Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act of 2007

Floor Speech

CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - June 21, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

CRISIS IN DARFUR

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, for the last several months, I have come to the floor on a weekly--a regular basis--to remind my colleagues about the crisis in Darfur. I would like to highlight two recent developments. Last week, the regime in Sudan finally agreed, after months of international pressure, to accept a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force for the Darfur region.

If my colleagues will recall, this is a region where our Government has declared a genocide. We know at least 200,000 people, maybe 400,000 people, have been brutally murdered, over 1 million have been displaced, and the killing and displacement, the raping and the pillaging continues.

For years after the declaration of this genocide, many people around the world have lamented this tragic state of affairs, but so little has been done. We have tried through the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force to protect innocent people from the jingaweit militia force that is killing on a wanton basis, but we have been unsuccessful. There has been resistance from the Sudanese Government in Khartoum. Unfortunately, a lot of lip service has been made, but very little attention has been paid to resolving this issue.

Last week the Sudanese said they would accept a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force for that region. Well, the Government of Sudan has agreed to allow 17,000 to 19,000 troops. That is a good sign, or at least good words.

Let's not forget the Sudanese regime has agreed to similar plans in the past, only to renege on its promises and allow the suffering and killing to continue. It is critical at this moment in time that the Bush administration and our allies continue to pressure the Sudanese to take actions beyond their words. Darfur has been on the agenda for the European Union summit this week, and the Chinese Government made positive statements as well. I encourage the Bush administration to keep pressuring all of our allies and the United Nations to act.

Next week there is a prime opportunity. Secretary of State Rice has just announced plans to attend an international meeting in France that will focus on the crisis in Darfur. Representatives from the Chinese Government and other places have committed to join her. I urge the Bush administration to use this opportunity to ensure that the global community continues to act on this crisis and to fully support the rapid and full deployment of U.N. forces to Darfur. Only a unified message from the international community will succeed in convincing the Sudanese Government to meet its obligations. Only then will the crisis begin to come to an end. This crisis must end immediately.

I have said on this floor many times that as a young college student, I found it hard to understand how the Holocaust could occur and people would know of it and not try to stop it. Now I understand. This genocide in Darfur was declared by our Government years ago and little or nothing has been done.

Last week, the United Nations World Food Programme did launch a highly complex operation to try to bring in emergency food supplies to the over 2,600 refugees from Darfur who recently crossed into the remote northeast corner of the Central African Republic. The Director of the World Food Programme and the Central African Republic, Jean-Charles Dei, said the following:

These people are in one of the least accessible regions in the world, but they need help now. This is just the latest example of how the conflict in Darfur has a destabilizing effect across the region.

It is certainly positive that food is on the way to these starving refugees, but the need for this airlift is symbolic of how bad the crisis has become and how destabilizing the situation is becoming for the whole region.

The United States and civilized nations around the world who acknowledge this genocide and this humanitarian disaster must act.

What can we do in the Senate? As a start, we can pass the Sudan Disclosure and Enforcement Act. I introduced it 2 weeks ago with bipartisan support, and after consultation with the Bush administration. The act provides the administration and all Americans with more resources and information so that we can use our investments as individuals and as institutions to strike a nonviolent blow for peace in Darfur. It creates real financial consequences for those companies that bear some complicity in the bloodshed by supporting the murderous Sudanese regime of Khartoum. Most important, it requires members of the administration and the relevant congressional committees to meet in about 3 months' time to reassess the steps that are being taken to end the crisis and decide what we should do beyond them.

To repeat what the bill does for the benefit of my colleagues who are considering supporting it, here is a summary.

First, it expresses the sense of the Congress that the international community should continue to bring pressure against the Government of Sudan to convince that region that the world will not allow this crisis to continue.

Second, it authorizes greater resources for the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the Department of Treasury to strengthen its capabilities of tracking Sudanese economic activity and pursuing sanctions violations.

Third, it requires more detailed SEC disclosures by U.S.-listed companies that operate in the Sudanese petroleum sector so that investors can make informed decisions regarding divestment from these companies.

I might add that during the course of researching this issue, I learned that my own company that I have had my family mutual fund investments with
for 20 years sadly was one of the largest--it was a company with one of the largest holdings in Petrochina, the Chinese oil company whose parent company does the most business in Sudan. I contacted this major company, asked them if they were going to change their policy, and they said no. I then removed my investments from that company. I am in the process of making sure they are all transferred to another company. It is a small thing, and it probably won't make a big difference to anyone, but I feel better that at least I am trying to do a small part--and I hope others will too--to ask important questions, whether your brokerage house, your mutual fund has holdings in Petrochina, which is this Chinese oil company whose parent is the major oil company in Sudan whose revenues support this Government.

Fourth, this bill dramatically increases civil and criminal penalties for violating American economic sanctions to create a true deterrent against transacting with barred Sudanese companies.

Fifth, it requires the administration to report on the effectiveness of current sanctions and recommend additional steps to Congress to end the crisis.

I look forward to working with Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut, the chairman of the Banking Committee, to send this to the President for his signature.

I will repeat again what President Bush said in April:

You who have survived evil know that the only way to defeat it is to look it in the face and not back down. It is evil we are now seeing in Sudan--

President Bush said-- and we're not going to back down.

I completely agree with President Bush's remarks. The African Union and the United Nations forces should be on the way soon, but we still must do more. Every Member of Congress and everyone interested in doing something meaningful to end this genocide must take action and not allow this to continue.

The President once said he didn't want the moral burden of this genocide on his conscience, on his watch. The President's watch is coming to a close. It is time for those of conscience and those who care not only in our Government, but around the world, to act to spare those who are victims of this genocide in Darfur.

I yield the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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