Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2015--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware for the opportunity to engage in a colloquy. It was a remarkable visit with eight Senators to Israel, Vienna, Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia, to dig into two issues that I would like to address. The issues are Iran and the war against ISIL.

With respect to Iran, since the conclusion of the negotiation and the green light for the deal to go forward, there have been some positive developments and there have been some troubling developments. I wish to spend time talking about both.

On the positive development side, because of the deal that the United States and other nations entered into with Iran, as of yesterday they have permanently decommissioned the plutonium reactor at Arak, which is one half for them to make a nuclear weapon. That is a very positive result of the negotiation.

Second, they have disabled a huge percentage of the centrifuges, which was also a requirement under the agreement--the centrifuges that are used to enrich uranium, another path to nuclear weapons.

Third, Iran has worked with the IAEA to structure the level of inspections. Under the inspections required by the agreement, Iran will be the most inspected nation in the world, because the inspections will not only go to nuclear sites, but they will go to the entire supply chain of uranium mills and uranium mines. Those are inspections not required of any other nation. The IAEA is ready to move forward on those inspections.

Finally, there is the last bit of positive news, which in my view, personally, is the most compelling. Iran took more than 28,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium, which is sufficient for multiple nuclear weapons. Because of this deal, they have shipped that uranium out of Iran. It is held in a facility in Russia that is closely monitored 24/7, 365 by the IAEA. So any movement of that material will be understood.

Having that nuclear material--sufficient for multiple nuclear weapons--out of Iran's hands and out of that country would not have happened without this deal, and it makes the world safer.

There are some challenges. In October, Iran fired a missile, and a number of us on the Foreign Relations Committee immediately wrote to the President and Secretary of State that we think this violates a separate U.N. Security Council resolution. The United Nations empaneled a team of exports to dig into the factual and technical evidence, and they concluded in mid-December that Iran had in fact fired a missile in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution separate from this deal. We all think it is very important--for both Congress and the administration and our global partners--to make sure that there is a consequence for that. Whether we supported the deal or didn't, the strategy should be strict enforcement and strict implementation, requiring that Iran meet every last detail--not only of the deal but of their other international obligations. We need to continue to press the administration and Congress to do that.

So on Iran, that was basically the gist of the conversation. We had a lengthy discussion with Prime Minister Netanyahu, where we said: Look, we disagreed on the deal. But now the important thing is to make sure we implement it and we are strong and united on implementation issues. I think that is critically important.

Finally, I have a word about ISIL. Everywhere we went in the region we heard about the threat of ISIL. The bombing this morning in a tourist square in Istanbul, where some of us were standing just 72 hours ago, although all of the investigative work hasn't yet been done, clearly has the earmarks of an ISIL-related bombing, much as the bombings in the Sinai, in Beirut, and the attacks in Paris. So it is very critical that we take this seriously because we are not only seeing ISIL extend their field of battle beyond Syria and Iraq; we are seeing them engage in one-off or rogue terrorist activities around the globe.

The U.S. is at war with ISIL, and we have been at war since August 8, 2014. We are in the 17th month of that war. We have spent billions of dollars, we have deployed thousands of troops, and we have seen both American hostages and servicemembers killed in this war. But as I hand it back to my colleague, I will conclude and say that Congress has been strangely silent during this war. It is Congress under article I that should declare war, and yet we have not been willing to have a debate and vote--even as we are deploying people, even as Americans are being killed, even as we are spending billions of taxpayer dollars. The only vote that has taken place in this body on the war directly on the authorization question was in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in December of 2014. It was a vote to move forward to an authorization. But when it came to the floor, it got no action.

I am reminded of the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats, who talked about a time where ``the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.'' We see every day efforts that ISIL is, at worst, filled with passionate intensity. I believe America is the best. I believe Congress should be the best. Yet we have been strangely silent and have lacked conviction in the face of an enemy that is dangerous and threatens us abroad and at home.

With that, I hand it back to my colleague, the Senator from Delaware.

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