Hire More Heroes Act of 2015--Continued

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank my colleague for his speech. I will be echoing a lot of the same points that he has made.

I think that it is a critical time. This is important. It is important for the young people around this country to know what kind of a future they are going to have, and I think he has lined it out very well, and this week, I think, will be critically important in terms of the decisions that we make as a country.

In May, the Senate passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act by a vote of 98 to 1. You don't see too many 98-to-1 votes in this Chamber. Sixty-six Senators cosponsored this legislation. The principal reason for this overwhelming bipartisan support was the desire to give Congress, the voice of the people, the opportunity to weigh in on the President's agreement with Iran.

We have been working together now for 4 months across the aisle to ensure that the opportunity for Congress to review this agreement comes forward. Yet I am severely disappointed, as my colleague expressed, that 42 of our colleagues have now voted twice to deny the Senate the ability to take a simple up-or-down vote on this very important resolution--a simple vote to say exactly how they feel, to make sure everybody in the country and in your State knows your opinion, and yet 42 of them are blocking that simple vote.

Iran's supreme leader said earlier this month that he expects Iran's parliament to vote on whether their country will approve the nuclear agreement. At the very least we should have that up-or-down vote. Certainly this agreement is also worthy of this vote. Our constituents expect us to vote on this matter. Multiple national surveys have shown that the Iran nuclear agreement is opposed by either a plurality or a majority of the American people, and any support this agreement had, as you look at the national polling, is disintegrating.

A recent poll in my State shows that opponents of this deal outnumber supporters by a margin of 3 to 1. Yet I am not going to have the opportunity to vote my vote of disapproval of this agreement because of the obstructionism on the other side. In fact, when President Obama said that there was strong support for this deal among lawmakers and citizens, the Washington Post fact-checker awarded him three Pinocchios. We all know what Pinocchio was famous for, and that was the growing of his nose when he wasn't telling the truth. Three Pinocchios--that's a lot of skepticism about the President's statement.

There is bipartisan opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement in Congress, but only partisan and tepid support. Our colleagues in the House of Representatives voted last week on a resolution approving this agreement. That resolution received only 162 votes, all from the Democratic Party. There was opposition by 260 House Members, including 25 Democrats. Here in the Senate, more Democrats joined with Republicans to support moving forward on an up-or-down vote on this resolution of disapproval.

It is important to recognize the depth of bipartisan opposition to the President's agreement with Iran. Many of the Democrats who have been opposing this deal have tremendous experience in foreign policy matters. In the House of Representatives, the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the ranking Democratic member of the Appropriations Committee and the ranking member on the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa all voted against approving this agreement.

In the Senate, the former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and the committee's current ranking member are among the Democrats who oppose this agreement. They have joined Republicans on the floor in seeking an up-or-down vote on this agreement. The senior Democratic foreign policy leaders and every Republican in both chambers of Congress oppose this deal, and they have made their reasons clear.

The President's agreement fails to make America safer, quite frankly. It is not likely to eliminate Iran's path to a nuclear weapon, and the agreement will hurt the security situation that is rapidly deteriorating in the Middle East, especially in Israel.

We have not seen the two side agreements between the IAEA and Iran. We have not seen those. We don't know what is in them. We are supposed to have seen everything, and these side agreements, we think, include important provisions about suspected Iranian nuclear sites. We already know that Iran will have the ability to delay inspectors' access to other sites for more than 3 weeks. We were supposed to get anytime, anywhere inspections. This benchmark falls severely short of that.

The combination of the cash from sanctions relief--anywhere from $50 billion to $150 billion, so I will go right in the middle and say $100 billion--the end of the arms embargo in 5 years, the end of the international restrictions on Iran's ballistic missile program in 8 years will strengthen Iran's ability to cause trouble in the Middle East and around the world.

Think about this. I think about this--the country of Iran with another $100 billion. Under the sanctions that have been imposed, Iran has expressed concern about the health and welfare of their people. Yet even under that sanctions domain they are still fomenting terror around the Middle East. What will they do with $100 billion? I think it is pretty clear what their intentions will be.

International sanctions that have helped bring Iran to the negotiating table will be difficult to snap back into place in the event of violation of the agreement. Nothing snaps anywhere here in Washington, DC, and sanctions can't snap back, so that defies reason. This will lessen our leverage to ensure Iran's compliance.

Despite these serious flaws, it appears, based on the two failed cloture votes the Senate has taken thus far, that a partisan minority is prepared to thwart the bipartisan majority and move forward with the agreement.

Leader McConnell has filed an amendment that would block sanctions relief until Iran both recognizes Israel's right to exist and releases American political prisoners. While that amendment will not cure the flaws of Iran's agreement, it does represent commonsense policy that should receive overwhelming support.

Regardless of their views on the substance of a nuclear Iran, I think most Americans would agree that before we provide tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief to Iran, the Iranian government should have to recognize Israel's right to exist and should release our four American political prisoners.

Just last week, as the Senate was debating the Iranian nuclear agreement, the Iranian leader posted on Twitter his view that Israel would not exist in 25 years. That underscores, again, what a serious problem Iran is to our most important ally, and that is Israel.

Even proponents of the nuclear agreement have recognized that Iran is likely to use at least some of the funds they received from sanctions relief to strengthen their military and continue to finance terrorism. If this windfall is going to be provided to Iran, then ensuring Iran recognizes Israel's right to exist is the least we would ask.

Equally important is securing the release of our four American political prisoners held by Iran. I get this question at home all the time. Why was this not part of the bargaining? Why were we not asking for the release of our Americans before we moved forward? Frankly, I don't think the administration answered that question, and I don't have the answer to that question. Tomorrow we will have the opportunity to express our wishes. We should not provide sanctions relief to Iran without the release of the hostages.

The Senate will have the opportunity to decide whether to move forward with the McConnell amendment tomorrow. Those who have prevented a vote on the merits of the nuclear agreement have it in their power to block a vote on the McConnell amendment as well, but let's be clear on what that would mean. If a minority of the Senate blocks a vote on the McConnell amendment, then they will allow the President to provide sanctions relief to Iran without securing Israel's right to exist and without the release of our Americans.

I believe the President's agreement with Iran should be rejected by the Senate, and we are going to have another opportunity to vote on cloture to allow the Senate to take a true up-or-down vote on that agreement. But even my colleagues who support the nuclear agreement should vote to protect Israel and bring our Americans home before providing that sanctions relief.

I hope our colleagues will reexamine their positions on cloture and allow the Senate to do what we have come here to do, to take the tough votes, to let people know how we feel, to show our commitment and our passion, and to have our voices and their voices heard.

With that, I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source