Floor Statements

Madam President, today I recognize Daniel Szczesny, a 2013 intern in my Washington, DC, office for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Daniel is a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Daniel for all the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Madam President, today I recognize James Uthmeier, a 2013 legal extern in my Washington, DC, office for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

James is a graduate of the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. Currently, James is in his second-year of law school at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to James for all the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, in a few moments I will yield the floor to my colleagues who will have an announcement about the progress which has been made on the veterans bill, an important issue.

I wish to take this moment to talk about a tale of two bills--a tale of two very critical issues that confront our country, both deserving of the time and attention of the Senate but how they have been treated very differently from one another.

The first issue is one which has been talked about here; that is, the issue of student loans in America. This is an issue I care about deeply for two reasons.

The first is, when I arrived on the floor of the Senate in January of 2011, I owed over $100,000 in student loans. For years we struggled with the cost of those loans. My parents never made enough money to save for our education, but I was able to pay for it through a combination of Pell grants and loans for my undergraduate and graduate studies. The undergraduate-level loans were manageable. The graduate- level loans for law school were quite a strain. At one point in our lives it was the single highest expenditure in our monthly budget. So I know the cost of this.

The other reason is because I have the honor of serving as an adjunct professor at Florida International University, where once or twice a week I interact with young men and women in South Florida who are facing not just the cost of undergraduate education but starting to think about how they are going to pay to go to law school or get a master's degree or any other profession they choose. This is a very significant issue, and there are two aspects of it that we are going to talk about in a moment.

The second issue that is critically important for our country is the well-documented problems of the Veterans' Administration. I don't need to go into a long dissertation about how our men and women who have served us so honorably and so bravely in uniform deserve the very best care possible.

Well documented are the long waiting lists and, even more tragically, efforts among some at the VA to cover up all of this, to cover their tracks and to cover up their incompetence. The vast majority of the men and women who work at the VA work hard and do a good job, but there are too many who do not, and there is not enough accountability with regard to that. As I said a couple of weeks ago when I came to the floor and tried to pass a measure, a companion of the issue that passed in the House: You are more likely to get a promotion or bonus than you are to get demoted or fired for not doing your job at the VA.

Two very important issues: a tale of two bills because they have been handled so differently.

I anticipate in a moment a number of Senators will come to the floor--Senators whom I thank for allowing me to work with them to make this possible--and will have an announcement to make with regard to votes on the veterans bill. That is great news. The men and women who have served us deserve this progress.

There is no claim that this is going to solve every problem in the world, but it is an important first step. I thank Senators McCain, Sanders, Burr, Coburn, and others for all the work they have done on this issue. We are excited to hear about their announcement in a few moments. If they arrive, I will gladly yield the floor for them to do that at the appropriate moment. I thank them, our men and women who have served us thank them, and the people of Florida thank them. We are a State with an enormous number of veterans.

This is an important issue, and I wish people could have seen the effort and how people worked across party lines to get this done. Everyone has great ideas about things they want to see added to it, about things they would like to see in addition to what has been included, but we all understand a sense of urgency about addressing this issue. We all had ideas we wanted to pursue, but we were all willing to put those aside for another debate and another day in order to get this done.

We need more of that in the Senate, we need more of that in the U.S. Government, and I thank the Senators who have worked so hard to make this happen and my colleague in the House, Jeff Miller, for the work he has done in terms of bringing this forward as well. He has done a fantastic job.

Compare that to the way this issue on student loans has been handled, however. This is a legitimate issue that needs to be addressed, but the bill that was brought before the Senate included something the proponents knew was deeply political and controversial--the so-called Buffett rule. We have had debate on that issue before. We can have debate in the future.

They knew the simple utilization of that rule as part of this measure--as admitted, by the way, by Members of the majority who have talked about this measure in the past--they knew that by putting that in there, it politicized it and, quite frankly, doomed it to failure.

Let me lift the veil for those who are watching at home or in the gallery or anywhere, watching or listening now or in the future. They knew what the outcome would be when they included that, but it was put in there for the purposes of saying Republicans blocked this because they knew that issue in and of itself served as a sort of poison pill that held this up. It is unfortunate because the issue of student loans is a very valid issue in America.

Look, there was a time not long ago when higher education was an important option for millions of Americans, but, for example, even if someone didn't have a college education, they could still find a middle-income job that allowed them to make it to the middle class.

That is how my parents did it. Neither one of my parents had advanced formal education. Neither one finished the equivalent of high school. Yet we lived in the middle class. We achieved the American dream, because working as a bartender and as a maid, my parents were able to make enough money to achieve that.

The world has changed. Today, if someone doesn't have some form of advanced education, they are going to struggle to find a job that pays enough to keep up with the cost of living, much less to get ahead. This has made

higher education no longer an option. It is now a necessity. This is an issue that needs to be looked at in multiple ways, not simply the loan issue, by the way.

Take, for example, the story of a 41-year-old head of household who has worked their entire life to provide for their family and now has lost their job or their business, the only way they are going to be able to get a job that makes it to the middle class in the 21st century--because the job they used to have has been automated or outsourced or the industry is no longer around. The only way they are going to be able to make it back into the middle class and stay there is to acquire skills and education necessary for 21st century middle- class and above jobs.

But if someone is 41 years old and they have to work full time to provide for their family, and they have to raise that family, they can't just drop everything and go back to college for 4 years, and they probably can't afford it either. So we need to revolutionize what higher education means in America so people living those circumstances can access it in a cost-effective way.

When I worked in the State legislature, I had an employee who was the equivalent of my executive assistant. She made less than $30,000 a year because that is what the State pay grade called for. But she went to school at night and became a paralegal and doubled her pay on the day after her graduation because she was able to acquire advanced skills and a degree that allowed her to improve not just her lifestyle and her quality of life but that of her daughter's as well--a young, single mother struggling to provide and move ahead in life.

The problem is that our existing higher education system is one we had in the 20th century. It is largely designed for a student who graduates from high school and goes to college for 4 years, but it is inaccessible and unaffordable for Americans who are later in their lives, who have to work full time and raise a family, for people who in the middle of a career have found their job outsourced or automated and need to be retrained. That in and of itself calls for higher education to be revolutionized. The second point I would make is there is some innovation in higher education. For example, there are degrees and degree-type programs you can now get online. But you will often find that the cost of those programs is as much and more than a brick and mortar institution would charge. It costs as much and in many instances more to get your degree on line than it would by sitting in a classroom and taking lectures every day. For many people that is not realistic.

So we need to revolutionize what higher education means. The traditional 4-year college will always be an important part of it, but we also have to provide programs that allow people to graduate from high school with skills that allow them to immediately be employed such as more welders and more electricians. There is nothing wrong with that. These are important jobs that we have shortages in, by the way.

We need to create more innovation so that people can acquire learning in the most effective way possible. For example, why can't we allow people to package learning in any way they acquire it, online, work experience, life experience, to be able to package all of your learning and acquire the equivalent of a degree that allows you to go to work?

There are real answers to these problems. I am involved in at least three of them. One is a program called ``Right to Know Before You Go'' that I sponsored with Senator Wyden. It is a bipartisan proposal. It is very simple. It says that when you go to school before you take out a loan you have to be told: ``This is how much people that graduate from our school with a degree that you are seeking make.'' So you can decide whether it is worth taking out thousands of dollars in loans for a degree that doesn't lead to jobs.

The other proposal is changing the way we accredit higher education in America. Accrediting basically means you have permission to get a college degree. But the institutions who control that process are the existing status quo schools. They will always have an important job in our educational portfolio but they cannot be the only ones anymore. We need to change that so there are alternative programs available that allow you to package learning no matter how you acquire it so that you can get credit for that as well. So the changing of accrediting is a big part of this.

I believe that income-based repayments should be a part of this. There is a more responsible way to do it. Thankfully, Senator Warner and I are working on such a proposal. I wish issues such as that were debated as a part of this solution, as opposed to simply a political stunt brought to the floor designed to get enough ``no'' votes by Republicans so it can be used in November on the campaign trail.

Student loans--a trillion dollars' worth--are owed by both Republicans and Democrats. We need to get this issue solved if we are going to move forward. On the Veterans' Administration issue--I see a number of Senators have arrived and potentially have an announcement for us--we have made great progress. The bill is important, but the one part I have been working on personally is accountability, giving the Secretary the power to hire and to fire those mid-level bureaucrats that are not doing their job. That is an important measure. I am glad that is included in this. I am glad the Senate will be moving forward on this in a few moments.

It is the tale of two bills. One is an example of how we can get things done to address the real needs in our country, and the other is a missed opportunity to address one of the single greatest impediments to upward mobility and the American dream in the 21st Century--and that is the accessibility and affordability of higher education, because today higher education is no longer just an option. In some way, shape or form acquiring higher education has become a necessity for all Americans, and we need to make that more accessible and more affordable.

It is my hope that in the weeks and months to come we will be able to put aside the desire to turn this issue into a political tool and come together to solve this problem because there is a trillion dollars of student loan debt sitting out there, and there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who desperately need to acquire some sort of higher education and they cannot afford it or they cannot access it or both. They need us to address this issue because this cannot be an issue we do not resolve. The American dream will continue to slip out of reach for millions of people in this new century unless we make the acquisition of higher education more accessible and more affordable to people from all walks of life: the 18-year-old who graduates from high school, the 25-year-old single mother, the 41-year-old father who heads a household, and everyone in between.

This is an enormous challenge for our country but one for which there are solutions. All we need now is a willingness to proceed to do it, and I hope that in the weeks to come, once we pass this moment, we can get back on this issue and solve it in a real and responsible way.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on these issues. I look forward to working to pass the veterans bill hopefully today and to move forward and work together in a serious and meaningful way to make higher education more affordable for every American who needs it in order to achieve their American dream.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Thank you, Madam President.

I am here on the floor today to talk about an issue that has received a tremendous amount of attention, and

rightfully so, in the last few weeks and it is the outrage of what is happening at the Veterans' Administration.

Let me start by saying certainly people need to be held accountable. This should not be and it surely is not a partisan issue. I think we all have a deep commitment to helping our veterans, the men and women who spend time away from their families and put their lives on the line to defend this country, to whom were made promises that when they come back home they will be taken care of, especially those who have been harmed when serving their country.

We are heartbroken and outraged at the news that, in fact, the agency that is supposed to take care of them is not doing so. I think what is even more troubling is that this appears to be a systemic problem. This is not simply an isolated incident in Phoenix or some other institution in the country. This is now rearing its ugly head in every part of this country that we look into. You can imagine not just as an American am I deeply concerned about this but as a Floridian. Florida is a State with an enormous veterans population, including my brother--men and women who have served our country and have done so with great courage and dignity who now have health care needs that require immediate and urgent attention.

Just a moment ago on a television interview it was brought to my attention the story of a young man, a gulf war veteran who has a brain injury, who has been waiting for weeks to even be able to see anyone, in fact has been waiting for months with no end in sight as to when that is going to end. This needs to be addressed.

Yesterday we all watched with great attention as the President addressed this issue and expressed outrage, rightfully so, of what is occurring. What the President said is that over the next week there will be an initial report and ultimately a report at the end of the month about what needs to be done to improve the system and, more importantly, who needs to be held accountable. I think that is critical here, because one of the things we are learning is not simply that there is a systemic problem in the Veterans' Administration, but that there has been a deliberate effort by some within the Veterans' Administration to cover it up or to make things look better than they actually are. That should trouble us even more because the immediate reaction when an agency is confronted with a problem should be ``we need to fix this'' and instead the reaction by some seems to be ``we need to cover this. We need to make this look better than it really is. We need to diminish this.''

This is completely unacceptable and people need to be held accountable for this. If in the Senate among the men and women who serve and work here for us some were derelict in their duties, they would lose their job. If in the private sector someone did not do their job, they would lose that job. In the military chain of command, if a commanding officer of a unit did not do his or her job, they would lose their job, and their superiors would have the ability to immediately discipline them.

So I think many Americans would be shocked to learn that even if the Secretary wanted today to fire executive managers within the agency, he cannot. Instead, he has to institute a long and drawn-out process, leading to this absurd conclusion that you are more likely to receive a bonus or promotion than you are to have been fired because of mismanagement and dereliction of duty. That is completely unacceptable.

We have to remember that the vast majority of the VA's more than 300,000 employees and executives are dedicated and hard-working people. Their Department's well-documented reluctance to ensure that leaders are being held accountable for mistakes is not only tarnishing its reputation, it unfortunately is impacting many of these hard-working men and women who are doing their jobs within the agency.

What I did a few weeks ago, in conjunction with my colleague from Florida, Jeff Miller, is file a bill. It is a very simple and straightforward bill. The bill states that the VA Management Accountability Act of 2014 would simply give the VA Secretary the power to fire or demote senior executive service employees based on their performance. It is a power similar to the power the Secretary of Defense already has, for example, to remove military general officers from command, and, of course, it is the same power any one of our 100 Senators has to remove a member of their staff.

This bill passed yesterday in the House of Representatives, and it is sitting here on the desk in the Senate. It passed yesterday with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Members of both parties who are outraged by what is occurring and want to bring accountability.

In a press conference yesterday, the White House indicated that they are very open to this concept and that they were interacting with leaders on it. We called the White House and asked them about it. They also indicated an openness to it, although they shared that they did have some concerns. They didn't make any suggested edits to the bill. They simply said they had some concerns, but in general they were supportive of this concept.

Earlier today during an Appropriations Committee meeting, Senator Moran offered this very bill as an amendment, and it was adopted by voice vote without a single objection.

Here is where we stand: I have come to the floor today to give my colleagues the opportunity to send this to the President before we leave for the Memorial Day recess. We have an opportunity right now to take up the bill that the House just passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, enact it into law by unanimous consent, and send it to the President so he can sign it. So when the results of that investigation come to his desk in a week or month from now, and that of the Secretary, they can discipline and/or fire the people who have not done their jobs and put our veterans in harm's way with regard to services the VA is supposed to offer. That is all this bill does-- nothing more and nothing less.

We are giving the Secretary--appointed by this President and confirmed by this Senate--the opportunity to be able to fire employees of his agency who are not doing their jobs. That is all we are asking for. It is not more complicated than that. I do not understand why anyone would not support that concept.

It is right here for us. To everyone around here who is talking about how we need to quickly act, here is your chance. This is a very straightforward bill. My hope is that it will pass unanimously so we can truly say it is bipartisan.

We are not telling them whom they need to fire; we are giving the Secretary the power to hold the people who work under him accountable. This will also apply to future Secretaries as well. That is all this bill does. I hope we will be able to do that today.

I think if it were put to a rollcall vote on the floor, it would pass by an overwhelming majority. That is why, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4031, which was received from the House, and I further ask consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, without any intervening action or debate.

Reserving the right to object, I wish to address a couple of points. The first is on the issue of politicizing this. I agree. In fact, that is why I have not come forward and said that the Secretary should resign. There are times in this process when that is important. There are people who were appointed by the President who are clearly not doing their jobs, and it is our job as overseers of the executive branch of the government to step forward and say that.

I have said let's give the Secretary a chance to see what happens here. I may end up asking for his resignation at some point as more information comes out, but at a minimum I think he deserves an opportunity--and his successors, whoever they may be--to hold the

people underneath him accountable. They don't have the power to do that now.

Also notice when I came to the floor today, I have said absolutely nothing of a partisan nature. I am not claiming this is a crisis created by Democrats or by another party. On the contrary, I said this is a solution that has had strong bipartisan support in the House and strong bipartisan support in the committee today. This issue may become politicized in the sense that it seems all of the reluctance to move forward is coming from one side of the equation, but that does not necessarily have to be. In fact, I will tell my colleagues right now that I believe if this came to a vote, the overwhelming majority of the Members of the majority would support this legislation I have put forward today.

Two other points that were raised, one being that there have been no hearings. I would respectfully disagree. There was a hearing on it today. This was offered. This specific language was offered in the committee, and with little debate and no dissent, it passed by voice vote. For those watching at home, here is what voice vote means: They don't even call the roll. They basically ask Members: Is anyone against this? No one said they were. This language was adopted today in a committee.

Here is my second problem. I am glad to hear there are going to be hearings with regard to this issue, and I think that is important because I am not claiming the bill I am asking us to take up today and pass would solve all of the problems. There are still serious systemic problems within that agency, and a hearing needs to address this and find responsible solutions to those problems. So a hearing is called for.

What I am asking for is very simple: Give the Secretary, appointed by a President of a party different than my own, the power to fire employees underneath him who are not doing their jobs, so they know they are being held accountable. That is all I am asking. That is all this bill does. It is that straightforward. I don't think any of us want to go home for the Memorial Day recess and when we are asked: What are you doing on this issue, our answer is: Well, in about 15 days we are going to have a hearing on this crisis.

Meanwhile, the list goes on and on of the outrages that are coming out of this agency. Every single day more cases are coming out about veterans who are not being treated fairly and appropriately, and in some cases, in my opinion, criminally, by this incompetence we see out of some in the Veterans' Administration. This is a matter of urgency, because while we are gone on our recess, the President next week is going to get a preliminary report on what is going on. It may very well be that he wants to see some people fired, and it may very well be the Secretary will want to fire some people in senior executive positions and he will not be able to do that. All I am asking for is not to give us the power to fire them but to give the administration the power to fire them and hold them accountable.

Regarding the bill the chairman has offered on the floor, this bill has already been debated, and there are problems with this bill, which is an extensive piece of legislation with many good elements in it, but it also has a cost issue at a time when our Nation owes close to $18 trillion. That was the reason so many on my side of the aisle objected to it, and that is why I object to the motion made today by the Senator from Vermont.

Madam President, how much time remains?

Not seeing the Senator from Kentucky, I ask for 1 minute of that time to make the following point----

That is fine with me.

Madam President, a bunch of issues were raised about the cost of the war in Iraq, how much money we spent, and how good we are at spending that money for the veterans. I think that is a valid debate and it is a debate we should have and should continue to have in this country. If we need to spend more money on these agencies, there are plenty of other places in the budget to find it, and we should work to make sure cost is not an issue.

But right now the central debate on the issue of what is happening in the VA has not centered around the fact that there are costs getting in the way. The central debate--and my colleagues know the President yesterday, in his press conference he held, said the central focus is on the management, the operations of this agency. Critical to the effectiveness of any agency is accountability; the ability to hold people accountable, including by taking away their jobs.

Think about this for a moment. The argument that has been made today about a new director can come in and fire the people who work underneath him or her, that argument could be made about virtually any organization on the planet. One could make that argument for staffers in the Senate, that we want to protect them, so if a new Senator is elected from a State, they can't hire their own staff.

The point I am trying to make--this is very simple. I get there are a lot of other issues we can talk about. There is one issue I want us to focus on, and that is this: We have a chance today, before we leave for the Memorial Day recess, to pass a bill that gives the Secretary that President Obama appointed the power to fire executives underneath him if they haven't done their job--a power he doesn't have right now. We have the chance to pass it on the floor. All we have to do is agree to it and it goes to the President to sign. We can then go home and say we have taken an important step in instituting accountability on this important issue, which the whole country is talking about, and we are walking away from that opportunity.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, the reason I come to the floor is to call attention to a crisis that has fallen off the front pages over the last few weeks; that is, the situation in our own hemisphere that is occurring in Venezuela. I recognize there have been news stories about an airplane that has been tragically potentially lost--or has been lost. We don't know the full outcome of that yet. I know the situation in Ukraine has captivated the attention of the public--and rightfully so--and I am pleased to see the Senate has taken important steps today toward addressing that issue.

I wish to speak about something that is happening in our own backyard, in our own hemisphere; in fact, something that is impacting hundreds of thousands of people who live in Florida because they have family members who still live in the country of Venezuela.

Since February 4 of this year, Venezuelans have been taking to the streets to complain about their government. These Venezuelans are from all walks of life, but they have truly been motivated by young people, by students.

The origins of this public discontent are important to understand because they are not just purely political. It in fact has to do with the dysfunction and the failures of the government that is currently in charge of that country. The statistics bear out that dysfunction and their failures. For example, violence and insecurity is among the highest in the entire Western Hemisphere. The murder rate in Venezuela was 79 per 100,000 people in 2013.

In the city of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, the murder rate is actually almost double that. It is 122 per 100,000, making it one of the most dangerous cities on Earth. The unbridled corruption that exists in terms of how State assets are used--Venezuela is an oil-rich country. There are individuals in that government who have empowered themselves of Venezuela's oil, not their oil, and are basically giving it away to countries such as Cuba and others and using it as their own personal piggy bank for personal enrichment and to fund their governmental operations at the expense of the people of Venezuela.

Their inflation rate is 57 percent. In fact, this week Fitch ratings lowered Venezuela's sovereign debt rating into junk territory from B- plus to B. They warned, by the way, that further downgrades are on the way.

There is also this unprecedented scarcity of basic goods, including food staples; even things such as toilet paper there is a shortage of. I will show some graphics. This is a line of people waiting in the city of San Cristobal to go into a supermarket. We are talking about a rich country. This is not a Third World country. This is not a nation that is poor. This is a revenue-rich nation, among the most resource rich on the planet. Here is a line of people waiting to go into a grocery store, reminiscent of Cuba, for example, a country whose model this government follows, and we will talk about that more in a moment.

Let me show my colleagues a picture of some store shelves inside a Venezuelan supermarket: completely empty, nothing on the shelves. This is the economic reality of the failure of the Maduro-Chavez government in Venezuela today, and this is why, among other reasons, people have taken to the streets to demonstrate.

There was another catalyst: a sexual assault that occurred on a college campus, and students were protesting against law enforcement's unwillingness to address that assault. The government cracked down--but not on the sexual assaulters, not on the perpetrators, on the demonstrators.

All of these things we have talked about--the failure of that State, the lack of democratic opening, the political abuses, the corruption, and the economic disaster of the Venezuelan Government--led to demonstrations that began on February 4 and continue throughout the country.

I want to show you a picture of what those demonstrations looked like. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest, and they were protesting the things I have outlined already: the insecurity, the violence, the scarcity of basic goods, the lack of opportunity, the political repression.

Meanwhile, Nicolas Maduro, the President of that country, and all of his cronies live a life of luxury--and we are going to talk about that more in a moment--because this government is surrounded by individuals who are living lives of luxury not just in Venezuela but in Florida.

While the people take to the streets--and you saw the empty store shelves--there are people tied to the Government in Venezuela buying gold-plated iPads--I did not even know there was such a thing--in Miami and investing in enormous properties and mansions, with the money they are stealing, with the help of the Maduro government, from the people of Venezuela, leading to these protests.

So what has been the response of the Maduro government? What has been the response to these legitimate complaints about what is happening in Venezuela?

I am going to show you some images of what the response has been from the government.

Here is the first. Here is their national guard. Here is their national guard battling with students in the streets, fully equipped with riot gear, ready to battle against them. This has been their response: repression at every turn in multiple cities.

Here is the other response: teargas--teargas by a fully armored individual, firing teargas canisters into the crowd.

Let me talk about the teargas for a moment. Let me show you this canister. This canister that was used against peaceful protesters actually has a marking. It says: ``HECHO EN BRASIL''--``MADE IN BRAZIL.'' And there have been reports, in fact, that there has been some U.S.-manufactured teargas being used against protesters in the streets in Venezuela.

But if it stopped at teargas, it would be one thing. But it has not stopped at teargas. In fact, it is now known that the Interior Ministry of Venezuela authorized snipers to travel to Tachira State and fire on demonstrators.

Here is a picture of a government official, of a law enforcement or army or national guard individual, or an Interior Ministry individual on a rooftop with a rifle and a scope aiming into a crowd.

Here is a picture of a sniper. It does not end there. Those are not the only pictures we have.

Here are more pictures of more snipers on rooftops.

Here is another sniper aiming into the crowd, with a spotter next to him.

Here is another blown-up picture of the same sniper.

These are government-sponsored individuals. What civilized planet on Earth sends the national guard and the interior ministry of their own government, of their own country, with snipers to fire on their own people who are demonstrating because of the lack of freedoms and opportunity and economic degradation that exists in a country?

They cannot deny this. Here are pictures, taken by demonstrators themselves, of the snipers ready to shoot down people. In fact, 36 people have lost their lives.

But it does not end just with the government snipers. Because what the government is trying to do here to hide their involvement is they have organized these progovernment militia groups, basically--these militant groups that they hide behind. These groups do not wear uniforms. They are called ``colectivos.'' They drive around the city on motorcycles, and they assault protesters. They break in and vandalize their homes. They have weapons that they use to shoot into the crowds and kill or harm people.

There are three main groups. By the way, these groups began under Hugo Chavez's reign, and these groups are actually organized around a concept that has existed for years in Cuba--these committees to defend the revolution. These are neighborhood groups, so they know your family, they know who you are, they are always watching, and they organize themselves into armed militias. The government's claim is: Well, these groups are on their own. We are not coordinating with them. But, in fact, there have been multiple reports that these groups coordinate with the national guard to take down barricades set up by protesters, to break into the homes of protesters, to vandalize homes, to terrorize people, and to kill.

There are three main groups that I want to point out, these colectivos.

La Piedrita is one of them. It is based in a working-class neighborhood of Caracas. It has a far-left ideology. It is armed. It is comprised of radicals who claim to be willing to die for their revolutionary ideals--whatever those are.

In January, this group, by the way, tweeted that Henrique Capriles-- the opposition party's nominee for President in the last elections--is a racist and a fascist and accused him of intending to launch attacks on the poor and on impoverished neighborhoods.

Another colectivo: the Patriotic Force of National Liberation. This group bases its beliefs on the teachings of a leftist revolutionary and murderer by the name of Che Guevara.

A third group is the Tupamaro Revolutionary Movement. This is an armed communist political and militant organization that also operates out of Caracas.

These are just three of these armed, un-uniformed, thuggish, criminal groups that operate under the auspices and at the direction of the government of Nicolas Maduro and the people who surround him.

So what is the result?

The result is there have been over 1,800 people detained in Venezuela since this began last month. Over 450 people have been injured. Over 50 people have been tortured while detained--that we have reports on. And over 36 people have been killed.

This is not happening on a continent halfway around the world. This is happening in our hemisphere, right now, in real time. And these numbers, they just summarize the depth and the scope and the breadth of what is happening in the regime's brutality in Venezuela.

But these are not just statistics. Behind every single one of these-- behind the 36 who have been killed, behind the 1,800 who have been detained, behind the 450 who have been injured--are real people, with names and families and fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children. I want to tell you the story of a couple of them.

The first is Marvinia Jimenez. Here in this picture you see her on her knees as part of a peaceful protest. And here you see an armed individual with a pistol pointed at her. She is on her knees

and poses no threat. She has given herself up as a peaceful protester, as she confronts an armed individual associated with the government holding a pistol.

What happened next in these pictures is these armed individuals from the Interior Ministry grabbed her by the wrist and head. They subsequently throw her to the ground. And here is what they do when she is on the ground. This individual here--a female, a member of the Interior Ministry--takes off her helmet and proceeds to beat her in the head with that helmet.

Here is the picture. This is real. This is not a movie. This is happening. This is happening now.

This happened to Marvinia Jimenez, and luckily someone caught it on their phone and was able to capture these images.

These are uniformed individuals associated with the government. You saw she had given herself up and was on her knees. And this is what happens: She gets beaten in the face with a helmet.

She lived to tell her story. But there are others who have not been so fortunate.

Here is Geraldine Moreno. She was a college student in the city of Valencia.

On February 19, she stepped outside of her home to see what was going on during an antigovernment protest. Six national guard members--six national guard members of the Maduro government--came by on motorcycles to break up the protest.

As the demonstrators fled, they fired into the crowd, and she was hit by gunfire and fell to the ground. She struggled to get up, and just then one of the national guard members came up and shot her in the face at point blank range and killed her.

Geraldine was someone's daughter. In fact, she was not just anyone's daughter, she was Rosa Orozco's daughter, and Rosa has lost her daughter forever.

This is the youth of Venezuela. This is supposed to be Venezuela's future, and they are being indiscriminately mowed down in the street by the government of their own country.

There are some inspiring stories too.

As shown in this picture, this is Maria Corina Machado, a member of the Venezuelan opposition party in Parliament. She was here in Washington this week. She has bravely spoken out against these things going on in Venezuela, and bravely, the Government of Panama gave her the space to speak out on behalf of the people of Venezuela at a recent OAS meeting. But, shamefully, the rest of the countries that are members of the OAS--not the United States or Canada but every other country did nothing to defend her right to speak, and she was denied the right to tell the world the truth about what is happening.

She could have stayed in exile and asked for political asylum, but do you know what this brave young woman did? She got on an airplane and flew back to Venezuela--to her country--to continue the fight there, peacefully, as a member of their Parliament, as a member of the opposition party.

Well, when she arrived, she was immediately detained at the airport in Caracas. She was questioned by the thugs you just saw, who no doubt tried to intimidate her in that questioning. She was verbally attacked by government supporters at the airport. And then she got in her car to leave, to go to her destination, and these same thugs tried to run her car off the road. They are so incompetent that they could not even carry that out, thankfully. She finally made it to her destination.

And then guess what happens this week. The speaker of their so-called National Assembly--an individual by the name of Diosdado Cabello--a Maduro loyalist, a criminal--decided to remove her, to basically just expel her from the National Assembly. She is no longer a member of the National Assembly--unilaterally dismissed by the equivalent of their Assembly's president, their speaker.

The OAS's response to this has been shameful. The Organization of American States has been downright embarrassing and shameful. I thought it was best summarized by the opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who wrote in the New York Times on March 25:

The outspoken response from human rights organizations is

in sharp contrast to the shameful silence from many of

Venezuela's neighbors in Latin America. The Organization of

American States, which represents nations in the Western

Hemisphere, has abstained from any real leadership on the

current crisis of human rights and the looming specter of a

failed state, even though it was formed precisely to address

issues like these.

Why do we even need an OAS--an organization of democratically elected governments--why do we even need it, why are we even members of it, why do we even contribute funds of American taxpayers towards it, if it cannot meet and address systemic human rights abuses such as these?

I am less than pleased, by the way, with our own government's reaction. This is not a partisan issue, but I have to say this. President Obama has expressed he is concerned about this. To his credit, the Vice President was stronger in condemning the Maduro regime.

We are not just concerned about this. We should be outraged about this. Just as we are outraged when things go wrong in other parts of the world and weigh in with sanctions--and we should--and our voices-- and we should--this is happening in our own hemisphere, right underneath our nose. And it is shameful that the leadership of our government has so far not done more to address this. But we can change that, and I am hoping that we will.

What I hope to do over the next few days is to propose specific sanctions against individuals and companies associated with the Maduro regime so they know there are consequences for what is happening here. And you think our sanctions have an impact on Russia in its violations of Ukrainian sovereignty? Sanctions against Maduro and his government would have a dramatic impact. Because all those people who are around him who are getting rich off this regime, who are supporting these abuses so they can stay in power and keep making money, they all have bank accounts and property and restaurants and businesses and mansions in the United States of America. And if you support this, this government should sanction you.

I ask what I did a few weeks ago in a speech on this subject: If the United States of America will not stand up and be a strong voice on behalf of people who all they seek is freedom and liberty that our own founding documents say belong to all people--rights given to them by their Creator--if the United States of America will not be a forceful voice, what nation on Earth will? They look to us. Our own model of freedom and our Republic inspires people. We say we stand for these principles. We need to defend them when they are threatened, especially in our own backyard.

So I hope in the weeks to come we can pursue these targeted sanctions against some of these individuals associated with the government, like the Assembly president Diosdado Cabello, and others such as these individuals who we will come on the floor in the next few weeks and identify by name, those who benefit from the systematic violation of human rights in Venezuela, who are stealing money from the Venezuelan people, who are using the resources of that nation to enrich themselves. In the next few weeks, we will identify them by name and the properties they own and the assets they hold in our own Nation.

But I implore my colleagues not to ignore this issue. This is happening right now, right in our own backyard, in our own hemisphere, and it is impacting real people at an extraordinary price.

So I hope in the weeks to come that I--along with Senator Menendez and others who have united behind us and with us--will be able to convince enough of my colleagues to take the next step.

We have already unanimously passed the resolution condemning all of this. I thank my colleagues in the Senate for that. The next step is to build in real consequences for being a part of this. My colleagues will have an opportunity to be a part of this in the next few days, especially when we return next week.

I hope we can get a hearing on these sanctions in the Foreign Relations Committee, and I hope we can get passage of it on the floor, so we can send a clear signal to the people of Venezuela: The people of the United States of America are on your side. We support your cause. We will not forget what you are going through. We will not abandon your aspirations. We stand for the liberty and the freedom of all people, including those who do not live here with us.

This is what we are going to have a chance to do in the next few days. I hope we can successfully take action.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, my understanding is we are on the motion to proceed.

I wanted to speak about the issue of Ukraine. I get a lot of questions, phone calls, emails about it. It has certainly been on the minds of a lot of people across the country. The most common question that I get is: What do we do about it? What can we do? Related to that is the question of: Why does this even matter?

I am going to get to that in my conclusion. But on this motion that is now before the Senate, where we are being asked to vote on a package of sanctions and also assistance to Ukraine, I wanted to first outline what it is we can do moving forward in addition to this bill that is before us, but also why this bill that is before us is so important.

I think there are a couple of things that we really need to focus on in terms of our reaction to what has happened with regards to Crimea and with Ukraine, in particular, because of the Russian actions that have been taken.

First and most important we need to help the Ukrainian people and the interim government in Ukraine to protect its nation's sovereignty but also to protect its transition to democracy--to full democracy.

They have elections scheduled in May of this year. For these elections it is going to be critical that they go off smoothly, that they are free and they are fair because that is an important step in their transition to democracy.

But we should anticipate that Russia, through Putin, is going to do everything it can to disrupt these elections, to delegitimize these elections. We already see evidence in open source reporting in the media that, in fact, there are highly trained agitators sponsored by the Kremlin that have found their way into Ukraine and could potentially participate in ways to try to disrupt these elections.

So I think one of the first things we can do, working with our allies in Europe, is to help them with the logistical support they need to carry out in May elections that are free and are fair and to help them with the biggest step they are going to take so far towards a transition to democracy in Ukraine.

The second action we need to take to help Ukraine to protect its sovereignty and to make its transition to democracy is to help them stabilize their economy. You can imagine that this disruptive change in government, combined with an invasion of its territories, has been highly disruptive to their economy, which was already feeling some real constraints. That is why the bill before us is so critical. In addition to some of the direct assistance, it will help them access loans that will allow them to stabilize their economic situation.

What we can anticipate is that Russia is going to do everything it can to disrupt their economy. Again, the Russian argument here is--it is a ridiculous argument. But the argument they are making to the world is: Ukraine is a failed state. The Russian-speaking population is being threatened. So we have to get involved. We must intervene to try to stabilize that situation.

That is the argument they have made in Crimea. Increasingly, that is the argument they seem to be making with regard to Eastern Ukraine. So the bill before us is critical because it will be a major step on the part of this government to do its part, in conjunction with our allies in Europe, to help Ukrainians stabilize their economy.

As I have shared before, I have some real concerns about some of the language that is in this bill. It has to do with these changes to the IMF that I do not think belong in this legislation. I do not think they belong in this legislation for two reasons. One, I do not think that we should be taking up an issue of that importance in this manner. We should have a full debate. That should be dealt with separately. But I also think it was a mistake by this administration to include the IMF language in this bill because what we need as much as anything else is not just to pass this bill out of the Senate but to pass it with the most amount of support possible.

I want to see it be 100 to 0 or 95 to 5 so we can send a very strong message to Russia and the world that the United States of America and her people are firmly on the side of Ukraine's sovereignty and Ukraine's desire for independence from Russia and its ability to stabilize itself in moving forward. That, quite frankly, is endangered as a result of the administration's decision to push this divisive language into this bill. There was no reason for them to do that.

In fact, that sentiment is not a Republican sentiment. It is being echoed in the House, where a number of Democrats today are quoted in newspaper articles as saying that this is a mistake, that they should never have done this. If they were to take this language out, you would pass a bill in the House and Senate this week. We could have passed one before we left 2 weeks ago. Instead, it continues to have to go through a prolonged debate and divisiveness.

There are people who have had to vote against it here on the floor because they feel so strongly about the IMF language. We could have had their support. We could have sent a stronger message than the one that is being sent now.

I have those concerns. By the way, there was a statement made on the floor yesterday that I think deserves to be addressed. The majority leader stood here and said that, basically, the reason that-- Republicans are responsible for the loss of Crimea in an effort to help a family that is engaged in American politics. I think that statement is absurd and ridiculous. I think it is the kind of hyperbole that in issues such as this has no place.

At some point there have to be issues so big and so important to the national security of this country that they are above politics and above that sort of statement. That being said, while I share the same concerns that many of my colleagues do about the IMF language, and initially expressed my position that I was not willing to vote for this bill with it, after much thought and consideration over the last couple of weeks, researching the issues, I made the conclusion that in the cost-benefit analysis, helping Ukraine stabilize itself, helping Ukraine stabilize its economy, given the importance of this issue, it is so important that I am prepared to vote for this despite the fact that it has something in it that I do not like. That is how important I think this issue truly is.

Oftentimes in foreign policy that is what we are called to do. We are called to make pragmatic decisions that are in the best interests of America and our allies around the world, even if it is less than ideal or perhaps not the complete solution that we want. That is why I voted to proceed with the debate on this bill yesterday. That is why I am prepared to support it despite the inclusion of IMF language that I am strongly against--because I think this issue is that important.

The third thing we can do to help Ukraine protect its sovereignty and make its full transition to democracy is to help them with their defense capability. Now, understand that when the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s, Ukraine was left with the world's third largest stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear weapons on the planet.

But they signed this agreement with the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia that basically said: If you give up your nuclear weapons, we, these three countries that signed this, will provide for your defense and assure you of your defense. So Ukraine did that. They gave up these weapons. This was signed in 1994, and 20 years later, one of the three countries that signed that agreement has not just not provided for their defense, they actually invaded them.

I want to make a point on this for a second. Think about if you were one of these other countries around the world right now that feels threatened by your neighbors, and the United States and the rest of the world are going to you and saying: Listen, do not develop nuclear weapons. Do not develop nuclear weapons, South Korea. Do not develop nuclear weapons, Japan. Do not develop nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia.

We will protect you. We will watch out for you.

What kind of lesson do you think this instance sends to them? I think the message this is sending to many nations around the world is: Perhaps we can no longer count on the security promises made by the free world. Perhaps we need to start looking out for ourselves. That is why the Ukrainian situation is so more important than simply what is happening in Europe. This has implications around the world.

There are a number of countries around the world now that are considering increasing their defense capabilities, including a nuclear capacity, because they feel threatened by neighbors that have a nuclear capacity themselves. So far they have held back because they have relied on the United States and our partners to assure them that they do not need these weapons, that we have their back. But now when something like this happens, these countries see it as further evidence that potentially those sorts of assurances are no longer enough in the 21st century.

That raises the real risk that over the next 2 decades, you could see an explosion in the number of countries around the world that possess a nuclear weapons capability because they now feel that they must protect themselves and can no longer rely on other countries to do it for them.

So how can we help Ukraine with its military and defense capabilities? By providing them assistance. By the way, the Ukraine military capability degraded not just because of their overconfidence in these assurances that were made to them, but there was also corruption in that government. In fact, the previous president who was ousted by a popular revolt, that president actually undermined the defense capabilities of that country and took a lot of that money and used it for internal control, to be able to control his own population instead of being able to protect his country.

So what can we do to help? The first thing that I have called for us to do is to provide Ukraine with more military equipment and more training. We should work with our NATO allies and the European Union to help equip and train the Ukrainian military forces so that they can protect the country now and moving forward. We can also share intelligence information with them to help them better position their assets and understand and have a better awareness of what is going on around them.

We can also help them with logistical support. These are the sorts of things that I hope this administration will take steps toward in the next couple of days. So that is the first thing we can do. We can help Ukraine protect its sovereignty and make its full transition to democracy.

The second thing we need to do is we need to continue to raise the price on Putin for the invasion of Crimea. We need to change the calculation, the cost-benefit calculation that he is going to go through as he decides whether to move into Eastern Ukraine now and potentially even parts of Moldova.

So already some steps have been taken in that regard. I applaud the administration for having additional sanctions announced last week. I think we are going to have to continue to do more in conjunction with our allies. I think we need to add more names of individuals, of financial institutions, and of businesses, primarily those who have links to this invasion, but also Russia's involvement in supporting the Syrian regime as it carries out the mass slaughter of its own people.

I think we need to suspend our civil and nuclear cooperation agreement that was entered into as part of the 123 agreement 4 years ago as a strong message to them. I think we need to reassess the role that NATO plays in Europe. NATO was largely built around the Soviet risks in Western Europe.

Then, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, NATO kind of lost its way a little bit in terms of its role in Europe because there was no threat. In fact, you saw some of these countries saying, you know, it is likely that NATO's role now will be about operations in the Middle East or in Africa and being involved in threats there as opposed to actually having to defend our own territory.

The facts on the ground in Europe have changed dramatically in the last 2 months. You now, in fact, do have a powerful military force in the region that has shown a willingness to invade a neighbor. They did this in 2008 in Georgia. They are doing it again now in a way that is even more egregious and outrageous. I think it is time for NATO to reevaluate its capabilities, given this new threat that is here to stay.

Also, the time has come for NATO to reposition its assets to face this threat and this risk. I think and I hope that those conversations are happening now. I think for NATO, in many respects, it is time to reinvigorate this alliance. It has a clear and present danger in Europe in the form of the government of Vladimir Putin, who threatens his neighbors and the stability of Europe. So now I think NATO has found a reason to reinvigorate itself.

The last point I would make, in terms of changing the calculus, is the real stranglehold Russia has on Europe. It is not simply its military capabilities, it is its natural resources. Much of Europe depends on Russia for its oil and natural gas. This creates a tremendous amount of leverage on their neighbors. One of the reasons we have seen some countries in Europe reluctant to move forward on even higher sanctions is because they are afraid of losing access to the natural gas and oil from Russia that their economy depends on.

We need to change that. That can't happen overnight, but we need to begin to change that; first, by increasing our exports to those countries and particularly Ukraine. I know Senator Barrasso will have an amendment as part of this debate that I hope will be considered that will allow us to export more natural gas to Ukraine. But what also needs to happen is other countries in Europe need to develop their own domestic capabilities in natural gas so they can become less reliant on Russia for these resources and become more reliant on themselves and free countries in the region to be able to do that. That is a critical component of a long-term strategy in all of this.

Let me close by answering the question I began with. Why does this matter? I think this matters for a lot of different reasons. I have highlighted one, in terms of decisions being made around the world and governments deciding whether they are going to pursue their own domestic nuclear weapons capability, but there is another that perhaps we need to think about.

After World War II--in fact, after the last century when the world went through two devastating World Wars--there was a commitment made that no longer would nations be allowed to aggressively invade other countries and take over territory and exercise illegitimate claims. In fact, international norms were established at the end of World War II. There were some conflicts during the Cold War with Russia, with the Soviet Union, and with the spread of communism, but by and large, especially since the end of the Cold War, that has been the established norm.

It is not acceptable in the late 20th century and in the early 21st century for a country to simply make up an excuse and invade a neighbor and take their lands and territory. That was perhaps the way of the world 300 years ago, 200 years ago, and 100 years ago, and there were massive wars and loss of life as a result of countries doing that, but the world grew tired of these conflicts and decided we will no longer tolerate or accept these sorts of things. If you recall, in the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein did that. He invaded Kuwait. The entire world community rallied around the United States of America to expel him as a result of that illegitimate action.

In the 21st century, we have the most egregious violation of that norm. We basically have Russia deciding they don't like the way things are going in Ukraine so they decide to invade. They decided to take over a territory. Think about how they did it. They denied ever doing it. They sent Russian troops into Crimea, but they had them wear uniforms that had no markings on them. In fact, the press would ask these soldiers: Where are you from, and they wouldn't answer. They invaded a country but lied about their invasion. They claimed these were local defense forces that had rallied around the Russian flag. They made up this excuse

that somehow the Russian-speaking population in the region was being oppressed and attacked and was in danger and so they needed to intervene.

To this day, Russia still will not admit the military role they are playing on the ground in Crimea. So in addition to violating this international norm, which is an outrageous behavior, they have lied about it and think they can get away with it. The point I am making is, if in the 21st century a country is allowed to invade a neighbor, lie about it and lie about the reasons for it and they can get away with it without significant costs, we have created a dangerous precedent with which we are going to have to live. All over the world there are powerful nations that can now claim land they do not control belongs to them.

I took a trip in February to Asia. I visited Japan and the Philippines and South Korea. You know what the No. 1 fear in that region is. That China has similar claims to Russia. They claim all sorts of pieces of territory and of oceans that belong to them. They claim it belonged to them 1,000 years ago and should belong to them now. They have taken a different tack, but the point is, if we now live in a world where a country can make territorial claims and then simply act on them without any repercussions from the international community, then I think the 21st century is starting to look more and more like the early 20th century, a time that subjected the world to two devastating World Wars.

We cannot allow this to go unpunished. The only way this can be punished is if the free countries of the world rally together and impose sanctions and costs on Vladimir Putin and his cronies for having taken this action. That will never happen--the free world will never be able to rally to impose those costs--unless the United States leads that effort. We can't do it alone, but it cannot be done without us.

That is why it is so important that measures such as the one the Senate now is considering happen with the highest amount of bipartisan support we can muster. We may not agree with every aspect of it--I certainly do not--but we must weigh the equities. If we were to put this on a scale, the need to do something about Ukraine so far outweighs the things about the legislation before us that we don't like because of the implications it has not just on our Nation but on the world and the role we must play. If some other country around the world fails to pass sanctions, fails to take steps or does so in a way that is divided, it might have some impact, but when the United States fails to act in a decisive way, it has a dramatic impact.

One of the arguments our adversaries around the world use is asking our allies: Why are you still in the camp of the United States? They ask: Why are you still allying yourself with the United States? They are unreliable. Their government is always bickering and deeply divided. They can't come together in Washington to do anything. Do you think, if you are ever invaded or ever get into trouble, the United States could possibly muster the domestic political support necessary for them to come to your assistance? Don't count on America. Count on us or count on yourself.

I have already explained why there is danger in that, but that is the argument these countries use against us. What I fear is that if we fail to take decisive and unified action in this body, in the Senate, to send a strong message--and while we may not agree on every component of this, and I have already said I believe it was a mistake for the administration to push for that IMF reform language--if we do not send a strong and decisive message, then I think this will be spun against us. I think this will be used as evidence to our allies and other countries around the world why America is no longer reliable, either economically or militarily.

The consequences of that could extend far beyond Europe into other regions of the world, such as Asia. This is not a game. This is not some domestic political dispute. This issue has ramifications that will directly impact the kind of world our children will inherit. In fact, it will dramatically impact the kind of world we will have to live in over the next 20, 30, and 40 years. We cannot afford to make a mistake. We cannot afford to be wrong.

I hope I can convince as many of my colleagues as possible to support this legislation, with all of its flaws, so we can send a clear message that on these issues we are united as a people and as a nation and that we remain committed to U.S. global leadership.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to inquire as to the pending business before the Senate. Is it the veterans bill, the motion to proceed?

Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to address a number of matters of great concern. There might be, but I don't know of any State that has a greater presence of veterans within it than Florida, certainly per capita. We have a huge military presence in our State and a large number of veterans.

I have commented to people, by the way, that in my time in the Senate, which is now about 3 years and 2 months, a substantial percentage of the calls we get to our office are from veterans regarding veterans' issues. I have a veteran in my family--my brother-- who has recently encountered some bureaucratic hurdles he is trying to overcome in terms of getting service from the VA. So these are relevant matters that are of great importance.

I am glad the Senate is on the debate. I am glad we have proceeded to have this debate. It is an important one, and I do hope I will have an opportunity to offer an amendment I have relevant to the bill that involves and gives the opportunity for the Secretary who oversees this Department to be able to hire and fire, particularly to hold accountable mid- and higher level officials within the Veterans' Administration who are not doing their jobs and are contributing to this backlog.

I can tell you that in Central Florida we have a veterans hospital that has been well over budget and has timeliness issues and it needs to be addressed. I think that is a veterans' issue that has extraordinary bipartisan consensus. So my hope is we will be able to address it and we will have an amendment process that allows these ideas to be brought forth. From what I heard from the Senator commenting just a few moments ago, he welcomes amendments. So I hope I will have an opportunity to offer that.

I know as part of this debate the issue of Iran sanctions has been raised. I don't think it is rare to have issues that perhaps are not directly on point to a bill offered in debate, particularly when getting into a debate on an issue that has been so difficult. That is part of the problem with the Iran sanctions issue.

I understand when someone files a bill, the managers have worked hard on it, and the last thing they want is for it to be slowed down because of debate on another topic that is not directly on topic. I understand that concern. I do. But on the other hand, I hope Members will understand that part of the frustration has been the inability to even get a debate on what truly is an extraordinarily important issue.

For those here watching and those at home watching and those who may see this later, let me take a moment to briefly discuss what is at stake. I briefly discussed this a few weeks ago, but I wanted to take this opportunity to do so again.

Here is the issue: Iran, a few years ago, began developing a nuclear processing capability. What that basically means is they take uranium, for example, and they reprocess it to a certain level. You need to have a certain level of reprocessing in order to, for example, provide domestic energy for nuclear energy plants. Many countries in the world have nuclear energy, but only a handful actually process it themselves. Most decide to buy it already processed from abroad.

We have agreements and arrangements with countries all over the planet that do that. Only a handful actually retain the capacity to reprocess it or to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. So when we see a country announce they are going to invest money, time, and energy in developing a reprocessing or an enrichment capability, that raises red flags, and here is why. Because while you only need a certain level of enrichment to be able to provide nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and a little bit higher level in order to use it for medical isotopes, the exact same scientists, the exact same machines, the exact same facilities are the exact same ones that can also reprocess or enrich to an even higher level to use in a weapon.

The story of Iran has been, over the last few years, to increase their enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. That in and of itself raises red flags. Adding to that uncertainty and concern about it has been the fact they have tried to hide most of this. Consistently, Iran has been found to have secret development projects ongoing that they only admit to once they are discovered. They take a tremendous amount of effort to hide it from the world. That begins to raise red flags, because if it is truly just a peaceful program, there would be no reason to hide it or to hide their capabilities. But Iran has consistently hidden them.

There is even more reason to be concerned. In addition to increasing their capacity to enrich and reprocess, Iran is also developing long- range missile capabilities. A long-range missile--basically a missile that can fly from Iran 1,000 miles, 1,500 miles, 2,000 miles, 3,000 miles--costs a lot of money to develop. It takes a lot of time to develop.

You don't spend time or money developing those capabilities for purely conventional purposes or for defensive purposes. Usually when you undergo those efforts to develop that kind of capability, it is because you want to have the opportunity to one day put a nuclear warhead on one of those rockets.

So that is the story of Iran: massive expansion in their enrichment and reprocessing capabilities; secret enrichment programs which they try to hide from the world; and the development of long-range missile capabilities. Add to it that we are not dealing with the government of Belgium, Japan, South Korea, or any other responsible government on the planet; we are dealing with a government that actively uses terrorism all over the world as an active element of its foreign policy. They are involved in supporting various terrorist elements around the country, not just in the Middle East. Open-source reporting revealed that just a couple years ago they were involved in a plot to assassinate a foreign ambassador in Washington, DC--not in the Middle East somewhere but here. They have an active cyber capability designed to attack, disrupt, and create acts of terror online. They have been implicated, for example, in the bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina. There are few, if any, countries in the world that more actively support terrorism than the Government of Iran.

So this is with whom we are dealing. As a result, the international community, through the United Nations, imposed sanctions. Not only did they impose sanctions, they imposed the requirement that they immediately suspend and stop all enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. We can imagine why the neighbors of Iran are concerned. It is not just Israel that is concerned. Ask the Saudis, ask the Turks, ask any number of the other countries in the region.

Recently, the President and this administration have begun to undertake conversations with Iran about this program. Their hope is that we can get Iran to a place where we can lock them in; where they, in exchange for the loosening of these sanctions, agree not to do certain things.

I don't know of anyone here who would not love to wake up to the news tomorrow that the Supreme Leader in Iran has decided to abandon the reprocessing and enrichment capability and to truly show that all he is interested in is domestic energy for peaceful purposes. The problem is that is not what is happening. I believe what is happening is the United States, through the State Department and this administration, de facto, is already--but if not, is on the verge of--agreeing to allow Iran to keep in place its enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, and I will explain why this is a problem.

If that capability is still there, if they retain all the facilities necessary for enrichment and reprocessing, even if they agree to limit it to a certain level for now, at any point in time in the future they can ratchet it back up and can go on to develop a weapon. In fact, unfortunately, the design for a weapon is the easiest part of all this. The hardest part is reaching the technological capability to enrich uranium to a certain point to weaponize it.

If we allow them to keep all the equipment, all the technology, all their scientists, all the infrastructure in place, then at any point in the future when they decide it is time for a weapon, they can break out and do that. And I would submit that the evidence is strong that this is exactly what their strategy is.

I don't think, I know for a fact that the mandate given to those negotiators on behalf of Iran and the Supreme Leader was the following: Do whatever you can to get these sanctions lifted off our shoulders, but do not agree to anything that is irreversible.

Put yourself in their position. If you want to retain the option to one day be able to enrich and then build a weapon, you are probably willing to take one step back by agreeing to suspend enrichment only to a certain level in exchange for the lifting of these sanctions, knowing that at some point--in 2 years, 3 years, or 4 years--when the world is distracted by something else, when something else is going on around the planet, you can then decide to come up with any excuse to build a weapon.

One of the reasons I know that is their strategy is because it is exactly what the North Koreans did. The playbook has already been written. They would engage in these ongoing negotiations, on again, off again, all designed to buy time.

Why does a government like Iran need or want a nuclear weapon? And they do. It is pretty straightforward.

No. 1, because of deep historical reasons, they desire to become the dominant power in the Middle East, to drive not just the United States but other nations out of the region and diminish everyone's influence at their expense.

The other is because they view a weapon as the ultimate insurance policy. They don't want to be the next Muammar Qadhafi; they want to be North Korea so they can now act with impunity, so they can do anything they want against us or anyone in the world because no one could possibly attack them because they have nuclear weapons.

I have heard stories about, well, we will know; we will be able to see this happening before it happens and do something about it. But look at Pakistan and India, which was a surprise to everybody, particularly India's capabilities. It is not outside the realm of the reasonable to believe that at some point one day we will wake up to the news that Iran has detonated a device and proven their capability. In fact, I have zero doubt in my mind that this is where they want to go.

What I find offensive in this whole conversation is the notion by some in the administration that anyone who

feels this way or anyone who has doubts or skepticism about these negotiations is warmongering.

I actually think the failure to impose sanctions now will inevitably place a future President--perhaps even this one--with a very difficult decision to make, and that will be whether to go in and take military action to stunt or stall their weapons program because, make no mistake, a lot of damage has already been done. A lot of damage has already been done to the sanctions that were already in place. There is already growing evidence that the amount of revenue coming into Iran, the amount of business dealings coming into Iran just simply on this talk about the interim deal has truly spiked.

We also see it in their comments. The leaders of Iran--from the President, to the Supreme Leader, to the chief negotiator--are not just bragging in Iran; they are bragging all over the world that they have agreed to nothing and the West has capitulated.

What we were told by the State Department is, well, that is only for domestic consumption; they are just saying that to be popular at home and to appease the radicals within Iran.

By the way, the term ``radical'' is an interesting term when applied to Iran. All the leaders in Iran are radical; it is just degrees of radicalism.

But to get back to the point I was making, we hear the comments they make in Iran--bragging how they have won, how they snookered the West, how they agreed to nothing, how everything they were doing before is going to move forward--and we are told: Just ignore that. They are just saying that for domestic political considerations.

That is not true. In fact, the Supreme Leader himself, the Ayatollah, has announced that these talks are going to lead to nowhere. He is not going to interfere, but they are going nowhere.

This is a transparent effort. All you have to do is open your eyes and see what they are doing. All they are doing is buying time. All they are doing is looking to relieve as many sanctions as possible without giving up anything they can do in the future or are doing now. For a deal such as this to work, you have to rely on all sorts of verification systems with a government that has made a specialty out of hiding their intentions and programs in the past.

The reason we see the push for the additional sanctions to be put in place is because at least 59 of us in the Senate--and I suspect many more who haven't lent their names to this effort yet--recognize that we cannot afford to be wrong about this because a nuclear Iran would be one of the worst developments in the world in a very long time.

In addition to being able to hold the region hostage, in addition to now being able to act with impunity--they don't have a weapon now, and they try to assassinate Ambassadors in Washington, DC. Imagine what they think they can get away with if they do have a weapon.

Beyond that, think about the risk it poses to our allies in that region, and think about this: Think about the reaction of other countries in the region to the news. The Saudis are not going to stand by and watch Iran develop a nuclear capability and not have one of their own. So I submit a nuclear Iran isn't just one more country joining the nuclear weapons club; it can be as many as two or three more countries eventually joining the nuclear weapons club in the most unstable region in the world, a place that has only had conflict, I don't know, for 5,000 years. This is what we are on the verge of here.

I appreciate the work diplomats working in the State Department do. There is a role for diplomacy in the world, and the good news is that we can negotiate agreements with most of the countries on this planet. But I think diplomacy also requires us to understand its limitations. It is very difficult to negotiate settlements and agreements with governments and individuals who don't ever feel bound by them, who see them as one-way streets, who see them as tactics and vehicles to buy time. That is what we are dealing with.

The other part we forget is that in some parts of the world and with some governments on this planet, the language of diplomacy is viewed as a language of weakness. It becomes an invitation to become aggressive or miscalculated.

I don't know of anyone in this body who is looking to get into another war or armed conflict. That is not what Americans are all about. If we look at the story of the conflicts we have been engaged in, almost all of them involved a reluctant nation having to get involved for geopolitical purposes, because we were trying to stem the growth of communism, because we were attacked in Pearl Harbor. That is not who we are. That is not who we have ever been. Americans aren't into that. What we want to do is live happy lives and raise our families in peace. We want to be able to sell to and buy from other countries. We want a peaceful world we can partner with for business and culture.

But I also think it is important to understand that when mistakes are made in foreign policy, it is a lot harder to reverse than when they are made in domestic policies. If we pass a bad tax bill, we can always come back and pass a new one. If we make a mistake--as this body did by passing ObamaCare--we can always come back and repeal it. If we make a mistake in domestic policy, we can always come back and reverse it somehow. It is not the same in foreign policy. Once there is a nuclearized, weaponized Iran, it will be quite difficult to undo, and so are all the things it will lead to.

Let me also say that additional sanctions are no guarantee that they will never get a weapon, but it changes the cost-benefit analysis. It tests their pain threshold economically. It forces them to make a decision about whether they want to continue to be isolated from the world economically and whether weaponizing is worth it.

If you put in place an interim agreement or a final one that allows them to retain the capability to enrich in the future, they will build a weapon. That is not a matter of opinion; in my mind, that is a matter of fact. Maybe this President won't be here by the time that happens, but someone is going to have to deal with that, and it is not just the President; our country is going to have to deal with that. I at a minimum want to be on record today as making that point because if, God forbid, that day should ever come, I want it to be clearly understood that I, along with my colleagues, warned against it.

By the way, I think this opposition to additional sanctions is part of a pattern of flawed foreign policy decisions on behalf of this administration, one that has largely been built on the false assumption that our problems in the world were caused by an America that was too engaged, too involved, too opinionated, was providing too much leadership and direction, when, in fact, the opposite is now true.

Many of the conflicts happening around the world today are a result of the chaos left by this administration's unclear foreign policy. Many of our allies openly question--and I can tell you from my travels that privately they strongly question--whether America's assurances remain viable and whether we can continue to be relied upon in the agreements we have made in the past to provide collective security for ourselves and our allies.

When you leave a vacuum, it is going to be filled. What it is being filled by right now are some of the most tyrannical governments on the planet. Look at what happened with Moscow over the last 5 years. Moscow viewed the whole reset strategy of the United States under this President not as an opportunity to engage us but as an opportunity to try to get an upper hand on us.

Look at what has happened in the Asia-Pacific region where the Chinese regional ambitions to drive the U.S. out have grown exponentially, as have their capabilities. Meanwhile, our partners in the region, while they welcome the rhetoric of a pivot, question whether we will have the capability to carry it out.

Certainly in the Middle East an incoherent foreign policy with regard to Syria left open an ungoverned space where foreign jihadists have poured into that country and have now basically converted entire parts of Syria as the premier operational space for global jihadists to train and operate.

Now Iran. The situation in Iran, to use a colloquial term, is freaking out all the other countries in that region who have no illusions about who Iran

truly is. They know exactly who these people are, and they are baffled at how the most powerful and informed government on the planet doesn't realize what they realized a long time ago--that you are not dealing with a responsible government here with Iran. You are dealing with a nation that openly supports terrorism as a tool of statecraft, that openly has shown that they want to develop a nuclear weapons capability so they can become untouchable and the dominant power in that region.

If we don't put in place a mechanism for additional sanctions to take place, I submit that the negotiation that is going on with the Iranians will become irrelevant. By that point, even if you wanted to impose more sanctions, it would be impossible to do because so many other countries will have reengaged with commercial transactions with Iran. You are not going to be able to put this genie back in the bottle, and the genie is already halfway out.

I hope we will take this more seriously, but at a minimum I ask this: Why can't we vote on it? If we are wrong, debate us on it. But why can't we vote on it? Since when has the Senate become a place run by one person on a matter of this importance and magnitude? Since when has the Senate become controlled by one person's opinion?

Are you telling me that the people of Florida who I represent do not deserve the right to be represented and heard as much as the people of Nevada or any other State? Are you saying that on an issue of this importance, one individual should have the power to basically say we will have no debate when 59 Members of this body--in a place where it is tough to get 51 votes on anything--have expressed the strong opinion that they favor this?

Why can't we have this debate? Isn't that what the Senate was designed to be, a place where the great issues of our time could be debated and flushed out before the eyes of the American public and the world?

What we are consistently told is we can't have this debate and we're not going to do it. Why? Why can't we debate this? This is important. Its implications will be felt by people long after we are no longer here. I hope more attention is paid to this.

Let me just say that I understand the frustration. A piece of legislation is filed on behalf of veterans, and the Iran issue comes up. But we are running out of time. This is the only mechanism that exists to have this debate.

I would argue that it actually is relevant because it is our men and women in uniform we are going to turn to--when this thing ends up the way I know it will--and ask them to take care of this problem.

If in the end these negotiations fail, and I tragically have to say they are destined to fail, and Iran retains their enrichment capability and eventually develops a nuclear weapon, it is the men and women in uniform of these United States--our sons, our daughters, our neighbors, our friends, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters, and our fathers-- whom we will ask, as we always do, to go solve the problem for us. But if we put in place sanctions that clearly articulate and lay out the price they will have to pay to continue with these ambitions, we may be able to delay that, and even prevent it; otherwise, that day will come. This piper will be paid, and I hope the price will not be so high. I fear that is where we are headed. We are on the verge of making an extraordinary geopolitical blunder that will be very difficult to undo or reverse once it is already made.

All we are asking is to have a vote on this issue. This matters enough to the American people. This matters enough to the safety and future of our children and future generations. This matters enough to the world. It deserves a full debate, and it deserves a vote.

If you are against it, you can vote against it. If you are against it, you can debate against it. We want to hear their arguments and thoughts. Why can't we vote on it? It deserves a vote. It is that important.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 12 minutes.

Mr. President, a few minutes ago the body was treated to a report by the Senator from Iowa about his recent trip to Cuba. It sounds as if he had a wonderful trip visiting what he described as a real paradise. He bragged about a number of things he learned on his trip to Cuba which I would like to address briefly.

He bragged about their health care system: Medical schools are free, doctors are free, clinics are free; their infant mortality rate may be even lower than ours.

I wonder if the Senator, however, was informed that, No. 1, the infant mortality rate of Cuba is completely calculated on figures provided by the Cuban Government. And by the way, totalitarian Communist regimes don't have the best history of accurately reporting things. I wonder if he was informed that the forecast showed that Cuba was 13th in the whole world in infant mortality. I wonder if the government officials who hosted them informed him that in Cuba there are instances reported--including by defectors--that if a child only lives a few hours after birth, they are not counted as a person who ever lived and therefore don't count against the mortality rate.

I wonder if our visitors to Cuba were informed that in Cuba any time there is any sort of problem with a child in utero, they are strongly encouraged to undergo abortions, and that is why they have an abortion rate that skyrockets and some say is perhaps the highest in the world.

I also heard him talk about the great doctors they have in Cuba. I have no doubt they are very talented. I met a bunch of them. You know where I met them? I met them in the United States because they have defected. Doctors would rather drive a taxicab than be a doctor in Cuba.

I wonder if they spoke to him about the outbreak of cholera they have been unable to control or the three-tiered system of health care that exists where foreigners and government officials get health care that is much better than what is available to the general population.

I also heard him speak about baseball. I know Cubans love baseball since my parents are from Cuba and I grew up in a community surrounded by it. He talked about the great baseball players coming from Cuba, and they are. I wonder if they informed him--in fact, I bet they didn't talk about those players to him because every single one of those guys playing in the Major Leagues defected. They left Cuba to play here.

He also talked about how people would come up to him in the streets and not a single person said anything negative about America. Nobody came up to him wagging their finger, saying, you Americans and your embargo are hurting us. I am glad to hear that because everyone who wants to lift the embargo is constantly telling us that the Castros use that to turn the people against us. So obviously that is not true. I am glad to hear confirmation of what I already knew to be true.

I heard about their wonderful literacy rate and how everyone in Cuba knows how to read. That is fantastic. Here is the problem: They can only read censored stuff. They are not allowed access to the Internet. The only newspapers they are allowed to read are Granma or the ones produced by the government. I wish someone on that trip would have asked the average Cuban: With your wonderful literacy skills, are you allowed to read the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or, for that matter, any blog? The answer is no.

It is great to have literacy, but if you don't have access to the information, what is the point of it? I wish somebody would have asked about that on that trip.

We heard about Mr. Gross, who is not in jail. He is not a prisoner. He is a hostage. In the speech I heard a moment ago, I heard allusions to the idea--he didn't say it, but I know the language. I know the code. He made the allusion that maybe there should be a spy swap. Here is the problem: Mr. Gross is not a spy. Do you know what his crime was, if that is what you can call it? He went to Cuba to hand out satellite radios to the Jewish community. We are glad to hear the Cubans are so nice to him that they let him walk 10,000 steps a day, do pullups, and build a necklace out of bottle cap tops. It is very nice that they allow him to do those things. How generous.

I wonder if anybody asked about terrorism, because Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism. I wonder if anybody asked about the fact that just a few months ago a North Korean ship going from Cuba to North Korea was stopped in the Panama Canal, and it contained items in violation of international sanctions against the government in North Korea.

A report just came out confirming what we already knew, that North Korea has death camps and prison camps. The Cubans are allowing them to evade these sanctions. Did that come up in any of the wonderful conversations in the socialist paradise of the Caribbean? I bet it didn't.

Let me tell you what the Cubans are really good at. They don't know how to run their economy, they don't know how to build a country, and they don't know how to govern a people. What they are really good at is repression. What they are really good at is shutting off information to the Internet, radio, television, and social media. That is what they are really good at. They are not just good at it domestically, they are good exporters of these things.

Do you want to see Exhibits A, B, C, and D? I will show them to you right now. They have exported repression in real time in our hemisphere right now.

This is the first slide. This gentleman is the former mayor of a municipality in Caracas. His name is Leopoldo Lopez. This is the National Guard of Venezuela pulling him into an armored truck last week. Do you know why? He is protesting against the government. He is protesting against the Government of Venezuela, which are puppets of Havana. They are completely infiltrated by Cubans and agents from Havana. Not agents. Openly. There are foreign military affairs officials involved in Venezuela. Do you know why? Because the Venezuelan Government is giving them cheap oil--even free oil--in exchange for help in doing these sorts of repressions. He is sitting in jail right now because he is protesting against the government.

Here is the next slide. This is Genesis Carmona. She is a beauty queen and student in a city called Valencia. She is on that motorcycle because the government in Venezuela and thugs--these so-called civilian groups that they have armed, which is another export from Cuba--shot her in the head. She died last week.

This is the government that the Cubans support, not just verbally, not just emotionally, but with training and tactics. This is what they do, and she is dead. This is her being taken on a motorcycle to the hospital where they were unable to save her life because she was shot in the head by Venezuelan security forces.

Here is another slide. Earlier I showed you Mr. Lopez. These are his supporters being hit by water cannons in the street because they are protesting against the government. This has been going on for 2 weeks. These are the allies of Cuba. Venezuela is a puppet of Cuba. This is what they do to their own people. They are using water cannons to knock people to the ground. Why? Because they are protesting the government.

Here is another slide. This is a demonstrator detained by police. Look at how they dragged him through the streets. This is in Caracas, Venezuela.

I will show another demonstrator. This is a student--by the way, these are all students in the street. This young man was also shot in the head by security forces and progovernment groups in Caracas. This happened on February 11.

This is what they do in Venezuela. This is what the allies of the Castro regime do. This is what they export. This is what they teach. This is what they support.

It doesn't stop here. Who are Cuba's allies in the world? North Korea; before he fell, the dictator in Libya; the dictator in Syria; the tyrant in Moscow. This is who they line up with. This is a wonderful paradise?

What is happening in Venezuela deserves attention in and of itself. This is happening in our own hemisphere. It is shameful that only three heads of state in this hemisphere have spoken against what is happening. It is shameful that many Members of Congress who traveled to Venezuela and are friendly with Chavez--some even went to his funeral-- sit by and say nothing while this is happening in our own hemisphere. This is what the wonderful Cuban paradise government we heard about supports.

Just this morning the dictator--who calls himself the President, even though he has never been elected to anything--Raul Castro announced he is there to do whatever they need to help them do this.

I listened to the stuff about Cuba and what is happening in Venezuela, and it is very similar, not just in the repression part but the economic part. Venezuela is an oil-rich country with hard-working people. We don't have an embargo against Venezuela. They have a shortage of toilet paper and toothpaste. Why? Because they are incompetent, and communism doesn't work. They look more and more like Cuba economically and politically every single day.

What is the first thing the Venezuelans did when this broke out? They cut off access to Twitter, Facebook, and the Internet. They ran CNN out of there. They closed down the only Colombian station. Years before they had to close down all the independent media outlets that criticized the government. Where did they learn that from? Cuba. Yet we have to listen to what a paradise Cuba is.

I wonder. How come I never read about boatloads of American refugees going to Cuba? Why have close to 1\1/2\ million people left Cuba to come here, but the only people who leave here to move there are fugitives from the law and people who steal money from Medicare and go there to hide? Why? How come no American baseball players defect to Cuba? Why don't any American doctors defect to Cuba if it is such a paradise?

He cited a poll that more Americans want normal relations with Cuba. So do I--a democratic and free Cuba. But you want us to reach out and develop friendly relationships with a serial violator of human rights that supports what is going on in Venezuela and every other atrocity on the planet? On issue after issue, they are always on the side of the tyrants. Look it up. This is who we should be opening up to? Why don't they change? Why doesn't the Cuban Government change? Why doesn't the Venezuelan Government change?

Throughout this week, I will outline proposals and ideas about what we need to do and the sanctions we should be pursuing against the individuals responsible for these atrocities.

We have sanctions against North Korea. Why? Because they have a terrorist and illegitimate government. We have sanctions against Iran. Why? Because they support terrorism and have an illegitimate government. We have sanctions against Cuba. Why? Well, you just saw why. Sanctions are a tool in our foreign policy toolbox. We, as the freest Nation on Earth, are looked to by people in this country and all around the world to stand by them in their moment of need when they clamor for liberty and human rights. They look for America to be on their side, not for America to be cutting geopolitical deals or making it easier to sell tractors to the government there. We should be clear about these things.

Here is the great news. I don't know if they get C-SPAN in Cuba. I bet the government people do. I hope you see that in America we are a free society. You are allowed to stand on the floor and say and spread whatever you want. You think Cuba is a paradise? You think it is an example and model we should be following? You are free to say that here, in the press and anywhere you want. We are also free to come here and tell the truth. We are also free to come here and denounce the violations of human rights and brutality.

I suggest to my colleagues that the next time they go to Cuba, ask to meet with the Ladies in White. Ask to meet with Yoani Sanchez. Ask to meet with the dissidents and the human rights activists who are jailed, repressed, and exiled. Ask to meet them. I bet you will hear something very different than what you heard from your hosts on your last trip to the wonderful socialist paradise called Cuba, because it is a joke. It is a farce. I don't think we should stand by with our arms crossed and watch these things happen in our hemisphere and say nothing about them.

I will close by saying over the last week, I have tweeted about these issues. I get thousands of retweets from students and young people-- until they shut them out in Venezuela--who are encouraged by the fact that we are on their side. What they want is what we have, freedom and liberty. That is what all people want.

If America and its policymakers are not going to be firmly on the side of freedom and liberty, who in the world will? Who on this planet will? If this Nation is not firmly on the side of human rights and freedom and the dignity of all people, what nation on Earth will? If we are prepared to walk away from that, then I submit to you that this century is going to be a dangerous and dark one, but I don't believe that is what the American people want from us, nor the majority of my colleagues.

I thank the Presiding Officer for the opportunity to share these thoughts.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. President, I have been receiving a lot of phone calls and emails this week about the issue of Iran. Just last night, almost all of my colleagues on the Republican side and I, led by Senator Kirk, among others, sent a letter to the majority leader asking him to have a vote on additional sanctions on Iran. Of course, these sanctions would be conditioned on failure of the additional negotiations which the administration has announced will begin next week.

I wish to take a moment to explain to people back home, who are-- rightfully so--writing and calling us about this issue, what is at stake and what is happening. So I will break it down to the most basic elements.

Iran is a country which, as we all know, beginning in 1979 was overtaken by a radical Islamic revolution which took control of the country and has been a sworn enemy of the United States ever since. In fact, until very recently--and perhaps they still do--after Friday prayers, they used to end them with the chant ``Death to America.''

It is one thing to say those things. It is another to actually do something about it. In fact, Iran has. They have been one of the most active sponsors of terrorism all over this planet but particularly in the Middle East.

We know they are actively engaged in undermining our interests all over the world. They have been linked to terrorist attacks against dignitaries from other countries in other countries abroad. About 2 years ago, a report emerged of the potential that they were trying to plot the assassination of a foreign ambassador here in Washington, DC.

In addition, they participate in things such as cyber attacks against the country, they destabilize their neighbors, and they continue to develop their weapons capability.

In addition to all that which I have just outlined, over the last few years Iran has begun to pursue a nuclear program. In order to have a nuclear weapon, you have to be able to process plutonium. This takes infrastructure, and while people know how to do that per se, it takes a lot of investment of time, energy, and expertise to actually build the facilities to enrich.

You can enrich for peaceful purposes. If you want to have nuclear reactors to power your cities, this requires enrichment up to a certain level. But Iran has gone well beyond that.

This is important for two reasons. The first is that there are plenty of countries in the world who have nuclear energy but don't enrich and don't reprocess. They import that material to use in their reactors. In fact, that is what most countries who have nuclear reactors do.

But the second is that Iran's program has always had strong elements of secrecy. They have had all these secret facilities they hide from the world--and the world is rightfully concerned.

The United Nations Security Council--which is lately usually a pretty useless body, but the United Nations Security Council came up with a resolution demanding that Iran stop the enrichment process. But they kept going. In fact, not so long ago they discovered more secret facilities where Iran was enriching uranium and reprocessing plutonium.

So the administration has made it a high priority, as has its predecessor, to stop that from happening, and they have made clear statements: We are not seeking to contain a nuclear Iran; we want to prevent it. That is the right approach. Now, here is the problem.

We recently entered into these negotiations with Iran to get them to stop, to back away from this. If you want nuclear power, if you want nuclear energy, you can have it without the need to reprocess--like most countries do, like many of our allies do.

The only reason why they even came to the table for those negotiations is because the United States, to be frank--despite the resistance of this administration, which each and every time sanctions and sanctions bills have come before the Congress have threatened to veto them and have blocked them and have been against them--despite all of that, these sanctions have been in place. They have been applied at a global level, and they have created a tremendous amount of pressure on the Iranian economy. As a result, they have come to the table to negotiate--not because the new president, Rouhani, is a reformer, as some like to call him, but because they have so much internal pressure and their economy is under so much duress that they are afraid of what their people may do about it in the long term.

The administration is pretty optimistic about these negotiations which were reached: An interim agreement--a temporary agreement, as they call it. A joint plan of action is the right terminology.

We had Secretary Sherman, who was in charge of those talks, here the other day before the Foreign Relations Committee. Her point is, we accomplished something. We got Iran to stop processing at a certain level and suspend it. That is her point. Now we are going to go into the second phase of negotiating a longer term solution, and we have to give diplomacy a chance.

The problem is that something is lost in translation. Perhaps before the Internet we didn't catch these things, but now we can see these things happening in real-time.

For some reason Iran does not have the same interpretation that the United States does of this joint plan of action.

For example, the head of Iran's atomic energy organization on November 24 said as follows:

Work at the Arak reactor will continue. . . . Research and

development will continue. All our exploration and extraction

activities will continue. There are no activities that won't

continue.

Their foreign minister on November 27 said:

Iran will pursue construction at the Arak heavy-water

reactor.

This is the same one I was just talking about.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator said--and this is really concerning:

We can return again to 20-percent enrichment in less than

one day, and we can convert the nuclear material again. . . .

Therefore, the structure of our nuclear program is preserved

. . . we . . . will in no way, never, dismantle our

centrifuges.

These are concerning statements. Their foreign minister said something else on CNN on January 22:

We did not agree to dismantle anything. . . . The White

House version both underplays the concessions and overplays

Iran's commitments . . . we are not dismantling any

centrifuges, we're not dismantling any equipment, we're

simply not producing, not enriching over 5%.

The problem is that maybe they are not enriching right now. Or, quite frankly, it would be tough to tell because they have always had secret capabilities we keep finding out about long after they have started. But more complicated is that they are keeping all the process and the equipment in place. If they wanted to--as they accurately said--they could return to enriching at whatever level they wanted in less than 1 day.

Now, we may ask ourselves: Why has Iran agreed to do these sorts of things? Here is what I said at the beginning and I know now to be true more than ever. Here is Iran's strategy. It is the same one employed by North Korea a few years ago:

Let's get into a negotiation. Let's see how many of these sanctions we can get lifted off of our shoulders. But let's not agree to anything that is irreversible.

Here is what they are gambling on. They are gambling that the world's attention will turn to something else; that the sanctions will erode and people will lose the discipline or the willingness to continue; that countries who are export driven want to sell things to Iran or get gasoline and petroleum products from them and will therefore agree to not continue with the sanctions.

Then eventually one day, in 1, 2, 3, 4 years or whenever, they can decide to restart this stuff and suddenly announce: We want to be a nuclear weapons power after all.

Do you know why I know--I don't think, I don't suspect--that Iran wants nuclear weapons? There are two reasons.

The first is because they believe this is the ultimate insurance policy. If they have a nuclear weapon, people can't interfere with their internal politics because they are a nuclear power.

The other reason why I know is because they are developing ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles are rockets that travel at long distances, and they cost a lot of money to develop and a lot of time. The only reason why you develop that capability is to deliver a nuclear payload, to be able to deliver a nuclear weapon against somebody else far away.

The administration's argument is this is all for domestic consumption. This is all political posturing. This is what the administration is saying in reaction to Iran's top diplomat, who once again yesterday dismissed the Obama administration's demands on its nuclear program.

He said they have no value. The best part of this joint plan of action, he said, is that it is so clear that research and development has no constraint; we can continue research and development and increasing our capabilities; that all stays in place.

What he is really saying is this. Once the world is distracted and America moves to another topic or some other crisis happens somewhere else in the world, then we will do what we want to do.

That is what is happening here, and this is extremely dangerous for the future. Having a nuclear Iran is bad enough, but it isn't going to stop there. If Iran develops a nuclear capability and a nuclear weapon, every other country around them is going to want one as well. Saudi Arabia is going to want one. Potentially, Turkey is going to want one. Eventually, one day Egypt could want one. Could you imagine four or five nuclear weapons powers in the most unstable, dangerous region in the world? This is where we are headed.

What about these countries who don't enrich right now? South Korea is an example. We ask them not to enrich. We tell them: You don't need to enrich. We provide this stuff. How are we going to argue to them not to enrich now? How are we going to tell Jordan and Saudi Arabia and other countries: You shouldn't enrich but we have agreed to allow Iran to keep enriching? So we are going to tell our friends and allies: You can't have this capability; you shouldn't have this capability; but we are going to tell an enemy of this country and of world peace that they can?

This is why we want a vote on these sanctions. We don't have room for error here. We do not have the space to be wrong. We can't afford to be wrong.

There is no guarantee sanctions will prevent Iran from going nuclear, but it will make it extremely painful. It will influence their cost benefit analysis.

Failure to put these sanctions in place is already having an impact. Every day we see news reports of businessmen in Europe and around the world flooding to Iran on the idea sanctions might be eroding. How are we going to pull that back? We won't be able to.

I don't completely dismiss the notions the administration is saying. It is ideal to reach a negotiated solution with Iran. But we have to be wise. We have to learn the lessons of history, and we have to understand human nature. Iran's regime wants a nuclear weapon because it gives them supremacy in the region and they believe it makes them immune to outside pressure and interference in their internal affairs. They are headed for a weapon, and they are using these negotiations to buy time.

There are 59 Members of this Senate who have signed on to a sanctions bill and one Senator is preventing a vote on it, and that is wrong. We should have a vote on a matter of this importance. The use of procedural motions and the power of the majority leader to prevent a vote on something of this importance has extraordinary long-term implications on our national security.

Let me just close by making one more point in this regard. I recently read statements that those of us who want more sanctions are banging the war drum. That is false. On the contrary. We believe that a failure to put sanctions in place increases the likelihood of an armed conflict with Iran. Are we prepared to allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons power?

We are going into these negotiations with one arm tied behind our back. They are saying: Under no circumstances will we ever agree not to enrich, and we are saying we are open to that.

I am saying this on the floor so that it is recorded and so people know where I stood on this before it happened. If Iran is allowed to maintain any sort of enrichment capability within our lifetime--in fact, I believe before the end of this decade, God forbid--Iran will have a nuclear weapon and one day we will wake up to the news that they have tested a device or proven the capability of having one. When that day comes, God help us all.

I hope we can have a vote on the Senate floor on this issue. Let's have a debate on it. Let's have a frank and open discussion about it. Why are we preventing that from happening? Why is the majority leader preventing that from happening? It is inexcusable. It is unacceptable.

I hope we will have a vote on it sooner rather than later.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, I come today because tomorrow is the formal start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. We certainly wish all of our athletes well. We have a few from Florida. Believe it or not, the Sunshine State has contributed a number of athletes to the Winter Olympic efforts of our country. We wish them all the best.

We pray for their safety. We have all read media reports of the potential for attacks. We pray that does not happen. Of course, our government has tried to be as cooperative as possible with the Russian Government in providing some level of security assistance. They have been less than open about that. So we hope and pray things will go well there. Let me just say at the outset, Olympics should never be politicized. I hope these are not either. So my comments are not about the Olympics per se, but I do think it is an important time, given where they are occurring, to take a moment to reflect on the nature of and our Nation's relationship with the host country, with Russia, because they are going to be in the news a lot over the next few days.

We have all heard the debates about some of the more extreme examples of intolerance that exist within Russia, particularly as a result of President Vladimir Putin and his government.

I want to take a moment to describe where I think the relations between Russia and the United States stand and particularly how Russia views itself--the government, I should say--in the world.

At the outset let me begin by saying that when I talk about governments, when I talk about countries such as Russia or China, for instance, we are talking about the government leaders, not the people. In fact, we know that in both of those countries--especially in Russia, in China, as well as in many other countries--there are people who do not like the direction their political leadership is taking them.

In fact, I would say that in countries such as China and Russia it might be the majority of people who strongly disagree with the direction that its so-called leaders are taking. What we talk about is our relationship with their governments--and in this case our relationship with Vladimir Putin and the decisions that he has made.

The best way to understand the situation with Russia is that there is primarily a president who has nationalistic tendencies in Putin, and he wants Russia to somehow reclaim what he views as its glory days of world prominence. He believes and has concluded that the best way to do that is to be antagonistic and outright hostile to the United States. Part of that plan is an effort to create among his neighbors-- particularly those republics that used to be part of the Soviet Union-- to bring them under Russia's sphere of influence.

We have two stunning examples of that over the past few years. The first is the Republic of Georgia, which they invaded a few years ago, and even now they occupy territory within it.

In fact, as part of these Olympics, one of the things Russia has done is it has sealed off portions of Georgian territory they claim they need for a security buffer. That is completely outrageous, but that is happening with very little attention on the international stage.

The other is to see what is happening in Ukraine and to see how they used the threat of noncooperation economically, and even subterfuge economically, to try to force Ukraine to reject a deal to integrate with the European Union and instead seek to be part of this new thing that the Russian government is trying to create.

As part of that agenda as well, they have viewed themselves with the need to be antagonistic toward the United States. But in the process of doing that, not only have they been antagonistic toward the United States, they have been antagonistic toward the cause of human rights and of world peace.

There are some stunning examples.

Certainly within Russia we have seen the targeting and the oppression of everything from a rock band to journalists. We know the story of Sergei Magnitsky, who was doing nothing more than investigating rampant official corruption. We saw how what happened with him.

We have seen it line up on the international stage. For example, they are--perhaps other than Iran, and perhaps equal with Iran--the most important supporter of Assad and of what he is doing in Syria--the slaughter of innocent civilians. There are over 100,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands of others now living in refugee camps, displaced from their homes. This is who the Russian President and the Russian government have lined up with.

Beyond that, we should see the attitude they have taken toward Iran. They have not been, despite the administration's assertions, productive in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions. On the contrary, they have been supportive or at a minimum have been a roadblock to progress being made with regard to preventing a nuclear Iran.

On issue after issue we see this Russian government lining itself up diametrically opposed not only to the interests of the United States but to the interests of the cause of world peace. I understand that the situation in Syria is complicated, but how could one possibly find himself to be such a strong and blind ally of a killer, a murderer, a criminal like Assad?

There are problems in those rebel groups too. There are some terrorists involved in that. Unfortunately, it appears they have grown in prominence among the rebellion. It is not an easy issue to confront, but at a minimum one would expect that a country that believes in human rights and the dignity of all the people would at a minimum add their voice in condemnation of what is happening in Syria, and to the conduct of the Assad government.

Instead, they have been involved in trying to pursue ridiculous conspiracy theories, such as the notion that somehow the chemical attacks that occurred there were not conducted by Assad and his regime.

Beyond those things and what they have done at home and abroad, what have they done directly toward the United States? Let's talk about what they have done toward their neighbors and the constant threats to their neighbors--and in some instances a willingness to carry it out by invading the Republic of Georgia.

Then, of course, we turn to their relationship with us. What have they done? A couple of actions bear watching.

The first is what they have done with their weapons systems. They continue to invest an extraordinary amount of money--for a country that is going through the economic challenges that they are confronting--to build up their conventional weapons capabilities. They are again sending naval forces to different parts of the world, trying to flex some muscle.

It is not as powerful as the Soviet Union, but they are trying to project power in that way. Usually they find places to project power that they know would somehow challenge the strategic interests of the United States. Last week we read in the New York Times that there is evidence they may be in violation of an arms control agreement.

In the face of all of this, the initial attitude of this administration was that we need to reset policy toward Russia and understand what was behind that idea. What was behind that idea was the notion that the reason we didn't have a good relationship with Putin and with Russia and the Russian government was because the U.S.--the previous President, George W. Bush--was too abrasive. This is not only for Russia, but this is a theory they applied all over the world. If we could only reset that relationship, if we could just be more cooperative with them, and if we could show them that we were more willing to talk and be open-minded, somehow that would affect their behavior.

What did Putin and their government do? They did what any good former

KGB agent would do. They took what we offered them and kept doing what they wanted. They took whatever concessions we were putting on the table, and they kept doing whatever they wanted.

What is stunning to me is not only the administration's unwillingness to acknowledge that the reset policy has not worked, but in some instances their desire to double down on us. The President continues to talk about additional reductions in strategic weapons vis-a-vis the Russians.

Yet last week we heard, as I said a moment ago, that they are probably already in violation of an existing agreement. We have allowed them to convince us not to pursue anti-missile technologies or advanced and additional anti-missile technologies and defense systems in Eastern Europe.

Our allies, by the way, look at us and say: What is going on? It adds to this air of instability. It adds to the questions that now exist, and it adds to the notion that we have now become an unreliable ally in the world. Other countries are watching this as well, and they are taking note. This is the situation that we face. Because the Olympics are in Russia, the whole world is about to see it.

For example, we can't say for sure that this had anything to do with the government, but last night--I read a report today in the Wall Street Journal that said that for one of its reporters, in the middle of the night someone opened the door to their room and tried to walk in for a moment.

Again, do we know if that was the Russian government? No, we don't know that for sure, but that seems to be a recurring issue there--the sort of surveillance state where opposition is oppressed and the people are watched, where political opponents could be arrested, jailed or exiled.

The Russian government is starting to look more and more every day, in its attitude, like the former Soviet Union--and in its behavior. I think we have the right to be concerned about it.

When I come to the floor and talk about these issues, and other colleagues do, this is not because we want confrontation. On the contrary. We hope to avoid all of these things.

We have plenty of issues to focus on in this country, but we cannot be naive. We must never forget the lessons of history that teach us that when behavior such as this and attitudes like this go unaddressed, when your potential adversary shows weakness, insecurity, and indecisiveness, it invites them to be even more aggressive, and it invites them to miscalculate.

While I do believe that the Olympics are an issue that should not be politicized, our relationship with Russia is one that deserves serious attention in this body. This idea that somehow this is a relic of Cold War issues and that we shouldn't be focused on it in the same way is naive.

They still have an enormous nuclear arsenal. They still have a significant conventional military capability, and they have someone running their government who is not an ally or a friend of the United States.

On the contrary. He has come to believe that what is bad for the United States is good for Russia. We should not be naive about that in our dealings, and we should not, under any circumstances, betray, undermine or abandon our commitment to our allies in the region and to the countries that are Russia's neighbors for the sake of seeking to improve the relationship with the Russian government because they will continue to do what they have already done. They will take our concessions, and they will keep doing whatever they want.

I hope that as a part of this week and the next couple of weeks in these Olympics we--as policymakers, with all of the issues happening in our country, and all of the challenges we face around the world--will take more time to truly examine the nature of this government in Russia and what our relationship should be toward them.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, I will vote nay on the Agricultural Act of 2014, also known as the farm bill.

Florida's economy and the livelihoods of many family-owned businesses and workers rely on a vibrant agricultural industry. Unfortunately, this farm bill goes far beyond agricultural

programs and includes antipoverty programs and renewable energy programs, among other spending measures that total nearly $1 trillion.

With Washington facing a $17 trillion debt and another debt ceiling increase in a few weeks, this bill does not undertake any fundamental reforms to ensure every taxpayer dollar is being properly spent to secure our Nation's food supply instead of needlessly growing government or continuing the status quo on programs that need reform.

For example, Food Stamp Programs are an important part of our safety net, but we should have a separate debate on these and other antipoverty programs with the goal of empowering States to better design these programs to help their people escape poverty.

While energy innovation is an important debate and will be a key economic growth driver in the 21st century, we should be discussing renewable energy and biofuels programs in the context of energy policy, not lumping them in to this bill that is supposed to be about securing our Nation's food supply.