Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2015--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I have just returned from a trip to the Middle East--an absolutely important and eye-opening trip at this vital moment when the threat of extremism, the threat of violence, and the risks posed to regional stability by Iran and its regional ambitions could not be clearer. Senator Gillibrand of New York led this delegation, and a group of eight of us had an opportunity to visit Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Austria.

Let me begin by saying that all of us were deeply moved and concerned when we heard this morning news of a terrorist attack in Istanbul, literally in an area we had just visited Saturday morning. I reached out, as have a number of others on this trip, to express our condolences and concerns both to the Turkish Ambassador, the American Ambassador, and to others we met with on our visit there.

This is just another brazen reminder of the instability raging throughout the Middle East and of the threats to our concerns and interests and to regional stability posed by terrorism.

I invite the Senator from Virginia to join me in making some comments based on his insights and his experience on this trip. The very first place we visited left an important and lasting impression on me. We visited with the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna to hear about their progress towards implementing the nuclear deal with Iran and what they are going to be doing, now and in the future, to ensure full, thorough, and valuable inspections of the entire cycle of Iran's nuclear efforts.

If Senator Kaine would offer any additional comments as a member of the delegation and someone who joined in the trip, what were some of the things that the Senator saw and what were some of the concerns that the Senator came home with that we ought to share with our constituents and colleagues?

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia for his service on the Foreign Relations Committee and for his real leadership on the question of our prosecution the war against ISIL and the roll of this Senate in confirming that we are in fact engaged in a conflict, for his role on the Armed Services Committee, and for the important and tough questions he asked on our visit to the four countries that I just referenced in opening. I appreciate the Senator detailing the four different, big positive moves forward that are happening as the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, moves towards into full implementation.

I wish to encourage my colleague from Florida, the second-most senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, to also offer his thoughts on how this deal contributes to our security and what concerns are remaining.

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Florida.

I would invite my colleague from New Jersey, who also joined us in the Middle East and is on the homeland security committee, to offer his comments on how the Iran deal actually contributes to regional and global security, and I ask what remaining concerns there are that we have to tackle together.

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Mr. COONS. I wish to thank my colleague from the State of New Jersey and to briefly recognize a success in the fall, in September--a raid off the coast of Yemen that seized a large cache of Iranian arms destined for the Houthi rebels who are working to undermine the legitimate Government of Yemen. This massive weapons shipment of 56 tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided TOW missiles, and the associated sights, mounts, tubes, and batteries--those are all the different components for these advanced and sophisticated anti-tank weapons--was successfully interdicted in international water. This is an example of what my colleague the Senator from New Jersey was just talking about, which is the need for more and more aggressive and more successful interdiction to push back on Iran's destabilizing actions in the region.

I am grateful now to be joined on the floor by my colleague from the State of New Hampshire, who is also my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee, who wants to contribute to our conversation today about the positive progress that is being made in the implementation of this deal and what remains ahead in the work we have to do to make sure we are implementing it effectively.

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Mr. COONS. I thank my colleagues from Connecticut and from New Hampshire. I invite my colleague from North Dakota, who also serves on the homeland security committee and who was part of our delegation that just had the opportunity to travel to Israel, to Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, and to Austria, and in Austria to hear from the IAEA.

The references just made by my colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee were in one part to the vacancy in the position of the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. offices in Vienna. I want to reemphasize that. Ever since August 5 of last year, that mission the Senator from North Dakota and I just visited that is responsible for directing and supporting the work of the IAEA to the extent the United States helps fund it and supports it and is a participating member--they have been waiting for a new confirmed ambassador for more than 6 months.

I wish to invite my colleague to make comments based on her experiences and her reflections based on this recent trip.

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues who have come to the floor to join with one voice in recognizing the very strong progress that is being made so far in implementing the JCPOA, in implementing the nuclear deal with Iran.

I wish to particularly thank my colleague from North Dakota who has taken her experience on the banking committee to help us understand why it is so important to have confirmed senior administration figures who can enforce the sanctions that were on the books before this deal, were enforced during this deal, and should be enforced going forward.

In closing, let me briefly make some reference as to what that means. The JCPOA was an agreement about constraining Iran's nuclear program, but the sanctions the United States has on the books to stop Iran's support for terrorism, to stop Iran's ballistic missile program, and to stop Iran's human rights abuses or to hold them accountable and sanction them for those abuses will remain on the books.

I will briefly mention that during the negotiation of the JCPOA, the Treasury Department, where Adam Szubin is the nominee to be the top sanction enforcement person, utilized multiple authorities and sanctioned more than 100 Iranians and Iran-linked entities, including more than 40, under its ongoing terrorism sanction authorities.

Just this past July, three senior Hezbollah military officials were sanctioned in Syria and Lebanon because they provided military support to the Assad regime. In November, the Treasury Department designated procurement agents and companies in Lebanon, China, and Hong Kong, and just this last week, on January 7, the Treasury Department targeted a key Hezbollah support network by designating a Hezbollah financier and member, Ali Youssef Charara, and Spectrum Investment Group.

As my colleague from New Jersey has said, we are all optimistic that the administration will take the next step and soon impose sanctions in response to recent ballistic missile launches.

I celebrated earlier because I recognized the success the administration had in interdicting a weapons shipment from Iran to the Houthis rebels, their proxies in the region. The fundamental point is this. If we want to have the positive successes of the JCPOA, and if we want to continue to have the opportunity to constrain Iran's nuclear program and its bad behavior in the region, we have to be vigilantly engaged in oversight and in support for the enforcement of that agreement and for our exercise of the prerogatives and capabilities the American Government has to push back on Iran.

I think by working together in a bipartisan and responsible way, we can get this done. There are folks in this Chamber who opposed the deal and folks who supported it, but what we heard on our recent delegation trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey was that our regional allies are looking for clarity--clarity that the United States stands together in fighting Iran's regional ambitions to support terror and in constraining Iran's nuclear program. We can do that best by confirming these nominees, by funding the IAEA, by exercising the sanction authorities that this administration and this Congress have put in place, and by continuing to make progress under this agreement.

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