[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12572-12574]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HIGHWAY TRUST FUND

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I came to the Senate floor in April to 
warn my colleagues of a looming crisis in the highway trust fund. I 
told them if Congress didn't act and the fund reached critically low 
levels, it would cause construction shutdowns in communities across the 
country. It would cost jobs and threaten our fragile economic recovery. 
It would hurt families who depend on safe and efficient roads and 
bridges.
  I had hoped that we could address this issue sooner. I had hoped 
those of us in Congress who understand the importance of strong 
infrastructure investments could have come together, not just to avoid 
a crisis but for a long-term solution. We weren't able to do that.
  But today, after 4 months of warning of this looming crisis, I am 
pleased to come to the floor as we work to do what should be easy but 
too often isn't in the Senate--to avoid a completely unnecessary and 
completely damaging crisis. This is a step in the right direction. As 
many of us here know very well, it is a step that Congress has not 
taken each time a crisis approached.
  For far too many years, Congress has been lurching from crisis to 
crisis,

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from debt limit scares to fiscal cliffs. That dysfunction hit a peak 
last October with a government shutdown over a misguided attempt to 
block the Affordable Care Act from covering millions of families and 
with another Federal default scare. The lurching from crisis to crisis 
with constant dysfunction and uncertainty hurt workers and our 
families, and it shook the confidence of people across the country who 
expect their elected officials to work together to get things done.
  But when the government shutdown finally ended last year, I sat down 
with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan in a budget conference. 
We worked together, we compromised, and we reached a 2-year budget deal 
that prevented another government shutdown and rolled back devastating 
cuts from sequestration.
  That bipartisan budget deal moved us away from these constant crises 
and showed the American people that we can do our jobs when we are 
willing to work together. I believe it showed my Republican colleagues 
that putting the American people through these constant artificial 
crises is not only bad for the country overall, it is not good for 
Republicans either.
  Since that bipartisan budget deal, we have been able to build on that 
bipartisan momentum in some very important ways. I was proud to work 
with the junior Senator from Georgia and a number of Democrats and 
Republicans on a bipartisan bill to invest in workforce training.
  Our legislation passed both the House and the Senate with 
overwhelming bipartisan support, and this week it will officially 
become law. That kind of bipartisan work to help our workers and the 
economy wouldn't be possible if we were still in a constant crisis 
mode.
  That is why I have been so hopeful we could avoid lurching toward yet 
another needless crisis--this time in our highway trust fund. The 
consequences of Congress failing to shore up the highway trust fund are 
clear. In fact, many of our States have already been bracing for a 
worst-case scenario. Arkansas, for example, has already put the brakes 
on 15 highway projects that would have widened their highways and 
repaired their bridges.
  In Colorado, State officials are planning a project to ease 
congestion to give some much-needed relief to drivers between Denver 
and Fort Collins, but a lapse in our Federal funding could have put 
that project on hold.
  Those are not isolated cases. Across the country more than 100,000 
projects would have been at risk next year and 700,000 jobs would have 
been on the line if Congress failed to replenish the highway trust fund 
according to the Department of Transportation.
  I am pleased Congress is finally coming together and working to avoid 
a construction shutdown this summer. Republicans in the House have 
pushed aside the tea party branch and passed a bill to avoid a 
construction shutdown this summer, with no ransom demands, no 
programmatic spending cuts, and no tea party policy riders.
  I do support the bipartisan Senate proposal from the Finance 
Committee, which includes provisions to improve compliance with tax 
laws.
  My colleague, the junior Senator from California, is right. We need 
pressure on Republicans to come back before the end of this Congress to 
work with us toward a long-term solution, but I am very pleased we are 
working together to get this done and avoid this unnecessary crisis 
that would have put jobs and our economy at risk.
  This bill will be a step in the right direction, but then we need to 
take the next step. We need to keep this bipartisanship going, and we 
need to work together to find a long-term solution to the highway trust 
fund's revenue shortfall. That is the only way we can truly put an end 
to constant crises and short-term patches, and it is the only way we 
can give our States and businesses the certainty they need and deserve 
to plan projects and invest in their economies.
  Once again, I am pleased we are moving toward avoiding a completely 
unnecessary construction shutdown, and I am pleased that the House 
Republicans seem to understand that it is better for them and our 
country to push the tea party aside and work with us--not to push us 
into another crisis.
  I am hopeful we can build on this bipartisan effort and keep working 
together to create jobs, economic growth, and a fair shot and true 
opportunity for families across our country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, while the Senator from Washington is on 
the floor, I think it is appropriate to note and congratulate her for 
her work on the Workforce Investment Act.
  She and Senator Isakson of Georgia led the effort of Senator Harkin, 
me, and others in the Senate. Senator Scott of South Carolina was the 
principal sponsor of the House-passed SKILLS Act. Senator Enzi of 
Wyoming had worked for a long time--and as the Republican leader said, 
that bill is being signed today by the President of the United States.
  It goes directly to the issue that most Americans care about. It is 
too hard to find a job. What this process showed was that Republicans 
and Democrats were able to take the nearly $10 billion that we 
currently spend on job training to give Governors the flexibility to 
help people develop skills and match job seekers with good jobs in 
their communities. I remember our former Democratic Governor from 
Tennessee told me that when he came into office, he threw up his hands 
when he found out about the $145 million that came to Tennessee through 
the Workforce Investment Act because it was too complicated.
  Senator Murray, Senator Isakson, and others have worked together with 
Chairman Kline in the House, and they produced a law that will be 
signed today. The Senate is far from functioning the way it ought to. 
There is too much talent in the Senate and too many pressing problems 
in the country for us to be anywhere close to satisfied with the result 
we are getting. But the committee upon which the Senator from 
Washington and I serve has done a pretty good job in this Congress. We 
reported to the Senate 20 pieces of legislation; 18 of them have passed 
the Senate, and 14 of them have been signed into law.
  That may be more than the entire Senate put together.
  The point is, those are big pieces of legislation. One is the jobs 
bill. That is the issue we care about more than any other.
  Another was the track-and-trace legislation which makes medicines 
safer for 4 billion prescriptions. Senator Burr and Senator Mikulski 
worked on that.
  Another was on compounding pharmacies. It was a terrible problem 
where we had tainted, sterile injections not being sterile and causing 
people to catch meningitis and die.
  Last year another was the student loan program, where we took all the 
new loans--that is $100 billion a year--and put a market-pricing system 
on top and took it out of the political football stunt category.
  All of that has happened on a committee which has, on its left, 12 
Democrats, and on its right, 10 Republicans. We don't agree on 
everything by a long shot. But on these issues we came to a result, did 
the job, and the Senator from Washington has been a conspicuous example 
of looking for opportunities for us to get a result.
  People expect us to come to the Senate, stand on our principles, but 
not stop there--not stop there--and then put our principles together 
where we can combine those and get a result for the American people. I 
am pleased to be a part of that action and I congratulate her for it.


                              Human Rights

  Today I am here to say the world is watching Venezuela. The Senate 
especially is watching human rights abuse in Venezuela. I especially am 
watching the case of Leopoldo Lopez, who has been in prison for 5 
months. For what? For leading a political party and exercising his 
constitutional rights.
  Senator Menendez, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, 
has spoken out about human rights abuse in Venezuela. Senator Corker, 
the ranking Republican on Foreign Relations has spoken out about human

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rights abuse in Venezuela. Yesterday, Senator Cruz of Texas gave an 
impassioned speech about Leopoldo Lopez in Venezuela and that 
conspicuous example of human rights abuse. Senator Rubio of Florida has 
been at the forefront of this discussion with his leadership on the 
Foreign Relations Committee.
  Today, I wish to speak about human rights abuse in Venezuela and to 
say to President Maduro in Venezuela that the world is watching. The 
world is watching him and his efforts to imprison his principal 
political opponent, Leopoldo Lopez.
  Mr. President, many of us have visited Robben Island off South 
Africa's coast. When my family and I did that a few years ago, there 
was no moment that impressed me more in that visit than when some of 
those who were imprisoned there with Nelson Mandela still give tours of 
Robben Island, about where he lived and where he exercised and how he 
conducted himself in the 27 years he was there before he came back and 
was freed and became one of the most important persons in our world 
history.
  It seems to me President Maduro of Venezuela is determined to turn 
Leopoldo Lopez into the Nelson Mandela of Venezuela by his 
unconscionable imprisonment of him principally because Leopoldo has 
spoken out and has expressed his political views about the country he 
loves.
  Leopoldo was born in Venezuela and comes from a patriotic Venezuelan 
family, but he was educated in the United States which is where I met 
him. I met him when he was a student at Kenyon College. In fact, I made 
the graduation speech, when I was Secretary of Education, to the class 
in which he graduated, and he was a friend of my son who was also a 
student. I watched him over the years. He went on to Harvard and 
obtained a master's degree at the Kennedy School. He could have stayed 
in the United States and had a very successful career, but he chose 
instead to return to the country he loved, Venezuela. He was elected 
mayor of a municipality at the age of 28 in an important area outside 
of Caracas. Four years later he was reelected with 81 percent of the 
vote. He is a rising star in Venezuela. There is no brighter star 
rising in the skies of Venezuela.
  Hugo Chavez's government knew that someone like Leopoldo, who is well 
educated, charismatic, purposeful, and honest, with a desire to help 
his fellow Venezuelans, would do nothing but cause problems for their 
socialist government, so they barred him from running for public office 
and accused him of misusing public funds.
  I suppose a lot of us would like to bar our principal opponents from 
running against us. The Senator from New Jersey and I are both in 
elections this year, but it hasn't occurred to us that in the United 
States we could actually do that. Elections are the lifeblood of our 
political system and the lifeblood of this country and the lifeblood of 
our liberty and freedom, but in Venezuela if you don't like your 
opponent, you just say they cannot run for office. That is what they 
did to Leopoldo.
  Leopoldo fought back, taking his case all the way to the Inter-
American Court for Human Rights and he won. I had an opportunity to see 
him in 2011 when he did that. I knew he would win his case. Anyone who 
listened to it believed that. He then stayed in Venezuela. He faced 
assassination attempts, harassment, threats, but never wavered in his 
call for the Venezuelan people to take action against the oppressive 
regime of Hugo Chavez and more recently Nicolas Maduro.
  Venezuela is a rich country and has lots of money, but people cannot 
get toothpaste, people cannot get tissues. The inflation there is more 
than 50 percent. You would expect there to be a leader demanding change 
from the government, someone who could express the views of the people. 
Leopoldo is that person, but he has been in jail for 5 months. He has 
been barred from running for public office because he is that leader.
  He is a husband. He is the father of two young children. He chose to 
turn himself in to face trial. He could have come to the United States 
or some other country and said, ``I am in exile. I am a popular 
Venezuelan and I'll take the brave act of going into exile.'' No, he 
didn't do that. He turned himself in, with a crowd of hundreds of 
thousands of people behind him, because he is in the tradition of 
Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, and others is focusing his 
resistance in a nonviolent and a constitutional way. That is his lesson 
to the people of Venezuela.
  However, he is in jail and has been for 5 months, and President 
Maduro keeps him there to silence the opposition. Or so the President 
thinks. Leopoldo's trial starts tomorrow. I say trial, although it is 
not a trial that we would recognize.
  The distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee is on the floor 
today. He has been a leading spokesman for human rights across the 
country. He, too, is interested in human rights abuse in Venezuela. He 
would not recognize this trial.
  The defense team of Leopoldo has attempted to bring forward 60 
witnesses plus other experts to testify on their client's behalf. 
However, during a preliminary hearing every single witness for the 
defense was disqualified.
  There is the distinguished lawyer, the Senator from Massachusetts, on 
the other side of the aisle. She knows what a trial is. She recognizes 
human abuse when she sees it, just as all of us do. So I think it is 
important for President Maduro, the people of Venezuela and the people 
in Venezuela who have been subjected to human rights abuse to know that 
is not going unnoticed in the United States of America, that there are 
Senators on the Democratic side and on the Republican side of the aisle 
who are paying close attention to this; that our State Department is 
reviewing this very carefully; that this sort of human rights abuse in 
Venezuela--a country badly in need of political discourse and 
leadership--is something we should not ignore. We should say to 
President Maduro: Free Leopoldo Lopez. By locking him up for 5 months 
you are not silencing him. You are helping to make him the Nelson 
Mandela of Venezuela.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Tennessee who has 
said that the trial he described is not a trial. It is a sham, and no 
honest and civilized country, no country that has even a pretense upon 
the rule of law should accept that kind of a trial. So I applaud the 
senior Senator from Tennessee for his comments.

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