Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I think my colleagues have made an excellent point today in outlining all the details of how this program works. Let me back up and point out why we are even having this debate, other than the fact that it is expiring. It is because the perception has been created--including by political figures who serve in this Chamber--that the U.S. Government is listening to your phone calls or going through your bills as a matter of course. That is absolutely categorically false.

The next time that any politician--Senator, Congressman--talking head, whoever it may be, stands up and says ``The U.S. Government is listening to your phone calls or going through your phone records,'' they are lying. It is not true, except for some very isolated instances--in the hundreds--of individuals for whom there is reasonable suspicion that they could have links to terrorism.

Those of us in this culture in our society are often accused of having a short attention span. We forget that less than a year ago, Russian separatists shot down a commercial airliner armed by the Russians. Maybe even the Russians themselves did it. We forget that it was not long ago that Assad was using chemical weapons to slaughter people in Syria. The world moves on.

What we should never forget is what happened here on the 11th of September of the year 2001. There are a number of seminal moments in American history that people always remember. They remember when President Kennedy was assassinated. Everyone in this room remembers where they were and what they were doing on that morning of the 11th of September of the year 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked and the subsequent attacks happened.

Here is the truth. If this program had existed before 9/11, it is quite possible we would have known that 9/11 hijacker Khalid Al Mihdhar was living in San Diego and was making phone calls to an Al Qaeda safe house in Yemen. There is no guarantee we would have known. There is no way we can go back in time and prove it. But there is a probability we would have; therefore, there is a probability American lives could have been saved.

This program works as follows: If the intelligence agencies of the United States believe there is an individual who is involved in terrorist activity--a reasonable belief--and that individual might be communicating with people as part of a plot, they have to get an order that allows them access to their phone bill. The phone bill basically tells you when they called, what number they called, and how long the call was. Why does that matter? Because if I know that subject X is an individual who is involved in terrorism, of course I want to know whom they are calling. I would not be as interested in the calls to Pizza Hut or the local pharmacy, but I would be interested in calls overseas or calls to other people because they could be part of the plot as well. That is why this is such a valuable tool.

My colleagues have already pointed out that if the IRS wants your phone bill, they just have to issue a subpoena. If virtually every agency--any agency of American Government--if your local police department wants your phone bill--in fact, if you are involved in a proceeding in a civil litigation and they want access to your phone bill because it is relevant to the case, they can just get a subpoena. It is part of the record. The intelligence agencies actually have to go through a number of hoops and hurdles, and that is fine. That is appropriate because these are very powerful agencies.

I will further add that the people who are raising hysteria--what is the problem we are solving here? There is not one single documented case, not one single documented case--there is not one single case that has been brought to us as an example of how this program is being abused. Show me the story. Give the name to the world. Show us who this individual is who is going out there and seizing the phone records of Americans improperly.

There is not one example of that--not one. And if there is, that individual should be fired, prosecuted, and put in jail. The solution is not to get rid of a program at a time when we know the risk of homegrown violent extremism is the highest it has ever been.

We used to be worried about a foreigner coming to the United States and carrying out an attack, and then we were worried about an American traveling abroad and coming back and carrying out an attack. Now we are worried about people who may never leave here, who are radicalized online and carry out an attack.

This is not theoretical. Just last weekend two individuals who were inspired by ISIS tried to carry out an attack in the State of Texas. One day--I hope that I am wrong--there will be an attack that is successful. The first question out of everyone's mouth will be: Why didn't we know about it? And the answer better not be because this Congress failed to authorize a program that might have helped us know about it. These people are not playing games. They don't go on these Web sites and say the things they say for purposes of aggrandizement. This is a serious threat, and I hope we reauthorize this bill.

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor to speak about the risk Iran poses to the world as a result of the legislation before the Senate at this moment.

A lot has been talked about in the media over the last months--years, quite frankly--about the notion we are going to work out a deal with Iran that will prevent war. Sadly, I believe the direction the deal is headed almost guarantees war at some point, certainly in our lifetime, but maybe before the end of the decade.

Let me back up and first describe the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that Iran, run by a radical Shia cleric--its government, I should say. Its people perhaps don't partake in this thought process, but its government whose head and supreme decisionmaker is a radical Shia cleric has made two decisions: The first is they feel it is their obligation to export their Islamic revolution everywhere in the world, and of course it begins with the Middle East; two, they have decided they want to become the hegemonic power in the region. They want to become the dominant nation, the dominant movement in the Middle East and in that entire region.

So how do you achieve that? First, it requires you to drive the Americans out of the area, which is why we have seen them invest in all sorts of asymmetrical capabilities, such as these small little swarm boats they sometimes use to harass U.S. naval vessels. That is why we saw them just a week ago basically hijack a commercial vessel in international waters.

The second thing they do is they sponsor terrorism. They have all these proxy groups in all these countries in the region doing their bidding. That is also asymmetrical warfare--asymmetrical meaning it is not frontal. It is using some nontraditional method to expand or to show their power. They use groups such as Hezbollah or the Houthis they are now involved with in Yemen and other parts of the world.

The threat is, if you attack Iran, these terrorist groups will attack you. In fact, we have seen the hand of the Iranian Government in terrorist attacks. For example, we saw an attempt to assassinate the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia here in Washington, DC. We know that in 1994 there was a bombing in Buenos Aires linked to Iran. So they sponsor terrorism.

The third aspect of their desire to become the hegemonic regional power is a nuclear weapon. What do you need to acquire a nuclear weapon? You need three things: The first thing you need is a bomb design. The truth is you can buy a bomb design. The second thing you need is a delivery system, an ability to deliver the weapon whether it is on an airplane or on a missile.

That is why Iran is developing long-range rockets. They are expending a lot of money--despite all the sanctions on them, they are expending a lot of money to build these long-range rockets. That isn't for some fancy fireworks show or to put a man on the Moon. They are building these long-range rockets because they understand that is the second critical component of a nuclear weapons program.

The third thing is you have to be able to get your hands on enriched uranium or reprocessed plutonium. No one in the world is going to import to them weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, so they have decided to build the infrastructure to do it themselves, and they do it the way North Korea did it. They do it the way other nations have done it when they tried to hide their programs. They do it by claiming they have a peaceful nuclear program they are trying to build. In essence, their argument is we don't want to build a weapon. We are just trying to build a nuclear reactor so we can provide electricity.

That argument makes no sense for two reasons: The first reason is this is an oil-rich country. They do not really need nuclear energy in order to provide cost-effective energy for their country, and the other reason is it costs so much money to build the equipment to enrich and reprocess, they could just buy it already reprocessed or enriched. They could bring it into the country the way South Korea does and the way other nations do.

So if it would be cheaper to bring these things in by simply importing it, as opposed to spending all this money enriching and reprocessing it themselves, why are they spending all this money on the infrastructure? The answer is because, at some point in the future, they know they are going to want a nuclear weapon. Now, perhaps they haven't made the decision they need it today, next week or next year, but they certainly, at a minimum, want to have the option to be a threshold nuclear power.

I believe, knowing everything we know about them--both open source and classified--that whether they have decided to build a nuclear weapon or not, they will decide to build a nuclear weapon because it provides for them the sort of regime stability they crave.

The radical Shia cleric who heads that country looks at North Korea and he looks at Libya and he says: Libya is what happens when you don't have a nuclear capability. North Korea is what happens when you do. Muammar Qadhafi is dead and out of power, but North Korea is still run by that madman. Why? Because he has a nuclear weapon. You can't invade him or touch him because of what he will do in response.

I think they are guided by that principle. They are guided by the principle that they want to be the regional hegemonic power and nuclear weapons gives them that role. They are guided by a third equally sinister motivation; that is, the open and repeatedly stated desire to destroy the State of Israel, to wipe it of the face of the Earth. They haven't said this once in passing, the Supreme Leader of Iran has said this on hundreds of occasions.

In fact, every Friday in Iran, at government-sanctioned religious events, they chant ``Death to America'' and ``Death to Israel.'' If there is one lesson in history, it is that when a nation or leader repeatedly says that we are going to kill you, you should take that seriously. When the nation that says we are going to kill you is using its governmental money to sponsor terrorism, you should take that even more seriously. When the nation that is going out saying we are going to kill you and wipe you off the face of the Earth is reprocessing plutonium or enriching uranium, you have a right to be extremely scared.

The world understood this 8 years ago, 10 years ago, so it imposed U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran--international sanctions. They were not easy to put together. A lot of countries in Europe had companies in those countries that were dying to do business in Iran. They didn't want these sanctions, but they did it. They were put in place. Then, about a year and a half or two ago, the President decided it was time to try to open up to Iran and try to work out a deal with them.

Look, in normal circumstances, there is nothing wrong with that; right? Two countries that have a disagreement on some issues can work things out. There is a place for diplomacy in the would. The problem is the issue we have with Iran is not based on a grievance. They are not mad we did something and so that is why they are acquiring a nuclear weapon and if only we stopped doing what it is that aggrieved them they would go away. This is not a grievance-based problem. This is an ideological problem.

If you read the founding documents of the Islamic Republic, it doesn't describe the Supreme Leader as the leader of Iran. Iran happens to be the country from which they operate. It describes him as the Supreme Leader of all Muslims in the world. That is why they believe it is their mandate, it is their calling to export their revolution to every corner of the planet but beginning in the Middle East, and the nuclear weapons capability would give them leverage in carrying out the goal they have. In their mind, nothing would be more glorious than the destruction of the Jewish State.

So the President enters these negotiations, and it has been a process of constant appeasement, moment after moment. We went from saying no enriching or reprocessing, to you can enrich and reprocess at 5 percent, to you can enrich up to 20 percent for research purposes. We went from saying no enrichment ever to saying in 10 or 15 years all bets are off.

There are still items in the negotiations that are not clear. The White House put out a fact sheet, a piece of paper, and it said this is what we agreed to. Iran put out a piece of paper just like it except it sounded like a totally different deal.

For example, the U.S. fact sheet said sanctions on Iran would not come off until Iran complied, but Iran's fact sheet said no, no, sanctions come off immediately. Now, when you press the White House on it, they refuse to say that, in fact, it will be phased in and not immediate.

That is why I filed an amendment. Even though I thought the President's deal as outlined in the fact sheet was not good enough, I filed an amendment to at least hold them to that. The amendment to this bill read very simply. It just said that whatever deal the President crafts has to reflect the fact sheet he provided the Senate, but we couldn't get a vote on it.

The other amendment I filed is that any deal with Iran should be conditioned on Iran recognizing Israel's right to exist, and here is why that was so important. That was important because this is not just about the nuclear program. The deal the President is trying to sign is about removing sanctions, meaning money is now going to flow back into the Iranian Government's coffers. What are they going to do with this money? Are they going to build roads, hospitals, donate it to charity? No. Are they going to buy food and medicine for people hurting around the world, the hundreds of thousands who have been displaced by Assad, their puppet? No. They will use that money to sponsor terrorism, and the prime target of the terrorism they sponsor is the State of Israel.

We couldn't get a vote on that amendment either. Apparently, there are Senators terrified of voting against that amendment, so they would rather not have a vote at all.

So I am deeply disappointed by the direction this debate has taken because I felt--and I understand this deal was carefully crafted because I am on the committee that passed it, but I also understand that every Member of the Senate has a right to be heard in this debate. Unfortunately, only a couple of amendments were allowed to be voted on, with no one else having an opportunity to get their amendments voted on, amendments I thought would make this bill much more meaningful.

Now we have reached this point where the majority leader has filed cloture on the bill because it is time to move on to these other issues, and I respect that. We now have to make a decision. The decision is not whether we are going to pass the bill we want or nothing at all, the decision is are we better off as a country with this bill or with no bill.

If we don't pass a bill, the Senate can still weigh in on the Iranian deal, but the Iranian deal kicks in immediately, and unless and until the Senate acts, the sanctions will be off. At least the U.S. sanctions will be off. There is also no guarantee the White House will even show us the agreement if we don't pass a bill.

If we pass a bill, it delays the sanctions being lifted for a period of time. It requires the White House to submit the deal to us so we can review it, and ultimately it calls for a vote--up or down--on approving the deal or not. It actually requires that the vote will have to happen, and there can't be any procedural process to impede it, for the most part.

So at the end of the day, while this bill does not contain the amendments--we didn't even get a vote on the amendments we wanted--it doesn't contain the different aspects I thought would make it stronger, if left with the choice we have now, I don't think there is any doubt we are in a better position if this bill passes because, at a minimum, it at least creates a process whereby the American people, through their elected representatives, can debate an issue of extraordinary importance.

If I am troubled by anything, it is that while this issue gets a lot of coverage, I am not sure the coverage accurately reflects what a critical moment this is. I said at the outset that I think a bad deal almost guarantees war, and here is why. Because the State of Israel--such an important ally to the United States--is not thousands of miles away from Iran. Put yourself in their position for a moment. This small country, with a small population, 9 miles wide at its narrowest point--with a neighbor to the north that openly and repeatedly says it wants to destroy them and is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear capability--feels like their very existence is being threatened. Faced with that, Israel may very well take military action on their own to protect themselves. I think a bad deal exponentially increases the likelihood of that happening.

I also think we look at the other nations of the region, because Iran is a Shia country--a Shia Persian country--but its Sunni Arab neighbors aren't big fans of the Shia branch of Islam.

For example, Saudi Arabia, an incredibly wealthy country, has already said: Whatever Iran gets, we are going to get. If Iran gets the right to enrich and reprocess, we will enrich and reprocess. If Iran builds a weapon, we will build a weapon. And so it creates the very real specter that we will have an arms race--a nuclear arms race--in the Middle East. We are talking about a region of the world that has been unstable for 3,800 years.

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Mr. RUBIO. We are talking about a region of the world that could have a nuclear arms race--one of the most unstable regions of the planet.

So I hope we are going to get a good deal. I am not hopeful that we will. But I think we are better off if we have this process in place. So I hope this bill passes here today so that at least we will have a chance to weigh in on an issue of critical importance.

I yield the floor

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