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

Floor Speech

Let me start by expressing agreement with my friend from Virginia on two points he just raised: No. 1, his very good advice to the pages here and to any Senate staff that might be listening. The best thing to do probably is do not tweet. But if you must tweet--and I am guilty of that offense myself--remember that your tweets can and will be used against you; that the internet is forever. And as the father of daughters, I sometimes am terrified of what our children will say and to see it come back to haunt them years and decades later.

And the second thing my friend from Virginia said that I also agree with is he said, administrations from both parties have neglected the Americas. I think that is a serious problem. I am a strong believer in the Monroe Doctrine. I think the United States of America has a pivotal leadership responsibility in North America and in South America. And I think under both Republican and Democrat administrations, too often the executive branch has neglected the vital role of Central America, of South America, of our friends throughout the Americas. I think that problem has been exacerbated under the Biden administration because under the Biden administration, not only have they neglected the hemisphere, but what little attention they have given has had the effect of elevating the extreme left in Latin America--elevating socialists, elevating Marxists, elevating terrorists, and elevating enemies of America.

We see this tragically in the recent election in Colombia, where a strong friend and ally of America is now led by someone who had been a hard-left active terrorist, and I believe the Biden administration's actions, including delisting multiple terrorists from our official terrorism list, played a role in elevating an anti-American leftist in Colombia.

Well, how does that relate to this nomination? I rise to express very significant concerns with the nomination of Mr. Martinez Nucete.

For one thing, at the outset, Mr. Martinez Nucete is a man of the left--a man of the hard left. Now, the Senator from Virginia suggested that he may have sent an ill-advised tweet now and then, and that is true, but that is not the basis of my opposition.

He has been a hard partisan his entire life, and even further than that--and this is really quite remarkable--Mr. Martinez Nucete was actually a Socialist congressman in Venezuela. Under Hugo Chavez, he was a member or his party was a member of Socialist International, and he was a man of the hard left, the anti-American hard left. Hugo Chavez was an unshakable enemy of America. Nicholas Maduro continues to be a brutal dictator, an illegitimate leader, and an enemy of America.

I believe President Biden nominating a fellow traveler, a Socialist congressman from Venezuela, for a major role dealing with Latin America is astonishingly ill-advised.

Secondly, Mr. Martinez Nucete has expressed an unusual--an odd-- hostility to and antipathy for people of faith. This is not something we have seen in many nominees, but his answers have been peculiar in this regard. It is particularly inappropriate for the job to which he has been nominated.

For example, here is what the World Bank says about their role:

The Bank recognizes--

This is speaking of faith-based organizations. --their distinct strategic value given their unique attributes, including the fact that more than 80 percent of the world's population claims religious affiliations. [Faith- based organizations] are found in every country and offer opportunities for partnership and advocacy on a broad range of key development issues.

It is not just the World Bank. Here is what USAID said:

Faith-based . . . organizations serve some of the most vulnerable populations in the world. They are often the first in and the last to leave, and [are] uniquely qualified to identify and meet local needs.

Indeed, here is what a study actually funded by the Inter-American Development Bank, where Martinez Nucete would be representing the United States, said, the IADB:

All institutions surveyed partnered with community groups and faith-based organizations to provide information.

Now, what are Mr. Martinez Nucete's views? Well, I asked him about them specifically when he came in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I asked him the extent to which he believed faith should be disentangled from development, because he had previously been quite vocal on his passions in that regard.

Here is his answer:

There should be no entanglement between government and religion. That is a bedrock constitutional principle for us in America. I don't think any particular culture or religion is superior to others in terms of achieving socioeconomic development.

Now, that answer was odd, and it was nonresponsive to the question I asked, so I asked more precisely for Mr. Martinez Nucete to describe the role that faith plays in economic development as a constraint and a contributing factor. And I remind you that these organizations repeatedly said faith-based organizations are integral to success in their mission.

Here is his answer:

Education and respect for human rights, promoting social mobility in market economies, is the key to development, not faith.

That is unusual. That degree of I think myopic hostility to faith and those with faith is odd in any nominee but particularly one who would be required to deal with faith-based organizations on a daily basis.

I raised these arguments in committee, and he was defeated in the committee. We had an even--a deadlocked vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee precisely because of his answers, and then after that, he came back and revised his answers. I would say his revised answers were terrific. Clearly, someone wrote them who apparently does not have a manifest hostility to people of faith. But there is no reason to believe that his first answers were not true and honest and a reflection of his views.

There was a time not too long ago where the U.S. Senate found bipartisan consensus on many issues, including a defense of religious liberty. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed this body; I believe the vote was 97 to 3. Numerous iconic, liberal Democrats voted for RFRA. President Bill Clinton signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law. Sadly, we are no longer in that era. Too many in the Democratic Party now have embraced a view that is hostile and antagonistic to people of faith, whether people of the Christian faith, people of the Jewish faith, or people of other faiths. I wish that were not the case.

Nevertheless, I believe it is inappropriate for the U.S. representative on a development board that is required to deal with faith-based organizations on a regular basis to be both an extreme man of the left who was a Socialist congressman under Hugo Chavez and an individual who has expressed repeated antipathy to people of faith.

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