Christopher Coons

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, if I might make an inquiry about the order. Senator Whitehouse and I were about to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. COONS. We were, indeed, the most persistently wet Senators in the entire country by the end of a very wet and very fulfilling day up and down the State of Delaware. With that, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. With that, Mr. President, I want to conclude by commenting that our day together began and ended with citizen science. The very first thing we did was to visit Delaware's national park to participate in a bio blitz, where volunteers from all over the country were identifying species and categorizing the threats to them from climate change. The very last thing we did was to count horseshoe crabs along the Cape Henlopen shore. I must say that my colleague from Rhode Island, even though there was driving rain and there were difficult conditions, was passionate and determined to do everything we could to contribute to the counting effort of the horseshoe crabs that day. It was a terrific opportunity to see a State that is engaged in planning and preparation and to witness one of the most remarkable migrations across our globe. I want to express my gratitude to Senator Whitehouse for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. COONS. The Senator will yield for a question.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kimberly Knackstedt, a fellow in Senator Murray's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee office, be granted the privileges of the floor for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, on this exact date half a century ago, then-Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivered a powerful speech in Cape Town, South Africa, a nation that was then struggling through the cruel injustices of apartheid. It was the conclusion of a remarkable trip to South Africa in which Bobby Kennedy visited the Nobel Peace Prize- winning Chief Lutuli, visited Soweto, visited the University of Wits in Johannesburg, and spoke with students at the University of Cape Town. Last week I had the opportunity to help lead a congressional delegation to commemorate Bobby Kennedy's historic journey and his famous ``Ripples of Hope'' speech he delivered during his visit. The trip offered all of us an opportunity to reflect on the parallels between America's civil rights movement and South Africa's liberation struggle and to renew the conversation of reconciliation as both countries face legacies that remain both difficult and unresolved. More importantly, as South Africa and the United States face serious challenges to the very institutions that underpin and preserve our democracies, this trip served as a reminder that while our constitutional orders may be supported by courageous and principled leaders through critical moments in our history, nations don't endure because of a few charismatic and historic individuals, they endure because of institutions. I was honored to be joined on this trip by a bipartisan group of colleagues from the House of Representatives, including, most importantly, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who is a hero of America's own civil rights movement, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, and five others. There was also a ``Ripples of Hope'' delegation that traveled alongside us that included RFK's children, Kerry Kennedy and Rory Kennedy. Kerry is now president of the RFK Human Rights Foundation. There were more than a dozen members of the Kennedy family, of several generations, as well as the leaders and some members of the Faith in Politics Institute. It is Faith in Politics that annually organizes--under the leadership of Congressman John Lewis--the civil rights pilgrimage of Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, who retrace the steps of the famous Selma march, which he helped lead, as well as the pivotal events of both Montgomery and Birmingham at the height of the American civil rights movement. These three organizations--the Faith in Politics Institute, the RFK Foundation, and the congressional delegation--met up in South Africa. At the time of Bobby Kennedy's visit 50 years ago, South Africa was deep in the throes of apartheid, with a liberation movement that had been decapitated in the Liliesleaf raid of 1963 and pushed far underground. At that point, Black South Africans lived in fear, and their leaders were either imprisoned or in exile. The National Party and the South African security forces controlled nearly every state institution. As author Evan Thomas has described it, ``Nowhere was injustice more stark or the prospect for change bleaker than South Africa in 1966.'' RFK would later write about what he what called ``the dilemma of South Africa: a land of enormous promise and potential, aspiration and achievement--yet a land also of repression and sadness, darkness and cruelty'' as of 1966. To put it plainly and simply, apartheid was a brutal form of racial subjugation. In the midst of an environment in which White supremacy was codified by law and most anti-apartheid leaders and stalwarts were imprisoned or on the run, Bobby Kennedy was invited to give the University of Cape Town's Day of Affirmation address. Kennedy began his speech at Jameson Hall, describing ``a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; . . . a land which once [was] the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage.'' RFK then paused before concluding: ``I refer, of course, to the United States of America.'' As you listen to the audio recording of his speech, you can then hear a ripple of recognition and applause that Kennedy--who many thought was introducing his speech about South Africa--was instead recognizing remarkable parallels between our two nations. As Kennedy spoke to a large crowd who had waited in the cold for hours, he made it clear with his opening that he came not to preach to the people of South Africa from our supposed position of superiority due to the length of our democratic experiment but to share and to learn from our common legacies and challenges. Then and now, the differences between the United States and South Africa are profound and real. Yet Americans and South Africans do share more than we might widely recognize. We have similar stories to tell, and we have many lessons that we can and should learn from each other. Today, more than 20 years after the end of apartheid, South Africa's post-apartheid nonracial democracy is struggling to deliver on the promise of its ambitious founding principles and to transform its economy to generate opportunity for all its citizens. Meanwhile, here in the United States, we are mired in dysfunctional politics, and many Americans justifiably feel that we have failed to make even modest progress on the economic and social challenges we face. Our countries also share a deeply embedded history of racial discrimination and division from which we have not yet healed--a shared struggle exemplified by the fact that 50 years ago during Kennedy's trip to South Africa, American civil rights activist James Meredith was shot by a White gunman while marching for voting rights in Mississippi. We share complex histories of struggles balancing the role of violence and nonviolence in seeking justice and equality under the law. Today we share flawed criminal justice systems that disproportionately punish our citizens of color, and we share sadly imperfect education systems that don't do enough to support them. Today we also continue to share a struggle to find the most appropriate way to welcome and incorporate literally millions of undocumented immigrants and to prevent the tensions associated with xenophobia--something we have seen in the United States and we also heard about in South Africa last week. Yet, despite our common shortcomings, we share remarkable constitutions and inspiring foundational documents--South Africa's Freedom Charter and our own Declaration of Independence--whose soaring principles say powerful and inspiring things but whose lived experiences have so far fallen short. We share a powerful commitment to democracy framed by these strong original documents, respect for the rule of law, and capable and independent judiciaries--institutions created and sustained by the work of many over hundreds of years. We share a striking foundational moment: Our President George Washington and their President Nelson Mandela--both, as founding Presidents, stepped down from their offices willingly and set powerful precedents of respect for constitutions and term limits. We share the fact that we are deeply religious nations across all racial backgrounds and all income levels. Both South Africa and the United States have deep and long traditions of faith and religion which have powerfully influenced our public lives. These, of course, are traditions which were at times in the past twisted into justifications for prejudice and racial discrimination but which also served as guiding lights for the nonviolent efforts to achieve justice and reconciliation. If you think about it, these shared faith traditions have inspired some of our most powerful leaders. Congressman John Lewis, who was with us on this trip, was beaten, bloodied, and arrested 40 times in the streets of the South, fighting for equality in the South under the law. He led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. As the leader of the march on Selma in 1966, he encountered State troopers armed with guns, tear gas, and clubs wrapped in barbed wire as he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge and simply said, before the onslaught that later became known as Bloody Sunday, ``Let us pray.'' We all remember that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the most important leaders of our civil rights movement, the Baptist preacher and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who, when imprisoned in a Birmingham jail, wrote that ``human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God.'' Similarly, in South Africa some of their most important leaders were clergymen. One of the most moving moments for me in our trip was the chance to revisit a fellowship I have shared with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for whom I worked briefly 30 years ago. Tutu, the Anglican bishop who led the South African Council of Churches and fought for decades against apartheid, was lifted up and recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and many years later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom here in the United States. He ultimately chaired the post- apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which engaged in the very hard work of convening whole committees of both those who committed the atrocities of apartheid and their victims in a disciplined, constitutionally created, nationwide effort at reconciliation. It was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who wrote, ``Hate has no place in the house of God.'' In both the United States and South Africa, the language used to challenge unjust structures and actions of the government in civil society at the time were rooted in Biblically based questions of justice and righteousness. It made possible national conversations about forgiveness and reconciliation. Some of the most striking and powerful witnesses offered quietly on the sides of our journey were from two Americans who were participants in the faith and politics civil rights pilgrimage this year in Charleston, SC. They were survivors of the horrible events at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, a tragedy in which relatives and friends were savagely murdered during a Bible reflection prayer session. It was a tragedy from which two survivors, Felicia and Polly, traveled with us to South Africa last week, with the Kennedy delegation. It was many of those who survived that tragic event in Charleston, SC, who just a few days later, in confronting the gunman, were able and willing, out of the depths of their faith, to say publicly: We have no room for hate. We have to forgive. I will remind you that one thing that is most impressive about Congressman John Lewis from his own experience in our civil rights movement is his ability to reconcile and forgive. Decades after a member of the Ku Klux Klan beat John Lewis and many other Freedom Riders in the summer of 1961, the now U.S. Congressman John Lewis welcomed a Klansman who had actually beaten him decades before to his office here in Washington and said, as he has repeated many times on our civil rights pilgrimage, ``I accept your apology. I forgive you.'' One of the most striking aspects of Nelson Mandela's leadership as the first President of a truly free, nonracial South Africa was his capacity for forgiveness. Twenty years after he was released from prison--an imprisonment that lasted 27 years and robbed him of his opportunity to be a free man, to see his own children grow up, to be a contributing part of his society; an apartheid imprisonment that took away virtually his entire adult life--20 years after his release from prison, Mandela invited one of his former jailers to dinner at his own home, a man with whom he had become friends, saying that their friendship ``reinforced my belief in the essential humanity of even those who had kept me behind bars.'' Think about the depths of that forgiveness. As our own President Obama has put it, referring to Mandela by his familiar name, ``It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well.'' It is individuals such as John Lewis and Nelson Mandela who set the example of healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation that may ultimately allow us to move forward from our foundational sins of slavery and discrimination. And it is the powerful witness of those from South Carolina, from the Emanuel AME Church, who have challenged us anew, in an era of Black Lives Matter concerns and protests, to redouble our efforts to achieve real repentance by those who weigh violence against our racial minorities in the United States and those whose still need reconciliation and forgiveness. Last week our congressional delegation had a chance to break bread with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. We heard him discuss the vital importance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which allowed the people of South Africa to attempt to work together to move past the bitterness and hatred of apartheid. There is much work undone in South Africa today, as I referenced, but the transformational impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is beyond doubt in that it made it possible for both the perpetrators and the victims of apartheid to see each other face to face and to engage in many acts of contrition and reconciliation. We had a chance on our trip to South Africa to visit Liliesleaf Farm just outside of Johannesburg, which was the site where the leaders of the underground anti-apartheid movement--led by Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Andrew Mlangeni, the African National Congress--where all of those leaders were at one time picked up by the South African security police. This was in July of 1963. We had a chance to meet with and hear from many of the stalwarts of that stage of the struggle--from Walter Sisulu's son Max to Mlangni himself, now in his late eighties-- about their struggles following the raid and the Rivonia treason trials, after which there were life sentences imposed on many of those captured at Liliesleaf. We also visited Nelson Mandela's home in Soweto and his jail cell on Robben Island, where he served out 18 years of his very long sentence. We had a remarkable and moving tour of Robben Island, provided for us by Ahmed Kothrada, who goes by the casual name of ``Kathy,'' and who talked with us about his experience on Robben Island and about how they maintained discipline, how they were able to continue to work together to shore up each other's spirits as they coped with year after year of brutal conditions and hard prison labor. One of the most striking things for me was to hear from this man, Mr. Kothrada, the absence of bitterness, the absence of vitriol after his life, too, was marred by decades of imprisonment by the apartheid regime. It wasn't just members of our delegation who had an opportunity to learn from these conversations. There were also many South Africans who had the opportunity to hear from Congressman John Lewis, as he spoke passionately in several different settings, both in Johannesburg and in Cape Town, about his experience in our civil rights movement. It was uplifting to see him mobbed afterwards by young South Africans everywhere he went who wanted to meet with him, hear from him, take pictures with him, and reflect once again on the common and constructive legacies of our two nations. As we look back at 50 years, we see from the struggles of people like John Lewis and Nelson Mandela that while progress is possible, RFK's observation that ``humanity sometimes progresses very slowly indeed'' remains true, and humanity has much more work to do. Today, in South Africa, over half the Black population lives in poverty compared to less than 1 percent of the White population. Average annual household income is over $25,000 for White South Africans, yet barely $4,000 for Blacks. South Africa's unemployment rate is 7 percent for Whites and over 30 percent for Blacks, and it is much higher in the townships and for younger South Africans. Even when Black students make it to South Africa's universities, like the University of Cape Town, they are much less likely to graduate. I have many more statistics that I could cite, but by important measures, inequality between Whites and Blacks has actually increased since the end of apartheid in South Africa since 1994. These disparities are not unique to South Africa. A Pew Research Center study found that in 2013 in the United States, White households had a median net worth 13 times greater than that of our African- American households--the largest discrepancy in decades in our country. Our Department of Education recently found that compared to White students, Black students in America are far less likely to have access to preschool, advanced high school courses, are much more likely to be suspended, and are much less likely to complete college. These divides sadly extend to our legal system as well. On average, Black men in America receive sentences 20-percent longer than White men who commit identical crimes. The population of my home State of Delaware is 22 percent Black, yet two-thirds of our prison population is African American. Behind all these challenging and difficult statistics lies the very real challenge of how to be true to our foundational values and yet find a path forward that creates both growth and empowerment and opportunity and progress for the peoples of both of our countries. By any measure, we have more work to do. Echoing the words of Congressman Lewis, ``we have come a great distance . . . but we have a great distance farther to go.'' In that June 6 address 50 years ago, Bobby Kennedy described the plane that brought him to South Africa from which ``we could see no national boundaries, no vast gulfs or high walls dividing people from people.'' Today, globalization has proven that the boundaries between us and them--whether by race or religion, party or nationality--are indeed what RFK called them--illusions of differences. Still, we need to find the courage and the strength to tackle these problems, to not fall victim to the forces of apathy and complacency. We must find solutions that work for each country in its own context. Exactly 50 years ago today, Bobby Kennedy told South Africans: ``Few will have the greatness to bend history but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and then the total of all these acts will be written in the history of this generation.'' That, in some ways, was the enduring power of his best known quote from that speech, about how each man, each individual--man or woman--who stands up for an ideal acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice and sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. All those ripples in combination can form a wall of water that knocks down even the greatest of impediments to progress and justice, such as the walls of apartheid. It was these very ripples that sent forth hope to all South Africans in 1966, when Bobby Kennedy spoke. It was these ripples that sustained Mandela's struggle over decades and that prompted the son of an African immigrant to America to take his first steps towards a career in public service, a decision that ultimately brought him to our Presidency today. It was the same commitment to equality and justice that led me, 30 years ago, to travel to South Africa and work for the Council of Churches there, under the tutelage of both Reverend Paul Verryn and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was this same experience which was reflected in Bishop Tutu's ``Ubuntu,'' the distinctly South African idea that, as President Obama put it, we are all bound together in ways invisible to the eye but there is a oneness to humanity. I met a remarkable range of men and women, young and old, leaders of this generation and the last in South Africa in this past week, and I was reminded in all of our conversations--on Robben Island, at Liliesleaf, with young entrepreneurs in Soweto, with business leaders trying to grow the economy and create opportunity, with those from every background in South Africa--that all of these men and women have fought that fight, sending forth ripples of hope that brought the mighty walls of apartheid crashing down and built a more equal nation in its place 20 years ago. That has to continue to be part of this progress today and going forward. Bobby Kennedy's visit 50 years ago played a critical role in changing the tone and tempo of the anti-apartheid struggle at the time. Margaret Marshall, a student activist then in South Africa, recalled this from the time of his visit in 1966: The world seemed to ignore us . . . but Bobby Kennedy was different. He reminded us . . . that we were not alone. That we were part of a great and noble tradition, the reaffirmation of nobility and value in every human person. We all had felt alienated. It felt to me that what I was doing was small and meaningless. He put us back into the great sweep of history. Last week, speaking at that same university at which her father provided this vital infusion of optimism a half century ago, Kerry Kennedy told us these ripples of hope didn't have to come from governments or militaries or corporations. They can come from anyone, anywhere--from seemingly average people, just as was the case with Margaret Marshall five decades ago. Today, they come from us, from the citizens we represent across this Nation and the people struggling across South Africa to find together a better and brighter future. In the months and years to come, the United States and South Africa can and should look to each other for lessons and inspirations as we continue to work to heal the damage of racial injustice, to reverse the trends of economic inequality, and to protect our experiments in democracy. As South Africa prepares for upcoming municipal elections in August, and as we prepare for our own national elections in November, both nations are entering periods in our electoral history where our institutions of democracy and governance are being challenged. Today, South Africa is showing just how important to the sustainment of democracy it is to have not just charismatic, worldly, historical, or forgiving heads of state or individuals leading churches but also a very strong public protector, an independent judiciary, a vibrant media, and an engaged electorate. In America and South Africa, I believe our institutions will protect and preserve our democracies. These institutions must, of course, be inspired and led by courageous and principled individuals, like Senator Kennedy, like Congressman Lewis, like President Mandela. But nations don't endure because of individuals. Nations must endure because of strong institutions. Two months after he returned to the United States, Kennedy reflected on his speech of 50 years ago today, and said: I acknowledged the United States, like other countries, still had far to go to keep the promises of our Constitution. What was important . . . was that we were trying. In 1991, when President Mandela came here to speak, he told an American audience: ``I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.'' The people of the United States must keep trying to be true to our foundational values and documents, and the people of South Africa must as well. We must all keep on trying, as President Obama said, because ``action and ideas are not enough. No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions'' that will endure. We have a lot of trying left to do. From last week, I have concluded that we have much to learn from each other and much to teach the rest of the world. So let's rededicate ourselves, 50 years after Bobby Kennedy's speech gave hope to South Africa and the world, to facing these challenges together. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to draw attention to the pernicious and malign impact that the Iranian Government and its intrusion into Iraq and Syria are having on regional security, on the condition of people in those two countries, and on the stability and future of that whole region. Today, Iraq is riven by sectarian divides, confronted with the presence of barbaric ISIS terrorists in its north and west, and led by a tragically fragile government. Meanwhile, the oppression of the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has helped create a humanitarian crisis on the scale of nothing we have seen since the Second World War. Iran claims that it wants to be a legitimate, contributing member of the international community, but despite those claims, Iran has played and continues to play a major role in fomenting instability in Iraq and Syria and in exacerbating security, political, and military crises in both countries. Today, I wish to give just a brief overview of the tragedies of Iraq and Syria, explain Iran's destabilizing role in each country, and highlight a number of the steps I think the United States can take to counter Iran's dangerous influence. Let's begin with where we are today in Iraq. In recent months, Iraqi and coalition forces have reduced the territorial presence of ISIS in Iraq by roughly 40 percent. Since taking office in 2014, Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi has taken concrete steps to reduce corruption, to share power with Kurdish and Sunni leaders, and to form a competent, technocratic government that can deliver real results for the Iraqi people and reduce the many grievances that have forced Iraqis into the arms of extremists. Yet dangerous divides continue to paralyze the Abadi government, hindering Iraq's ability to fight ISIS and to defend against the terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds of people, 200 in the last week alone. As coalition forces retake land previously captured by ISIS, ISIS appears to be bringing its savage and barbaric tactics to the capital city of Baghdad in brutal attacks in recent days and in other attempts to stoke sectarianism and to distract the Abadi government from its efforts to retake the major city of Mosul. Sectarian divisions among the Iraqi people and within the government itself make political reconciliation and a coherent national military campaign against ISIS even more difficult. Syria, meanwhile, faces a nearly unimaginable humanitarian crisis. Since March of 2011, more than 400,000 Syrians have been killed and more than 1 million injured because the Assad regime has engaged in a murderous campaign against its own people in order to cling to power. Some estimates put the number of dead as high as half a million Syrians. Nearly 5 million Syrians have been forced out of their own country, with 6.5 million displaced internally and 13.5 million in need of humanitarian assistance. Even more tragically, a huge number of those Syrians have been unable to receive international aid or relief because the Assad regime blocks access to international aid organizations. Rather than playing a constructive role in this tortured, difficult region, such as by contributing more meaningfully to the anti-ISIS fight or by moderating conflicting factions, Iran continues to prop up the Assad regime. In fact, without Iran's help, I believe Assad would have likely fallen or come to the table to negotiate peace by now. Instead, Iran continues to foment instability, sectarian violence, and support terrorism. In Iraq, Iran continues to fund Shia militias who seek to capitalize upon and exacerbate tensions between Iraq's Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish populations. Iranian-backed Shia militias have pushed ISIS out of some areas, but rather than allowing Sunni civilians to peaceably return and rebuild, they have engaged in killings and human rights violations against the very Sunni communities they have just liberated from ISIS. According to Human Rights Watch, in response to ISIS bombings in the Iraqi town of Muqdadiyah in January of 2016, Shia militias ``demolished Sunni homes, stores, and mosques'' and abducted and killed dozens of Sunni civilians. This is just one of many examples of atrocities committed by Iranian-backed Shia militias in recent months. These killings further raise tensions and drive more recruits to ISIS and other extremist groups. In Syria, Iran has joined Russia in providing the aid that has kept the Assad regime in power, despite hundreds of thousands willing to fight against Assad and despite the coordinated effort of many countries. Although Iran's Government denies the presence of its military forces in Syria, it is clear that in addition to financial support and weapons, Iran has sent thousands of its own troops to reinforce the murderous regime of Assad. One estimate puts the number of Iranian forces in Syria at 3,000, including 2,000 of the elite Quds Force, a select group of fighters from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the hard-line group dedicated to preserving the reactionary Iranian Government. In total, more than 700 Iranians are believed to have been killed in Syria, directly contradicting Iran's claims that it is not involved in the conflict. In fact, Iraq recently doubled down on its support for Assad by sending soldiers from the regular Iranian army to join the IRGC troops on the ground in Syria. There are rumors that they are even mobilizing and deploying Afghans and others from the region to join militias in support of Assad. Although it remains clear that a lasting resolution to the Syrian conflict will be impossible until Assad leaves power, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei, said in a recent televised interview that ``the removal of Assad . . . is a redline for us.'' As long as Iran continues to increase its support--its military support, its financial support--for Assad, it will bear direct responsibility for the carnage in Syria, rising extremism on all sides of the conflict, and the humanitarian exodus from Syria that is causing massive suffering and destabilizing countries on three continents. This behavior from Iran is a clear sign that the regime is not to be trusted, does not intend to comply with international norms, and deserves close scrutiny and constant pushback from the United States and our allies. Briefly--noting another colleague who stands to speak soon--there are a number of steps the United States and our allies have to take in response. At the very least, to prevent Iran from obtaining the material necessary to advance its nuclear program, we must work with our allies to tightly enforce all four corners of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear agreement between Iran, the United States, and other world powers. We must continue to work with our allies and their navies to interdict Iran's ongoing illegal weapons shipments to support the Houthis and other of their terrorist proxies in the region, not just in Yemen, but in Gaza, Bahrain, and Lebanon. Since February, U.S. forces and allied navies have, on at least three occasions, interdicted in international waters shipments of thousands of AK-47s, anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, and other weapons destined from Iran to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The United States must continue to maintain sanctions on Iran for its support for terrorism, its human rights violations, and its continued illegal ballistic missile tests. We must be willing to sanction both individuals and entities linked to the IRGC and Iran's continued and illegal ballistic missile program. In addition to punishing Iran for its dangerous and provocative behavior, these actions send a signal to Iran that the international national community will not tolerate its ongoing bad behavior. We have to use diplomatic channels to urge countries such as Russia to not sell more dangerous arms to the Iranian regime--allegedly defensive arms that will simply further destabilize the regime--and to press Russia to allow U.N. Security Council action in response to Iran's recent ballistic missile tests. Finally, we have to continue to make smart investments in training, technology, and innovation, on which our military depends. America's ability to push back on Iran critically depends on maintaining a credible conventional military deterrent. The United States must do everything we can to support our allies in the Middle East, in particular by strengthening our partnership with the State of Israel, by concluding a new 10-year memorandum of understanding that provides a reliable long-term and significantly enhanced pathway toward support. Senator Graham and I, along with 81 of our colleagues, recently wrote a letter to the President urging the administration to support a stronger MOU to ensure Israel has the resources it needs to defend itself in this chaotic region. In closing, in the years to come, I hope this body will be just as dedicated to enforcing the terms of the nuclear agreement with Iran and pushing back on Iran's continued dangerous behavior outside the parameters of the deal as we were in the months leading up to its consideration in this body. Iran continues to exercise a malign influence on Iraq, on Syria, and the region. It is our responsibility to use every tool we have to make it clear to Iran that we will contain its bad behavior and we will not tolerate its ongoing actions. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I rise to follow the eloquent remarks of my colleague from the State of Virginia and to remark upon 62 years--62 years since Brown v. Board was handed down by our Supreme Court; 62 days since Judge Merrick Garland was nominated by our President to fill a vital vacancy on our Nation's highest Court. I wish to thank and commend my colleague, a very able attorney and someone who has argued cases passionately around a wide range of issues but none so much as civil rights. As Senator Kaine rightly pointed out, the history of Brown v. Board is that a series of cases were brought together from across several States--including his State of Virginia and my State of Delaware-- gathered together and argued in front of the Supreme Court by Thurgood Marshall, then chief counsel of the NAACP, and ultimately decided in 1954. Initially, a divided Court was unable to render judgment because in the spring of 1953, Chief Justice Vinson had died, leaving the Court then in a similar situation as it is now--divided on a range of vital and important issues. The good Senator from Virginia has reminded us that our failure to act now--our failure to do our job and to follow the dictates of our Constitution, the ``shall'' language in article II, section 2--the failure of this body to offer any hearing or vote on this very capable circuit court judge sends the wrong message, not just here within this country to our citizens but around the world. The Senator from Virginia spent time--and it changed his life and his perspective--in Central America as a younger man in a country where judicial independence was a fiction on paper. I, too, spent time in the 1980s in a country in Southern Africa known as South Africa, where this same legal system that existed here under Jim Crow existed there under the name of apartheid. It is to that country I go in just 2 weeks, with Congressman John Lewis of Georgia and with the children of Robert Kennedy, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a speech given in Cape Town 50 years ago. It is a striking moment for us to reflect on the importance and the power and the centrality of Brown v. Board in wiping away the dark stain of Plessy v. Ferguson, that obscene legal fiction rendered in 1896 that ``separate but equal'' allowed us to square the horrible distension of justice in our country of a separation between the races with the words in our Constitution, the words above the Presiding Officer, the words above the entrance to our Supreme Court, the words above the Presiding Officer's desk in our Chamber, ``E pluribus unum''--from many, one--more importantly, the words above the Supreme Court entrance, ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' We have these soaring words in our foundational documents and in our most important government buildings that suggest that we will ``dispense justice equally,'' that we will be gathered from many differences in backgrounds into one. Yet the reality in this country, for its initial decades, more than its initial century, was anything but. It was 62 years ago today that the Supreme Court of these United States issued a unanimous decision wiping Plessy v. Ferguson away. I rise briefly to comment that I grew up in a small town in Delaware known as Hockessin. It was a so-called ``Colored'' school in Hockessin that was the basis of one of these cases. There were actually two cases from Delaware: Belton v. Gebhart from Claymont, related to the Claymont High School, and Bulah v. Gebhart, relating to the Hockessin Elementary School. In both cases, a famous lawyer from Delaware named Louis Redding took their cases to the Delaware courts. A brave judge, Judge Collins Seitz, rendered a judgment that found the discriminatory practices in the State of Delaware illegal. It was that case that was affirmed--of the five gathered--in Brown v. Board. Although Delaware has a very troubled and checkered racial history, these cases are ones of which I and my constituents can justifiably be proud. Moments when the courts of this country have stepped up and wiped the stain of racism and of legal segregation from our books are moments of which we can and should be proud. As my colleague from Virginia pointedly reminded us, for 62 days the incredibly qualified and capable district court judge nominated by our current President has waited--waited for an answer from this body, waited for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I serve, waited for a vote. In the century that there has been a Judiciary Committee of this body, every previous nominee who has not withdrawn has received a hearing, a vote, or both. What are we so afraid of in allowing this talented judge to come forward, to lay his views and his credentials and his experience before this body or a committee of this body? What is the concern? My colleague from Virginia has asked and I ask, what is the animating concern that insists that for 62 or 63 or 64 or more days, Judge Garland must wait, throughout this entire year perhaps, into next year? How many cases will remain undecided by an equally divided Court due to our unwillingness or the unwillingness of many in this Chamber to do their job, to take up the challenge, to have a hearing, and to cast their vote? With that, I simply want to say that it is to me of grave concern that we have not acted as a body, that we have not acted collectively to provide a path forward for this talented, capable judge. Many in this Chamber may find him not to be capable or qualified, but without a hearing, how would you know? He has submitted a full response--thousands of pages--to the questionnaire typically expected before the Judiciary Committee of any nominee. His record is before us--abundant, voluminous. He has more experience than any previous nominee as a Federal circuit court judge. What is the concern that would prevent us from moving forward? On this 62nd anniversary of the most important decision, in my view, in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board, I call on my colleagues to once again show the courage of Louis Redding, of Judge Seitz, of Justice Warren, and of all of those who rendered central decisions in the history of this country that allowed our Supreme Court to operate independent of political interference and capable of making real the promise above our Supreme Court of ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, there are today 81 vacancies in our Federal courts, 29 of which are judicial emergencies. I note, with respect, that the majority leader has compared the number of district court nominees confirmed under the previous President and the current President; but, in my view, what matters most is that there are 29 judicial emergencies in district courts across this country and that there are 20 district court nominees who were voted out of the Judiciary Committee on unanimous voice votes that continue to await action on this floor--the one that I just sought a unanimous consent for, Paula Xinis of the District of Maryland, and 19 others. At this point, 1\1/2\ years into this Congress, only 17 judges have been confirmed to district courts in this United States, and last year the Senate matched a record for confirming the fewest in more than half a century--11 for the entire year. What I am most concerned about is its impact on the operations of the courts of the United States. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I am frustrated and concerned. We have 24 nominees waiting for a hearing in the committee as well; 7 of these nominees are to courts of appeals, including AUSA Rebecca Ross Haywood, who has been nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the appellate court covering my home State of Delaware. Then, of course, there are ongoing concerns about the vacancy on the Supreme Court. It has been 55 days since President Obama nominated Chief Judge Merrick Garland--a consensus candidate who was previously confirmed to his seat on the DC Circuit by a bipartisan majority of the previous Congress--to our Nation's highest Court. Last week, a bipartisan group of former Solicitors General--Paul Clement, Todd Olson, and Ken Starr, former SGs who have served in both Republican and Democratic administrations--endorsed Judge Garland as ``superbly qualified,'' having ``demonstrated the temperament, intellect, and experience to serve'' on the Supreme Court. I am gravely concerned that we have sunk to a level in terms of the delays in confirmation of qualified judicial nominees to the courts at all levels in our country, that we are having a significant ongoing and negative impact on the functioning of our courts and access to justice in this country. Sadly, obstruction in this body has allowed too many of our courts to grind to a halt on the important business of our Federal judicial system. I believe it is time we do our jobs. There are vetted, qualified Americans ready, willing, and able to serve in our Nation's justice system. We should embrace their willingness to serve and let them get to work. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 307, Paula Xinis, nominee for the District of Maryland; that the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination; the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, earlier this month, the Governor of Iran's central bank, Dr. Valiollah Seif, spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and he made three primary claims. First, he said sanctions did not, in fact, lead Iran to agree to the terms of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the EU, Russia, and China. He said sanctions did not force Iran to agree. Second, he said Iran's nuclear program has always been entirely peaceful. Third, he said that the United States and our European allies have not honored our commitments under the terms of the nuclear deal also known as the JCPOA. Today I wish to push back against all three of these claims. First, on sanctions, Governor Seif said: ``Contrary to baseless allegation[s] that some people made, sanctions did not and could not force [Iran] to engage into a negotiation with our P5+1 colleague[s],'' the nations I referenced. The facts clearly say otherwise. U.S. sanctions have been a major feature of U.S. policy toward Iran since Iran's 1979 revolution. The imposition of international sanctions and worldwide bilateral sanctions on Iran began in 2006 and increased dramatically in 2010. In June of 2010, the Congress passed the Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act, also known as CISADA, which weakened Iran's access to the international financial system and bolstered existing sanctions specifically against Iran's human rights abuse. That same month, with the support not just of our European allies but also Russia and China, the Obama administration and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, which created the most comprehensive and stinging international sanctions the Iranian regime has ever faced. Two years later, in 2012, the National Defense Authorization Act designated the Central Bank of Iran for additional sanctions, which the Obama administration successfully used to undermine Iran's ability to sell oil on world markets. The Obama administration also convinced key allies, such as Japan, Australia, South Korea, and Canada, to agree to additional bilateral measures that increased pressure on Iran's financial banking, insurance, transportation, and energy sectors. The effects of these coordinated sanctions were clear, swift, and direct. The value of the Iranian currency decreased dramatically. Obstacles to Iranian trade forced businesses to close and increased inflation within Iran. Iran's oil exports and government revenues declined sharply. In 2011, for example, Iran exported about 2.4 million barrels of oil per day. By March of 2014, Iran's exports were down to just 1 million barrels a day--in a nation for which petroleum makes up 80 percent of all commodity exports. In July of 2012, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the sanctions regime ``the most severe and strictest sanctions ever imposed on a country.'' The coordinated sanctions regime was so effective that Iran's current President even described Iran's economic situation as if the country had ``returned to the 19th century'' under the sanctions regime. I think it is clear on this first point that sanctions imposed an unsustainable cost on Iran and forced it to the table to engage in negotiations with the West regarding its nuclear program. That brings me to his second erroneous argument that Iran has pursued nuclear technology with only peaceful purposes in mind. Iran's actions directly contradict this claim. In 2002, members of the international community revealed that Iran had, in fact, been attempting to build a secret uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in Central Iran and a heavy water plutonium reactor at its Arak facility in the northwestern part of the country. Only because Iran failed to keep these facilities secret did the IAEA--or the International Atomic Energy Agency--finally begin having the opportunity to monitor these sites in 2002. In 2009, the United States, France, and Britain revealed the existence of another uranium enrichment plant buried deep under a mountain near the city of Qom. The evidence continues. In 2011, the IAEA released a report on the ``possible military dimensions'' of Iran's nuclear effort, known as PMD. The report detailed areas in which the agency had evidence of Iran's past--and potentially ongoing--work on nuclear weaponization and the development of nuclear warheads for missile delivery systems. The IAEA's final report on the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program, issued in December of 2015, found ``a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort.'' The report also found that Iran conducted certain activities relevant to nuclear weaponization for at least several years after 2003 and that some of these activities didn't end until 2009. It is not just on-the-ground reports and secret nuclear facilities that suggest that Iran's nuclear efforts have not always been entirely peaceful. Let me remind my colleagues that just last month Iran tested a ballistic missile that supposedly had a message on its side proclaiming in Hebrew: ``Israel must be wiped off the Earth.'' An Iranian regime that continues to advocate for the destruction of Israel, America's vital ally Israel, does not sound like a nation that has been and hopes to continue to develop nuclear technology for anything remotely peaceful. An Iranian regime that ships illicit weapons to support the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria or the Houthi rebels in Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon is not seeking to develop weapons for peaceful purposes. An Iranian regime that illegally tests dangerous ballistic missile technology--some of which is capable of carrying a nuclear weapon, all of which violates U.N. Security Council resolutions--does not have peaceful intentions. Because of this behavior, we have every reason to distrust Iran's claims that its nuclear efforts were always peaceful. Iran continually misled the international community about the nature of its nuclear program, and it continually disguised its efforts to conduct research and other activities to help it better understand how to develop a nuclear weapon. It continues to threaten Israel, to test ballistic missiles, and to support terrorism throughout the Middle East. That is why I simply cannot accept Seif's argument that Iran's nuclear program has always been entirely peaceful. The third claim made by Seif last week was that the United States and our European allies have not honored our obligations under the nuclear deal known as the JCPOA. Iran's evidence for this claim is that the sanctions relief granted to Iran for complying with the terms of the agreement hasn't suddenly unleashed a flurry of Iranian economic activity. As Adam Szubin, our own Department of the Treasury's Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, recently put it, throughout the negotiations between the United States, our allies, partners, and Iran, the U.S. and our allies ``did not guarantee economic outcomes, or a flood of immediate business into Iran.'' Acting Under Secretary Szubin is right. Iran is responsible for making Iran an attractive, safe place to do business. For many individuals and businesses, Iran appears neither attractive nor safe. For example, in October, Iran arrested Siamak Namazi, a businessman who is a dual American- Iranian citizen. Namazi worked for a petroleum company in the UAE and previously ran a consulting business in Iran. He still has not been charged. In fact, the only recent development in Mr. Namazi's case is his father Baquer--an 80-year-old man who suffers from heart problems-- was arrested in February and sent to Iran's notorious Evin Prison. Why would Iranian leaders expect foreign investment to flow into their country when it arbitrarily arrests and detains those seeking business opportunities for their own country. It is not only Iran's flawed legal system or its ongoing human rights violations, more than half of Iran's economy consists of shadowy organizations controlled in part by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, the hard-line military force committed to the preservation of the Iranian regime. The pseudo-private entities that are tied to the IRGC include banks, businesses, religious foundations, pension funds, and welfare projects that also serve as front companies for the IRGC. During his question-and-answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Seif was asked whether foreign businesses considering investing in Iran or doing business with Iran could be confident that the money invested in Iran would not fund the IRGC. He was unable to declare definitively that it would not. The onus, the burden, is on Iran--not the international community or the United States--to reform Iran's domestic economy and to make sure its businesses are not linked to the IRGC, to make it a country-- transparent and open--and to engage in actions that suggest to the world it is a trustworthy partner. The burden is on Iran to comply with the JCPOA. The burden is on Iran to stop testing ballistic missiles, abusing human rights, and supporting terrorists. If Iran is unhappy with the level of economic relief it has received since this agreement came into effect, it only has its own actions to blame. As Acting Under Secretary Szubin put it, ``the JCPOA [the nuclear deal] is an international arrangement, not a cashier's check.'' I commend Dr. Seif for his willingness to travel to the United States and to make his case in front of our Council on Foreign Relations. I think this is a constructive step, but as I have shown, I think the case he made is a weak one. The evidence is clear. A coordinated sanctions regime did, in fact, force Iran to negotiate. Iran's nuclear program was not entirely peaceful in its intent or execution. The United States and EU aren't holding the Iranian economy back--the Iranian Government is. The Iranian Government's actions are. In my travels throughout the Middle East and in conversations with regional leaders and Ambassadors here, it is apparent these nations all share one overriding concern, Iranian aggression. This challenge unites countries as diverse as Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. As my colleagues may have seen in an op-ed in the Washington Post just last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif sought to justify recent steps Iran has taken to dramatically build up its defenses. Countries do, indeed, have a right to self-defense, but there is a difference between self-defense efforts undertaken by responsible members of the international community and some of Iran's recent aggressive and destabilizing actions. Responsible nations don't support terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and stoke sectarianism to undermine the security of their neighbors. Responsible nations don't directly threaten the destruction of Israel. Responsible nations seek common ground and the pursuit of mutual interests with their neighbors. Responsible nations abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions. Iran's actions make it clear it is not yet a responsible member of the international community. If Iran then has complaints about the relief it has received under this agreement, it should move its behavior and begin to uphold its commitments under the deal while changing the dangerous aspect of its ongoing behavior. Yet, instead, Iran continues to try and dominate its region, a valuable reminder we must continue to enforce the terms of the JCPOA strictly and push back on Iran's bad behavior that is outside the parameters of the agreement. While I commend the Obama administration for its recent action in interdicting illicit arms shipments from Iran to the Houthis, continuing to designate IRGC-linked entities for more sanctions, and taking other critical steps to push back on Iran's bad behavior and destabilizing activities in the region, I also remain concerned about the administration's willingness to entertain Iranian complaints about sanctions relief. I urge the United States and our allies to remain cautious in our dealings with Iran. We must remember that the most important contract with Iran is the one we have already agreed to--that is, this nuclear deal--and we must continue to remind Iran that its own behavior is the real cause of its continuing international isolation. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I wish to honor U.S. Coast Guard RADM Stephen P. Metruck and highlight his service to country and his contribution to the State of Delaware. Rear Admiral Metruck retired on April 22 from commanding the Fifth Coast Guard District after 34 years in the U.S. Coast Guard. The fifth district includes North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, Washington, DC, and much of Pennsylvania. Rear Admiral Metruck led 67 units made up of 2,475 Active Duty members, 1,010 Reservists, 6,800 auxiliary members, and 120 civilians. One of Rear Admiral Metruck's most notable accomplishments occurred during his tenure at both Sector San Diego and Sector Seattle. In these dual roles, Rear Admiral Metruck was responsible for advancing Coast Guard operations in a post-9/11 environment. He forged interagency partnerships to enhance safety and security measures in each port and coordinated the sensors and systems into a common operational picture to allow all agencies to coordinate and understand potential threats in the maritime environment. Rear Admiral Metruck and I got to know each other well during harsh, back-to-back winters that damaged navigation aids along the Delaware River, which assisted ships traveling to and from Wilmington, DE. From this experience, I learned that it is not easy budgeting for ice flows. Being an expert at budgeting and solving problems, he and his team forged solutions that replaced damaged buoys and aids to navigation without a huge burden on taxpayers. The result was ships could again travel safely to ports in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Rear Admiral Metruck is a very humble man, and he will be the first to understate his contribution to the U.S. Coast Guard and leadership of the men and women under his command. Nevertheless, I have found him to be an extremely devoted public servant and skilled at working with other agencies, solving problems, and being responsive to inquiries from Senators. Rear Admiral Metruck also spent 2\1/2\ years serving this great institution as a fellow with then-Senator John Kerry. He worked on policy issues related to the Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans and Fisheries and also supported Senator Kerry's staff on environmental, maritime, and Coast Guard issues and legislation. Prior to arriving at the Fifth Coast Guard District, he was the assistant commandant for resources and chief financial officer for the U.S. Coast Guard. During this assignment, he was responsible for all Coast Guard financial management and resource activities including planning, programming, budgeting, and execution of the service's $10 billion annual appropriation. While he has been a friend of commerce and the environment on the Delaware River, his career has resulted in him living in and serving a number of other States. He has served in Coast Guard Headquarters; Portsmouth, VA; Brownsville, TX; Tampa, FL; Buffalo, NY; San Diego, CA; and Puget Sound, WA. Rear Admiral Metruck also helped oversee Coast Guard missions across waterways encompassing the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and the offshore waters of Mexico and Central America. Additionally, he served as U.S. Coast Guard Liaison to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York City. Rear Admiral Metruck is from Massena, NY, and graduated in 1982 from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in ocean engineering. He was awarded a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has also served as a military fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and the Coast Guard fellow on the Chief of Naval Operation's Strategic Studies Group based in Newport, RI. There are many of us in this Chamber who have worked with him and his staff on important issues over the years. Today I express our collective gratitude to him for devoting his career to keeping us safe. I speak for many in the Senate, in Delaware, and around our Nation in wishing Rear Admiral Metruck and his wife Peggy Duxbury a great next chapter in their lives.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, in the months since world powers reached an agreement to block Iran's pathway to building a nuclear weapon, Iran's behavior has given the international community reasons for both some optimism and continuing, serious concern. The positive news has been that Iran has taken some real steps to restrain its nuclear programs. It has disabled two of its short-term pathways to producing weapons- grade material by shipping nearly its entire stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country and by filling its plutonium reactor with concrete. Iran has reduced its number of functioning uranium-enrichment centrifuges by two-thirds, and the country has provided international inspectors 24/7 access to continuously monitor all of Iran's declared facilities. These are positive developments. Yet, at the same time, Iran continues to engage in deeply concerning activities, such as support for terrorism and efforts to foment instability in the Middle East, to conduct illegal ballistic missile tests, and to continue to violate its citizens' most basic human rights. Today, my colleagues and I come to the floor to draw attention to some of the more grave, more concerning developments of recent weeks. I am honored to have the company of my friend, the senior Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Blumenthal, who joins me in addressing why Russia's refusal to condemn Iran's bad behavior--and, in fact, in some ways encouraging it--poses huge security risks for our allies in the Middle East. I would now like to yield, if I could, to my colleague from Connecticut.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut--who has been determined, engaged, and thoughtful--for his wise words today and for his persistence and his efforts in making sure that our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are aware of alarming developments in the region and continuing to do everything we can in a responsible and bipartisan way to support Israel's security through the MOU, which he has referenced and on which he led a letter about the importance of a prompt and supportive renegotiation of that MOU, and calling attention to Russia's destabilizing actions. As Senator Blumenthal just referenced, recent reports convey that Iran is reporting that Russia has already delivered parts of this S-300 weapons system--a defense system, they claim, but a weapons system that would significantly change the regional balance of power. I again thank my colleague from Connecticut for being shoulder-to- shoulder with me on the floor today and in the months and years behind us and the months and years ahead of us because it will be a longstanding challenge to keep the Members of this body and folks in Washington focused on the very real threat to America's security and Israel's security that is presented by Iran and its actions. As Senator Blumenthal mentioned, when it comes to countering Iranian aggression in the Middle East, a number of Russia's recent actions do threaten to do more harm than good. Last summer, when the United States came together with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Russia to reach an agreement with Iran to block their pathway to build a nuclear weapon, the international community was clear that the success of this deal relied on every signatory keeping its word and doing its part to prevent Iran from violating the deal. The responsibility to enforce the terms of the JCPOA goes hand-in- hand with an understanding that world powers must also push back on Iran's bad behavior outside the four corners of this agreement-- specifically, its support for terrorism, its continued illegal ballistic missile tests, and its human rights violations. Despite its participation in the negotiations that led to the agreement, Russia reportedly plans to sell missile systems to the still-dangerous Iranian regime, as well as--as referenced by Senator Blumenthal--advanced fighter jets. Russia also continues to block the U.N. Security Council from taking action--necessary and responsible action--after Iran's recent illegal missile tests, which contravene its commitments under U.N. Security Council resolution 2231. Despite the divisions that have brought Congress to a standstill in recent years, I am confident that we all agree on one thing: that Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. I continue to believe the JCPOA represents the least bad option for blocking Iran's pathway to a nuclear bomb. In recent months, as I have said, Russia has repeatedly undermined the spirit of that agreement, using the JCPOA as an excuse to proceed with dangerous and provocative sales of allegedly defensive equipment to Iran. According to news reports, as I said, Russia has begun delivering parts of the S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran. Although it is unclear how much of that system has already been delivered, the five S-300 systems Russia has promised to Iran would contain 40 launchers, which could shoot down missiles or aircraft as far as 90 miles away. One version of the S-300 currently in use by the Russian military can travel nearly 250 miles at five times the speed of sound. In a worst-case scenario, if Iran backs out of the nuclear deal, this S-300 system would substantially limit the international community's options to act to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. That is not all, though. Recent news reports indicate Russia and Iran are actively negotiating an agreement to allow Iran to purchase an unknown number of Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets--similar to the one pictured here--some of the most advanced fighter jets available in the world. Although it is unclear what specific version of this aircraft Iran is seeking to obtain, these advanced weapons would significantly enhance the capabilities of Iran's Air Force. Currently, Iran fields an outdated mix of antiquated Russian, Iraqi, American, and Chinese-built aircraft. Many of these planes date from the Cold War. One particularly advanced variety of this Russian jet, for example, is armed with air-to-air, anti-ship, and land attack missiles and bombs--precision munitions that would significantly increase the performance capabilities of the Iranian Air Force. They could target other fighter aircraft, stationary military facilities, and naval vessels. In the hands of Iran, these fighter jets would fundamentally change the balance of power in the Middle East and pose a threat to U.S. facilities and our local allies. More concerning, according to some reports, Iran is seeking not just to buy these aircraft but also to license their production in Iran, which would greatly strengthen Iran's industrial base and its technical knowledge. It would also leave the international community with even fewer options to prevent Iranian access to this technology in the future. At a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Tom Shannon, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said the United States would ``block the approval of fighter'' aircraft sales from Russia to Iran. I urge the Obama administration to use all diplomatic measures available to it to ensure that we fulfill Under Secretary Shannon's commitment. As my colleagues know, Iran could use these weapons to threaten U.S. assets in the Persian Gulf region, challenge the safety of our vital ally Israel and other close partners, or to protect illicit nuclear sites within Iran's borders. These threats are not just hypothetical. Iran remains a rogue and unpredictable regime that supports terrorism in the region and is publically committed to the destruction of valley. The international community cannot stand by while Iran continues to threaten our allies and destabilize the Middle East. Its illegal ballistic missile tests in March served as yet another example that the Iranian regime is not a responsible member of the international community. These tests help Iran to further develop missiles capable of reaching most of the Middle East and even parts of Europe, and they destabilize the region and belie Iran's supposedly peaceful intentions, stated often by both its President and Foreign Minister. They claim Iran's intentions are to serve as a responsible member of the international community, but these provocative missile tests clearly contradict their commitments under U.N. Security Council resolution 2231 and demand a response. Last week I met with Vitaly Churkin, the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations. While Ambassador Churkin reiterated Russia's commitment to the JCPOA and our shared goal of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, I left our conversation convinced that Russia will continue to stand in the way of the international community's efforts to penalize Iran for its ballistic missile tests. Russia's military sales to Iran and intransigence at the U.N. Security Council are disappointing, to say the least, in light of Russia's agreement to the terms of this nuclear deal and the importance of all of us working together in the international community to constrain Iran's bad behavior. The challenge for American diplomacy is to convince Russia that its military sales to Iran, its refusal to engage in multilateral action to punish Iranian ballistic missile tests, and its hesitancy to sanction Iran for supporting terrorist groups harm not only American interests but Russian interests as well. Enabling Iran to strengthen its military capabilities makes it easier for Iran in the future to one day return to an effort to develop a nuclear weapon. Ballistic missile tests foment instability in the whole Persian Gulf and southern Europe, both of which lie close to Russia. As we have tragically seen in recent weeks, the scourge of modern terrorism does not abide by international borders and poses a real threat to Russia as well. In the coming months and years, the United States must continue to pursue action at the Security Council and work with our European allies to punish Iran for its bad behavior. With that, I yield to my friend the senior Senator from Minnesota, who has just joined me for the colloquy. Senator Klobuchar has joined me to talk about the importance of continuing to work to hold Iran accountable under the JCPOA, to urge a need to confirm senior national security nominees, and the imperative to support our regional partners, especially of our ally Israel. Senator Klobuchar.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I want to thank Senators Klobuchar and Blumenthal for joining me in this colloquy, and I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with the Senators from Minnesota and Connecticut.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dan Pedraza of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor to address the question of the ongoing vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. I listened with great interest to the remarks of my friend and colleague from the State of Missouri, and I think we have reached a different conclusion about how and when the American people should have their say in the question of the filling of this vacancy. In my view, vacancies on the Supreme Court of the United States have consequences, and vacancies that go on for a great length of time have even bigger consequences. I don't believe there has been a vacancy that has lasted a year since roughly the time of the Civil War. Although we don't know this today, we don't know how long this vacancy may last. My concern is that in the absence of a willingness to meet with the President's nominee--to hold hearings and to proceed to a vote--should that position remain firm on the part of my colleagues on the other side, we are likely looking at a year-long vacancy. I certainly agree with my colleague, my friend from Missouri, that the Supreme Court plays an absolutely central role in our constitutional order. As he recited at length, the cases decided are of great significance. I bring to my colleague's attention that in recent weeks, on March 22 and March 29, the Court handed down tied decisions in two central cases. These four decisions are not just a waste of judicial resources, they fail to provide clarity to the litigants, the American people, and leave lower courts without a controlling precedent. In the 3 weeks since President Obama did his job under the Constitution and nominated Chief Judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy created by the untimely passing of Justice Scalia, we have already seen these consequences of the Senate's refusal to engage proactively in advice and consent and consider this nomination. Much has been made of what was said on this floor by my predecessor in this seat, the now-Vice President, then-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, former Senator Joe Biden. I just wish to draw my colleague's attention to the entire remarks made by Senator Biden. His entire remarks include a section near the end where he said that if the President--there was not then a vacancy on the Supreme Court--would consult with the Senate and moderate in his choice and advance a consensus candidate, that candidate might well be deserving of it, might well win then-Senator Biden's support, as had been the case in several other nominations. I will simply put to my friend and my colleague that President Obama has advanced for our consideration a nomination in Chief Judge Garland who is genuinely qualified and who has a long record in his 19 years on the DC Circuit of rendering decisions that put him right in the center of the American judiciary. I very much look forward to having the opportunity to meet with him in person tomorrow. I think it is important that all of us give the deference and respect to the President's constitutional role implicit in our being willing to meet with his nominee. Frankly, I have profound questions about whether advice and consent by this body can be given by refusing to hold hearings and refusing to take a vote. My Republican colleagues, friends, have asserted that the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice, and I agree. I think the best way for the American people to exercise that voice is for this body to do its job, for the Senate Judiciary Committee to conduct full, fair, and open hearings, and to allow Judge Garland to answer searching questions of the sort that many of us are asking him privately, but then we should ask publicly and then have a vote--a vote by the people's representatives in this body. That is the purpose of this Senate. There has been an election for President, the President has done his job under the Constitution, and we have a nominee. This is a fully constituted Senate--some of us in our last year of service, some in our sixth, and some in our first or second. We can be the appropriate channel of the people's voice following an open hearing, and we should cast a vote. We should not leave this Supreme Court with a vacancy that lasts months and months, maybe as long as a year. Every term the Supreme Court receives over 7,000 petitions for certiorari. The Supreme Court hears a carefully chosen fraction of those cases, weighing constitutional principles and legal issues that are dividing the circuit courts. It is a sacred duty, a central duty in our constitutional order for the Supreme Court to be rendering important and meaningful decisions. Why would we delay the filling of this vacancy on the Supreme Court a full year? I can't see the value in that position. I understand many of my colleagues have cited precedent, have cited history, and have reached different conclusions than me. I simply hope the 16 of my Republican colleagues who have expressed a willingness to meet with Judge Garland will continue to grow and that more of my colleagues will meet with him and then consider carefully what the consequences are for our role in advice and consent, not just for this vacancy but for the many more that may follow in the decades to come. Thank you. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the recent bad behavior of Iran and some important steps that have been taken by the administration to push back on their support for terrorism, for illegal actions, and for their support for disorder in the Middle East but to also sound the alarm that this series of steady actions continues to raise the specter that Iran has an expanding reach in the region and poses a greater and greater threat to our allies and, in particular, our vital ally, Israel. Just over a year ago, leading world powers came together in support of a framework for blocking Iran's path to developing a nuclear weapon. That framework ultimately became the JCPOA, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In the months since that agreement took effect, Iran has taken steps to significantly restrain its nuclear program. That is true. They filled with concrete the core of their reactor at Arak. They shipped out of the country 98 percent of their accumulated stockpile of enriched uranium, and they have allowed searching inspections by the IAEA. Those are all good steps. Yet the Iran regime continues to engage in dangerous actions outside the nuclear agreement, including ongoing human rights abuses, support for terrorism in the Middle East, and its repeated illegal ballistic missile tests. All of those are ongoing reminders to us that America's security and the security of our allies demand constant vigilance and close scrutiny of Iran's actions. Since last September, I have regularly called upon my congressional colleagues, the Obama administration, and our European allies to be wary of Iran's intentions and to continue to seek ways to effectively push back on its bad behavior. The international community and the United States possess three major nonmilitary tools to lawfully counter Iran's continued bad behavior: financial sanctions, criminal charges, and weapons seizures. So let me first offer a number of examples of how each of these tools have recently been put to work. First, financial sanctions. On March 24, the Treasury Department imposed new sanction designations on a number of entities and individuals who have supported Iran's ballistic missile program and on an Iranian airline, Mahan Air, which provides support services-- transportation--to the Quds Force, an elite Iranian military corps designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department. On this floor in early March, I called for the United States and our European allies to further punish Mahan Air by eliminating the airline's access to international markets and airports. Since then, the Treasury Department has taken action against two companies, one based in the United Kingdom, another in the United Arab Emirates, that have provided financial and materiel support to Mahan Air. I commend the Obama administration for effectively deploying another tool in our diplomatic toolkit--criminal charges. On March 21, the Justice Department unsealed charges against three individuals who allegedly acted on behalf of the Iranian Government and associated entities to engage in hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions barred by U.S. sanctions. These three Iranian individuals stand accused of illegally laundering the proceeds of these transactions and defrauding the banks to which the transactions were processed. Two days later, on March 23, a consultant to Iran's mission to the United Nations was also charged with violating U.S. law. The seven charges levied against this individual include conspiracy to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran, money laundering, and arranging false tax returns. Then the following day, March 24, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment of seven Iranian ``experienced computer hackers'' who led a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks from 2011 to 2013 that targeted 46 U.S. banks and a dam in Upstate New York in Rye. Unsurprisingly, the seven individuals charged have been linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, the hardline conservative military force committed to the preservation of the radical revolutionary Iranian regime. Just yesterday, the Justice Department announced that the United States negotiated the extradition from Indonesia of a Singaporean man conspiring to send U.S. equipment to Iran--equipment later found in unexploded roadside bombs in Iraq. These various criminal charges demonstrate to Iran and the world that responsible members of the international community seek to resolve disputes through international norms and institutions or accepted ways of conduct, not provocative missile tests and ongoing violations of sanctions. In addition, the fact that each of these indictments occurred after the implementation of the nuclear deal--while Iran did fulfill the letter of its commitments under the agreement--these ongoing violations demonstrate that the United States can continue to counter Iran's bad behavior and regional aggression without undermining the ongoing implementation and enforcement of the JCPOA. That brings us to the third tool in our arsenal: weapons seizures. On Monday, the U.S. Navy announced that the previous week, the USS Sirocco and USS Gravely intercepted a vessel in the Arabian Sea that contained an illicit Iranian arms shipment to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. After boarding the ship, American sailors confiscated 1,500 AK-47s, 200 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and 21 .50-caliber machine guns, including the various weapons pictured in this photograph I have in the Chamber. This marks the third successful interdiction of illicit arms in the Arabian Sea since late February. On March 20, a French Naval destroyer seized nearly 2,000 AK-47s, 64 sniper rifles, nine anti-tank missiles, and much more. That followed an interdiction a month earlier, on February 27, in which an Australian naval crew intercepted another shipment off the coast of Oman that contained 1,900 AK-47s, 100 grenade launchers, 49 machine guns, and other illicit arms, headed to Yemen by way of Somalia. All of these interdictions were done with coordination and support of the United States. These interdictions are not just military exercises. They prevent weapons from falling into the hands of dangerous terrorists or Houthi rebels. Just as importantly, these actions send a strong signal to Iran that the international community continues to refuse to tolerate Iran's destabilizing actions and its support for terrorism. The picture to my right shows an Australian vessel, the crew from the HMAS Darwin, part of a U.S.-led, multinational coalition intercepting and boarding a dhow that held a shipment of illicit arms, likely intended for the Houthi rebels of Yemen. The conflict in Yemen pits the Yemeni government stacked by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia against the Houthis, a group allied with a former President and the radical Iranian regime. Iran's support for the Houthis has devastated Yemen and the Yemeni people. Over a year of fighting has led to more than 6,000 deaths, including thousands of civilians, and more than 30,000 injuries. The human suffering has been dramatic. According to the World Health Organization, more than 21 million people--more than 80 percent of Yemen's population--today require humanitarian aid. Instead of aid, Iran sends weapons. These are not the actions of a responsible member of the international community. These are not the actions of a government the U.S. can trust. As the United Arab Emirates' Ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otabia, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, ``The international community must intensify its actions to check Iran's strategic ambitions.'' While I am pleased at recent actions by the U.S. Navy and our key allies from Europe and around the world in the region off the Arabian Sea, I think there is more that we can and should do. That is why in the months to come, instead of talking about giving Iranians access to U.S. dollar transactions, I think the U.S. should lead coordinated international efforts to enforce existing sanctions and seize the illicit arms shipments through which Iran continues to fan violence, terror, and instability--not just in Yemen, but in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and the broader Middle East. The imposition of further sanctions, the levying of criminal charges, and the successful interdiction of weapons all show that the international community has an array of tools to push back against Iran. But just having the tools is not enough. We must continue to take action, and when multilateral mechanisms fail, Congress should work on a bipartisan basis to see what new tools or authorities we can give the administration to further crack down on Iran unilaterally. Lest we need another reminder that Iran remains unwilling to meet the obligations required of a responsible member of the international community, on March 30, their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei claimed that ballistic missiles are central to Iran's future--despite Iran's commitments under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231. The Obama administration should continue to designate bad actors for sanctions, pursue criminal charges where appropriate, and seek accountability for Iran's ballistic missile tests in the U.N. Security Council. We must continue to work hand-in-hand with our international partners to interdict arms shipments to Hezbollah, to the Houthis in Yemen, and to the murderous Assad regime in Syria. We must not accommodate Iran in any way, given its continued ballistic missile launches, its repeated human rights abuses, and its continued support for terrorism. I remain concerned about the message sent by rumors of allowing offshore financial institutions to access U.S. dollars for foreign currency trades in support of so-called legitimate business with Iran. We must keep in mind that both our words and our deeds send a strong signal to Iran, to our European allies, and our vital ally, Israel. In the months and years to come, we must make clear to Iran not just that we will not waiver in enforcing the terms of the JCPOA, but also that our commitment to a successful nuclear agreement will not prevent us from taking action when Iran's bad behavior warrants it. With that, I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.