa and Asia
as well.
Last November, this President told the American people in a news
interview:
We have contained them. They have not gained ground in
Iraq. And in Syria if they'll come in, they'll leave. But you
don't see this systematic march by ISIL across the terrain.
Well, we now know ISIS is not being contained in their ability to
wage war against the West and will stop at nothing to deliver terrorism
even to the shores of America. The President's plan has failed, it is
plain and simple, and we sit here today with no strategy to defeat
ISIS.
The world needs to see decisive action from the United States, not
empty rhetoric that can't be backed up. We need a new leader who takes
every threat of any size seriously. Moving forward, nothing can go
unchecked and unmet without relentless American resolve.
No matter how we measure it, President Obama's economic and foreign
policies have indeed failed. Time and again, he has refused to change
course when his policies didn't work, when they didn't help the
American people, whom he claims to champion. Instead, this President
has created the fourth arm of government--the regulators--and they are
sucking the very life out of our free enterprise system today. Now,
fewer people are working, wages are stagnant, incomes aren't growing,
the debt is soaring, and the world is much more dangerous than it was 8
years ago.
But tonight we will also hear from this President about his optimism
for the future. Well, I get that. I share that optimism but only
because I believe we can do better. We can do a lot better. We can
tackle our national debt crisis. We can save Social Security and
Medicare. We can defeat terrorism once and for all. We cannot do it
without bold leadership, however. We cannot do it without a sense of
urgency or responsibility. We cannot do it unless the political class
in this town--Washington, DC--finally puts national interests in front
of self-interests. We cannot do it without the will and support of the
American people.
I believe in America. Georgians believe in America. Americans believe
in America. Americans have always risen to the crisis of the day, and I
believe we will rise to this crisis. But Washington needs to really
listen to the American people, focus on solutions they support, and
unite our Nation to make sure our best days are indeed ahead of us. We
owe it to our children and our children's children, and the time to
move is right now. The time for rhetoric has ended.
We need to face up to the two crises we have today: the global
security crisis and our own debt crisis, which are interwoven together.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ayotte). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I withdraw the motion to proceed to
S. 2232.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is withdrawn.
____________________