[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 10159-10163]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                   2015--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued


                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 428, H.R. 4660, an act making 
     appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, 
     Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2015, and for other purposes.
         Harry Reid, Barbara Mikulski, Richard J. Durbin, 
           Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, Richard Blumenthal, Robert 
           P. Menendez, Debbie Stabenow, Christopher Murphy, 
           Patrick J. Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod Brown, 
           Patty Murray, Tom Harkin, Tom Udall, Christopher A. 
           Coons, Robert P. Casey, Jr.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate 
that debate on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 428, H.R. 4660, an 
act making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, 
Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
2015, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.

[[Page 10160]]

  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Casey) 
is necessarily absent.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 95, nays 3, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 200 Leg.]

                                YEAS--95

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson (WI)
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Walsh
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--3

     Heller
     Lee
     Paul

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Casey
     Cochran
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 95, the nays are 3. 
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the 
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.


                              Nominations

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to speak to the 42 very well-
qualified and very patient nominees who, through no fault of their own 
and certainly no fault of the Foreign Relations Committee and no fault 
of their records of service to this Nation that have been established, 
are trapped on the executive calendar, unable to assume their appointed 
posts because the Republican leadership has chosen obstructionism as a 
political tool. They have consciously chosen the strategy to do 
nothing, pass nothing, approve nothing, and leave, most importantly in 
my view, key diplomatic posts unfilled for months, threatening in many 
cases national security and our ability to conduct foreign policy.
  Those who say that Congress is broken are wrong. The Congress isn't 
broken, but if the Republican leadership wants you to believe it is, 
they use every parliamentary tool to make certain, among other posts, 
we cannot fill key foreign policy positions. And the world waits, 
American foreign policy waits, diplomacy waits, and our allies wait to 
let these nominees and their families have some closure and get to 
work.
  The blame for these posts being left vacant with these people being 
in political limbo rests squarely on the shoulders of the Republican 
leadership. It is not a problem with Congress or the Democrats or the 
President or with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Never, to my 
knowledge, has this body as a political strategy obstructed en masse 
the appointments of noncontroversial career Foreign Service officers 
who have worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations. 
Never.
  Never have we held up appointments to so many ambassadorial 
positions, State Department positions, USAID positions, and 
representatives to the multilateral development banks. Eighteen of the 
forty-two pending nominees are ambassadors who would fill important 
posts in the Czech Republic, Bosnia, Albania, Gabon, Mauritania, 
Cameroon, Niger, Sierra Leone, Djibouti, and Kuwait. Nearly 20 
percent--20 percent--of our total ambassadorial presence in Africa is 
being held up by the Republican leadership. All of them have waited on 
average 280 days--280 days--for Senate action. That is unfair to them. 
It is unfair to their families. It is bad policy. It is unnecessary, 
irresponsible, and completely unacceptable. And it has to end. It harms 
our regional coordination on issues such as food, security, and 
counterterrorism.
  We are seeing what is happening across Africa, particularly northern 
Africa, and we have a challenge. We have a challenge that involves our 
national interests and our national security. You cannot promote the 
solutions to those challenges if you don't have an ambassador on the 
ground in those countries. Let us remember that U.S. leadership plays a 
major role in supporting peace and security efforts alongside our 
development, democracy, and humanitarian goals across Africa and around 
the world, preventing us from being able to project power and 
leadership, leaving us--in my view--vulnerable from a national security 
standpoint.
  In West Africa, the Nigerian terrorist organization Boko Haram is 
perpetuating a brutal campaign of violence and fear, kidnapping young 
women and taking advantage of porous borders with Niger and Cameroon. 
The United States is leading an effort with our international partners 
to improve regional coordination to address both this threat and 
serious development challenges in the region.
  Unfortunately, the Senate has yet to confirm the ambassadorial 
nominees to Niger or Cameroon. We need to fill these ambassadorial 
positions in order to promote our interests and our coordination in the 
region in pursuit of some of these goals.
  Mauritania has been a key partner in addressing the terrorist threat 
posed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, in Africa's volatile 
Sahel region.
  Let's not forget that the East African Nation of Djibouti holds U.S. 
Africa Command's Combined Joint Task Force--Horn of Africa and is the 
U.S. military's only enduring infrastructure in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, 
home to some 4,000 U.S. servicemembers and civilians.
  Our cooperation with Djibouti supports counterterrorism efforts 
against Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in 
nearby Yemen and anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. Al-Shabaab 
recently carried out its first terrorist attack in Djibouti, targeting 
a restaurant frequented by westerners. Yet our ambassadorial nominee, 
Thomas Kelly, remains unconfirmed.
  In addition to supporting peace and security efforts in Africa, the 
United States also plays a key role supporting democratic governance 
across the continent, which in turn contributes to greater stability.
  Niger and Namibia are set to hold Presidential elections within the 
next 9 months and both ambassadorial nominees have yet to be confirmed 
by the full Senate.
  At a time when stability in parts of Africa is tenuous, at best, with 
conflicts, famine, and the ever-increasing threat from criminal and 
terrorist organizations, it is simply not in our national interest to 
have the President's nominees--many of them career Foreign Service 
officers--in many cases held up for political reasons for nearly a 
year--a year in so many cases.
  U.S. leadership in international organizations is being negatively 
affected. In fact, the nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for 
International Organization Affairs was reported to the Senate on March 
3. Her nomination is not the least bit controversial, and yet she has 
not been confirmed.
  Nominees for posts at the United Nations have been pending for 
months, including the nominee to be U.S. Representative to the U.N. 
Conference on Disarmament, who was reported out on March 11. These gaps 
have affected our credibility around the world, and they are affecting 
U.S. national security.
  It is worth understanding that this list is not static. We are 
constantly adding nominees to the Executive Calendar. We held hearings 
for an additional five nominees last week. Four more had their hearings 
today, chaired by Senator Cardin--who is here on the

[[Page 10161]]

floor with me and has done an exceptional job in this regard--including 
our nominees to be ambassador to Korea and Vietnam. Simply stated, the 
backlog is weakening America's role in the world.
  The vast majority of these nominees are uncontroversial. They have 
passed committee by voice vote, not even a recorded vote, and are 
nominations that normally would have gone through the Senate en bloc by 
unanimous consent. Holding them hostage is simply wrong on every level.
  Never has one party stood in the way of full and complete conduct of 
foreign policy, and it is time the American people understand who is to 
blame for the dysfunction that is holding them hostage for political 
reasons. And as we hold up action on these nominees, the world is 
convulsing. The days are filled with a steady stream of breaking-news 
stories, disheartening images, trending tweets of reports of unrest in 
Ukraine, Iraq, Venezuela; mass atrocities in Syria, South Sudan, the 
Central African Republic; heart-wrenching accounts of kidnapped girls 
in Nigeria and alarming events of violence against women in Egypt, 
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world. That is the daily 
diet of what we see unfolding across the world.
  American leadership is expected by the international community during 
this challenging period, and it is in fact something that is in our own 
national interests and national security interests.
  Some complain that the United States does too much and others argue 
that we don't do enough, but always the debate in foreign affairs is 
centered on our Nation and the vital role we fill within the 
international system. We live in a new world defined by technological 
advancement and rapid globalization, but we are history-bound by a 
deeply imbued duty to provide moral clarity when it appears lacking, of 
serving as a lighthouse to a community of nations undergoing profound 
transformation.
  In one very particular arena, we are failing this charge. We are 
leaving our embassies without the tools they need, without the 
necessary leadership to pick up that metaphorical hammer.
  Using obstruction as a political tool, we are being forced to turn 
from our vital responsibility of confirming ambassadorial nominees to 
conduct American foreign policy. That means turning from our 
responsibility in everything from providing emergency services for 
Americans abroad to responding to humanitarian crises around the world, 
to supporting U.S. businesses and our commerce agenda overseas. The 
lack of confirmed ambassadors is crippling our global agenda.
  Consider this: Key U.S.-held positions at the World Bank, 
International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, the 
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other 
international financial institutions are not filled.
  Seizing the opportunity, Russia and China are actively lobbying IMF 
members to reduce U.S. ownership share in the bank. Just recently, 
Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director said: ``I wouldn't be 
surprised if one of these days the IMF was headquartered in Beijing.''
  No nation can hear what we have to say if we are not there, if we 
have no voice. It is not an overstatement to say our national security 
is affected by Republican noncooperation. One example is the Assistant 
Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation 
tasked with monitoring and verifying our arms control agreements 
remains empty, and that affects our ability to design and implement a 
potential agreement to halt Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program.
  Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing for 
the nominees to serve in Egypt, Iraq, and Qatar. Imagine those 
countries not having a U.S. ambassador during a time when they are 
going through massive turmoil and change--some of them, not all of 
them, but Iraq is certainly going through turmoil. We will soon vote to 
approve these Foreign Service officers, but there is no guarantee they 
will be confirmed expeditiously by the Senate despite the very obvious 
need for a constant U.S. presence in these Nations. Iraq is on the 
verge of civil war and we have no way to confirm Stu Jones, a very 
qualified nominee who is currently serving in Jordan for the post to 
replace Robert Beecroft, who is headed to Egypt but is currently in 
Iraq.
  That this scenario is even a possibility, given their pending 
assignments, concerns me and should concern all of us. Perhaps their 
fate will be similar to the nominee to Kuwait, who has not received a 
confirmation vote for nearly 200 days.
  The Emir of Kuwait recently made a historic visit to Iran. Persistent 
reports link wealthy Kuwaiti donors to a variety of extremists, 
including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria--the ISIS, which is 
threatening Iraq. Yet we lack the ambassador's ears and eyes on the 
ground to provide the analysis we need.
  Of the 42 unconfirmed nominees, almost half are career ambassadors, 
who, as I said earlier, have served this Nation for a lifetime on 
behalf of Democratic and Republican administrations. Some were already 
confirmed, as I said earlier, in the past by the Senate and served as 
ambassadors in previous posts.
  So let me conclude by saying since becoming chairman of the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee, we have debated and voted to approve 125 
nominees, oftentimes unanimously and without discord.
  But apparently the pricetag for Leader Reid executing what some call 
the nuclear option to get anything done in the Senate is the Republican 
leadership's intransigence that gums up the Senate proceedings, 
particularly holding ambassadorial nominees hostage and in so doing 
harming our national security objectives. This standoff is having very 
negative and real implications in the world that is beset by chaos and 
in need of American engagement. It has to end and it has to end now.
  It is not about a Republican or a Democratic divide in terms of 
importance. This is about the national interests and security of the 
United States. If we are not in our embassies abroad as a leader, we 
can do all the diplomacy and efforts from the State Department, but at 
the end of the day the person on the ground every day and engaging with 
the leadership of that country and promoting American ideals, values, 
and interests is the ambassador. In the absence of an ambassador, we 
cannot be heard. I don't want the United States not to be heard.
  I see my colleague from Maryland, a distinguished member of the 
committee who has held so many of these hearings for nominees and has 
done a fantastic job on behalf of the committee. He is going to speak 
next. As the chair of one of our key subcommittees, it is critical, as 
you will hear from him, that we have our nominees so our interests can 
be represented.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, first, I thank Senator Menendez for his 
incredible leadership on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. What 
Senator Menendez did not bring out is the number of hours our committee 
has had hearings on each one of these nominees.
  We take the nomination process very seriously--the committee does--
under Senator Menendez's leadership. We have a complete record on the 
background and experience of each of President Obama's nominees. We 
have vetted them, gone over everything, and we have had hearings.
  As Senator Menendez pointed out, today I chaired a hearing where we 
considered the nominations for our Ambassadors to Algeria, Vietnam, and 
the Republic of Korea as well as an Assistant Administrator for USAID 
for Asia. That hearing lasted an hour and a half, many questions were 
asked. The record is open through Thursday so members of the committee 
can ask additional questions.
  Many times additional questions are asked for the record. We get 
those responses, and we then analyze all of that information and go to 
a committee markup where every member of

[[Page 10162]]

the committee has a chance to debate each nominee. As Senator Menendez 
has pointed out, in most cases they have been approved by our committee 
by unanimous votes, and many times it is not recorded because there is 
no controversy.
  In many cases these are career diplomats, and in other cases they are 
people who have an extraordinary background to add to the service of 
their country, and we are very blessed that they are willing to step 
forward to take on the ambassadorship or membership in a key national 
organization to further U.S. foreign policy. That is the record.
  So what happens after we act? Senator Menendez has expedited these 
nominations as quickly as he could do it in carrying out the 
responsibilities of the Senate to advise on these nominations. But what 
has happened afterward is that they cannot get a Senate vote and not 
because of any meritorious objections to the confirmation. They are 
just being backlogged in order to gum up the operations of the Senate. 
There is no policy reason or substantive reason for the delay in the 
consideration of these nominations.
  This is foreign policy for the United States. This is in the best 
interests of the United States. It is hard for the public to understand 
and it is hard for this Senator to understand why we would hold up 
having a confirmed ambassador heading up our embassy in any country in 
the world but particularly those countries that are critically 
important to U.S. interests. We should have a confirmed head of our 
embassy in every country.
  As far as it is affecting U.S. interests, let me give you what I 
think is obvious, and the Presiding Officer understands this. Our 
national defense strategy depends upon not just our soldiers and our 
weapons, it depends very much on diplomacy and development assistance. 
The diplomacy--and to a large extent the development assistance--is 
managed by our embassy in the host country and the CEO of that embassy 
is the confirmed ambassador, and in many cases we don't have a 
confirmed ambassador. We don't have an ambassador because the Senate 
has not confirmed that position.
  For months we have gone without confirming an ambassador after the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee has recommended a confirmation, and 
that is why we have come to the floor to talk about that. This does 
affect our national security interests.
  Senator Menendez pointed out a very obvious fact; that is, the face-
to-face interchange of our ambassador and the country he or she is 
representing that gives the United States the best opportunity in that 
country. That is how you do diplomacy. You don't do diplomacy through 
letters; you don't do diplomacy through long exchanges from one country 
to another; you do it by being in that country--by your personal 
commitment to that country. That is why we have our embassies and our 
ambassadors. When we don't have a confirmed ambassador--when we don't 
have the CEO of that embassy there--we miss that personal face-to-face 
interchange which is critically important.
  Just think for a moment. Here we are trying to make an important 
contact in a foreign country, and we may meet with the Prime Minister 
or the Foreign Minister, and we don't have an ambassador to be our 
representative or to be there to supervise the diplomacy that is taking 
place.
  What many people are not aware of is that our embassies are more than 
just the ambassador dealing with current foreign policy issues. We have 
a host of functions that are carried out under the supervision of our 
ambassador who, as we pointed out in many cases, is not there because 
we have not acted. Maybe we are interested in what is going on with 
U.S. business. We have a lot of economic interests around the world.
  We are in a global economy. American businesses depend upon our 
embassy being there for them to fight for the government contracts on a 
fair, level playing field so they can conduct their business 
internationally. They depend upon an embassy to be at full strength. 
Because of global competition, we are fighting every day for job 
opportunities for Americans and American companies.
  In too many countries we don't have that person there fighting for 
our businesses because the Senate is not active because those on the 
other side of the aisle have prevented us from taking up these 
ambassadors for confirmation, even though there has been no controversy 
surrounding their individual confirmation, and that is hurting U.S. 
business interests.
  There are many citizens who travel abroad. They expect to have the 
full service of their embassy if they need it or if they get sick or 
they need the services of our embassy for whatever it might be. They 
depend on that embassy, and they want the CEO to be present in that 
embassy in order to fight for their interests.
  That confirmed ambassador is not there today because the Republicans 
have denied the vote in the Senate to confirm that position. We are not 
at full strength to protect Americans who are traveling abroad. Our 
participation in environmental opportunities is very much dependent 
upon the functioning of our embassy.
  Our humanitarian efforts depend upon the functioning of the embassy. 
Our eyes and ears on the ground depend upon the functioning of the 
embassy. Our development assistance programs are run out of the 
embassies. In many cases the CEO is not there because of the 
obstruction by the Republicans in the Senate who are not allowing a 
vote on noncontroversial nominees. Because these nominations have not 
taken place, we are not at full strength.
  We are hurting our country. We are hurting our interests. We are 
hurting our business interests, our security interests, and our 
leadership on environmental issues. As Senator Menendez pointed out, 
they are not just ambassadors to countries, they are ambassadors to 
international organizations.
  We are not at full strength on economic international organizations. 
We are not at full strength on arms control negotiations because we 
don't have our key person there--not because that person is 
controversial, not because the President has elected someone who is 
controversial but to the contrary. Almost all of these nominations are 
noncontroversial and waiting for months because the Republicans will 
not allow a vote.
  Somebody said: OK. Don't we need a lot of floor time to debate this? 
Look at the record. Look how much floor debate has been spent on 
approving these nominations. I am willing to wager--although we can't 
wager on the floor of the Senate. I am willing to point out that if we 
bring these nominations to floor consideration, in almost every case 
there will be virtually no debate, and they will be approved by an 
overwhelming majority, if not a unanimous vote.
  We are hurting our country. We are hurting the reputation of the 
United States. We are supposedly the major power. Yet we can't get a 
CEO confirmed to head our embassies abroad.
  It is also unfair to the people who are making a sacrifice for public 
service. As Senator Menendez pointed out, a large number of these 
nominees were ambassadorships or career diplomats. These are not 
political appointments, these are career people who have made their 
career serving their country.
  Many have young families. What do they do about school enrollment in 
September? Do they enroll their children in the school where they are 
now or do they wait to see if they will be confirmed and enroll them in 
the country in which they will be serving? Why are we putting people 
who are serving their country through that type of uncertainty and 
anxiety? But we are. We are, by failing to move in a timely way the 
nominations that have been brought forward to us.
  I will just mention one other example. I started with the hearing I 
chaired today on behalf of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 
dealing with four nominees. One was the Ambassador to Vietnam. I was 
just recently in Vietnam. I met with our current Ambassador, Ambassador 
Shear. I mention that because he has been nominated to be Assistant 
Secretary of Defense for

[[Page 10163]]

Asia, so he is leaving Vietnam. We had a hearing today on the next 
Ambassador to Vietnam--a well-qualified career diplomat. The question 
is: Are we going to have the orderly change of command in Vietnam, a 
country critically important to U.S. interests? We are negotiating a 
Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Part of that involves good 
governance changes that we expect in Vietnam. We expect our Ambassador 
to be there to negotiate these issues. The question is: Will we have 
that orderly transfer?
  Two career people seeking to move forward in their careers are being 
held up by inaction on the floor of the Senate.
  I come to the last point I wish to make. Yes, we are hurting the 
United States in not having these confirmed CEOs. It is creating 
unfairness to the families of people who want to serve our country--and 
the uncertainty that is there. But it is also hurting the Senate 
because it is our responsibility to act on Presidential appointments. 
It is our responsibility to act in a timely, thoughtful way. We are not 
carrying out that responsibility. By the Republicans obstructing votes 
on the President's nominations on key foreign policy positions, we are 
not carrying out our responsibility--an oath that we took to serve in 
the Senate to protect the interests of this country. It is our 
responsibility to act on these nominations in a timely way, and we have 
not done that because of the obstructionism of the Republicans.
  I urge my colleagues to put our national interests first. Let us move 
forward with our responsibility. The committee has carried out its 
responsibility and, quite frankly, the chairman has carried that out in 
a very bipartisan way. We have had cooperation between Republicans and 
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We have carried 
out our responsibility. Now it is time for the Senate to carry out its 
responsibility, for the Republicans to allow us to vote in a timely way 
on this backlog of nominees for critical foreign policy positions. I 
urge my colleagues to allow us to move forward in the best interests of 
our country and in respect for those who have stepped forward to serve 
our country, to carry out the responsibilities we all swore to uphold 
in the Senate.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________