Bob Menendez

Mr. MENENDEZ

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor again to speak about Iran as we count down to the deadline for an agreement about Iran's illusiveness when it comes to the military dimensions of their program and how they respond to that in any agreement. The truth, as it has always been, is illusive, and it remains so. Yesterday, Secretary of State Kerry said--in response to a question about whether Iran's atomic work by the Iranian military would have to be resolved before sanctions would be lifted--that we are not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point or another. What we are concerned about is going forward. Given Iran's history of deception, I am very concerned about what they did ``at one point or another.'' In an Iran task force memo on verification, it says that ``until Iran provides a full accounting of its past and present possible military dimension activities, the international community cannot have confidence that it knows either how far Iran is along the path to nuclear weapons or that Iran's nuclear weapons activities have effectively ceased.'' David Albright--who has appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and whom I called many times when I was the chairman and still do--is the founder of the Institute for Science and International Security. Mr. Albright said the Secretary's remarks were ``very worrisome.'' He said that they reflect what he sees as the administration's long practice of offering concessions to Iran. He said: ``Whenever confronted with Iranian intransigence. . . . It's going to be hard for a lot of people to support this deal if they give in on past military dimensions.'' He also said: Addressing the International Atomic Energy Administration's concerns about the military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programs is fundamental to any long-term agreement. . . . An agreement that sidesteps the military issues would risk being unverifiable. Moreover, the world would not be so concerned if Iran had never conducted weaponization activities aimed at building a nuclear weapon. Speaking of the possible military dimensions of Iran's program, the former Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Administration, Olli Heinonen, said: Without addressing those questions . . . the IAEA Secretariat will not be able to come to a conclusion that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful use, which is essential in building confidence of the international community over Iran's nuclear program. A comprehensive deal-- that would include uranium enrichment--can only be reached if uncertainties over Iran's military nuclear capability are credibly addressed. . . . That should be an unambiguous condition to achieving a final accord that is meaningful in safeguards terms. Now, this is the former Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Administration, whom we hear overwhelmingly under the proposed agreements saying this is the entity that will be responsible for the verification of any potential agreement. Well, his experience says that without understanding the weaponization elements of Iran's program, you can't fully be able to do that. He also warned that outsiders really can have no idea where and how fast the mullahs could build a nuclear weapon unless they know what Iranian engineers have done in the past. As to Secretary Kerry's assertion yesterday that we know what their program was--and he said it, as I read it, almost as unequivocal that we know what their program was. Well, I get concerned when I read the former Director of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, who has said not addressing the possible military dimensions ``creates an increased burden on verification if I don't have high confidence in where the Iranians actually are, not such as fissile material development, but in their weaponization program. . . . we do have intelligence estimates, but they remain estimates.'' They remain estimates. [F]or a country that says ``that's not our objective,'' they refuse to come clean on their past. . . . How can we know their intent, how can we know their capacity for breakout or sneak out, without high confidence in where it is they are right now? He also said in reference to Secretary Kerry's remarks: I'd like to see the DNI or any intelligence office repeat that word for me. They won't. What he is saying is that we don't care how far they've gotten with weaponization. We're betting the farm on our ability to limit the production of fissile material. He's pretending we have perfect knowledge about something that was an incredibly tough intelligence target while I was director and I see nothing that has made it any easier. This is the former Director of the CIA, supposedly where we have all of this knowledge. This is his expression of what we have or don't have. Clearly, basically what he is saying is we have estimates, but they are just that, estimates. I am very concerned when the Secretary of State says that we are prepared to ease sanctions on Iran without fully understanding how far Iran progressed on its secret nuclear weapons program. It has been a fundamental question from the very beginning of these negotiations. It was made very clear in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and other venues where Members asked about would Iran have to come clean on its possible dimensions of its militarization of its weapons program and would that have to be upfront. That was always an understanding, almost like a red line. Now that seems to be erased. It has been a fundamental question to which we need--not just want--a full and verifiable answer. This is not just about Iran making some admission. That is beyond. I think the world has acted the way it has acted with the sanctions from the U.N. Security Council and elsewhere because it knows Iran was pursuing weaponization of its nuclear program. It is just that we don't know how far they got in that process, and how far they got in that process is important to know as we are determining the other elements of any agreement, particularly with breakout. That has been the case as long as I have been working to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. Now, the Secretary of State says we are prepared to ease economic sanctions without a full and comprehensive answer to that question. He says Iran's past suspected nuclear activities need to be ``addressed.'' That is all, simply addressed--not specifically answered but only addressed. According to the New York Times article that I read, he made it clear that sanctions could be lifted--they could be lifted--before definitively resolving concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran's past nuclear research and the extent of the military dimensions of that research. That is simply unacceptable, in my view, and it should be unacceptable to everyone in this Chamber. You know, the New York Times article goes on to say: Those favoring full disclosure of what diplomats have delicately called the ``possible military dimensions'' of Iranian nuclear research say that the West will never know how long it would take Iran to manufacture a weapon--if it ever developed or obtained bomb-grade uranium or plutonium-- unless there is a full picture of its success in suspected experiments to design the detonation systems for a weapon and learn how to shrink it to fit atop a missile. That is exactly what I believe, and I came to the floor recently and had a map that described where the possible reach of Iran's present missile technology exists, and it is most of the gulf, into parts of Eastern Europe, Turkey, Egypt, and of course our ally, the State of Israel. So its reach today, under missile capacity--and something they continue to perfect--is incredibly significant. For a decade since obtaining data from an Iranian scientist from a laptop that was spirited out of the country, the CIA and Israel have devoted enormous energy to understanding the scope and success of the program. Failing to require disclosure, they argue, would also undercut the atomic agency--a quiet signal to other countries that they, too, could be given a pass. That is quoted from the Times article. Those are exactly my continuing concerns, and I think they are concerns of a very large universe of people who have been following these developments. I need to know the answer to those questions before I can support any lifting of sanctions against Iran that I have fought for, authored, and that this Senate has unanimously supported. So I am going to conclude, but I will be back to point out the unfolding problems with dealing with the mullahs in Tehran and what it means to the national security of the United States and to our allies in the Middle East and to the stability of the region and to what I am increasingly concerned is the moving of goal posts that move increasingly in the direction of Iran. I remember when we started off this conversation--these negotiations--Iraq's plutonium reactor, we were told they will dismantle it or we will destroy it. Well, this agreement allows Iraq to continue--reconfigured somewhat, but it can be reconfigured back. The President himself has said there was no need for Fordow, built deeply under a mountain, an enrichment facility. Now, if you want a peaceful nuclear civilian program, you don't go deep into a mountain to ultimately do enrichment, but that is what the Iranians did. The President himself said that was an unnecessary facility. We were told it was going to be closed. Well, it is going to stay open--reconfigured to produce less uranium and supposedly with safeguards, but it is going to stay open. The point is, with regard to the weaponization elements, Iran has for a decade--a decade--worked against the U.N. Security Council resolution that said it had to come clean on this question. So for a decade they haven't done it. When you have the leverage, why wouldn't you seek to achieve it now, so you know and can calculate the rest of your agreement? That, too, seems to be lost in the shifting sands of these negotiations. This is of deep concern to me, and I can only hope we will end up at a better deal than that which is being unfolded as we speak. Every time I listen to another element of what I thought was a critical element of any deal, that critical element seems to be oddly moving in the direction of what Iran wants it to be and not what we in the international community should want to see. That is my concern, and I will continue to come to the floor to report on it. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

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

Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I know we are on the national defense bill and, of course, national defense is ultimately about national security, and one of the concerns I have about national security and our national interests is the challenge of a nuclear-armed Iran. I came to the floor last week to say that when it comes to dealing with Iran--as we count down to the deadline for an agreement--the truth is always elusive. I said then that international inspectors reported that Tehran's stockpile of nuclear fuel, rather than decreasing, actually increased by 20 percent. Now, in the last days before the agreement deadline is reached, David Albright, a well-respected expert on Iran's nuclear program, in an article for the Institute for Science and International Security, says that the State Department's explanation of Iran's newly produced 3.5 percent enriched uranium falls short and that the State Department seemed to be making excuses for the fact that Iran has not reduced its enrichment level, which they agreed to do in the Joint Plan of Action. The fact is uranium enrichment, when taken to the maximum, can lead to bomb material. So reducing the enrichment level is critical, in terms of possible breakout time in Iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Albright says: The core of the State Department's explanation in the last few days appears to be that Iran meets the conditions of the Joint Plan of Action once it feeds newly produced low enriched uranium hexafluoride gas into the uranium conversion plan at Esfahan. . . . Now, to bring this down into lay terms, this conversion plant is there to take this enriched uranium--that if further enriched, can lead to bomb material--to transform the enriched uranium that can be prepared for potential nuclear material to an oxide form, and that is a form in which the bomb threat is dramatically reduced. But the Esfahan plant didn't even become operational until the fall of 2014, a year after it was supposed to have opened, and--conveniently for the Iranians--it is having operational difficulties, making it highly unlikely Iran can convert the low-enriched uranium hexafluoride, which we are concerned about, into enriched uranium dioxide used for making nuclear power reactor fuel. Put simply, at the end of the day, once again Iran will not have lived up to what they agreed to. Now, we knew from the beginning it was going to be a challenge. We knew it was going to be difficult for the Iranians to blend down their nuclear fuel, rather than to ship it out to another country, which so far they have refused to do. We knew it would be a concern if they weren't able to convert low-enriched uranium hexafluoride into the enriched uranium dioxide--the one in which, obviously, we have far less concerns. And, frankly, because that is obviously a problem, I am concerned, because as the Albright article states, ``The amounts of LEU amount to about 4,000 kilograms of 3.5 LEU hexafluoride, enough to potentially make 2 to 3 nuclear weapons if further enriched to weapons- grade uranium.'' Two to three nuclear weapons if further enriched to nuclear-grade uranium. Now, I am concerned this is more blue smoke and mirrors that overlooked the real ambitions of an untrustworthy negotiating partner. I am concerned Iran is still saying it will not ship out excess low- enriched uranium but somehow blend it down and store it at the plant, which can't possibly blend down enough at this point to meet the requirements under the Joint Plan of Action. I am concerned this is more of an issue than the administration is willing to concede, particularly if, at the end, there is no deal and we, through sanctions relief, paid them to convert and then they walk away with massive amounts of low-enriched uranium that can be fed into their centrifuges and be easily converted to highly enriched uranium and on to weapons-grade uranium. According to David Albright: Based on the IAEA's report-- That is the International Atomic Energy Administration's report to member states-- the problems in making enriched uranium oxide were apparent by the fall of 2014 . . . but the Administration decided not to make a major issue about the lack of oxide production. The article goes on to say: Concluding that Iran has met the Joint Plan of Action condition to convert to oxide newly-enriched up to 5 percent is incorrect. And it further says: In this case, the potential violation refers to Iran not producing the enriched oxide at the end of the initial six month period of the Joint Plan of Action and again after its first extension. This is a continuing quote: The choosing of a weaker condition which must be met cannot be a good precedent for interpreting more important provisions in a final deal. Moreover, it tends to confirm the view of critics that future violations of a long-term deal will be downplayed for the sake of generating or maintaining support for the deal. It says: The administration relied on a technical remedy that Iran had not demonstrated it could carry out. The article concludes: The State Department has some explaining to do. Now, the enrichment issue is one thing, but then there is the recently released U.N. Security Council report on a whole host of the existing Security Council resolutions and mandates as it relates to Iran, and there are other problems as well. They are well documented in this just recently released report; that Iran has continued to deny the legitimacy of Security Council resolutions not addressed in the Joint Plan of Action; that Iran's arms transfers have actively continued, raising concerns in particular in the region; that cases of noncompliance with the travel ban have also been observed; that Iran has continued certain nuclear activities, including enrichment and work at Arak; and that there is no progress by Iran in addressing possible military dimensions that had been agreed to be addressed by Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The most troubling relates to allegations of large-scale high- explosives experimentation at Parchin. The report goes on to talk about Iran's missile technology. Here we have a sense from the U.N. Security Council's report where it speaks to Iran's missile capability. And I am using a map here that I give credit to the New York Times for to demonstrate what that means. Iran has two kinds of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear weapon, according to the report--the Ghadr missile, which is a variation of the liquid-fuel Shahab-3, with a range of about 1,600 kilometers, or 995 miles, and the other is the Sejil missile, with a range of about 2,000 kilometers, or about 1,250 miles. The first missile encompasses most of the gulf and certainly our ally, the State of Israel, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention Turkey, among others, and then the longer range missile actually goes as far as into Europe. And this is missile technology that is still in development. As the U.N. Security Council report points out, we can see the range of Iran's missiles and the potential military dimensions of its pursuits. Then there is the issue of arms embargo violations and the transfer of conventional arms. For whatever reasons--and the report speculates that maybe member states, meaning member countries of the United Nations, don't want to upset the apple cart of the negotiations--there have been no reports--even in the midst of very clear violations taking place, and those have been largely reported--from member states of the U.N. about the transfer of conventional arms by Iran. But the U.N. report nevertheless says that ``the panel notes media reports pointing to continued military support and alleged arms transfers to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, and to Hezbollah and Hamas.'' The report also says that a shipment of arms was confirmed by Massoud Barzani, president of Kurdistan's regional government, who said: ``We asked for weapons and Iran was the first country to provide [them].'' This is a clear violation if ever there were one. According to the report, some member states informed the panel that Iran's nuclear procurement trends and circumvention techniques remain basically unchanged. In fact, Great Britain informed the U.N. panel that they are aware of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network associated with Iran's centrifuge technology company known as TESA and Kalay Electric Company, which are listed sanction entities under the U.N. Security Council resolutions. The report further says that member states have reported on the methods Iran has used and continues to use to carry out financial transactions below the radar to conceal any connection to Iran. Some states that import oil, for example, have authorized their banks to receive payments into accounts belonging to the Central Bank of Iran. The funds were reportedly paid out against invoices for exports of goods to Iran although the goods were never exported, meaning money was taken out and ultimately made its way to Iran even though they were not for payment of anything because nothing was shipped. The simple fact is--and there are many other examples in the U.N. Security Council report, to which I commend my colleagues' attention-- we can't trust Iran to abide by its agreements or to abide by U.N. resolutions even when they are in the midst of negotiations, when you would think they would be behaving the best. One would think they would want to put their best foot forward. Why would we think we can trust them if they are violating U.N. Security Council resolutions? That is the world--not the United States, not even the P5+1, but the world-- telling them they can't do these things or they violate an international order. So why would we think we could trust them not to enrich uranium, not to pursue a weapons program, and not to find any way possible to renege on any agreement they reach when they are violating existing Security Council resolutions? As I have said, I will come to the floor to reiterate my skepticism that Iran will not do all it can to pursue their agenda. I believe, rather, they will try to find a way to pursue their agenda, to play fast and loose with the truth, to hide the truth, to cover it up, and to buy time. Iran needs to be held responsible for its commitments-- forget about its work; its commitments. There can be no slippage, no delays, no obfuscation. That is how they succeeded in the past in bringing themselves to be on the verge of becoming a threshold nuclear state. So where do we go from here? It remains to be seen whether compliance with that which has already been agreed to by the Iranians--even at this early stage while the world is watching--can be realized or will it be explained away. I intend to come to the floor again and again to hold Iran accountable for its actions and to keep a laser-like focus on the mullahs in Tehran. I fear that when that spotlight is off, when the press is gone, when the agreement is out of the headlines and the curtain closes on the P5+1 talks, Iran will pull back into the shadows. When that happens and if it goes wrong, what will we do then? We haven't seen the final agreement, so we will have to wait to make a final judgment on it. But if the final agreement follows in the line of the framework agreement, then we will have a set of circumstances where we will not be solving the problem. I think some of the experts who were before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday in a briefing admitted to the fact--and one or two of them are proponents of an agreement--they said this does not solve the problem but only kicks the problem down the road. Those are hard choices no matter what, but I would rather confront a country that is on the path to nuclear weapons before it gets it and when it is at its weakest point, not when it becomes a country at its stronger point, with far more resources, with sanctions that have largely dissipated. And even with snapback provisions--which I think we should have, but several years down the road when the world has now engaged Iran in doing business and Iran has risen in its economy--its economy has already stopped its free-fall just on the basis of expectations--and it decides possibly to break out 3 or 4 years down the road, putting all of those international sanctions back together, as someone who was the author of those sanctions here in the Congress, I can tell you that is going to take a lot more work. There is no instantaneous snapback: Oh, we will put the sanctions back and they will have effect immediately. You have to tell the world, you have to give them notice that, in fact, there are sanctions back in effect. You have to tell companies now doing business and give them time to disinvest from those businesses. By the time you add that, if experience is a good barometer, we gave at a minimum 6 months' lead time to tell the world this is going to be a sanctionable activity, and by the time we actually pursued enforcement and implementation of those, it was far beyond--close to a year. Well, that happens to be the time we are actually vying for breakout time. So I am going to continue to come to the floor to continue to shine a spotlight on the challenges we have with Iran and on the shortcomings of the interim agreement as we hope for a good final agreement. But I will use the refrain that the administration at one time used, which is that no agreement is better than a bad agreement, and that is what my concern is--that we are headed toward a bad agreement. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I wish to recognize the United States women's national soccer team as it prepares for the first game in its pursuit of World Cup glory in Canada. As with the men's team last year, my home State is well represented on the women's team, with four players: Tobin Heath, Carli Lloyd, Heather O'Reilly, and Christie Rampone, who call New Jersey home. These athletes and the 19 others selected by head coach Jill Ellis have worked tirelessly to hone their skills in order to become some of the best players in the world. Despite being drawn into the so-called ``group of death,'' this U.S. team enters the tournament as one of the favorites, and I am confident that they will represent us well and make us all proud to be Americans. While much of the world considers the U.S. to be a relative newcomer to the global soccer community on the men's side of the game, our women's team is unmatched in its esteem, having won two World Cup titles since the tournament began in 1991 and never finishing below third place. I hope that this U.S. team will build upon its rich history of success at the seventh Women's World Cup. I believe that we will win.

Mr. MENENDEZ

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

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, once again, the truth proves elusive when we are dealing with Iran's unpredictable regime. I refer to a New York Times article that is entitled ``Iran's Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating Negotiations.'' Among elements of the article--and I know the article is being disparaged by the State Department; I will talk about that in a moment--but among the elements of the article is the fact that Iran's stockpile of nuclear fuel has increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months of negotiations--increased--increased 20 percent in the last 18 months of negotiations. In essence, we are to be convinced ``that Iran will have to shrink its stockpile by 96 percent in a matter of months after a deal is signed, even while it continues to produce new material and has demonstrated little success in reducing its current stockpile.'' I am reading from the Times article. It goes on to say, in part, ``That means Iran . . . would have to rid itself of more than nine tons of its stockpile in a matter of months.'' In a matter of months. Now, this is a continuing challenge that we have as we look at these negotiations. We are supposedly in the final months. The end of this month is when we are hopefully going to come to some type of an agreement. We see what has been a challenge from the very beginning. It is a challenge I have cited time and time again. How much of these numbers are done because of Iran's desire to push the numbers upward? Is that for a political purpose? Is it for a negotiating purpose? Is it for a technological inability? Whatever it is, the numbers published Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the independent agency for which so much of the Joint Plan of Action and any future agreement that might be consummated--this is the entity we are depending upon. Well, this entity has said that Iran has continued to enrich uranium aggressively, even though it knew it was not meeting its goals of converting its stockpile into reactor rods. This is a real question that I have. Another independent group, the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in February that Iran has failed to do the conversion. We knew from the beginning it was going to be difficult for the Iranians to blend down rather than ship out because they have this aversion to shipping out. This was all possible if they would ship out, but they have consistently said they will not ship out their fuel. We knew it would be a concern if they weren't able to do what they pledged to do and, frankly, I am concerned. I am concerned this is just another diplomatic sleight of hand by an untrustworthy negotiating partner. I am concerned Iran is still saying it will not ship out excess low-enriched uranium but rather blend it down and store it. I am concerned this is more of an issue than the administration is willing to concede, particularly if there is no deal, and we, in essence, with sanctions relief have paid them to convert, and then they walk away with massive amounts of low-enriched uranium that can be fed into their centrifuges and converted to highly enriched uranium. Let's be clear. The tracking and verification of uranium mines and mills--which were often talked about as part of why we will have a safeguard if there is a deal--to centrifuges only works if Iran gets rid of its stockpiles. It doesn't work any other way. It does not work any other way. The New York Times has identified a real problem with the mechanisms being used to control Iran's nuclear stockpile. The simplest solution would be to ship Iran's stockpile out of the country. This would prevent any question of a buildup of material. However, Iran has refused to do this--at least to this date publicly--and opened the potential for Iranian manipulation about what is going on. There may be technical reasons for the 20-percent increase in low- enriched uranium, but one certainly has to wonder: Are they delaying? Are they really having problems building a conversion facility-- something I specifically expressed concerns about early in the process--or is this simply another attempt to play fast and loose with the truth, cover it up, and buy time? Is it a negotiating posture? So as they come closer and closer to the deadline, they have all of this enriched uranium, and there is this compulsion to strike a deal--not a good deal but a deal at any cost. While this may not be a technical violation of the Joint Plan of Action, the Iranians were supposed to have reached the agreed-upon goal. The fact is, midway through the process, we are told there could be a delay. But clearly the timetable has slipped even further away. I know the State Department has gone after the article, which, in part, is based on facts from the International Atomic Energy Administration. The administration has gone out of their way to attack the premise of the article because I guess anything that would upset the fundamental belief that we have to have a deal at any cost is problematic for the State Department. But I have to be honest with you. As I read the State Department's response, it means to me that their main response appears to be that Iran is not in technical violation of the Joint Plan of Action because it still has a month left to transform all of the extra low-enriched uranium that it has created in recent months into oxide. This pushback is pretty much something we should have expected because it is the only argument the administration actually has available to it to explain this, and it is the same argument they used when many of us were raising the concerns that Iran was busting through their oil export caps set under the Joint Plan of Action every month. We were consistently told: Well, next month the Iranians will ship even less, and therefore it will all even out. Well, the fact is that when time ran out, the exports of Iran remained way above what was allowed, and then the administration shifted to an explanation only to suggest that certain types of oil just do not count. There is always a reach here to try to get a justification for Iran. I think the State Department's response totally misses the point of the New York Times article. The upshot of the piece is not that there is no way for Iran to meet its Joint Plan of Action obligations in theory--in theory; it is that Iranians have stockpiled so much low- enriched uranium that it is all but impossible for them to meet those objectives in practice. The Iranians may have calculated that they do not have to do so and that the administration is not about to blow up an impending nuclear deal over a violation of past agreements if those violations bear directly on Iranian intentions and capabilities to implement the agreement. There is another group who has been before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When I was the chairman, we called them several times, and I think Senator Corker, the new chair, has a deep respect for them as well--the Institute for Science and International Security. They have posted their analysis of this specific question: Will Iran be able to meet its obligation regarding its 5 percent low-enriched uranium? In the response to that question, the Institute for Science and International Security, David Albright, who is arguably one of the most respected voices on Iran's nuclear program, comes to this conclusion: Iran has fallen behind in its pledge to convert its newly produced low enriched uranium hexafluoride into oxide form. There are legitimate questions about whether Iran can produce all of the requisite LEU oxide. Iran has fed a total of 2,720 kilograms of 3.5 percent low-enriched uranium hexafluoride into the EUPP--the vehicle by which they ultimately have the conversion--but it has not fed any 3.5 percent low- enriched uranium hexafluoride into the plant since November of 2014-- November of last year. By the end of June--they go on to say--in order to meet its commitment under the Joint Plan of Action, Iran must finish converting the 2,720 kilograms of low-enriched uranium into oxide, introduce it into that vehicle and convert it into oxide. They go on to say: Thus, Iran has clearly fallen behind in its pledge under the Joint Plan of Action. On a policy level, the institute's analysis emphasizes that Iran's refusal to meet its obligation ``show the risk posed by relying on technical solutions that have not yet been demonstrated by Iran''--so technical solutions that we say: If, in fact, they can do this, this may be part of our way in which we can strike a deal, but Iran has not demonstrated meeting those technical solutions. Iran is under sanctions and in the middle of negotiations. Yet, we still cannot rely upon them. I think this is a serious concern not to be minimized. This is at the same time that Iran is boarding commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, firing at some of them. This is the same Iran that is in the midst, as a country, of going ahead and is engaged as the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen. Yet, even as we are in the midst of the negotiation, all of these things are taking place, and even if we want to wall off all of the nonnuclear acts of Tehran that have to worry us and concern us in terms of our national security and international order, as it relates to the nuclear portfolio, they do not seem to be headed in the direction of what is clearly necessary in order to meet their obligations under the Joint Plan of Action. They do not seem, at least in this point in time, to be technically capable of doing that even though these are the fixes we are looking for. At the end of the day, you have to really wonder why we continue to find a way to excuse Iran in every element. We had something that was found independently and reported to the United Nations Security Council commission that deals with questions. They were ultimately fueling one of their rods. This was raised and, again, it was responded to. It was deemed de minimis. We had oil exports greater than what they were allowed. We explained it away, saying: Well, certain types of oil were not counted. We have a set of circumstances where they have raised their fuel capacity, not lowered it, even as they are headed toward an agreement in which they have to dramatically reduce it. So I have a real problem in consistently seeing the willingness to stretch to allow Iran to get where it is today. It is that view which let the world, unfortunately, allow Iran to get to the point of a precipice of having nuclear power that it can convert to a nuclear weapon. That is not in the national interests and security of the United States. I have the intention in this period of time to consistently come to the floor and raise these issues as they evolve and rear their heads at a critical moment. I think we have to be very committed to knowing the truth here. While all of us aspire to have an agreement that can truly stop Iran's path toward a nuclear weapon and that that be something which is not just limited in time because the Persians have for 5,000 years been trying to have the power in the hegemonic interests they have--they are closer to it, from my perspective, than at any other time. If they already have their people suffering under sanctions as a result of their actions and they are using the resources they have not to help their people but to continue to spread terrorism throughout the region, then we can only wonder, when a deal is struck and large flows of money begin to return to Iran, what they will do with that money. It seems to me that you would have a strategy set up to think about that before you even get to a deal, assuming you can achieve a good deal. But when I see them taking actions that, in my view, may not be a technical violation but are contrary to everything they are supposed to do, when you have independent groups such as the Institute for Science and David Albright and when you have the IAEA making these observations, for me, it has alarm bells and those alarm bells are worrying. I think it is incredibly important, on what I believe is one of the most significant national security and international security order questions that will come before the Senate, that we not just look the other way but that we challenge, when these facts continue to come forward, about what is the truth behind them and what does it mean for any potential agreement and how we continue to judge Iran's actions in light of any potential agreement. I know we are told constantly: This is not on hope, and that it is all going to be verified. It is not on trust, but it is all going to be verified. But I have to be honest with you--it depends when you keep defining what is or is not permissible. From my perspective, where we are headed is not what I think is in the national interest and security of the United States. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavoidably detained for rollcall vote No. 196 on cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2048. Had I been present, I would have voted yea.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I extend my congratulations to the National Herald for 100 years of respected journalism celebrating Greek-American culture and chronicling every minute of it, bringing vital news and analysis on issues of concern to the Greek-American community. Socrates said, ``There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.'' For the last 100 years, the National Herald has provided the ``one good'' and has proudly reflected the fundamental democratic principles that have become Greece's gift to the world. The Greek-American community has had a profound effect on American culture. Greek-Americans have been instrumental in advancing medicine, business, art, and academics. But the greatest impact has been on governance, and the continuation of the long history of democracy that began in Greece and continues today, as the gold-standard of governing principles. This year, I was proud to once again introduce and lead Senate passage of a resolution recognizing the anniversary of Greek independence and celebrating the long history of democracy that binds our two nations and I will continue to support that relationship, our shared history, and the interests of Greece, Cyprus, and the Hellenic- American community. The National Herald has always been a valuable source for the latest information on these issues, and I know it will continue its tradition of respected journalism that reaches far beyond the Greek-American community. I extend my deepest congratulations to the National Herald for 100 successful years and offer my best wishes for many more. Keep up the good work.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of the thousands of men, women, and children around the world who are the victims of human trafficking. I rise in their defense, on their behalf, and in the interests of responsible trade policy that recognizes that there can be no reward to nations that ignore the problem and do nothing to end the scourge of what amounts to modern-day slavery--one of the greatest moral challenges of our time. After negotiations with the White House, the USTR, and my colleagues on the Finance Committee, Senator Wyden and I at the appropriate time will be offering an amendment to the trade bill to make sure that any tier 3-rated nation--those are the nations that have the worst record in our ``Trafficking in Persons Report''--that any tier 3-rated nation hoping to benefit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership will have to address the problem of human trafficking in their country. They will have to make concrete efforts to meet the standards stipulated in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act or they will not have the benefit of privileged fast-track access to our markets, period. This modification to my original amendment allows for a narrow exception, not just a waiver, as we do with most of the restrictions on the executive branch. This exception may apply only to a country that has been certified by the State Department as having taken ``concrete actions . . . to implement the principal recommendations'' of the ``Trafficking in Persons Report.'' It will have to be made public so that all will be able to judge that the implementation of those concrete actions toward those recommendations has taken place. That has real meaning. Those recommendations are the roadmap we lay out for countries to move from tier 3. This is a historic change in the nature of trade agreements now and in the future. For the first time, we will have on the Senate floor trade promotion authority that says we cannot provide fast-track for a trade deal with countries that have done nothing to stem the tide of human trafficking. For the first time, we have an amendment in a major bill that would impose real consequences and real repercussions for turning a blind eye to recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sexual acts with the use of force, fraud, or coercion. For the first time, we have given teeth to the State Department's TIP report and will hold nations accountable for their inaction. While the report has provided us with important information, it has relied on moral authority but has had no real-world impact on real-world suffering. Should this bill pass and be signed into law, at least we will not reward nations with the worst record on reining in human traffickers with the benefits of a fast-track to American markets. My mother was a seamstress in northern New Jersey. No one worked harder. She came home tired, but she came home to her family and was proud of her work. She wasn't held hostage by her employers, forced to hand over her salary, her passport, or worse. Thanks to the hard work of the community of advocates against trafficking and the commitment of my colleagues on the committee, the ``no fast-track for human traffickers'' amendment is in the legislation we are debating presently on the floor. I understand there are those who would prefer to see this amendment just disappear, but, just like those it protects who are suffering around the world, it will be alive in every trade agreement now and into the future. This amendment says that we will not be silenced. We will not be bowed because some want free trade at any cost--at any human cost--even if it means letting in those nations that our own State Department has determined to be negligent at best in dealing with the scourge of human trafficking in their countries. This amendment speaks volumes about how we approach trade, how we approach the concept of fast-track policy. We, Congress, set the terms that shape fast-track negotiations, not the other way around. Before any country gains access to U.S. markets, they must show they have taken concrete steps to eliminate human trafficking or there will be no fast-track--not for tier 3 nations at the bottom of the State Department's list. Benjamin Franklin said, ``Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.'' Well, let's be outraged and make sure this amendment remains a key element of American trade policy. I thank Senator Wyden, the ranking member, for helping to develop compromise language that has preserved the full intent of the amendment, and I thank all the human rights and trafficking groups that have come forward, worked hard, and helped draw attention to this problem and provided a new public mechanism to hold this administration or any other administration accountable for their efforts to end human trafficking around the world and not reward the very worst human traffickers with access to our markets. This is a victory for those fighting the scourge of human trafficking. Fast-track is no longer a given, no matter how bad a nation's record is on how it deals with those who would traffic in human beings for profit. This amendment is for all those who have been subjected to sexual exploitation, forced labor, forced marriage, debt bondage, and the sale and exploitation of children around the world. It is for the world's 50 million refugees and displaced people, the largest number since World War II, many of whom are targets of traffickers. It is for the 36 million women and 5 million children around the world subjected to involuntary labor and sexual exploitation. For the victims of these crimes, the term ``modern slavery'' more starkly describes what is happening around the world and, sadly, what is happening in our own backyard--too often in the nail salons in our Nation. I will continue to fight against human trafficking in all of its forms. All of us remain vigilant, constantly aware that the cost of human trafficking is not just far away across the ocean in a distant country. It is a moral crisis of international proportions that has reached our own shores, right here in our own backyard. So again let me thank Senator Wyden for his efforts and the 16 colleagues of the Senate Finance Committee--Democrats and Republicans alike--who voted for my amendment in the committee. Most importantly, let me thank all of the human rights groups who have worked closely with me to ensure that we do not reward nations with the worst record on addressing human trafficking with fast-track access to our markets. Let all of those who are suffering around the world at the hands of human traffickers be the face of any future trade agreements. I have a list of groups that have worked every day to eradicate human slavery and that have supported my work on this important effort. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this list be printed in the Record.

Mr. MENENDEZ. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

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

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise to bring attention to the tragic Amtrak derailment that took at least 7 lives and caused over 140 injuries, including an Associated Press member from New Jersey, Jim Gaines of Plainsboro, NJ. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives. To those of us from New Jersey and those who live along the Northeast corridor, they are our neighbors, our friends, our relatives. They could be us. It hits especially close to home. I know, because I take Amtrak virtually every week back to New Jersey. There was a period of time last night when I did not know the whereabouts of my son Rob, who was scheduled to be on Amtrak back to New York. But I later found out that he was on the next train immediately behind the one that derailed, and thankfully, he was safe. I am grateful for that. But others were not so lucky. But luck should not be America's transportation policy. It is imperative that the cause of the derailment be fully investigated so that we can prevent tragedies such as these in the future. I have already been on the phone with Secretary of Transportation Anthony Fox and continue to monitor closely the situation. I want to recognize the extraordinary work of our first responders. Once again, firefighters, police officers, and emergency responders showed us what bravery is all about. They ran to the crash site to save lives while others were running away. For that, we should all be grateful. Now, we do not know what caused this accident. But we do know that we need to invest in 21st-century systems and equipment and stop relying on patchwork upgrades to old, rusted 19th century rail lines. I travel Amtrak, as I said, virtually every week. I travel the Acela, which is supposed to be our high-speed rail. It is like shake, rattle, and roll. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I have traveled in other countries in the world, such as Japan. They have a bullet train in which you virtually cannot feel anything while you are on the train, going at speeds far in excess of what we call high-speed rail. Now, there are still many questions to which we do not know the answers. Was there human failure? Was there a mechanical failure or were there infrastructure issues or was it a combination of issues? What we do know is that our rail passengers deserve safe and modern infrastructure. New Jersey, for example, is at the heart of the Northeast corridor. It has long held a competitive advantage with some of the Nation's most modern highways, an extensive transit network, and some of the most significant freight corridors in the world at the confluence of some of the largest and busiest rail lines, interstates, and ports. In a densely populated State such as New Jersey, the ability to move people and goods safely and efficiently is critical to our economy and critical to our quality of life. But, unfortunately, in recent years, New Jersey and the Nation as a whole have fallen behind. We have 20 years maximum--maximum--before the Hudson River tunnels are taken out of service. Twenty years may sound maybe to some of our young pages like a long time, but it is a flash of the eye. Think about what happens if we take either or both of those tunnels out of service without an alternative, tunnels that are absolutely essential to moving people and goods in the region that contributes $3.5 trillion to our Nation's economy--20 percent of the entire Nation's gross domestic product. Nationwide, 65 percent of major roads in America are in poor condition. One in four bridges in our Nation needs significant repair. There is an $808 billion backlog in highway and bridge investment needs. On the transit side, there is an $86 billion backlog of transit maintenance needs--maintenance needs, not expanding, just maintaining that which we have. It will take almost $19 billion a year through the year 2030 to bring our transit assets into good repair. These are just a handful of the statistics underscoring our Nation's failure to invest in our transportation network. But we have to get beyond looking at the numbers on a page. We have to talk about what Congress's failure to act means to the people we represent, to every community--every community, every commuter, every family, everyone who travels every day, and every construction worker looking for a job. Failure to act means construction workers now face a 10-percent unemployment rate, and at a time when our infrastructure is crumbling around us, they will not get the work they need. It means a business cannot compete in a globalized economy because their goods cannot get to market in time. It means a working mother is stuck in traffic and cannot get home in time for dinner with her kids. In the very worst cases--cases such as the one we saw yesterday on Amtrak--it very well means that a loved one is lost in a senseless tragedy. In Congress, we too often treat our infrastructure as if it is an academic exercise, as if it is numbers on a page that we adjust to score political points or balance a budget or make an argument about what types of transportation are worthy of our support. But that is not the real world. In the real world, the choices we make have an impact on people's lives, on their jobs, on their income. They have an impact on our Nation's ability to compete. They have an impact on the safety of Americans and America's ability to lead globally the economy in the world. We in Congress are failing to recognize the real-world impacts of the choices we make about our transportation infrastructure. We have a passenger rail bill that expired in 2013. We have a highway trust fund on the brink of insolvency, with no plans--no plans--to fix it sustainably. We have a crowded and outdated aviation system that we refuse to adequately fund. We have failed to upgrade with presently available technologies that can reduce the number of failures. We have appropriations bills aiming to cut already-low funding levels of Amtrak, in particular, to meet an arbitrary budget cap for the sake of political points. I cannot understand that. I cannot understand that. We are living off the greatest generation's investment in infrastructure in this country. We have done nothing to honor that investment, to sustain it or to build upon it. Yet nothing we are doing is aimed at fixing the problem. Our inaction comes with an extraordinarily high cost. So I can tell you, as the senior Democrat on the subcommittee on mass transit, I categorically reject the idea that we cannot afford to fix our transportation system. The truth is, we cannot afford not to fix it. The Amtrak disaster last night is a tragic reminder that we have to act. We are reminded of the tragic consequences of inaction and the impact of inaction on the lives of workers and families, on their lives and their ability to get to work and do their jobs with confidence that they will be safe. So, as a member of the Finance Committee, and the ranking member of the transit subcommittee, I have been advocating that we act as soon as possible. We cannot keep pretending the problem is going to resolve itself if we just wait long enough. We simply cannot afford to wait. I hope that everyone in this Chamber--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike--will come together, will work together, and make real progress in building the future that we can be proud of. We can start by putting politics aside to think about the safety of the American people, to think about the future, to think about America's competitiveness, and to find common ground to do whatever it takes to invest in America's railroads, ports, highways, and bridges, and to invest in our future. So let's not wait until there is another tragic headline or to see the consequences of what flows, as people along the entire Northeast corridor are trying to figure out alternatives in the midst of a system that is now shut down for intercity travel--all the transit lines of States and regions within the Northeast corridor that depend upon using Amtrak lines to get to different destinations for their residents, to get people to one of the great hospitals along the Northeast corridor, to get people to their Nation's Capital to advocate with their government, to get people and the sales forces of companies to work, to get home. Let's not wait until we have another tragedy to think about the consequences of our transportation system, what it means to the Nation, or until the next time when lives are lost. I think we can do much better. I have faith that hopefully this will be a crystalizing moment for us on this critical issue. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise to draw attention to the international plight of human trafficking and its relationship to our Nation's trade agenda. According to the State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, ``Human trafficking'' is about recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud or coercion. It is an unacceptable global scourge that must end and cannot be rewarded by any trade agreement. Sexual exploitation, forced labor, forced marriage, debt bondage, and the sale and exploitation of children around the world should be a global cry for justice. But as Benjamin Franklin once said: ``Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.'' Today, we are all outraged at the violence, the psychological terror, and the greed that drives human trafficking. We are outraged that there are 50 million refugees and displaced people around the world, the largest number since World War II, many of whom are targets of traffickers. We are outraged that 36 million women, children, and men around the world are subjected to involuntary labor or sexual exploitation. We are outraged when we hear that over 5 million of them are children, that forced labor generates about $150-plus billion in profits annually, the second largest income source for international criminals next to the drug trade. For the victims of these crimes, the term ``modern slavery'' more starkly describes what is happening around the world, and it must end. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act requires that the State Department annually publish a Trafficking in Persons Report, known as the TIP Report, which ranks each country based upon the extent of government action to combat trafficking. Tier 3 in that listing is the worst of these rankings. It indicates that a government does not comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act's minimum standards, and it is not making significant efforts to do so. Tier 3 countries are those that have not even taken the most basic steps to address their human trafficking problem and have not provided protection for trafficking victims. In the most recent TIP Report published, the State Department ranked 23 countries as tier 3. Countries such as North Korea, Iran, and Cuba have flaunted international legal norms and threatened to upend global security. I am most disappointed to say that Malaysia--a middle-income country by most standards, a party to the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations--has the resources and the wherewithal to address human trafficking within its borders but has for years failed to take sufficient action to warrant an upgrade on the TIP Report. So it is unfortunate that the scale of the human trafficking problem in Malaysia is vast, and it is in sectors that will directly benefit from increased trade when TPP trade agreement is concluded. The State Department's 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report states: Many migrant workers on agricultural plantations, at construction sites, in textile factories, and in homes as domestic workers throughout Malaysia are exploited and subjected to practices indicative of forced labor, such as restrictions on movement, deceit and fraud in wages, passport confiscation, and imposition of significant debts by recruitment agents or employers. Most disappointingly, the State Department wrote last year that the Malaysian Government was neglecting the problem. The 2014 TIP Report continues: Malaysian authorities continued to detain trafficking victims in government facilities for periods of time that sometimes exceeded a year; victims had limited freedom of movement and were not allowed to work outside the facilities. The government provided minimal basic services to those staying in its shelters; NGOs--with no financial support from the government--provided the majority of rehabilitation and counseling services. . . . The government identified 650 potential victims in 2013--significantly fewer than the 1,096 potential victims identified in 2012. It reported fewer investigations (89 compared to 190) and fewer convictions (nine compared to 21) compared to the previous year. Furthermore, in January, 2013, the Malaysian Government implemented a policy that places the burden of paying immigration and employment authorization fees on foreign workers rather than on employers, increasing the risk of workers falling into debt bondage. And, while nearly a year has passed since the State Department issued its 2014 report--as recently as April 17, this past month--the U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia said the Malaysian Government needs to show greater political will in prosecuting human traffickers and protecting their victims if the country hopes to improve on its current lowest ranking in the TIP Report. It is precisely to combat crimes such as these that Congress has taken action this year to fight modern slavery. Earlier this year, the Foreign Relations Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Corker, held an important hearing on human trafficking on February 4. On April 22, Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey held a House subcommittee hearing examining the State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, emphasizing the need to maintain the integrity of the tier ranking system. On that same day, April 22, the Senate voted 99 to 0 for the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, authored by Senator Cornyn. Later that day, in the Committee on Finance, a bipartisan group of 16 Senators voted for my amendment to prohibit fast-track procedures from applying to any trade agreement with a country ranked as tier 3--the worst ranking. Congress has never before approved a free-trade agreement, much less fast-tracked one, with any country while it was ranked tier 3, and I do not believe we should start now. I want to be clear. The amendment I offered and which was adopted with a bipartisan vote in the Committee on Finance is not meant to single out Malaysia or any other country. My antitrafficking provision to the fast track bill is a simple bipartisan statement of our American values. Contrary to the administration's comments, my amendment is not a poison pill. I don't know when trying to fight human trafficking becomes a poison pill. Nothing could be further from the truth. Senator Cornyn, perhaps the Senate's strongest advocate for victims of human trafficking, voted for my amendment. Senator Portman, the former U.S. Trade Representative, voted for my amendment. Senator Wyden, the ranking member of the Committee on Finance and coauthor of the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act, also voted for my amendment. In total, 10 members of the Committee on Finance who voted for my amendment also voted for the fast-track bill. I cannot believe we would have seen such a strong bipartisan vote from so many Senators who support fast track if this amendment were truly a poison pill. Now, the administration has recently said this amendment would remove our ability to use our trade dialogue to encourage countries to take action on human trafficking. But I want the record to reflect the fact that trade negotiations with the United States have not improved most countries' human trafficking performance. It is clear that years of engagement with Malaysia on this issue, even with the carrot of the TPP negotiations hanging before it, have not been enough to generate action from the Malaysian government. Of the 17 countries the United States has entered into trade agreements with since 2001--the first year of the Trafficking in Persons Report--eight have not improved their trafficking in persons rankings since their trade deals entered into force. So for almost a decade and a half, eight have not improved their rankings since the trade deals entered into force, and three countries have actually had their trafficking in persons rankings downgraded after their trade deals entered into force. The facts are abundantly clear. Free trade negotiations have never been a successful tool in encouraging other countries to improve their performance on combating human trafficking. Now, I understand the administration's concerns over the effect of my amendment on the current TPP negotiations. But I hope that as the State Department finalizes the 2015 report, there is no undue influence to move countries around in order to benefit the administration's trade agenda. The integrity of the TIP report is at stake. And rest assured the Congress will provide the appropriate oversight to ensure that integrity. After all, in the State Department's own words, the TIP Report ``is the U.S. Government's principal tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking.'' Furthermore, I now understand the administration is reaching out to human rights groups, seeking compromise language that would address the concerns about human trafficking in our trade partners that I and others have spoken of. So I am pleased the administration recognizes the validity of my position as adopted by the Committee on Finance and agrees that it is appropriate to address human trafficking in this trade bill. Let me close by saying I want to remind my colleagues that the fast track negotiating authority is precisely the point at which Congress lays down the rules, the conditions, and the principles by which the administration is granted our constitutional prerogative to negotiate international trade deals. Any suggestion that the bipartisan statement of negotiating principles of the Senate Committee on Finance is an interference with the administration's prerogatives gets that constitutional relationship backwards. We set the terms. The administration follows those terms in their negotiations. It is not our job to trim our principles to match the deal they have already negotiated. This goes to the very heart of our congressional duties and to the heart of our constitutional power over international trade, and I believe it goes to the heart of the debate over fast-track authority itself that we began in the Committee on Finance and will soon engage on here on the Senate Floor as early as tomorrow. Do we set the terms by which our trade powers are delegated to the administration or do they dictate the terms they will accept? That brings me to the question of the trade bill we may be considering as early as tomorrow. We do not know whether the hard- fought product of the Committee on Finance will be respected. We do not know if a major trade preference package or long-awaited trade enforcement reforms will be included. When we are asked to vote on cloture tomorrow, at least at this point, will we be voting for a blank piece of paper? How can any Member in their right mind vote to move forward when they do not even know what they are moving forward on? I have asked to see the text, because I want to see, among other things, whether the amendment that was adopted by the Committee on Finance on human trafficking is in there. I am told we don't have it. It is nearly 7 o'clock the evening before we will vote at 2:30 tomorrow. How do Members of the Senate vote in blank on the most significant trade bill we have had in well over a decade? That is not good enough for me, and it should not be good enough for the Senate. So I hope as we move forward to consider a fast-track bill, my colleagues will bear in mind the importance of protecting the process of the Senate Committee on Finance, just as we have protected the process of every committee that has a bill brought to the Senate Floor. That is why I am asking my colleagues to keep this amendment in the bill and help fight the scourge of modern slavery in the countries we trade with. The bill reported by the Committee on Finance puts a strong emphasis on our need to match the actions we take on human trafficking at home to those we take in the international arena. And while we may not agree with the specifics of our trade policy, I hope when the fast-track bill comes to the floor, the Senate will stand together, reaffirming our commitment to holding our trading partners accountable for their lack of action on combating human trafficking. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to speak on the Corker-Menendez Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. As I have said from the start, bipartisanship on this legislation has always been the key to making sure that Congress has the ability to review any agreement with Iran--a nation that we cannot trust. It is critically important that bipartisanship is preserved. As we head to a 2 o'clock vote on cloture to move forward on this bill, let me just say I want to thank Chairman Corker for his leadership. I want to thank Ranking Member Cardin for taking up the cause and for helping to bring this legislation to this point, starting with a unanimous vote out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At the end of the day, we can pass a bipartisan bill almost as Senator Corker and I first envisioned it. It has been a long and difficult process. There has been debate, disagreement, and some amendments, but we have almost reached the finish line. Despite the good intentions--and I would say the good intentions of many of the amendments, some which I agree with--we cannot risk a Presidential veto. And we cannot at the end of the day risk giving up congressional review and judgment. That is the critical core issue before the Senate. Will we have congressional review and judgment on probably the most significant nuclear nonproliferation national security--global security--question, I think, of our time? We cannot risk having no oversight role, and without the passage of this legislation, we will have missed an opportunity to send a clear message to Tehran. As we near the finish line and, hopefully, agree to govern as we should, I believe we will ultimately pass legislation without destroying what Senator Corker and I carefully crafted and was passed unanimously out of the committee. From the beginning, we fashioned language to ensure that Congress plays a critical role in judging any final agreement. I want to also recognize Senator Kaine, who had significant input as we were devising the bill, for his support. The bill we crafted was intended to ensure that if the P5+1 and Iran ultimately achieved a comprehensive agreement by the June deadline, Congress would have a say in judging that agreement. A core element of the framework agreement that is the foundation of the negotiations leading into June is about sanctions relief as a core point, at least from the Iranian perspective. The sanctions relief that the administration is proposing is at the heart of these negotiations from their perspective. For us, it is about their nuclear infrastructure and their drive for a nuclear weapon. Why are they seated in negotiations in the first place? As the administration itself recognized, it is because of the sanctions. Well, the sanctions were crafted by Congress and enacted by Congress, and we should be the ones to make a determination as to whether or not it is appropriate to relieve those sanctions. I have to say, as one of the authors of those sanctions, I never envisioned a wholesale waiver of sanctions against Iran without congressional input and without congressional action. The message I believe we can send to Iran--and I hope we will do it powerfully--is that sanctions relief is not a given and it is not a prize for signing on the dotted line. Make no mistake. Having said that I hope we can have a strong bipartisan vote on this bill, I have serious questions about the framework agreement as it stands today, from the different understandings that both sides have of the agreement--which is, I guess, part of the challenge of not committing it to one document in writing--and about the pace of sanctions relief. I increasingly get alarmed that there is a suggestion that there will be greater upfront sanctions relief. I don't believe that Iran should get a signing bonus. I am concerned about the recent statement by the President that he could consider greater sanctions relief coming upfront for Iran. I have real questions about where the spectrum is of Iran's research and development authority as we move forward and how far they can advance their research and development as it relates to nuclear power. Greater research and development means, among other things, more sophisticated centrifuges that can spin faster and dramatically reduce breakout time towards a nuclear bomb. I am concerned about the ability to snap back sanctions if there are violations of any agreement. Certainly, what I have seen in the first instance--which sounds like a committee process--doesn't guarantee that a snapback will take place or that it will be done in a timely fashion. Ultimately, snapback, in and of itself, is a challenge because it doesn't recognize the time it takes for sanctions actually to take effect. So even if you snap them back and say that we won't have to go to the law again to have them take place, to have them take effect and to pursue enforcement, we have learned that it takes time, and time is something that is ultimately not on our side. I am concerned about the International Atomic Energy Administration's inability to obtain at any time and place snap inspections. We have already heard the Iranians say they are balking at that. They are also balking about the possibility that the IAEA believes that such a location might be on a military installation. They are saying: Oh, no, we are not going to allow any of our military installations to be inspected. That is a surefire way to guarantee that if you want ultimately to violate a deal, then do it at a military site where you are not allowing inspections to take place. I am concerned that I hear the administration is trying to differentiate between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force to provide greater sanctions relief. Both, as far as I am concerned, are terrorist groups. As far as I am concerned, they are clearly covered by U.S. law. So trying to get the Treasury Department to differentiate is really problematic and concerning. I am deeply disturbed that the agreement does not speak to the long- established condition that Iran must come completely clean on the question of their possible weaponization of their nuclear program. We need to know how far along Iran has progressed in their weaponization so that we can understand those consequences as it relates to other breakout time issues. Above all, I am concerned that when you read about the framework agreement, while it does talk about something in longer timeframes, the core question as to when Iran could advance its nuclear program in a way they want to--and which I think is problematic--is that the expiration is 10 years. Does that mean we are ultimately destined to have Iran as a nuclear weapons State after that period of time? That cannot be and should not be the ultimate result. I state all of those concerns to say to my colleagues that, even though I passionately believe this legislation is critical for us, it is not that I don't have concerns. This legislation is the vehicle by which we can judge. Now, maybe these issues will be resolved in a negotiation. I don't know. Ultimately, without this vehicle we have no final say on an agreement, and we have no oversight role with established parameters for compliance. I am concerned that the sanctions relief comes without what appears to be a broader Iran policy, in terms of how we contain its acts of terrorism. It clearly is the largest State sponsor of terrorism. We see its hegemonic interests. We see it as a major patron of Assad in Syria, what is happening in Yemen, what is happening in different parts of the region. I am concerned about its missile technology. So there are a lot of elements here of concern at the end of the day. I would say to my colleagues who feel passionately about some of these amendments they have offered, this isn't the only bill in which we could consider these issues. I stand ready to work with colleagues immediately on pursuing other concerns, such as missile technology, terrorism, their human rights violations, their anti-Semitism, and the Americans who are being held hostage; and to look at either sanctions or enhanced sanctions that may already exist on those elements that we should be considering and which are separate and apart from the nuclear program. I would be more than willing to work with my colleagues to deal with all of those issues. I will say that even as we have worked to give the administration the space to negotiate and believe very passionately in this legislation, it bothers me enormously that just last week Reuters reported that Great Britain informed the United Nations sanctions panel on April 20 of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network, apparently linked to two blacklisted firms, Iran's Centrifuge Technology Company, called TESA, and Kalay Electric Company, KEC. If what Great Britain brought before the U.N. Security Council sanctions panel is true, how can we trust Iran to end its nuclear weapons ambitions and not be a threat to its neighbors when, even as we are negotiating with them, they are trying to acquire illicitly materials for their nuclear weapons program in the midst of the negotiations? Forgetting about everything they are doing in Yemen and Syria, forgetting about their hostility to ships in the Strait of Hormuz, forgetting about their actions of terrorism, this is square-on trying to ultimately use front companies to get materials for their nuclear program. So we cannot build this on trust alone. I know the administration says we are not going to trust them, we are going to verify, but it goes beyond that. It can't be a fleeting hope that Iran will comply with the provisions and change their stripes. I believe they will not. It cannot be built from the aspirations or good intentions, like the North Korea deal, not when Iran continues to sponsor terrorism, not while it asserts its interests from Yemen to Bahrain, from Iraq to Lebanon, not as events in Syria continue to worsen. I just had the U.N. relief coordinator in on Syria. This is a human tragedy of unimaginable proportions. We have become almost desensitized. We do not hear about it on the Senate floor anymore. It is all supported, encouraged, and financed by Tehran, and not while Iran 's fingerprints remain in the dust of the bombings of Israel's Embassy and Jewish community center in Argentina, even as it seeks to bargain with that country's leaders for absolution. That is the Iran we are dealing with. That is the state we are being asked to hope will change. Well, hope is not a national security solution when it comes to dealing with Iran. Congress having a say on any final agreement is critical to how we deal with Iran. So I urge my colleagues to have a strong vote on cloture and I hope, after that, a unanimous vote on passage. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavoidably detained for rollcall vote No. 169 on the nomination of Willie E. May to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology. Had I been present, I would have voted yea.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I wish to honor 52 high school seniors in Southern New Jersey for their commendable decision to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces. Of these 52, 13 have elected to join the U.S. Army: Mark Beverley, Thomas Connor, Jose Espinal, Luis Mansilla, Tyler Trappanese, Luis Rodriguez, Alexander Wallingford, Jacob Hoey, Karl Steinbach, Jason Jastillana, Marlett Eilenberger, Cordell Huesser, and Lorenzo Morales. Six have joined the U.S. Navy: Imani Glover, Jasmine Wilson, Kevin Pawlowski, Michael Livesey, Rebecca Herrera, Darrian Shufford. Four have elected to join the U.S. Air Force: Angel Gomez, Roselynn McPherson, Cachina Stevenson-Bisom, Christopher Pugliese. Thirteen have elected to join the U.S. Marine Corps: Ramon Paige, Jonathan Balonaguilan, Garrett Gudauskas, Nakee King, Howard Morgan, Christian Lidel, Aliyah Ortiz, Christian Godshall, Nhiem Bien, Cheavin Kim, Danvil Coombs, James Boyd, Policarpo Tovar. Sixteen have elected to join the New Jersey National Guard: Andrea Perez, Nini Tran, Thang Ngo, Edward Hutchinson, Muquim Shah, Troy Logan, Michael Wallace, Jr., Richard Scott, Ethan West, Jabari Ashanti, James Bartleson, Paul Mueller, Jr., Kristoffer Flores, Kelsey Hohenberger, Michelle Rivera, Dominic White. These 52 will also be honored on May 19, 2015 at an ``Our Community Salutes of South Jersey'' recognition ceremony in Voorhees Township, NJ. The future of our Nation remains strong because of young men and women, like these 52 individuals, who have decided to step forward and commit themselves to the defense of our Nation and to upholding the ideals upon which it was founded. Indeed, these New Jerseyans represent the very best of America, and they should rest assured that the full support of the Senate as well as the American people, are with them in whatever challenges may lie ahead. It is thanks to the dedication of untold numbers of patriots like these 52 that we are able to meet here today, in the Senate, and openly debate the best solutions to the many and diverse problems that confront our country. It is thanks to their sacrifices that the United States of America remains a beacon of hope and freedom throughout the world. We owe them, along with all those who serve our country, a deep debt of gratitude.

Mr. MENENDEZ

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

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to speak on the legislation before the Senate, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, and I specifically want to create a focus for our colleagues on the essential question before the Senate. The essential question before the Senate is, Does the Senate want to have a role in opining upon any agreement that may be concluded between the United States and the P5+1 and Iran? Right now, there is no clear mechanism for the Senate and the Congress of the United States to have a say about that potential final agreement. The reality is that an Iran that does not have nuclear weapons capability is an Iran that at the end of the day enures to a status in which the national security of the United States is better preserved and in which our ally the State of Israel's security is better preserved. But, in fact, an Iran that does have nuclear weapons capability is a national security threat to the United States and to the State of Israel, our ally, which clearly would face an existential threat. The problem is that many of us, myself included--personally, I abhor the Iranian regime. I abhor its human rights abuses. I abhor its promotion of terrorism in the world. I abhor that they are holding U.S. citizens hostage and so much more. But as much as I abhor all of that reality, what I really have a concern about is the Senate not having a say over any final agreement, particularly when I have some serious reservations about where this framework agreement to this date takes us; the questions of the differences in views between the P5+1 and Iran about what the framework agreement says and doesn't say; the reality, it seems to me from what I read, that Iran can advance in its research and development in a way that ultimately allows them to have, for example, centrifuges that can spin more efficiently, more quickly, and therefore reduce the breakout time; my concern about the question of what happens after 10 years--are we, in essence, relegated to a nuclear-armed Iran; my concern about what I understood was a threshold redline issue in which the International Atomic Energy Administration was going to have anytime, anyplace, anywhere inspections based upon any agreement; and many other elements. But all of those concerns--and we will see whether a final agreement, if there is a final agreement, ultimately addresses those concerns-- will be for naught in terms of having a way to express my concerns if, in fact, there is no process that ultimately creates the potential for a judgment on any final agreement and an action in response to that judgment and a continuing oversight obligation and opportunity for the Senate. So while I abhor all of the things on which many of my colleagues offer amendments, this is not necessarily the only Iran piece of legislation we have to consider. But if we want to have a say on the fundamental question of any potential agreement, then don't load up this legislation that came out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously. And God knows we don't get too many unanimous votes in this Chamber, much less in committees. And the good work of Senator Corker as the chairman and the work of Senator Cardin in the negotiations and, I would like to believe, many of us who were on this legislation before we got to this point and some of us who have been following Iran since my days in the House of Representatives-- ultimately, that was the type of structured process that creates a say for the Senate and for the Congress in a meaningful way. Could we seek other legislation to deal with Iran's terrorism? The answer is yes, even though this legislation has reporting requirements to ensure that we have senses of that and, most importantly, doesn't repeal any other sanctions that may be related to terrorism, which was my original concern when we had language as it related to the question of terrorism. Do we have the opportunity to look at Iran's missile capacity and program and what that means to the national security of the United States and our allies and the State of Israel? Yes. Do we have the opportunity to continue to express ourselves about Iran's use of its resources not for its people but to promote terrorism in the world? Yes. Does it all have to be in this legislation? No. Because what we are going to do is sink the legislation, and there will be no say, there will be no opportunity to deal with any potential final agreement. As the author, along with others, of the sanctions regime that brought Iran to the table in the first place to discuss it--I always find it interesting because I hear the administration at times talk in two ways about the sanctions regime: Either the sanctions regime cannot be enhanced because to do so would break the coalition, and by the same token--and don't expect that Iran would respond to any further sanctions--by the same token, I hear that the reason Iran is at the negotiating table and wants to strike a deal as an expression of their sincerity is because of the sanctions. So you can't have it both ways. By the way, I have often heard that any enhancing of the sanctions regime would ultimately lead to a breaking of the coalition. I heard that many times before, and that sanctions regime didn't create that. But I am willing to forgo enhanced sanctions at this time to get the fundamental opportunity of the Senate having a say on any final agreement because that is the threshold question--whether we will have a say on the most important nuclear nonproliferation national security issue, I would say, of our time. So I hope my colleagues, as earnest as I believe they are in some of their amendments, understand that at the end of the day, pursuit of such an amendment, however worthy it might be, would sink the very opportunity to have a law in place that would give us a process and a say, because there is none right now. So whether you want to change this to a treaty, which has all types of other legal consequences to it far beyond--I don't think people have thought that through because far beyond, a treaty has legal requirements on both sides or multiple sides when you enter into a treaty. I don't know that I want Iran having that legal precedent or ability to use against the United States at any given time if things don't go the way we want them to. I don't know that, in fact, I want to have a set of circumstances in which Iran can ultimately rear its ugly head by the use of our own very same purposes in legislation, which I think people haven't thought about fully, the unintended consequence of some of their legitimate goals, haven't thought it fully through. But most of all, I don't think they have thought about the consequences of the Senate not having a say on any final agreement. That, to me, is paramount. So I hope very much that as our colleagues are considering this--I am sure the chairman and the ranking member will try to work, when appropriate, with individual Members who ultimately may have language that doesn't strike at the heart of the legislation, that may be able to be accommodated, that may enhance it. By the same token, we have to decide whether we want a political victory or a national security victory. If we want a national security victory, then we will try to keep the legislation that came out on a unanimous bipartisan version from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pretty much intact. If we want a political victory to say that someone is stronger than someone else or one group is stronger than someone else about national security or about our support of the State of Israel--for which I take a backseat to no one in this Chamber--then we can have that opportunity, but that will mean not having a final say on any agreement, and that, I think, would be of historical proportion a huge mistake. So I look forward to the debate that continues. I hope we can keep a measured look. I am happy to work with other colleagues who want to further advance issues which I think are legitimate as it relates to Iran but not necessarily as it relates to the determinative factor as to whether we will have a say on any potential final agreement as it relates to a nuclear agreement with Iran. I think that is paramount. I hope we don't lose sight of it. I hope we can have the same strong, incredibly bipartisan votes that we have had on Iran because that sends a clear message to our allies as to our expectations, it sends a clear message to Iran of what we will expect and the standard that we will hold them up to. Anything short of that will only create the opportunity for those who have a different vision about what we seek to achieve to try to accomplish it. I do not think we want that. I do not think that is anybody's intention. I do not judge anyone in terms of their intent. I only ask to think about the consequences to our greater goal. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I want to rise in support of this bipartisan legislation, with a sincere hope that we can pass the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act as it was unanimously voted out of the committee. I have worked tirelessly with the chairman and with the ranking member and with members of the committee--Senator Kaine, who had so much input in the conceptualization of what we wanted to do to bring this bill to the floor with the strongest bipartisan support. In my view, the best way to send a clear message to Tehran about our expectations is for Congress to pass the Corker-Menendez Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act as it was voted out of committee. The spirit of bipartisanship that underscores Congress's critical role in the highest priority, national security, the nuclear nonproliferation challenge of our time, was unanimously passed out of the Foreign Relations Committee. I hope we can send this same message from the Senate floor. Countering Iran's nuclear ambitions has been something I have worked on passionately for a long time. Senator Corker and I fashioned language that became the framework of this final bill to ensure that Congress remains engaged in reviewing and, if there is an agreement, overseeing its implementation. So I want to thank Chairman Corker. He has just done an exceptional job. He had this concept before any of us were agreed to it, and he was willing to work with us--and was dogged, I must say--until we got to the point that we would come together and offer the legislation in a bipartisan way. That has been the hallmark of his chairmanship and it was the hallmark of his time as ranking member when I was chairman. I appreciate the fashion in which he has worked to continue to move the committee, as I started it, in a bipartisan way, because as the ranking member Senator Cardin says, that is when we are most powerful in terms of foreign policy. I thank Senator Cardin for his work in helping to forge a deal that both sides of the aisle can come to this floor and support with a clear conscience, knowing that we have sent a clear message to Tehran and that we are united, as we have always been, on Iran policy, and on this issue we speak with one voice. The simple fact is, if the P5+1 and Iran ultimately achieve a comprehensive agreement by the June deadline, at the end of the day, Congress must make a judgment on it and have oversight responsibility. This legislation provides it. It establishes a managed process for congressional review and a framework for congressional oversight. Now, I differentiate between this agreement and others the administration has cited for exclusive Executive action because the sanctions relief that is at the heart of this deal was crafted by Congress and enacted by Congress into law. It is primarily statutory. As the author of those sanctions, working with others, I can tell you we never envisioned a wholesale waiver of sanctions without congressional input and without congressional action. The limited sanctions relief provided in the law was intended to provide the President with discretion to waive specific sanctions in specific circumstances, such as if a country was making real progress in reducing their oil purchases from Iran. So my goal has always been one goal; that is, to make certain Iran does not have the infrastructure to develop a nuclear weapon. I have worked on that goal since my earliest days in Congress. Now, as we approach the witching hour for an agreement, the best way to achieve our goal is with bipartisan support on this legislation that strengthens the U.S. hand in moving from a political framework to a comprehensive agreement and sets out clear and decisive expectations for Iranian compliance. The message we send to Tehran is that sanctions relief is not a given, and sanctions relief certainly is not a prize for signing on the dotted line. This bill ensures that Iran must fully comply with all provisions of an agreement that effectively dismantle its nuclear weapons program and provide robust inspection and verification mechanisms to ensure its compliance with every word of that deal. If Iran breaches an agreement, Congress will have the ability to restore sanctions on an expedited basis. Now, as I have said, I have been outspoken on this issue from the beginning, for years, for as long as I have been here. Frankly, I have many questions about the framework agreement. I have questions about the divergent understandings of the agreement. I have questions about the pace of sanctions relief. I do not believe Iran should get a signing bonus. I am concerned by the President's most recent statement that greater sanctions relief could come upfront for Iran. I have questions about Iran's retention of research and development authorities and to what extent they can advance their research and development, because greater research and development means more sophisticated centrifuges that can spin faster and, therefore, dramatically reduce breakout time toward a nuclear bomb. I am concerned about the ability to snap back sanctions if there are violations of the agreement. From what I can see, we have a committee process that will not guarantee that the snapback will take place or that it will take place expeditiously. I am concerned about the International Atomic Energy Administration's ability to obtain ``anytime-anywhere'' snap inspections. What happened to Iran having to come clean about the possible military and weapons dimensions of their program? More than anything else, I am concerned about what will happen when the critical elements of the proposed agreement expire after 10 years. Are we relegated to accepting Iran as a nuclear weapons state? The presumption that Iran will become a compliant Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty state in that time for me is not borne out when you see their insistence and our acquiescence to keeping key nuclear infrastructure and key nuclear facilities under the agreement. It is not borne out by history. Iran has been on a single path toward nuclear weapons for more than 20 years. By deceit and deception-- sometimes without detection until there were well-established covert facilities--they have advanced their drive for nuclear power to the precipice of achieving a nuclear bomb. For me, these are all issues that speak more forcefully to the reasons for having congressional review and oversight of any potential agreement. Now, I did not fashion, along with colleagues, a sanctions regime for the sake of sanctions. It was for the sake of getting Iran to deter its course. There is no one who would want to see the successful result of that design more than I. But by the same token, I do embrace what the administration has said time and time again that no deal is better than a bad deal. I will independently judge what that deal is when and if there is a final deal. At a minimum, this legislation gives us the oversight role to monitor and address our concerns. So I urge my colleagues, when the bill comes for a vote, to vote for it as it was voted out of committee, because it does what all of us want to do: provides a clear opportunity for a review of any agreement, so we can express, if desired, our support or opposition to any agreement and have a clear oversight role with established parameters for compliance. Let's vote on what the agreement does, not what it might have done or could have done if we had different amendments to it. I respect everybody's views and everybody's rights to have amendments. I hope those who have ideas will work with the chairman and the ranking member. But I will oppose amendments, at least with my own vote, that I consider to be poisonous and that undermine the very essence of what we have accomplished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sometimes you have to know when you hit a home run and be able to cross the plate and say, We hit a home run--and not think that you are still stuck in the dugout. What we did in the committee is pretty close to a home run as far as I can see it. So let's vote on the merits of the bill that give us the oversight and the ability to pass the judgment that we need to send a clear message that we are united in our determination to prevent Iran from ever becoming a nuclear weapons state, potentially igniting a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous tinderbox of the world. So I urge my colleagues to suppress any intentions that will drive us to a point that we can't have that strong vote, that we can't send that strong message to Iran. There is no stronger message to Iran, particularly in this critical time, in which I think we strengthen the administration and the P5+1's hand by saying there is a congressional review and potential judgment. So that final agreement we get, hopefully, can be one we can all embrace. We can do that--we can actually have an effect by passing this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, April 24 marks the 2-year anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse which resulted in the death of over 1,130 Bangladeshi workers and the injury of approximately 2,500 more. To date, this remains the single largest disaster of its kind. Since 2013, many in the governmental, nongovernmental, private, and business sectors have pledged their financial resources and time to addressing the numerous issues and problems surrounding the ready-made garment industry. Even though progress has been made, many promises remain unfulfilled, especially in providing Bangladeshi workers the rights they deserve. As a long-term U.S. ally, I want Bangladesh to be prosperous because only through a growing economy that delivers shared prosperity to its people can stability be ensured. The country's garment industry is now, and will be for the foreseeable future, the engine of economic growth as it accounts for close to 80 percent of foreign exchange earnings. The United States, which remains the single largest country buyer of Bangladeshi garments, has an important responsibility to ensure that those garments are made in a way that do not put people's lives at risk and that fairly rewards workers for their labor. Domestically, while there has been progress in conducting safety inspections and hiring additional inspectors, much work remains in providing for freedom of association. On this front, I have been very disappointed by the role played by the government of Bangladesh. The record over the past 2 years shows that the Bangladeshi government has failed to keep promises it made to our Government and to the European Union. It has failed to pass a labor law in line with international labor standards and has not promulgated implementing regulations for the law that exists. Workers still have no rights to form unions in Export Processing Zones and once again the government is saying it has no power to change regulations because of contractual obligations to companies. The government of Bangladesh has made little progress with regard to the inspection of well over a thousand factories that it agreed to inspect for fire safety. The government of Bangladesh personnel responsible for investigating unfair labor practices are not doing so and some police have refused to accept cases filed by labor organizers who experience violence from management-hired thugs. Such antiunion behavior on the part of employers is common throughout many developing countries but in the case of Bangladesh, it is compounded by the government's actions which actively abet such behavior. For that, the government of Bangladesh must be held responsible. There needs to be a clear, consistent and transparent union registration process. While approximately 300 factory-level garment unions have been registered in the last 2 years, more than 100 unions that filed for registration have been rejected by the government, many for arbitrary or unfair reasons. The people of Bangladesh need mechanisms where workers can swiftly get the justice they deserve when their rights are violated. Bangladeshi authorities need to properly investigate, address and, if necessary, penalize employers for unfair labor practices to end the culture of impunity that surrounds employer resistance to legally protected union activity. So as my colleagues can see, much work remains. Until substantial progress is made, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has rightfully decided to keep in place the suspension of Bangladesh's Generalized System of Preferences--GSP--trade benefits with the United States. I support this decision. The ``Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh'' and the ``Alliance on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh'' are two private sector initiatives made up of American and European retailers which have conducted safety inspections in more than 2,500 factories. As a result, some factories have adopted new safety practices and have made physical improvements such as the installation of fire doors to make it safer for workers to evacuate when fires occur. These inspections have resulted in the full or partial shutdown of a number of unsafe factories. The private sector has a critical role to play in changing the RMG culture in Bangladesh and I strongly urge both coalitions to focus on how workers' rights can be improved in the coming years. Aside from ensuring that improvements are made to prevent another Rana Plaza, it is critical that full compensation is paid to the victims and their families. As of today, the ``Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund'' has received roughly $21 million from a variety of donors, including both large global brands and the Bangladeshi Prime Minister's Fund. While $21 million sounds impressive, the fund is suffering from an approximate $9 million shortfall. Because of this, some victims and their families have only received approximately 70 percent of the money they are entitled to. I am happy to hear that Benetton has recently agreed to donate to the Fund. I hope that other companies that had business at Rana Plaza come forward and contribute, or continue contributing, their fair share. It is encouraging to see different elements of the international community come together to support the garment factory workers in Bangladesh. Real progress in the RMG sector will require continued vigilance on the part of the international community. Earlier this year, we were once again saddened by the news of yet another tragedy involving the collapse of a building in Bangladesh. On March 12, in the town of Mongla, a cement factory collapsed and tragically killed eight people while injuring approximately 60 others. Whether in a garment factory or cement factory, we must remain vigilant to ensure that workers' safety and workers' rights are top priorities of the U.S. government and international buyers in Bangladesh.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, the United States is not a party to the Arms Trade Treaty. It has not even been submitted to the Senate for consideration. Regardless of your position on the treaty itself, prohibiting funding for any international organization anywhere while other countries are implementing a treaty is simply absurd. By the way, the treaty for which we are not a party to ultimately makes the rest of the world live up to the arms export standards of the United States, which is good to prevent proliferation for destabilizing arms that could be used against American soldiers and to help level the playing field for U.S. defense manufacturers. So the amendment actually harms U.S. national security by placing U.S. soldiers at greater risk from armed soldier transfers to our enemies, illegitimately and illegally, without proper oversight by other countries. I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I strongly support Senator Isakson's efforts here, which passed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year, working with the State Department, and moved unanimously to approve this bill. This is to give 52 Americans, who were held hostage in Iran and denied the opportunity to seek redress for their terrible ordeal, that opportunity. The only way we are going to give them that opportunity for the 444 days that their families were held hostage in Iran, is to have this type of action. I look forward to working with them, not just today but beyond, to get it passed so we can get these American families their justice.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, the Congress came together to create the do-not-call list, and it is time for Congress to come together again to update this important consumer protection legislation and protect Americans as we intended to do. We all know of many of our constituents and our families who are bothered by unwanted phone calls at dinner, at night when we are home with our families. It makes sense, as we decided then when we passed the law, to decide whether you want to receive soliciting phone calls, and that right should be respected under the law. Unfortunately, a few unscrupulous companies have ignored Americans' wishes and continued to pester people, and they see the penalties as the cost of doing business. That has to stop. We have to stop it, and we can do so by giving the appropriate flexibility to the entities that are supposed to enforce the law to be able to do so. I think this is a noncontroversial amendment. If it is, I am happy to accept a voice vote.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I submit for inclusion in the Congressional Record the following article regarding the early years of the Castro regime, the policies of which created a culture of poverty in Cuba, and converted a previously developing country into an underdeveloped, closed society. The author, Professor Roland Alum, is a Garden State constituent, a long-time participant in civic activities, and has been a personal friend for three decades. He is a respected anthropologist and author whose writings have appeared in both major newspapers and academic journals. This article, which appeared in Panoramas, an electronic journal at the University of Pittsburgh, touches upon sensitive topics apropos to the current U.S.-Cuba relationship. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.