Tom Cotton

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I would like to recognize 12 Arkansas power linemen who recently traveled to Guatemala as volunteers with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association's International Foundation to put into action cooperative principle number 6--cooperation among cooperatives. On their recent trip, Doug Evans, Kyle Metcalf, Andy Caywood, Michael Counts, Andy Ward, Brent Hufstedler, Kirk Kempson, Kris Rankin, Joey Burk, Paul Garrison, Ryan Hayes, and Will Glover donated their time and expertise to help those less fortunate. Over 19 days, these men built an electric distribution system that extended 4 miles to the agricultural communities of Jolom Ijix and Zapotal. Their work connected homes to an electric grid powered by a small hydroelectric plant, helping bring electricity to these communities for the first time. Electricity plays a critical role in providing health care, education, access to clean water, and economic opportunity, and I am proud to have these Arkansans help the people of Jolom Ijix and Zapotal along the path towards long-lasting growth. These 12 men and the many other volunteers from electric co-ops in Arkansas have traveled to Guatemala for rural electrification projects in recent years. Their compassion and spirit represent the best of our State. As a result of their efforts, the residents of these Guatemalan communities will see an immeasurable improvement in their quality of life. These volunteers, like others before them, have created a lasting impact on regions that need help the most.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, earlier this week, the Supreme Court wrongly decided the case of Zivotofsky v. Kerry, an unprecedented decision which impairs Congress's role in foreign policy and which is an affront to our close ally Israel. The Zivotofsky case concerned the executive branch's refusal to implement a 2002 law passed by Congress and signed by the President. The law required State Department officials to offer U.S. persons born in Jerusalem the option of listing Israel as their location of birth on passports and other consular documents. The State Department's practice had been to list the place of birth only as Jerusalem, reflecting the President's policy of not recognizing any national sovereign authority over the Holy City. Despite the fact that a President signed the statute into law, the executive branch has fought tooth and nail for 13 years to free itself from what it viewed as the heavy burden of writing the word ``Israel'' on one line in a tiny number of U.S. passports, and it argued its case all the way to the Supreme Court. In litigating the Zivotofsky case, it is no surprise that the President outlined a maximalist vision for his power to steer the Nation's foreign policy, leaving little room for the people's representatives in Congress. But it was a surprise that the Supreme Court acquiesced to the President's position. Before Monday, in the entire 225-year history of our Nation, the Supreme Court had never sided with a President's blatant refusal to comply with a duly-passed statute affecting the conduct of foreign affairs. This is a remarkable and disturbing break with precedent and one made through a poorly reasoned judicial opinion. The Court announced that the President possesses an exclusive constitutional power to recognize other nations and that this power crowds out any attempt by Congress to legislate in this area, including on how locations of birth are characterized on passports. But this conclusion suffers from a number of problems. The Court is supposed to only find a preclusive executive power where such a power is clearly committed to the executive branch in our Constitution. But nowhere in the text of the Constitution is there a reference to a recognition power, let alone an allocation of such a power to the President alone. The Court acknowledges this in its opinion, so it instead finds the recognition power embedded in the constitutional provision stating that the President ``shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers.'' But, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 69, that provision was understood to be a matter of ``dignity,'' not ``authority'' that would have ``no consequence for the administration of government.'' In other words, that provision does not imbue the President with a power; it imposes an obligation on him, and a ceremonial one at that. The provision furthermore appears in the section of the Constitution that imposes an array of obligations on the President, not the section investing him with any powers. Ironically, it appears right before the provision that obligates the President to ``take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'' I would assume the Framers believed that ``the Laws'' would include ones regarding passports. I want to be very clear on this. The recognition power the Court identified is not enumerated in the text of the Constitution, and no one at the time of the founding believed it to be included. At the same time, the Constitution explicitly entrusts Congress with grave international responsibilities, including the power to declare war and raise and support armies. These powers place the legislative branch in a central role in the conduct of our Nation's foreign policy. The Supreme Court therefore stood on remarkably shaky ground when it announced a supposedly exclusive Presidential power--one that can nullify contrary congressional enactments. And it unwisely and indeterminately expanded the President's unchecked discretion in the conduct of foreign affairs. That is a potentially dangerous opening, particularly with the current President. President Obama has shown an unhealthy penchant for granting unilateral concessions to longtime enemies abroad. That tendency cannot and must not go unchecked. Beyond the constitutional infirmities of the Court's opinion, I want to comment on the broader issue in the background of the Zivotofsky case. The executive branch based its refusal to comply with the passport law on the fear that identifying a person born in Jerusalem as having been born in Israel would upend the peace process. The State Department declared that compliance with the law ``would critically compromise'' U.S. efforts to forge an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, ``significantly harm'' our foreign policy, and ``cause irreversible damage'' to the role of the United States as an honest broker. That is embarrassing hyperbole, and it is also complete nonsense. The role of an honest broker in negotiations is just that--to be honest. So let's be honest. Israel's seat of government is located in Jerusalem. Israel administers the entire city. Over 500,000 Israelis live and work in Jerusalem. The reality is that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and any final agreement--whether or not it includes some sort of sharing arrangement--will not change that. The United States and the world should not deny that reality; they should accept it and then begin the hard work of helping the parties forge a lasting peace. The role of an honest broker is to ground negotiations in truth. It is to quell unreasonable reactions and expectations. It is to strip away issues that are peripheral and focus on those that are essential. That the President believes the designation of Jerusalem as a part of Israel on a passport can throw the entire prospect of peace into a tailspin says much about his confidence in his abilities as a mediator, and it perhaps also says much about the current political climate in the Middle East, where deepened divisions would render renewed talks at this point unproductive. Ultimately, a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian dispute should be reached, but progress toward that resolution will not move forward if the Palestinians remain unreasonably sensitive to peripheral issues such as passports. It will not move forward if the President is afraid to speak the truth. It will not move forward if the United States Congress is restrained from adding a dose of reality to the conduct of our foreign affairs. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COTTON

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

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I understand that the Senator from California objects to my amendment. But this is the Senate. This is an important issue. We should be debating the matter. If the Senator from California wishes to defeat my amendment, we should call it up and make it pending and have a vote on it, not object to an amendment simply being brought to the floor to be debated. Is there a reason to manage our nuclear policy? Yes, I would say there is a strong reason. On many issues, the administration has shown itself less than forthcoming in dealing with Congress, in particular on nuclear policy. As we now know, the administration minimized reports of Russia's activities under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty at a time they were trying to pass the New START treaty in 2010. I would further say this amendment simply codifies the President's budget request. The Senator from California said $48 million for this year. For the next 4 years after that, it is $48.3 million, $50 million, $52.4 million, $51.8 million. I will concede that, in sum, that is $50.1 million per year, on average. So I am giving the administration a haircut of $100,000 per year. If that is objectionable, I would be happy to modify my amendment to put it at $50.1 million per year. But this Congress should not give the President a blank check to engage in further unilateral nuclear disarmament at a time when Vladimir Putin is making nuclear threats against the United States, invading sovereign countries, and his missiles are shooting civilian aircraft out of the sky in the heart of Europe. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I speak today about Cotton amendment No. 1605, addressing funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the administration that safeguards our nuclear stockpile for the country. The Obama administration, in its budget earlier this year, requested approximately $50 million per year for the next 5 years for the administration to be able to dismantle old or obsolete warheads. My amendment would simply codify President Obama's own budget request, limiting the administration to spend $50 million per year for the next 5 years on nuclear dismantlement. My amendment also includes a waiver that would allow the President to increase the amount of spending under certain limited conditions. This amendment has been approved not only by the majority but also the minority of the Armed Services Committee. I offer this amendment because of troubling statements from the Obama administration about their intent to accelerate nuclear disarmament, however. Last month, Secretary of State Kerry announced at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Review Conference that the United States would accelerate its dismantlement of nuclear warheads by 20 percent. Beyond obsolete or outdated warheads, I do not believe that is a priority. Nuclear modernization is a priority. We should not be accelerating our nuclear disarmament by up to 20 percent because it would send the exact wrong message to Russia, other adversaries, and our allies. Russia is making overt nuclear threats to the United States and our allies, and we are going to accelerate our unilateral nuclear disarmament? That defies logic. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment in order to call up Cotton amendment No. 1605.

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

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, on rollcall vote No. 204 I voted yes. It was my intention to vote no. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome.

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Regular order.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, reserving the right to object. The PATRIOT Act is a critical tool for our national security. The junior Senator from Utah is correct that three provisions do expire at the end of this month: the so-called roving wiretap provision that will allow intelligence professionals and law enforcement officials to track terrorists no matter what device they might use, the so-called ``lone wolf'' provision that would allow our intelligence authorities to identify and stop terrorists who are not necessarily clearly linked to an overseas terrorist organization, and, finally, section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which has enabled our intelligence professionals at the National Security Agency to help keep our country safe in the so-called telephony metadata program, which was unlawfully disclosed by Edward Snowden 2 years ago, which is why we are able to discuss such a highly classified program. The junior Senator from Utah and I disagree about the program and the legislation. There will be a time for that debate because it is the most important issue we could debating in the United States, our national security and the tools we need to keep our country safe. For the time being, we are on the trade promotion authority bill. That was a decision made last week. This is maybe not the decision that the junior Senator from Utah would have made, and it is not the decision I would have made, but that is where we are. Perhaps we could have been done with the TPA bill if the other side of the aisle had allowed amendments to be processed last week and if there had not been a needless filibuster of the motion to proceed to the bill, but that is water under the bridge. We should move forward in an orderly fashion and process the amendments that are pending on the trade promotion authority bill. We should have a final vote on that bill and then we should move on to the PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill. There will be time for robust debate in public, which is exactly what so many of our Members have been doing in private, given the classified nature of these programs. If we have to work beyond Thursday, I am more than happy to do that. I will even work on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and into next week, if that is what is necessary to first process the trade bill and then finally to reauthorize the important provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Madam President, I object to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, it has been nearly 2 years since the Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad attacked his own people with sarin gas, crossing President Obama's so-called red line. At the time, President Obama grudgingly called for airstrikes against Assad but hesitated at the moment of decision. When Secretary of State Kerry opened the door to a negotiated solution, Vladimir Putin barged in, allowing Assad the pretext of turning over his chemical weapons to avoid U.S. airstrikes. The amen chorus proclaimed a strategic master stroke. But it wasn't so. Street-smart observers were onto Assad's game. He only needed to keep a tiny fraction of his chemical stockpile to retain his military utility. Syria thus could open most--but not all--of its facilities at no cost to the regime. In fact, because most of Syria's chemical agents were old, potentially unreliable yet still dangerous, the regime actually benefitted by getting the West to pay for the removal of the old stockpiles. And where are we now? Exactly where a few of my colleagues and I warned we would be. News reports just this week indicate that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has discovered new evidence of sarin gas and VX nerve agent--9 months after the organization declared Syria had disposed of all of its chemical weapons. In the meantime, Assad has simply shifted to chlorine gas for chemical attacks against his own people, which is also prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention, even though Syria signed that convention as part of President Obama's deal in 2013. I am appalled by these reports that the Syrian regime has obtained stocks of chemical weapons, but I cannot say I am surprised. Anyone with eyes to see knew the message President Obama had sent. When he flinched in 2013 in the face of Assad's brazen and brutal use of sarin gas on civilians, it only emboldened Assad to continue testing U.S. resolve. Of course, the fallout goes far beyond Syria. The failure to enforce the U.S. red line against the use of chemical weapons in Syria has severely damaged U.S. credibility around the world. I hear this message from leaders of countries not just in the region but across the globe. The message sounds most loudly with Iran, where the Ayatollahs continue their headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities with impunity. Regrettably, then, we are reaping the bitter fruits of President Obama's weakness in 2013. There are two simple lessons we must draw from this sad sequence of events. First, our country's word on the international stage must be good and it must be credible. When a President draws a red line and fails to back it up, it only emboldens our enemies and makes America appear as the weak horse. Remember, Osama bin Laden famously said that when given the choice between a weak horse and a strong horse, people will, by nature, root for the strong horse. Under Barack Obama, America increasingly looks like the weak horse. Second, we cannot trust tyrannical regimes to abide by agreements unless we force them to do so. This means that any agreement with Iran about its nuclear weapons program must contain the most stringent conditions, impose the most intrusive verification procedures, and ultimately prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability. The framework agreement President Obama has reached with Iran meets none of those standards. Moreover, the administration's concealment of Syria's cheating surely foreshadows how it will look the other way when Iran cheats on any final deal. Assad's cheating on his chemical weapons agreement today is devastating for the people of Syria, but Iran's cheating on a nuclear agreement in the future could be catastrophic for the United States and the world at large. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Fellow Members, today I recognize a distinguished American hero, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hite of Camden, AK, who died last month at the age of 95. Just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, a group of courageous young pilots flew Army Air Forces bombers off the deck of the USS Hornet in the Pacific Ocean to carry out a dangerous, low-altitude bombing attack on Japan's home islands. The Doolittle Raid provided an enormous morale boost for Americans with a crushing blow to the imperial regime in Tokyo. Among these brave men was an Arkansan, Colonel Robert L. Hite. Colonel Hite had enlisted as an aviation cadet on September 9, 1940. He was later commissioned as a second lieutenant and rated as a pilot on May 29, 1941. Almost bumped from the mission because of space limitations, Colonel Hite was assigned as a copilot ultimately to the B-25 ``Bat Out of Hell.'' He rejected his fellow airmen's attempts to buy his spot on the plane and launched his mission on April 19, 1942. Lieutenant Colonel Hite's aircraft successfully carried out a low- level bombing run on an aircraft factory and fuel depot in Nagoya, Japan, but inclement weather forced the crew to bail out over Japanese- controlled territory as their plane ran low on fuel. Lieutenant Colonel Hite landed in a Japanese rice paddy field, where he was captured and sentenced to execution. Lieutenant Colonel Hite served 40 months in a Japanese prison--38 of them in solitary confinement--where he was tortured and endured brutal conditions. Following V-J Day, Lieutenant Colonel Hite was freed on August 20, 1945. He returned home and married his first wife Portia 1 year later. Lieutenant Colonel Hite later returned to active service, training pilots overseas during the Korean war from 1951 to 1955. After leaving Active Duty, he and Portia moved home to Camden, AR, where he managed the Camden Hotel until 1965. Lieutenant Colonel Hite was widowed in 1999 and later married his late wife, Dorothy. Lieutenant Colonel Hite is survived by two children, five grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and two great-great- grandchildren. On April 18, just 2 weeks after his death, and the 73rd anniversary of the Doolittle Raid, Lieutenant Colonel Hite and his fellow soldiers were posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. Arkansans young and old and all Americans can appreciate Lieutenant Colonel Hite's service to his family, his community, and his Nation--a fine example for us all to emulate. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I thank the Senator from North Carolina, and I appreciate his work and the majority leader's work on this critical issue. I have been working hand in glove with them all along. I would say the answer to the question is, no, this does not raise any reasonable concern about privacy. In fact, the program does not collect any content. It does not surveil any phone call. It doesn't even include any personally identifiable information. I have spent hours with the intelligence officers and the FBI agents who are responsible for administering these programs--not merely the general counsels or the directors of these agencies but the men and women who administer them. I have asked them what they think poses a greater risk to their privacy--the discount grocery card the Senator from North Carolina mentioned or the fact that e-commerce Web sites have their name, address, credit card number, and personal history? And to a person, every one of them said a greater threat to their privacy is commercial marketing practices, not this program. The program has been approved 40 times by 15 different independent Federal judges based on 36 years of Supreme Court precedent and has been approved by two Presidents of both parties. If President Obama wanted to end the program tomorrow, he could, but he hasn't. That is because this program is lawful, it is faithful to the Constitution, it is smothered with safeguards against abuse, and it is needed to fight a rising terrorist threat that we face today. In fact, those threats today are greater than they were on 9/11. And that is not my opinion; that is the testimony of this administration's senior intelligence officials. The rise of Al Qaeda affiliates in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and the broader Middle East illustrates the metastasis of Al Qaeda following its retreat from Afghanistan. These groups are larger and more spread out than their predecessors. They are also more technologically and operationally savvy, developing new, nonmetallic bombs, recruiting westerners, and using the Internet to spread their hatred. They even publish ``how to'' manuals for becoming a successful terrorist at home. Of course, there is the Islamic State--the Obama-described ``JV team''--which has cut the heads off of innocent Americans, is torturing and murdering Christians and other religious minorities, and has sadistically burned people alive. More than 20,000 foreigners have gone to Syria and Iraq to join this enemy. Some have returned to their home countries, including the United States, some have remained in their home countries, becoming more radicalized and ready to inflict harm against Americans. We don't have to look any further than this past week, when two Islamic State-inspired jihadists decided to open fire in Texas. Press reports indicate that one of the attackers was in contact with an ISIS supporter currently located in Somalia. This conduct illustrates why this program is so important. It helps close the gap that exists between foreign intelligence gathering and stopping attacks here at home. This is the gap that contributed in part to our failure to stop the 9/11 attacks. There are also open source reports of ISIS cells in Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, California, and Michigan. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I receive regular briefings on such threats, and I invite all my colleagues to receive these briefings if they doubt that the wolves are at the door or even in our country. This highlights one challenge of this debate: Most of the information surrounding the plots and the programs is classified. The intelligence community has been very accommodating in providing classified briefings to Members of the Senate and the Congress. The issue, though, is often getting Members to attend or to visit with the agencies. That is why I believe the Senate may have to enter a closed session as we debate these programs, so that Members are not woefully ignorant of the threats America faces. Under consideration in the House and proposed in the Senate is the so-called USA FREEDOM Act, which will eliminate the essential intelligence this program collects. Proponents of the bill claim that it provides alternative ways for the intelligence community to obtain critical information needed to stop terrorist attacks and that it doesn't compromise our counterterror efforts. But let me be clear. This is wrong. The alternatives to the current program do not come close to offering the capabilities we now have that enable us to protect Americans. One alternative offered by opponents is to have phone companies retain control of cell data and provide the NSA only the data responsive to searches phone companies would run on the agency's behalf. This isn't technologically feasible. At the request of the President's own Director of National Intelligence, the independent National Research Council examined this proposal, and its experts concluded that the technology does not currently exist that would enable a system spread among different carriers to replace the capabilities of the current NSA metadata program. Any such system would create holes in our ability to identify terrorist connections. First, phone companies don't store the data for longer than 180 days and oftentimes for much shorter periods, and nothing in the USA FREEDOM Act requires them to store it any longer. The current NSA program, however, stores data for 5 years, which allows the NSA to discover potential terrorist links during that time period. A system that keeps data with multiple carriers that store their data for much shorter time periods is close to useless in discovering terrorist network and sleeper cells, many of which lie in wait for years before launching an attack. Second, a system that tries to search multiple carriers and then collects and unifies their responses is cumbersome and time-consuming. In many investigations, the loss of valuable minutes, hours, and days may mean the difference between stopping an attack or seeing it succeed. Third, data stored with phone companies rather than the NSA is more vulnerable to hackers who would seek to abuse queries of the stored metadata. Fourth, the costs are unknown, and the American people will bear them--either as taxpayers if the telecom companies ask to be reimbursed or as consumers as the companies pass along the costs on your phone bill, perhaps as an NSA collection fee. Fifth, to those people who say that this is technologically feasible and that we can easily execute it, I would remind you that this is the Federal Government that brought you healthcare.gov. A second alternative offered is to pay a third-party contractor or quasi-private entity to store data and run the program. I would argue that this is untested and unworkable. First, the proposal would also require an indefinite stream of taxpayer dollars to fund it. Second, the private entity may be subject to civil litigation discovery orders as it may hold information relevant to cases, which would expose Americans' data to judicial proceedings with no connection to national security and without the security and privacy protections in place today. Third, a new organization will create the need for heavy security, top-secret clearances for employees, and strong congressional oversight. As more resources are devoted to such an entity, what we end up with is a reconstituted NSA program but at additional cost to taxpayers and greater threats to privacy. As I mentioned, I have taken the opportunity in recent months to go and visit the men and women who work at the NSA and FBI. I can tell you all that they are fine Americans with the highest character. I spent hours with the very small number of men and women at Fort Meade who are allowed to search this data. I would ask how many critics of the program have actually done that. Let's examine in detail how these men and women search this data. An independent Federal court regularly approves NSA's authority to collect and store the data in the first place. But for these men and women to even look at the data, it must go through a multistep process that includes approval by four different entities at the NSA, numerous attorneys at the Department of Justice, and those very same judges who sit on that court. Even if a search request is granted, not just anyone at the NSA can access the data; access is limited to this small group of men and women, all of whom undergo regular background checks, drug tests, and are subject to regular polygraphs, many of whom are military veterans. To prevent abuse of the program in retrospect, searches of the data are automatically recorded and regularly audited by both the inspector general and the Department of Justice, with strict penalties for anyone found to have committed abuse. Moreover, I, the Senator from North Carolina, and other members of the intelligence committees of both Houses of this Congress participate in these reviews. This is a robust and layered set of protections for Americans, their privacy, and these protections would not exist under the proposed USA FREEDOM Act. There are also protections that almost definitely will not be adopted by private telecom providers, which some wrongly suggest might retain exclusive control of this data. These multiple safeguards are why to date these programs have a sterling record, with no verified instances of intentional abuse, not a single one. In conclusion, in the wake of the traitorous Snowden disclosures, Senator Chambliss and Senator Feinstein showed great leadership when they came together to defend these programs as both legal and effective. As Senator Feinstein wrote when she was chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end this program will substantially increase the risk of another catastrophic attack in the United States. That is a proposition with which I wholeheartedly agree. I now see my colleague from the Judiciary Committee on the floor. He is a former U.S. attorney and State attorney general, and I wonder if he agrees that this program is both constitutional and does not differ in substantial ways from the traditional tools prosecutors can use against criminals while also providing adequate safeguards to American privacy.

Mr. COTTON

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

Mr. COTTON

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

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I send two amendments to the desk, one for my own and one on behalf of Senator Rubio of Florida. Mr. President, I have said time and again----

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, let's talk about poison pill amendments. I would say these aren't poison pills; these are vitamin pills. They are designed to strengthen this legislation and to strengthen the U.S. negotiating position. Who could object that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and that Iran should not be allowed a nuclear weapon if they won't recognize that right? The President himself said they should close their underground fortified military bunker before they get sanctions relief. We are simply asking for a vote on what the President himself has said. If the Senator from Maryland wants to talk about procedural tactics, let's be perfectly clear what has happened here. The very first amendment brought to the floor on this bill was designed to stop any other amendments from being offered. For those of you watching, you should know that the only thing that amendment says is that any final agreement must be submitted in Farsi as well as English. That is a noncontroversial proposal which I am sure we could adopt by voice vote and move on in an orderly fashion to any other amendments. Yet, they continue to object to unanimous consent to bring up any other amendments, designed to stop the Senate from having to cast these votes. The amendments we have offered are no more of a procedural tactic than what the Senator from Maryland himself is doing--an amendment that could have been offered in committee, an amendment that could have been voted on easily on Tuesday when it was offered but is being used to block consideration of any other amendment. These are not tough votes. These should be easy votes. Again, if you want to vote no, vote no. If you want to vote no and say it is designed to protect a compromise, do that. But we should be voting. I yield the floor.

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, again, these amendments would do two very simple things: First, they would require a vote on whether Iran should get sanctions relief before it discloses past military dimensions of its nuclear program, before it closes its underground fortified bunker at Fordow, and before it submits to a fully verifiable, anytime, anywhere, no-notice inspections regime. Second, they would require Iran to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish democratic state before they get nuclear weapons because they continue to say that Israel would be wiped off the map, and if they get nuclear weapons, they will have the means to do so. It is my intent to insist upon a recorded vote on these amendments at a simple-majority threshold. The Senate needs to vote. If you disagree with these policies, vote no. If you agree with these policies and you think this will upset a delicate compromise, then vote no and explain that. But we need to vote, and we should start voting. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I also call up for Senator Rubio a second- degree amendment, amendment No. 1198 to amendment No. 1197.

Mr. COTTON. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1197 at the desk to the text proposed to be stricken by amendment No. 1140.

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I have said time and again that a nuclear- armed Iran is the greatest threat this country faces. I have said time and again that the Senate needs to have votes on the merits of this agreement. The President has taken us down a very dangerous path. The President has backtracked on his own words. He said that Iran needed to live up to all of its obligations under international law. Yet Iran still has not disclosed the past military dimensions of its nuclear program. The President said, after this negotiating process began in December of 2013, that Iran has no need for a fortified underground military bunker in Fordow. Yet our negotiators have conceded the existence, with centrifuge cascades, of that underground military bunker. The President has said we have to have fully verifiable, anywhere, anytime access to all sites in Iran to ensure they are not cheating on any agreement--to include their military sites. Yet the leaders of Iran continue to say that we won't be able to access their military sites. There will be no intrusive inspections. I and the Senator from Florida, as well as many other Senators, have submitted multiple amendments to ask for votes on these points. We have been consistently blocked from bringing up these amendments for a vote. It is fine if you want to vote no. If you think Iran should keep an underground fortified military bunker with centrifuge cascades. It is fine if you don't think they should have to disclose the past military dimensions of their nuclear program, but we need to vote. We need to vote now. It is even fine if you agree with those points and that you think this is a delicate agreement that has to be prevented from being amended in any way. But we need to vote. If you don't want to vote, you shouldn't have come to the Senate. If you are in the Senate and you don't want to vote, you should leave. As the Senator from Florida said yesterday, be a talk show host, be a columnist. It is time we have a vote at a simple majority threshold on all of these critical points. We are talking about a nuclear Iran, the most dangerous threat to our national security. So the amendment I am offering first would simply take the language of the bill that came out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and add those three points. First, that Iran shouldn't keep its nuclear facility before it gets sanctions relief; that Iran can't get sanctions relief until they disclose the past military dimensions of their nuclear program. They can't get sanctions relief until they accept a fully verifiable inspections regime. We deserve a vote on this. Amendment No. 1197 (Purpose: Amendment of a perfecting nature)

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

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