[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 64 (Thursday, April 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2293-S2296]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Venezuela
Madam President, I understand that the headlines are dominated by
events in the Middle East and by the geopolitical and economic and
trade conflict between the United States and China, but I do want to
take a moment to talk about something that I have been speaking about
on the floor of the Senate for the better part of 4\1/2\ years. It is
one that I know that Director Pompeo knows well, as we have talked
about it extensively, and that is the growing catastrophe that is
Venezuela.
To begin, I want to say clearly that we should care about it simply
because that catastrophe has become a threat to the United States and
to the region.
What do I mean by that?
First, the regime in control, Nicolas Maduro's, is a state sponsor of
drug trafficking. It is very simple. What I mean by that is this: Drug
trafficking networks enjoy the protection of the Venezuelan Government.
In fact, one of the concessions--literally, one of the contracts--that
the Maduro regime gives its cronies and loyalists is drug trafficking
networks.
A drug trafficker who wants to move coca out through Colombia, into
Venezuela, and then into the Caribbean or Europe will find the right
general or the right individual in the Maduro government, and that
individual will ensure that his plane is not shot down and that, in
fact, the military and the government organisms of the Government of
Venezuela--of the Government of Maduro--protect him, facilitate him.
The people who are supposed to be stopping him are helping him. It is a
racket. It resembles organized crime. That is what Maduro does.
We have seen an incredible surge in coca production in Colombia to
historic levels over the last couple of years, and it is headed here,
to a nation that is already struggling with an opioid crisis. We are
about to be flooded with cheap cocaine once again, and a significant
amount of it will be trafficked into this country with the aid, the
assistance, and the support of the dictator in Venezuela. That is a
threat to the United States and to the region.
No. 2, he is a threat to the United States and to the region because
he has triggered a migratory crisis that is destabilizing all of
Venezuela's neighbors, primarily Colombia, which each day is absorbing
tens of thousands of people fleeing starvation and rampant disease,
unlike anything we have ever seen, absent a natural disaster in this
hemisphere. It is destabilizing countries that are already struggling.
Colombia is already struggling to try to deal with drug trafficking
groups that are, in many parts of that country, more powerful than the
government in some areas and the demobilization of the FARC and another
terrorist group called the ELN. We have invested, along with our
Colombian partners, millions and millions of American taxpayer dollars
to help Colombia, which, just a decade and a half ago, was on the verge
of being a failed state. We helped them to succeed. They are among our
best allies in the world and, certainly, if not our best, one of the
best, top-of-the-list allies in the Western Hemisphere. They are being
destabilized because they are absorbing tens of thousands of migrants a
day who are fleeing not just political oppression but starvation.
Healthcare experts are telling us that children in Venezuela will not
fully develop physically to their full potential because they are
malnourished today. Infants, newborns are dying in cribs and in
hospitals because of a lack of medicine and because of a lack of food.
These are images that we are used to seeing in other parts of the
world, and it breaks our hearts when it happens somewhere else. This is
happening in our hemisphere, and it is all man-made in one of the
richest countries in the hemisphere--the most oil-rich country on the
planet that just a few years ago was one of the most prosperous
economies in the entire region.
People are starving, and they are starving because of a man-made
crisis. The Maduro regime uses food as a weapon. No. 1, one of the
other concessions it gives the cronies around Maduro is that if they
are loyalists, he puts them in charge of food distribution. What does
that mean? That means you can siphon the food into the black market
where you can make an exorbitant profit. You obviously are going to
take some for yourself so that your family gets to eat.
Then they have the sick process where, in order for you to get food
from the government, you have to show up with your government-issued ID
in Venezuela. They know who the government supporters are, and they
know who isn't. They know who turns out to vote, and they know who
doesn't. It is a fraudulent election, by the way, because ultimately
they will manipulate it as they have done before. So imagine that they
know you didn't vote for them. They know how you voted because they
monitor the machines. If you support the government, you get food, and
if you don't, you don't get food. That is why he doesn't want food
coming in.
The third is that we are engaged in what, I believe, is global
competition or a battle between authoritarianism and democracy. There
is a rise in the threat of authoritarianism in Turkey, in the
Philippines, obviously in China and Russia, and in this hemisphere it
is Venezuela. Venezuela is openly attacking the regional democratic
order. They have basically canceled their Constitution. They have tried
to replace the democratically elected national assembly. They have
removed the legitimate judiciary branch and replaced it with loyalists
of their own.
Fourth, there is a growing body of evidence that the Maduro regime
provides a platform for the enemies of the security of the United
States, including Russia and Hezbollah.
The spillover effects are undermining our efforts and the efforts of
our regional partners to promote democracy, human rights, and stability
in our own backyard in our hemisphere. That was apparent last week at
the Summit of the Americas, where a growing number of countries--
Argentina, Brazil, Peru--are making incredible strides and continue to
build upon the democratic structures they have in place. The Peruvian
President recently had to resign after a previous President resigned
because the rule of law is working. In Brazil, it is the same thing.
They are going to have elections this year in Mexico, in Brazil, in
Colombia. These will be legitimate elections. They may elect someone
who agrees with us 50 percent of the time, and they may elect someone
who agrees with us 90 percent of the time, but they will elect someone.
Yet, in stark contrast to that, is basically a coup d'etat that has
occurred in Venezuela, where a small group of people have canceled the
democratic order or at least they have tried to.
In all of this, there is great news; that is, for the first time in
recent memory, the democracies of the region have come together to act
on this. It began with the so-called Lima Group, which is a collection
of countries that make up the overwhelming majority of the economic
power and the population size of the hemisphere. They have long banded
together to criticize the democratic order. We are not even officially
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a member of it, but they have been supportive of the moves made by this
administration to target Maduro.
Well, last week at the summit, all the members of the Lima Group,
plus two--the Bahamas and the Government of the United States--issued a
joint statement rejecting the sham Presidential vote on May 20 in favor
of free elections and strongly urging the Venezuelan dictatorship to
release all political prisoners. The problem, as I met with members of
civil society and the legitimate elected representatives in the
National Assembly of Venezuela, is that we have reached an inflection
point now. Statements, letters, communiques are fine, but the time to
act is now because people are dying. They are starving to death. The
humanitarian crisis alone compels us to take action.
The question posed to me is: Well, what can we do? Some of the
traditional ideas that people roll out there are additional sanctions.
Sure, but there is more that can be done, and I want to quickly
highlight what I hope will be the three things that happen.
The first is--well, let's decide first on a forum. The ideal forum to
deal with this is a multilateral organization created specifically for
the purpose of defending democracy in the Western hemisphere. That is
called the Organization of American States. It is a group of 34
nations, and it was designed to deal exactly with this. Sadly, there is
a small--and I mean a very small minority--of some of the smallest
countries in the OAS, particularly in the Caribbean, that frankly have
been bribed and/or compromised from voting against the Maduro regime
because either they continue to receive cheap oil in dwindling amounts
or their leaders in this government or the previous one basically stole
the money and the oil, and now the Venezuelans know it, and they are
going to release it publicly if these guys break from them. A small
number of these countries representing less than 10 or 15 percent--
maybe even less than 10 percent--of the population of the region have
banded together to prevent the OAS from expelling Venezuela, a
dictatorship, from the OAS, an organization of democracies. I don't
think we should give up on the OAS. We should continue to try for the
OAS to be the forum for the plan I am about to outline. But if that
doesn't work, then there has to be an alternative, and the alternative
should be the Lima Group, plus at least one--the United States. What I
hope will happen is that the Lima Group will meet before or shortly
after the May election and that it will be a meeting of Treasury
Ministers, Foreign Ministers or both, which is why we need a Secretary
of State to be there, to chart a regional approach on a way forward to
Venezuela.
Here is what I believe that regional approach should be. No. 1 is
that we must collectively announce that we are going to continue to
increase in a multilateral way the pressure on the Maduro regime, and
the way we should do that is by coordinating these national-level
sanctions that target criminal elements of the Maduro regime--target
these drug traffickers, target the people who are trafficking in the
food and controlling the food distribution for their own purposes,
target the shell companies they are using to make money, store their
money, and hide their money. If all of these nations did that,
encompassing the U.S. financial sector--the Brazilian, the Colombian,
the Panamanian banking sectors, which will be critical in this--it
would provide increasing pressure on that regime and on Maduro's
loyalists to break. The goal is to maximize the pain felt by these
corrupt, oppressive, and illegitimate government officials.
The second thing we need to do is address the humanitarian crisis,
which is spiraling out of control. As I have said already, three to
four million Venezuelans have fled their country to escape starvation,
deprivation, violence. Neighboring states are bearing disproportional
burdens, and they need help in doing so. I think we need to continue to
provide that assistance.
Ultimately, the answer to Venezuela's future is not outside of
Venezuela, but it is inside of it. That is why it is my hope that the
priority of this new group--the Lima Group, plus at least one, the
United States--would be to open up a humanitarian corridor that allows
food and medicine to go inside Venezuela, and it can be distributed by
a nongovernmental organization. Put the Catholic Church in charge or
the Red Cross. It can't be the Maduro government; they will steal it.
In fact, they will not even allow it. The Maduro regime will not allow
humanitarian aid to come in because, one, they would lose the leverage
of using food and medicine against their people and, two, they would
have to acknowledge they have a crisis. We must do all we can to force
that avenue to open so that we can deliver food and medicine to the
people who are dying and starving. They are dying of simple diseases
for a lack of basic medicine.
It is critical to let the people of Venezuela know that food,
medicine, and international aid are ready to be delivered to their
country by putting up pictures of the trucks and the warehouses showing
that all of this food and all of these medicines are ready to come in,
and the only thing standing in the way is the corrupt, evil government
that today has empowered itself in their nation.
The third thing we need to be doing as part of this plan is preparing
to help rebuild a free and democratic Venezuela after Maduro leaves
power. The third goal I hope this gathering will reach is a consensus
and an agreement that we will set up the equivalent of a Marshall Plan
for Venezuela that includes investment from the Inter-American
Development Bank and significant contributions from the United States
and our partners to help rebuild the disaster and the catastrophe that
the Maduro regime will leave behind.
We also need to help empower legitimate institutions. When we talk
about the Venezuelan opposition, what we need to understand is that
these are not rebels in a mountain; these are the National Assembly
elected by their people. It would be as if a parallel Senate were
created and we were no longer paid salaries, had staff, often no longer
allowed to meet, and our laws were no longer given the force of law.
That is what has happened, but the National Assembly is there. We need
to support them. We need to make clear they are the legitimate
representatives of the Venezuelan people--the only leaders in that
government today, along with some of the Governors who were
legitimately elected under the Venezuelan Constitution. They are having
a problem, by the way. When they show up at our Embassy in Venezuela,
they are being denied visas to travel abroad. At a minimum, we should
be granting them visas to travel abroad, recognizing them as fellow
Parliamentarians who have a right to speak on behalf of the people of
Venezuela.
The other thing we need to do is cooperate with the real equivalent
of a Supreme Court--many of whom are now in exile but who continue to
meet. That is their credible and legitimate judicial system, and we
should be cooperating with them and helping them. They have all sorts
of information about corruption that implicates Venezuelan activities
in the United States.
I will close with this. The dictatorship in Venezuela knows and the
people who surround Nicholas Maduro know they are on borrowed time. It
is our obligation to expedite that, not through a military
intervention, not through simple unilateral sanctions--which I support,
and we are prepared to continue to do--but ideally through an
international, multinational, regional effort in which the United
States is a partner with our allies in the region. We should continue
to pressure the regime with sanctions, to deliver humanitarian aid
inside and outside of Venezuela, and to create the mechanisms to
rebuild that country's institutions and its economy. This is an
opportunity for regional leadership.
At a time when democracy and authoritarianism are in conflict all
over the world, this is an opportunity to deliver a decisive blow to
authoritarianism in our hemisphere. It cannot happen with America
alone, but it cannot happen without American leadership. This is the
plan I hope we will pursue. This is the method I hope we will use, but
to do it we need a strong leader at the Department of State to be a
catalyst for all of this. This is why I urge my colleagues to rally and
support doing something about Venezuela, and one of the best ways we
can do that right now is to confirm Mike Pompeo as the next Secretary
of State.
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With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, NASA is a science agency. Its mission is
to advance science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration and
enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality, and
stewardship of the mission. That is the mission. That is why past NASA
Administrators have been accomplished leaders in the fields of
government, aviation, and science.
The NASA Administrator in President Obama's administration was
Charles Bolden. He has a master of science degree. He was an astronaut
and commanding general in the U.S. Air Force. President George W. Bush
had two Administrators during his Presidency. Michael Griffin was a
physicist and aerospace engineer who helped to design missile defense
technology satellites early in his career. Sean O'Keefe was an engineer
in the Navy who worked on nuclear submarines. Before leading NASA, he
served as Deputy Director of OMB, Secretary of the Navy, and
Comptroller for the Department of Defense. Daniel Golden was a
mechanical engineer who previously had been a vice president at a space
and technology company. He was nominated by President George H.W. Bush
and also served under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Richard Truly served as vice admiral in the Navy before he became the
first former astronaut to head the space agency under George H.W. Bush.
The reason we are having a robust debate about Mr. James Bridenstine
to lead NASA is that this is the first time in history we have someone
without similar qualifications to run such an important agency.
Jim Bridenstine, the nominee we are considering, served as a Navy
pilot, and I thank him for his service, but that does not qualify him
to run NASA. Just because you know how to fly a plane does not mean you
have the skills and experience to lead the Federal Government's space
agency.
I am not alone in that opinion. A NASA consultant wrote that Mr.
Bridenstine does not have ``significant knowledge and experience with
how NASA works'' or ``deep technical knowledge in aerospace systems.''
There are a lot of things a NASA Administrator has to do. Most of it
is governed by law, and I expect anybody who is confirmed will follow
the law, but the most solemn and serious responsibility that the NASA
Administrator has is final launch authority. A launch is a culmination
of work by thousands of people over many years. If something goes
wrong, we could lose a payload that is worth millions of dollars or is,
in fact, irreplaceable. People could die. That is why this job requires
someone with good judgment and an understanding of all of the elements
that go into a space launch. That is why we have always had NASA
administrators who have demonstrable expertise in these fields. It is
downright dangerous to have someone without this expertise with this
kind of authority. Frankly, it is even more frightening to have a
leader who has made a career out of ignoring scientific expertise.
James Bridenstine is a climate denier with no scientific background
who has made a career out of ignoring science. Now I also don't have a
scientific background, but I defer to scientists. I rely on the
scientific consensus, and the scientific consensus is not what Mr.
Bridenstine says, which is that it is sort of difficult to tell how
much climate change is attributable to human activity. The scientific
consensus is that climate change is caused primarily by human activity,
and Jim Bridenstine doesn't say that is true, and that is terrifying.
Forget our views for the moment about what kind of energy picture we
think America should pursue. This is about whether you are going to
rely upon people who actually know things or you are going to rely upon
your own politics and ideology. When you have final launch authority,
you better rely on science.
During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Bridenstine testified that he
did not know about the scientific consensus on climate change. He
suggested there were other contributing factors that played more of a
role, but the fact is this. Almost every climate scientist--97 percent
of all climate scientists, to be exact--have concluded that humans are
the primary cause of climate change. So there are two explanations for
his answer. Either Mr. Bridenstine has not bothered to read up on the
scientific consensus on the most pressing scientific issue of our
generation or he does not agree with that scientific consensus. Either
explanation makes him unqualified to run NASA.
I want to end by reading a few quotes from one of my Republican
colleagues. My colleague said that NASA is ``the one federal mission
which has largely been free of politics, and it's at a critical
juncture in its history.'' He also said any NASA Administrator would
need to have the ``respect of the people who work there from a
leadership and even a scientific perspective.'' He also said Mr.
Bridenstine would add to the politicization of NASA and that NASA, at
this critical stage in its history, can't afford that.
I agree with my Republican colleague. I urge every Member of the
Senate to give NASA the leader it needs and to vote no on this
confirmation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, later today this body will vote to confirm my
friend Jim Bridenstine to be the next NASA Administrator. In that
position, he will be in charge of rebuilding a space program that
reflects the pioneering spirit and determination of the American
people. I have known Congressman Bridenstine for a long time, and I
know he is just the man for this really important undertaking.
Let us review his record. The record shows that Jim Bridenstine's
service to our country is matched only by his eagerness to press the
boundaries of sky and space.
Jim Bridenstine is a veteran Navy pilot who flew combat missions in
Iraq and in Afghanistan. He logged 1,900 flight hours over his 9 years
of Active service, and he is still a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S.
Navy Reserve.
Following his military service, Jim Bridenstine worked as the
executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. He even owned a
team in the ambitious but short-lived Rocket Racing League.
Since his first term in Congress 6 years ago, Congressman Bridenstine
has served on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. From
that position, he has been a thoughtful leader on American space policy
as it relates to national security, commerce, and weather forecasting.
The name of his latest bill on these subjects speaks to Jim
Bridenstine's ambitious vision for the future: the American Space
Renaissance Act. If ever there were a need for a renaissance in space,
it is now because who can deny that ever since Neil Armstrong's fateful
``one small step'' in 1969, America has, in some respects, been
retreating from space?
Just 12 years separates the start of the space race from man's first
footfall on the Moon. It has been almost 50 years since then, and it is
unclear that we could go back to the Moon if we wanted to in a short
period of time. As Vice President Pence pointed out recently, we have
not sent an American beyond low-Earth orbit in 45 years.
In a humiliating reversal of sorts, America now relies on Russia to
carry our astronauts to the International Space Station because we
shuttered our own shuttle space program in 2011. In other words, after
America won the space race and after America won the Cold War in one
fell swoop, we gave away the distinction of manned space flight to the
second-place finisher.
NASA's decline and disrepair is a great tragedy, but it is not all I
see when I survey the horizon, and I know this is true of Congressman
Bridenstine as well. I see no reason why America, in all of her
ingenuity and might, cannot be the dominant leader in space once again.
Indeed, I see plenty of areas where this transformation is already
underway.
In government, President Trump has signaled his commitment to
American leadership in space by relaunching the National Space Council,
which met for the first time last fall. Outside of government, private
enterprise is pressing the boundaries of commercial space flight every
single day. In the deserts of Utah, innovators like ATK are pioneering
the next generation of rocket engines and space superiority
capabilities. Just yesterday, the world watched
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in awe as a SpaceX rocket flung a planet-hunting NASA satellite into
orbit. Its mission complete, the rocket booster piloted itself back to
Earth for reuse, landing nimbly on a drone ship floating out in the
Atlantic Ocean.
Achievements such as these prove that Americans are still awed, still
starstruck, by space exploration and all the opportunities it provides.
A new era of leaders can restore this sense of ambition in
government. In the halls outside this Chamber, the Senate has a
constant reminder of the importance of the space program. I refer to
the commemorative mural this body commissioned in the wake of the
Challenger disaster.
The mural depicts the crew looking expectantly, hopefully, off into
the future. Behind them is the shuttle that carried them to Heaven, and
the world is in their hands.
The Challenger Seven gave their lives in order to advance America's
space program. They knew the risks--greater practically than those
associated with any other profession on Earth or beyond it--but they
also knew the mission was worth it because it contributed significantly
to their Nation and to all mankind.
What will it say about us if we fail to carry on the mission they
undertook, if instead of exploring the infinite frontier, we remain
here below, passing the torch of exploration to some other power? I
don't want to contemplate that future, and I don't want to believe the
American people do either.
Claiming our right to a place in the stars will require an effort
spanning many years and several Presidential administrations. We can
begin that undertaking today by confirming a leader with a remarkable
record of service to our country, a vision for the American space
program that is big not small, and a genuine faith in his country that
is as boundless as the heavens. That man is Jim Bridenstine. Let's
confirm him. Let's confirm him today.
I urge my colleagues to confirm Jim Bridenstine without obstruction,
without delay.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.