Amendment to Montreal Protocol (``Kigali Amendment'')

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to seek consent to advance the nomination of a Virginian and friend, Leopoldo Martinez, to be Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank. The IDB is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a critical part of the ability of the United States to engage diplomatically with our American partners to counter a growing influence of Russia and China and Iran and other nations in the Americas. And it is very much in the national interest of the United States to build up economic prosperity of countries in the Western Hemisphere.

We have seen over and over that when countries have troubled economies, it is not a distant or faraway problem. It drives government corruption; it drives organized crime; it drives drug abuse and drug trafficking. And then it expands migration that could start as a country's problems but very quickly become our country's problems as well. When we don't step up, we see that other nations--China and Russia, in particular--in the Americas fill the vacuum.

As Latin America and the Caribbean countries continue to face challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic--where the region has had the highest global per capita infection and death rates in the world and is experiencing the largest economic contraction of any region in the world--the IDB has a key role to play in improving economic outcomes for the region.

But the problem is the IDB is without an executive director. It is without leadership confirmed by the Senate at this critical moment in time.

Leopoldo Martinez brings decades of experience in the public and private sectors, as well as academia. He has extensive experience advising Fortune 500 companies, private equity funds, international businesses, and nongovernmental organizations. He is the CEO for the Center for Democracy and Development of the Americas, as well as a commissioner for small business in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is on the board of one of our public universities, the University of Mary Washington.

And as I have said, he is not just a constituent; he is also a friend. And in all respect, he is outstandingly qualified for this position.

Now, I understand that there are differences of opinion in the Senate about the success, or lack thereof, about the Biden administration's policies in Latin America. Earlier this week or late last week, some of my Republicans challenged the Biden administration as being too soft on corruption issues in the Americas.

I was asked about my Republican colleagues' critiques, and I would say: Well, I got a critique, too. I wouldn't say they are too soft, but I would say they are too inattentive. I don't think we have, under this administration or the previous administration or the previous administration--going back nearly to the beginning of this country, I don't think we paid the attention to the Americas that we should.

And when we only pay episodic attention to the Americas, a lot of bad things happen in Western Hemisphere countries that end up making things worse for us. But if there is a critique to be laid against the Biden administration, or any administration in the Americas, we don't solve the critique by leaving key positions vacant that could be used to strengthen our activities in the hemisphere.

I understand that some of my colleagues have objected--and this was raised in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--to some, frankly, partisan tweets--some annoying and nasty tweets--that my friend Leo Martinez put on his social media accounts.

I want to say to pages: You might want to think about this now because in 10 or 30 years when you are running for the Senate or you are up for a position that is a Senate-confirmed position, anything you tweet is going to be held against you.

But I do think they have to be put into context. My friend Mr. Martinez is a Democrat. And no surprise, he is being nominated by a Democratic administration. He has let his tongue race ahead of his brain on a couple of occasions. But I think all 100 of us have seen this pretty often in the last 10 years, and we have learned to apply a little bit of a discounting to it.

I have voted for many Trump administration nominees who had some negative tweets and even said negative things about me. I didn't like them and I wouldn't have nominated them, but I would acknowledge that they are qualified for the job. And I believe that Mr. Martinez is more than that.

Finally, I want to speak, in particular, to my colleague from Texas, who is here. My colleague from Texas serves with me on the Foreign Relations Committee. I believe I am going to be accurate about this, but I will be corrected if I get any details wrong. He asked Mr. Martinez in some written questions about working together with faith- based organizations in his role in the IDB should he be confirmed because throughout the region and throughout the world, sometimes faith-based organizations are some of the most effective in, for example, providing humanitarian aid, working with refugees, et cetera.

The initial responses from Mr. Martinez, I believe, were not satisfactory to my colleague, and maybe other colleagues as well, but I do believe that Mr. Martinez has tried to amplify those and meet and discuss this issue.

I worked as a missionary in Honduras. I know very powerfully the role that religious organizations do in the region. I know how important it is for us, whether it is USAID or State Department or IDP, to work in tandem with some of these faith-based organizations who do such a powerful job. And everything I know about my friend Mr. Martinez suggests that he would see the value of those partnerships as well.

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Mr. KAINE. Madam President, just a brief response. I will not respond to Senator Cruz's representation of Mr. Martinez's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has his opinion about what those words mean, and I think he quoted them accurately. But I would just say for anyone, you can go and look at that quote and decide for yourself whether you think that was a statement that was hostile to faith or whether that was a statement by a bank or business guy financier about what he thought were the most important issues that an international development bank should be focused on.

I read those same comments as not hostile or antipathetic to faith; I view them as comments of an individual who has been in the finance industry who knows what the remit of the international development bank is and is talking about his own priorities in terms of how that bank should program their work.

But I do want to respond to the first point. Senator Cruz is correct about Mr. Martinez's past. He grew up in Venezuela. He was initially in a government that apparently had a lot of promise to offer to Venezuelans because Mr. Chavez was elected by Venezuelans in a democratic election overwhelmingly. But my colleague didn't tell you the rest of the story.

Mr. Martinez is now a political exile from Venezuela who was part of the Venezuelan opposition, who has been strong in critiquing the human rights' record of both the Chavez and Maduro regimes, and I think that is actually one of the reasons that President Biden nominated him for this position. If anyone knows the danger of authoritarian governments, including authoritarian governments from the left in the Americas, and knows what it will take for America to counter that with smart strategies, it is somebody who grew up in that culture and came to realize the dangerous path that his country was on.

I think whoever is the IDB President is going to have an awful lot of work to do, but the single largest challenge in the Americas right now, at least in terms of pushing refugees out of the country, is in Venezuela. And who better than someone who knows it firsthand and, after seeing it, decided to become a dedicated member of the Venezuelan opposition in exile in the United States--who better to counter that influence?

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