Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Air Plan Approval; South Dakota;
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to speak with other colleagues about my War Powers Resolution, a bipartisan resolution cosponsored by Senators Paul, Schumer, and Schiff that will be called up for a vote tomorrow. A number of Senators will speak in this block, most in support of my resolution. I know at least one Senator, my colleague from South Carolina, is scheduled to come speak in opposition.
I spoke at length last night about sort of what I view the big picture of this--and I don't intend to speak very long. It is better now to let others have a chance to speak. But what I wanted to focus on, just briefly, was the fact that we did have a briefing by administration officials in the SCIF this morning, the classified setting, and I am not at liberty to discuss the matters in that setting.
I will say what I said last night. I think it is important on matters of this importance, especially war, when 200 combatants have been killed--and that number is climbing--when U.S. troops have been injured--two still in the hospital--when U.S. assets are arrayed around Venezuela, and when there is now a commitment for the United States to essentially manage and control the Venezuelan economy and even civil governmental services for some significant time, I think it is time for us to get this debate out of the SCIF and into the public.
So I am hoping that the Senate committees with jurisdiction, including the Armed Services Committee, on which I sit, the Foreign Relations Committee, and to the extent this was a law enforcement operation, the Judiciary Committee, will finally start to have the first public hearings where administration officials can be questioned in full view of the public so that the American public knows what is at stake.
I will say one additional thing. I made my Democratic caucus mad early on when I came to the Senate because I challenged President Obama in 2013, his proposed use of the U.S. military in Syria to punish a bad dictator, Bashar Assad, for using chemical weapons against civilians.
Now, he was a President of my own party and Bashar Assad was a horrible dictator. But despite that, I challenged President Obama's ability to act and deploy U.S. military against Assad, even to punish Assad for bad behavior, without Congress.
I remember the first time I really got shouted out in a Democratic caucus meeting, it was standing against President Obama's ability to do that unilaterally without us.
I tried to maintain that consistent standard under President Obama and then President Trump, term one, President Biden, and President Trump, term two.
Even in an instance--even in an instance--where military action may be a good idea--and I might have voted for use of military action to punish Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons--it should not be done on a Presidential say-so without a vote of Congress.
So the vote tomorrow on the War Powers Resolution is not about whether we like Nicolas Maduro, whether he is a good guy. He is a bad guy. He is a dictator. He has wreaked havoc on Venezuela's economy and on human rights within Venezuela.
It is, instead, whether the United States should engage in military action against Venezuela on a Presidential say-so without a vote of Congress. I believe the Constitution is clear, and I believe the equities, in terms of the respect we owe to our troops, if we are going deploy them, gives life to the constitutional provision and really explains why it is there.
The last thing I will say before I yield to my colleague from Kentucky is one of the arguments that is being made--and this is not out of the classified setting because it is being made publicly by the administration--is this was not a military action; it was a law enforcement operation.
I think that argument is specious. I think it is--it kind of doesn't really pass the laugh test. Now, it might be an argument you would make if there were a covert operation to go into Venezuela in the dead of night and extract an indicted criminal, Nicolas Maduro--not a criminal until he is prosecuted but an indicted person--to bring back to the United States and face justice.
If it were just the execution of an arrest, you might make the argument, maybe that is just law enforcement. And you might make it even if the military was somewhat needed to carry out the arrest warrant.
This is far different than that. The boat strikes against Venezuelans in international waters, the amassing of 20 percent of the American Navy around Venezuela, the use of 150 aircraft deployed from 20 bases throughout the Western Hemisphere to carry out this operation, the arrest and deposition of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, but then also the U.S. decision to occupy and control the Venezuelan economy, its oil reserves, the indication from the administration that this is not a few days or a few weeks; it is likely a few years of U.S. occupation and involvement in this country with a military blockade stopping commerce into and out of Venezuela--this is not an arrest warrant. This is far bigger than that, and it is the kind of hostilities that Congress specifically had in mind when they wrote the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
I urge my colleagues to cast a vote for their own relevance. Cast a vote for your own relevance by saying that power that the Constitution gives to Congress, that it is the only body that should declare war. If you vote for me tomorrow, you reserve your right to vote for war, if you think it is a bad idea or a good idea.
But if you vote for the resolution, all you are voting for is the proposition that the Nation should not be at war with an end run around you but should only be at war if you have had the opportunity to debate and vote and put our thumbprint on the validity of the mission, and your thumbprint should be necessary if we are going to send our troops into harm's way to potentially be injured or killed.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source