Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Thank you, Mr. President.

I appreciate the comments of Chairman Corker, and I appreciate the two punch lines of the Senator from Kansas to his argument that I am strongly in support of. The first is that this is a very momentous topic, and there are many, many questions about an ultimate deal that we have to grapple with. Second, it is so much of the moment that the congressional sanctions themselves are so wrapped up in the discussion that Congress must have a role to fulfill our constitutional obligation and to actually do what we essentially set in motion by passing the congressional sanctions. We must have a role.

So to the chairman and to all who are supporting the bill, I think we have got it in a good place on the floor, and I am proud to be a strong supporter of it.

The only issue on which I would offer a slightly different take than the Senator from Kansas is this. I think by all objective standards, the negotiations to this point have produced a status quo that has been better than where we were before the negotiations. If you think back to before November 2013, Iran--although under punishing sanctions--was moving forward in a very dramatic way to build up an architecture. While the sanctions were hurting the Iranian economy, there was some argument that it was not slowing down their nuclear program. It was accelerating it because they were feeling isolated.

Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel appeared before the United Nations and gave a very famous speech in which he talked about the stockpile of uranium that was enriched to a 20-percent level. We drew a bomb and showed a level of enrichment that was getting to an extremely dangerous place. That is where we were before President Obama started these negotiations with the P5+1 in November 2013.

At the time the negotiations were started, there were some who said they were misguided or a historic mistake or a giveaway. But, by now, virtually all--even those who were skeptical at the beginning--would acknowledge that the negotiations have actually led to a status quo significantly better than before November 2013. The 20-percent enriched uranium stockpile Iran had has been rolled back to a 5-percent enrichment level. Many of the centrifuges and facilities where nuclear weapons and nuclear activities were occurring have either been disabled or in some way have been reconfigured so that they are not continuing to produce more material that would cause significant concern. Since November 2013 the international community has been able to achieve significantly greater inspections of the Iranian nuclear activity than they had before.

So while we still have significant questions about an ultimate deal and Congress's role, we have a much better handle on their program. They have rolled back that program to a significant degree, and even skeptics of the original deal acknowledge that. I do think that is important to mention.

Congress needs to fulfill its article I powers, but we also need to have the President do the diplomacy that article II allows him to do.

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