Dan Sullivan

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 21, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 21, 2015, at 2:15 p.m., in room SD-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The GAO Report on `INDIAN ENERGY DEVELOPMENT: Poor Management by BIA Has Hindered Development on Indian Lands.' ''

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 21, 2015, at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Ongoing Migration from Central America: An Examination of FY2015 Apprehensions.''

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 21, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight of the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 21, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of Regulatory Impact Analyses for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regulations.''

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 21, 2015, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Virtual Victims: When Computer Tech Support Becomes a Scam.''

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to acknowledge the remarks of the distinguished Senator from California and the Senator from North Carolina, and I thank them for their important work on the cyber bill. I know we are going to be discussing a lot of that, and why it is important to our national security. National Defense Authorization Act This afternoon I wish to talk about another important bill that is moving its way through the process of becoming law, and that is the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA. As did many of my colleagues, I spent last week back home in my great State of Alaska. In Alaska, it is hard not to see the strength and pride in our military everywhere, every day, everywhere we go. I will provide a few examples. We have what is called the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, an annual convention that we have with a very important group of Alaskans. The theme this year was ``Heroes Among Us'' at the convention. It was about heroes among us because Alaskan Natives serve in the U.S. military at higher rates than any other ethnic group in the country--a real special kind of patriotism. I had the honor, really, to meet dozens of these great veterans from all kinds of wars. I met veterans from World War II, the Attu campaign. A lot of Americans don't realize that Alaska was actually invaded by the Japanese and we had to fight to eject them from the Aleutian Islands. I met veterans from the Philippines campaign under General MacArthur. I met veterans from the Korean war who served at the Chosin Reservoir. I had a great opportunity to meet an Honor Flight coming back from Washington, our veterans from World War II, Korea. Of course, just walking around Anchorage you see and hear military members training all the time. We have a great base, JBER, with F-22s ripping through the sky, our military members keeping us safe. That sound is what we call in Alaska the sound of freedom, when you hear those jets roaring. It is everywhere. In Alaska, we love our veterans and our military. We honor them. We know that providing for the national defense of our great nation, taking care of our troops, and taking care of our veterans is certainly one of the most important things we do in the Senate. Of course, it is not just Alaska. I am sure when the Presiding Officer was home in the great State of Nebraska there was the same patriotic feeling of supporting our troops and the importance of our national defense. For the most part, that feeling exists here in Washington. I have been honored to sit on two committees that focus on these issues a lot: on the Armed Services Committee and Veterans' Affairs Committee. These are very bipartisan committees and where support for our national defense, our troops, and our veterans is across the board on both sides of the aisle--no doubt about it. But I do say ``for the most part'' because, as the Presiding Officer knows, nothing is truly as it seems in Washington, DC. I have spoken on the floor, as a number of Senators have, about what motivated a number of us last year to actually throw our hat in the ring and run for the U.S. Senate. Like the Presiding Officer, I know a lot of us were concerned about the country going in the wrong direction, about a dysfunction in Washington, about a government that has run up an $18 trillion debt, no economic growth, our credit rating being downgraded, no amendments being brought to the Senate floor, no budget for the Federal Government attempted, no appropriations bills attempted for years. The most deliberative body in the world was certainly a body that had been shut down, and a lot of us saw a need to change that. So we are starting to change that. We are back to regular order. We are talking about debating bills. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of amendments already this year--last year there were only 14 amendments--and we passed a budget. We passed 12 appropriations bills to fund the government--very bipartisan--and we are focusing on the issues, whether it is cyber security, defense or taking care of our veterans, something the vast majority of the American people want us to focus on. For example, we brought to the floor two critical appropriations bills just a couple of months ago--the Defense appropriations bill and the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill. These passed out of the Appropriations Committee by huge bipartisan majorities, 27 to 3 on the Defense appropriations bill and 21 to 9 on the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill. This is what the American people want us to do--get back to regular order, fund the government, and put together a budget. So far, so good. That is what we are called to do. Here is where the dysfunction of Washington, DC, began to rear its head again: These bills that are critical to our troops, our defense, and our veterans--all with strong bipartisan support in committee--were brought to the floor of the Senate and they were filibustered. They were filibustered. The bill to fund our military, that funds our national defense and takes care of our veterans was filibustered-- blocked--stopped by our friends on the other side of the aisle. I am not sure why. I still don't know why. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen anyone who actually voted to filibuster these important bills come down to the Senate floor and say: Here is why we voted against funding our troops. Here is why we voted against funding our veterans. I think the overwhelming majority of Americans, regardless of what State they live in, would say: No, no, no. You need to vote for these bills that are funding our military, veterans, and national defense. That is one of the most important things we want you to do. The bottom line on those votes is that our troops, our veterans, and our national defense were shortchanged because they didn't get funded. Let me move on to the Defense authorization bill, what I want to talk about today. This is an annual undertaking that sets the policies, programs, and defense strategy for our military. It also authorizes spending on national defense and our military. Again, it is certainly one of the most important tasks this body does, and I think most Senators on both sides of the aisle would agree with that. Once again, as with the appropriations bill, we were working closely together on a bipartisan basis. I was on the Armed Services Committee and this moved through the committee and it was very bipartisan. It was voted out on a strong bipartisan vote to come to the floor. I commend Chairman McCain, who did a great job on that as the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Ranking Member Reed of Rhode Island did a fantastic job. I must admit that this Senator feared a little bit of a replay in terms of the scenario we saw with the appropriations bill-- meaning strong bipartisan support out of the committee and then coming to the Senate floor and being filibustered. I feared this, in part, because at one point during the Defense authorization debate the minority leader came and stated that the Defense authorization bill was ``a waste of time.'' A waste of time? Tell that to the marines, the soldiers, the airmen, the sailors, and their families--those members of the military who are defending our country right now--that this bill was a waste of time. I guarantee they would not agree with that statement. Fortunately, neither did the Senate. To the contrary, the Senate has now voted on the Defense authorization bill twice, once as an original bill and once as part of a conference report with very strong bipartisan and veto- proof majorities, with 71 Senators the first time around and 73 when we voted on it a couple of weeks ago. I mention the phrase ``veto-proof majority'' because incredibly the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, has said he is going to veto this bill when it comes to his desk. It was just sent to him yesterday. I don't know how the Commander in Chief is going to explain that to the troops or to their families or to the American people or to the 73 Senators who voted for that bill. It is important to recognize that although we may think this is all inside Washington and no one is really following it, something like this impacts morale when the Commander in Chief is saying: Hey, troops, I am going to veto this. This is a copy of the Marine Corps Times. I subscribe and read the Marine Corps Times. A lot of marines and members of the military read this all over the world. Guaranteed, our men and women deployed overseas read the Marine Corps Times. In this edition there is an article about how President Obama has vowed to veto the Defense authorization bill. We have marines fighting overseas who are reading this, and they are not getting it. This week in the Marine Corps Times: The MOAA [Military Officers Association of America] and other military advocacy groups have argued against the presidential veto, calling the legislation a critical policy measure that cannot be delayed. The measure has been signed into law in each of the last 53 years, and includes a host of other specialty pay and bonus reauthorizations. In a statement from MOAA officials in this article that thousands of our Active-Duty troops are reading: The fact is that we are still a nation at war, and this legislation is vital to fulfilling wartime requirements. There comes a time when this year's legislative business must be completed, and remaining disagreements left to be addressed next year. To govern is to choose. To govern is to prioritize. President Obama's administration has spent years negotiating the Iran deal and this body spent weeks debating the President's Iran deal. We put a lot of time into it, and the President's administration put an enormous amount of time into it. On the Iran deal, part of the hope from Secretary Kerry, the President, and others was that once it got passed by the U.S. Congress--by the way, on a partisan minority vote--that Iran would somehow start to change its behavior and say: Look, America is someone we want to partner with. Since the Senate passed the Iran deal, let's see what has happened. Iran has sent troops to Syria. Iran has backed Hamas, which is now engaging in knife-murdering attacks against Israelis. The Iranian leader has stated that Israel shouldn't exist within the next 25 years. Iran has violated the U.N. Security Council ballistic missile resolutions, and this Senator and many others think Iran has already violated the deal by firing ballistic missiles with a range of 1,000 miles. Iran has sentenced an American reporter for the Washington Post for spying. I don't think the behavior that a lot of the supporters for this deal anticipated is happening. More broadly, I think it is important to put into context what is going on with our national security, the NDAA, the moving forward with the Iran deal, and the President's threat to veto the NDAA. The President's Iran deal, once implemented, will be giving tens of billions of dollars to Iran, the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism--but the President threatens to veto the Defense bill that actually funds our military. The President's Iran deal will lift sanctions on Iranian leaders such as General Soleimani, who literally has the blood of American soldiers on his hands--but the President threatens to veto U.S. troop pay bonuses and improved military retirement benefits. The President's Iran deal gives Iran access to conventional weapons, ballistic missile technology, and advanced nuclear centrifuges--but the President threatens to veto funding for advanced weapons systems for our Armed Forces. Finally, the President's Iran deal certainly is going to allow more funding for terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas--but the President is threatening to veto a bill that provides additional resources for our troops to fight terrorists such as ISIS. To govern is to choose. To govern is to prioritize. Has it really come to the point where the White House is more focused on freeing up funds for Iranian terrorists than funding America's brave men and women in uniform? I certainly hope not. I ask all of my fellow Senators who voted for this bill in a very strong bipartisan way and my fellow Alaskans and Americans to reach out to the White House. Let them know that you oppose the President's veto of this bill. What we need is a strong military, particularly now. We need to support our troops and our veterans, and we need President Obama to sign--not veto--this bill which is critical to our national defense. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to speak this afternoon on a very important vote that we took today to move forward on the Defense authorization bill. I thought I would start by backing up a little bit. Last week we had the opportunity to vote on and talk about funding for our veterans and our troops. In addition to the Defense authorization bill that we voted on today to proceed to that, the votes we took last week were very important. They were very important to the country and certainly very important to my State--the great State of Alaska--which has a huge military presence, but also to our huge veteran population. We have probably the highest number of veterans per capita than any State in the Union. I am honored to have a good friend of mine, Representative Bob Herron, the majority whip in the Alaska House. He is in the Gallery today. He is also a marine. So he represents not only Alaska in our State Government but Alaska as a veteran, as a fellow marine. The American people want the Senate to be working again. We all know the country has huge challenges. I wish to speak about some national foreign policy challenges. We have a huge debt: $8 trillion. I think we are close to $19 trillion. We got downgraded in terms of our credit rating for the first time in American history. We can't grow the economy. We have huge challenges. For years the Senate was not working. It was not moving forward. Some would have called it dysfunctional. No regular order, no amendments, no budget, no appropriations bills; a locked down U.S. Senate not doing its work. I think the American people wanted us to do work. So last fall they said it is time for a change. We need to get to work. We need to start tackling our challenges. So we are changing that. We are working hard to do things the American people sent us to Washington to do. We passed a budget. It hasn't happened in years. We passed appropriations bills through regular order, Democrats and Republicans, bringing amendments to the floor of the Senate, voting again. One of the things we have been doing--and it happened today--is we are prioritizing where they want us to prioritize. Our national defense, which is probably the most important role we have in this body--our troops, our veterans. So we are making progress, but progress is halting. It is never a straight line. For some reason--and we saw it over the last couple of weeks--a lot of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle didn't want to fund the government, particularly in terms of these critical issues of our troops, including our national defense and taking care of our veterans--and again we saw that over the last couple of weeks. Two critical appropriations bills moved to the Senate floor. There was the Defense appropriations bill, which again passed out of the Appropriations Committee by huge bipartisan numbers: 27 to 3. There was huge bipartisan support for that bill. Then we had the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill, which passed out of committee 21 to 9. It had huge bipartisan support. Why? Because the American people want us to focus on these critical issues: national defense, our troops, taking care of our veterans. So we are moving forward. The budget, appropriations bills that we voted on that haven't been voted on for years--bipartisan, prioritizing what the American people want. But then these appropriations bills, which provide funding for our vets, funding for our troops, came to the floor, and progress stopped. I still don't understand why. When asked by constituents: Why did the other side vote to move these bills out of committee in such a bipartisan way, but then when they got to the floor, they stopped, they filibustered, no spending for our troops or for our vets, I don't know the answer. I have asked. My constituents are asking. Directions from the White House? Who knows. But I do think it is clear to me, I think it is clear to most Americans, and I even think it is clear to all of the Members of this body that when those bills were filibustered over the last 2 weeks, that our troops and our veterans were shortchanged because we are voting to defund them. That is what the filibuster did; it defunded our troops and our veterans. So I have to admit that when we were getting ready to vote today, I feared a repeat performance on probably one of the most important bills we are going to take up all year--the National Defense Authorization Act. It authorizes spending, pay raises, sets out our military strategy, retirement reform. It is so important to our country. Once again, I wish to commend Chairman McCain and Ranking Member Reed, the two leaders of the Armed Services Committee who did such a good job moving that bill forward. Once again, it started with such great bipartisan promise. It moved out of committee 22 to 4, very bipartisan. Then it came to the Senate floor for a vote a few months ago, the NDAA, the Defense authorization bill; 71 Senators, incredibly bipartisan, moved forward and voted for that bill. Then it went to a conference with the House where it was improved. It all seemed to be on track to bring this bill back to the floor of the Senate and to vote on moving forward on the conference report. What happened? That is great bipartisan progress. We are changing things. We are making things happen. The President of the United States has since said he is going to veto the bill. He is going to veto the bill--veto the National Defense Authorization Act. Once again--and I am not sure, taking orders from the White House or not--the minority leader came to the floor and told the American people this morning he would work with the President to sustain that veto, to sustain the veto of our Defense bill. What a disappointment. We have this huge bipartisan progress. When given the clear choice between standing with our troops and our veterans or the President, who says he is going to veto this bill for reasons I still don't understand, the minority leader is choosing the President. I am honored to sit on the Armed Services Committee of the Senate as well as the Veterans' Affairs Committee. As I said in remarks last week on the Senate floor, these are two of the most bipartisan committees we have. It is clear to me that every member--Democratic, Republican--of these committees cares about our troops, respects our troops, cares deeply about our national security. I believe every Member of this body does. Once again, we saw that today. We saw that today. There was no filibuster. Seventy-three Senators voted to move forward on the Defense appropriations bill. It was 71 before and today it was 73--an important bipartisan victory for our national defense, for our veterans, for our troops, but a Presidential veto still hangs out there. The President's veto threat still is like a cloud hanging over this very important vote today. I mentioned at the outset that this is very important for my State, the great State of Alaska. This is important for the national security of our Nation, and this is important for all of us. It is important to me. As a veteran and a marine in the Reserves, I know this is a critically important issue. If he is going to veto this bill, I don't know how the Commander in Chief will explain to the American people and our troops why he is doing this. There have been only four times in the last 53 years that the NDAA has been vetoed. Providing the common defense of this Nation, the national defense, is probably our most important duty. And that duty increases when you look around the world and see the threats that are emerging in different parts of the world--the Middle East, Ukraine, the Asian Pacific, the Arctic. Mr. President, to govern is to choose. To govern is to prioritize. The President's administration spent years negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, and this body spent weeks debating the merits of the President's Iran deal. That deal and what we debated then needs to be put in the context of the President's veto threat to the Defense authorization bill. Let me give a few examples. The President's Iran deal will give billions--tens of billions--in the lifting of sanctions to Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, but the President threatens to veto a bill that will fund our military. The President's Iran deal lifts sanctions on Iranian military members such as General Soleimani, who literally is responsible for the maiming and killing of thousands of American troops, but the President's veto-- his threatened veto--would stop payment of bonuses and improved military retirement benefits to our troops and veterans. The President's Iran deal gives access to the Iranians by lifting sanctions on conventional weapons, ballistic missiles, and advanced nuclear centrifuges, but the President threatens to veto in this bill advanced weapons systems for the United States. The President's Iran deal gives the opportunity for terrorist groups supported by Iran such as Hezbollah and Hamas to have further funding for their terrorist activities, but the President threatens to veto a bill that provides additional funding and resources and capability for our troops to defeat ISIS. To govern is to choose. To govern is to prioritize. As we move forward on the substance of the national defense authorization bill, we are choosing and prioritizing our troops and our national defense, and that is why this vote was so positive this morning. I hope we can have at least 73 Senators, who voted to move forward today, vote to pass the NDAA and put it on the President's desk for his signature. But if the President chooses to veto this critical piece of legislation, which has enormous bipartisan support, at this moment in time when our country faces serious international threats, I hope that my colleagues--the 73 Senators who voted to move forward on this critical piece of legislation--will also stand strong and vote to override the veto of the President, which is exactly what our troops and the American people would want us to do. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to say a few words about the bill that we voted on this afternoon and put it into a broader context. This was the bill to begin the vote and debate on the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill, which passed out of the Appropriations Committee in a strong bipartisan vote. There has been a lot of talk and a lot of stories in the media over the last several weeks about the government running out of money, a government shutdown. In a lot of those stories, the narrative talked about the Republican Party being the one focused on a government shutdown. The media actually loves this narrative, but, like a lot of narratives in the media, they are not always so accurate. So I wanted to give what I think is the much more accurate story, what is really going on here in the Senate. Many of us are new Senators--the Presiding Officer and myself included--13 of us, actually. A lot of us came to Washington and a lot of us actually ran for the Senate because we were fed up. We thought the American people were fed up; we knew they were fed up with the dysfunction of the Federal Government. There are a lot of examples of that. You know many of them. In the last several years we have run the debt of our Nation from $10 trillion to $18 trillion. Think about that. Looking at these interns here on the floor, that is going to be their responsibility if we don't get ahold of that--$18 trillion. An economy that can't grow is what we call the new normal here in Washington, 1.5 percent, 2 percent GDP growth. No budget. The previous Senate was not even passing a budget-- the most basic function of government. Households do it, businesses do it, and States do it. The Federal Government was not even taking the time to pass a budget. There were no appropriations bills, no spending bills out of the Appropriations Committee. These were all signs of a Federal Government that was not working, that was dysfunctional. So we came with the new majority, new leadership committed to change this. We meant to change this. We were very focused on changing this, and we have begun in a serious way to do that. What are we doing? First, we passed a budget. It hadn't happened in years, but we did that. It was a lot of hard work. My hat is off to the Budget Committee. We took what was the President's budget, 10-year budget, and slashed that by $5 trillion to $7 trillion in terms of spending. We didn't raise taxes. Then the next step--what the government is supposed to do--we started to work on appropriations bills in the Appropriations Committee. Again, this was very hard work, very bipartisan work, and for the first time in years, the Appropriations Committee passed out 12 appropriations bills to fund our government. Most of these were very bipartisan. Let me give you a few examples. The Agriculture appropriations bill passed out of the Appropriations Committee 28 to 2. It doesn't get much more bipartisan than that. The Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill passed 27 to 3; Energy and Water, 26 to 4. This is strong bipartisan work in the Appropriations Committee with our government getting back to work. The dysfunction that had previously existed here for many years--none of this was happening--was going away, and we were working. Very importantly, in terms of appropriations bills, the Defense appropriations bill passed out of the committee 27 to 3, and the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill, 21 to 9. So we passed a budget, passed appropriations bills--so far so good. The Senate is working again. We are back to regular order. We are moving forward in a bipartisan way--very bipartisan. We are doing the work of government. It is what the American people wanted, asked for, and we are starting to deliver on that as part of our promises last fall. So what is the next step? The next step is to take these appropriations bills and bring them to the Senate floor for a vote. It shouldn't be a problem, particularly because the bills I am talking about are so bipartisan. They came out of committee with bipartisan numbers and support, so that is what we are doing. That is what is we have done. That is what we are supposed to do. That is what the American people want us to do. We started to prioritize. Where should we begin? Turn on the news. I think most people know where we should begin--funding our military, the men and women protecting us, the men and women risking their lives on a daily basis for our freedom. So we brought the Defense appropriations bill to the Senate floor. Again, we certainly need that. One gets the sense that the world is careening into chaos. We need a strong military. We need to fund our military. It shouldn't be an issue. It passed out of committee with a strong bipartisan vote. Everybody likes to make sure we have a strong military. So what happened? We brought it to the floor of the Senate and it was filibustered, not one but two times. That is irresponsible-- filibustering the defense of our Nation, defunding the support for our troops. So that brings us to what we did today. We turn to another appropriations bill--Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations--again, a very bipartisan bill. It is very focused, building military infrastructure throughout our country, throughout the world. One of the most sacred responsibilities of this body, of our government is taking care of our veterans. This is a huge issue for my State. Alaska boasts the highest number of veterans per capita of any State in the Nation, and we need to take care of our best. So what happened today? It seems pretty noncontroversial. The appropriations bill--a very nonpartisan bill-- came to the floor, and it was filibustered again. In the past few weeks, we have had critical votes to fund our military, to fund our troops, to fund our veterans, and we cannot move forward. What is going on here? I really don't know. It is hard to say. I sit on the Armed Services Committee. I sit on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. These are two of the most bipartisan committees in the Senate. I know all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle truly respect, truly support our troops and our veterans, and truly want what is best for them. I recognize that. Then why is the other side filibustering the funding of these incredibly important bills, in essence defunding our troops and defunding our veterans? I think the American people deserve answers. I think our veterans deserve answers. I think our troops in harm's way deserve answers. One thing for sure is the next time the media wants to write a story with a narrative about a government shutdown, they ought to ask those who voted against these bills--to even start debating them--why they are defunding these critical groups and veterans. They need to ask those who are voting against these bills, filibustering these bills, why they are leaving our troops and our veterans in the lurch. Mr. President, we are doing our job--what the American people asked us to do, demanded from us last November. They wanted us to pass a budget like they do, even though we hadn't done that in years. We did. They wanted us to pass appropriations bills and to work in a bipartisan manner to get these bills through the committee--all 12 to fund the government. We did. And they wanted us to prioritize our spending, our activities, and our focus in terms of government funding on the things that matter most--our military and our veterans. And we did. I have no idea why our colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to move with us in terms of the next step. The American people want the next step. They want the Senate to vote on these bipartisan bills that fund our military and fund our veterans. Today, once again, we are seeing that is not happening. I think the American people need answers, I think our troops need answers, and I think our veterans need answers on why it is not happening. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to say a few words about a critical challenge and opportunity facing the United States. For months many of us have been on the floor debating some of the important foreign policy and national security issues that our Nation faces--whether it is Islamic terrorism, ISIS, the President's flawed and dangerous Iran agreement or a resurgent Russia in Europe and the Arctic. The list of these issues is long, and it is growing. But one issue that has not really gotten much attention--I believe the attention that it deserves--and that I would like to speak about this afternoon is the long-term national security and foreign policy consequences of the rise of China. China's President Xi Jinping is in town right now. He is visiting America. He is going to meet with President Obama on a state visit, and some of us in Congress will have an opportunity to meet with him later today. It is an opportunity to start seriously thinking about the challenges and opportunities that a rising China presents to the world and to the United States. Perhaps we are not talking about this issue as much as we should on the floor because it doesn't seem to be an immediate issue. It is a bit of a longer term matter. But it is also something that in historical terms is happening so fast. I will give one statistic. In 1980 China's economy was smaller than that of the Netherlands. Last year, just the incremental growth of China's economy was as large as the Netherlands' economy. They have had incredible growth. But some of our country's most deep and strategic thinkers and historians agree that the rise of China is--over the next decade or two--the paramount issue for us to focus on in the United States. As far back as 2005, 10 years ago almost to the day, then-Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zellick, who went on to be the president of the World Bank and a former U.S. Trade Representative for the United States, a very strategic thinker, gave what was called the ``responsible stakeholders'' speech, a very well-renowned speech that people are still reading on U.S.-China relations. In that speech 10 years ago, he said: ``How the United States deals with China's rising power is a central question in American foreign policy.'' Just a few months ago in testimony before the Armed Services Committee, Harvard Professor Graham Allison gave testimony that in many ways is reflected in an article he just published in the Atlantic yesterday on the eve of the visit of the President of China. He states in that article and in his testimony from a couple of months ago: The preeminent geostrategic challenge of this era is not violent Islamic extremists, or a resurgent Russia. It is the impact that China's ascendance will have on the U.S.-led national order. More specifically, Professor Allison writes that ``the defining question about global order for this generation is whether China and the United States can escape''--what he refers to as ``the Thucydides trap.'' He is referencing the renowned ancient Greek historian. Professor Allison coined this term to describe the strategic dilemma and dangers that occur when a rising power rivals a ruling power, as when--an example he gives in ancient Greece--Athens challenged Sparta in ancient Greece which ultimately led to the Peloponnesian War. Professor Allison has caught the attention of many, including President Xi Jinping of China, who in a speech just a few days ago in Seattle actually referenced this term--the ``Thucydides trap''--when talking about U.S.-China relations. Now, both Professor Allison and President Xi, in his speech, make it clear that conflict between the United States and China is certainly not inevitable, regardless of what he says with regard to the Thucydides trap, and I certainly would agree with that. Professor Allison, however, does appear to draw some very sobering conclusions in his recent article that should make all of us take serious pause. He concludes in his article written yesterday: ``War between the U.S. and China is more likely than recognized at the moment.'' These are his words, not mine. This is one of the most distinguished professors of international relations in the United States. I think these words underscore the need for those of us in the Senate to give due attention to the importance of the U.S.-China relationship and the attendant risks of Graham Allison's Thucydides trap. Fortunately, I believe we are well-positioned as an institution in the Senate to do this. In the Federalist Papers, Madison talks about one of the roles of the U.S. Senate with its Members having 6-year terms to be able to ensure lasting relations between the United States and other nations through the institution of the Senate. Perhaps more than any other part of the Federal Government, this institution has the opportunity to think strategically and act for the long-term interests of our country. Fortunately, we also have many experts, historians, professors, and practitioners, whether it is people such as Bob Zoellick or Graham Allison or Henry Kissinger or a new generation of scholars, such as Mike Green at CSIS, who have been thinking about these issues--the Asia-Pacific, the rise in China--for decades. Their articles, books, and speeches are critical to devising national strategies to advance America's interests in the region. This is a long-term endeavor for all of us. It is imperative that it remains on our radar screens through the course of State visits, through the course of elections, through the course of changing administrations. Contrary to what some say, we as a country do have the capacity to think and act in our long-term strategic interests as a government. Our successful bipartisan strategy dealing with the Soviet Union, started by Kennan's famous ``X'' telegram, which created the strategy of containment over the course of decades, over the course of several administrations and several different Congresses--it was a successful long-term strategy for the United States. From my perspective, as we look at this issue--the Asia-Pacific--its importance--the rise of China--I think a few key touchstones are important to remember. First, America is an Asia-Pacific power. My State of Alaska is an Asia-Pacific State. The United States has strong networks of alliances throughout the Asia-Pacific, and our country has built the post-World War II architecture that has enabled this dynamic region of the world to thrive in terms of peace and in terms of prosperity. In fact, when we look at the last 70 years of history in that region, we have been the linchpin of that peace and prosperity for all countries in the region, whether our strongest allies such as Japan and Korea and Australia or other countries--countries even like China-- and we have earned the trust of our allies for our commitment. So we need to maintain that trust as we move forward and we need to listen to our allies in the region. Second, we need to understand the history of the region and our involvement there better as we think through what the strategy is moving forward. I have had the opportunity to go to the National Archives a number of times already since I joined the Senate, and there is a statue outside the National Archives and it has a command on it. It says simply: ``Study the past.'' Study the past. Again, I think that as we are looking at our strategy in that region, it is critical that we need to be doing that. Professor Allison's article, as well as books, is a good start, and I think all of us need to continue that focus. Third, no matter what strategy we end up using vis-a-vis China and the Asia-Pacific region, we have to be strong again at home. My biggest surprise as a new freshman Senator--my biggest surprise in this body is how little we, or certainly for that matter the Obama administration, talk about our economy, talk about the strength or the lack thereof of our economy. Perhaps because the performance of our economy has been so lackluster, we have even doubled down expectations. They have this term now in Washington called ``the new normal.'' American growth rates have typically been at 3, 3.5, 4 percent GDP growth throughout most of our history. Over the last 6 years, we can barely break 2 percent GDP growth; 1.5, 2 percent. Two quarters ago, we went back into recession. They are now calling this the new normal and we need to accept this. We rarely hear the President or even the Treasury Secretary come out to the American people and say: No, we have to grow traditional levels of American growth--3.5, 5 percent, 4 percent GDP growth. The Presiding Officer knows this. He has focused on this issue. We are not doing that. We have to get back to strength at home because a continued weak U.S. economy--the new normal--growing at 1.5 percent for the next 5, 10 years will create all kinds of additional challenges for us and in my view will make the Thucydides trap that Professor Allison talks about more likely for the United States and China. Yes, China has certain advantages, but in so many areas--in so many areas--the United States holds all the cards--in so many different areas. If we were in a global poker match and we were all at the table--all the big countries--we would look at our hand and we would see aces. Let me just name a few. The high-tech sector, still the envy of the world; not just Silicon Valley, all over America. Our agriculture sector. We feed the world. Universities. We have the best universities in the world, by far--by far. Certain States in America have better top universities than all of China. Finance and commercial aspects of our economy, the best entrepreneurs. Energy. We have a renaissance in energy where we are now the largest producer of oil and gas in the world and the largest producer of renewables. This is a huge advantage. It is creating a rebirth of manufacturing in America. Fisheries. We harvest some of the most amazing seafood, more than almost any other country in the world. Foreign relations. We look at our allies in Asia, they are coming to the United States in terms of wanting to deepen their relationship with us. And, of course, the U.S. military, the finest in the world right now. It is right now. I had the opportunity to go down to the World War II Memorial this morning and I saw a couple of Honor Flights coming in, seeing those veterans of ours who fought and defended this great Nation in World War II. We have had the best military for decades, and we are going to continue to do that. The key is we have to unleash our economic might once again, which has been so dormant during the Obama administration. We have to do this. If we do this, we can view the rise of China from a standpoint of strength, confidence, and opportunity, not trepidation. As Bob Zoellick mentioned 10 years ago in his ``Responsible Stakeholders'' speech: ``You hear voices that perceive China solely through the lens of fear, but America succeeds when we look to the future as an opportunity, not when we fear what the future might bring.'' I have had the opportunity to view the U.S.-China relationship from a variety of lenses, including economic, diplomatic, and even to some degree military. I previously served as the commissioner of natural resources and energy in Alaska and was able to take a trip over there with some Alaskans to look at ways to deepen our economic, trade, and energy relationship between my State and China and have them visit Alaska and participate in those meetings. I served in terms of diplomacy as an assistant secretary of state and have had numerous opportunities to travel to China with some of our top U.S. Government leaders--at the time Bob Zoellick, Secretary of the Treasury Paulson, and Secretary of State Rice--to discuss ways in which to deepen economic relationships and work on the U.S.-China relationship. Even many years ago as a U.S. marine aboard an amphibious assault ship in the East and South China Sea during the third Taiwan Strait crisis, I was a very, very, very small player in an episode that once again demonstrated American resolve and commitment in the region. There is a long tradition from Alaska Senators in keeping a focus on the importance of the Asia-Pacific, from both the Alaska and the U.S. perspective. Former Senator Ted Stevens served in World War II as a Flying Tiger, flying the Hump in that part of the world, and his subsequent focus throughout his career was very much on the Asia-Pacific, as was Frank Murkowski's expertise and experience, particularly with regard to our relationship with Taiwan. The focus on the Asia-Pacific and the rise of China is certainly one that in many ways we can view as an opportunity, certainly in my State. Last year, China became the No. 1 export market for Alaskan goods: $1.4 billion of goods exported from Alaska to China--an 18-percent increase. So I believe maintaining this focus--and we have this visit today with the President of China--is critically important not only to my State, not only to our country but also to our allies in the region. We should all try to put more focus and our best thinking on these critical foreign policy and national security issues which, although they are not always on the front page of the papers, I believe are some of the most important long-term strategic challenges and opportunities we face in this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SULLIVAN

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

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, listening to the last two speakers, I am reminded what a privilege and honor it is to be able to serve in the Senate alongside great Americans--the President pro tempore, the Senator from Utah, and the Senator from Arizona, John McCain, who have served this country for decades--decades--with honor and distinction, and, as we saw in their remarks just a few minutes ago, with wisdom from experience and conviction. We took two important votes today. One, as Senator McCain was talking about, was the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, very important pro-life legislation. I agree with what the Senator from Arizona said about that very important bill and commend the Presiding Officer for his leadership throughout the country. We also voted on the Defense appropriations bill today, another important bill. I am not sure it is going to get a lot of press, but I wish to talk about what is going on there because it is actually very important for the American people to really have a sense of what is happening. We saw in the media, we see all over Washington and on TV this talk concerning a government shutdown. I think a lot of people have concerns about it. Let me talk about that in the context of the bill we voted on today, which, unfortunately, was filibustered by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. A lot of us who are new here in the Senate--the Presiding Officer, my colleague from North Carolina--ran on the issue of a dysfunctional Senate, where the most basic function of government was not happening. Let me give one critical example. We weren't passing a budget, we weren't funding government, and we weren't doing regular order in terms of appropriations bills. So many of us ran to say: Enough, we are going to change things here. With all due respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they neglected this function--no budget, no appropriations bills--for years. The most basic function of government was not happening in the Senate. So many of us campaigned to change that--to work hard to change that--because we knew that is what the American people wanted. And we have done it. We are starting to do it. For example, we passed the budget resolution. If we look at the 10 years out of our budget versus the 10 years out of the President's budget, we cut $5 to $7 trillion in terms of the President's wasteful spending. That is serious. We did that. We passed the budget resolution. We debated it here for a number of weeks, not days. The other side of the aisle hadn't done that for years. When I went back home and said we did that, a lot of people in Alaska said: Well, big deal, my household passes a budget every year. My business passes a budget every year. The State of Alaska passes a budget every year. But it is a big deal because we hadn't done it here. But now we are doing it because that is what we committed to do. So that is one step: We passed a budget. Then the Members of this body, working hard, particularly through the Appropriations Committee, passed 12 appropriations bills--9 of which passed out of the committee with very, very strong bipartisan votes--to fund the government. So far so good--that is what we are supposed to be doing here. We are back to work, back to regular order. One of these bills was the Defense appropriation bill. What does that mean? It is kind of a wonky term. That is the bill that funds our military, that funds our national defense, that funds the sergeant in the Marine Corps and the Army--a really important bill. It passed out of the committee with a very strong bipartisan vote of 27 to 3. We almost can't get any more bipartisan than that, 27 to 3. Virtually everybody, Democrats and Republicans, voted for that because they know how important it is. So what happened today? We took the next step in the regular order process as we promised the American people to fund our government by bringing forward that bill. At 27 to 3, it should be no problem passing it in the Senate. Look at how many Democrats voted for that bill. So we wanted to move forward on that bill. We all know how critical that bill is--probably one of the most critical appropriations bills we have because it is funding the defense of our Nation and the brave men and women who serve our Nation. So what happened in the vote today? Well, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided: No, we are going to filibuster that. I know we voted 27 to 3 to move it out of committee, but now we are going to filibuster that. In fact, according to the leader on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats are saying they are going to filibuster all 12 appropriations bills--all 12 of them. Let me repeat. Here is what is happening. We passed the budget. We passed, for the most part, very bipartisan appropriations bills. Let me read a few of them: Agriculture, 28 to 2, out of committee; Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, 27 to 3; Defense, 27 to 3; Energy and Water, 26 to 4; State and Foreign Operations, 27 to 3. This is a list of very bipartisan work by the Senate in the Appropriations Committee. I commend all the Members of this body who worked so hard on that. But now we hear that the other side is going to filibuster every single one of these. They did it today. That is actually the second time they did it with regard to the Defense appropriations bill. They are going to do it again and again and again. It is my view that we should bring all 12 of these bills to the Senate floor, like we did today. We are trying to move forward and fund this government. We are trying to get back to regular order, the way the Senate used to work. It hadn't worked like that for years, but now we are trying to do that. If the other side of the aisle wants to continually filibuster the funding of our government, let them stand up to the American people and do that. For example, I think we should bring up the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill that passed out of committee 21 to 9. It is very important for the country. Let's bring it up. Let's have a vote on it. If they want to filibuster that, I think they will have to explain why they are not supporting veterans. This will make one thing clear, though. In all the talk we hear in the media every day about Republicans wanting to shut down the government, I think it is pretty clear when we look at what is happening here with the filibustering of all the appropriations bills that there is another side to this story. There is another side to this story. The defunding of the government--of our troops, as we saw today--is happening because of the filibuster. It is my hope that our friends in the media, who love to talk about this story, are going to look a little bit more deeply--look at these votes today, look at the budget, look at what the Appropriations Committee has been doing--and tell the real story. There are people very focused on stopping the funding of the government. We saw it today. It is not the majority party in the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise to express my deep disappointment that what has transpired at the end of everything we debated with regard to the Iran deal is that we have chosen, as a body--a minority of this body--to filibuster the Iran agreement. For weeks--weeks--we have been talking about how important this agreement is and how we have been debating it. As to my colleague from Maine, I agree with him. All of us put so much time and effort into studying it and how it is one of the most important foreign policy and national security issues that many of us--even Senators who have been here for 10, 20, 30 years--will ever debate, study, and vote on. That is all agreed to. And what happened? Now we are filibustering that. American foreign policy and our national security are strongest when the executive branch and the congressional-legislative branch work together. That is when America is its strongest. That is why our Constitution gives powers to both branches of government in terms of foreign policy and national security. Yet every step of the way on this Iran deal of the President, the President and his team have been dismissive of the role of the American people through their representatives in Congress. You have to remember where we began, because the only reason the Iranians actually came to the table was because of the sanctions that this body--Democrats and Republicans--put on the Iranian regime-- American-led sanctions throughout the world. Two different administrations did this. Senator Corker talked a lot about the role of the Congress today and how important that was. So we start these negotiations with Congress playing the critical role--drove Iran to the negotiating table--and then when we start negotiating, the President says: Nope, we are going to do this alone. We are going to go it alone. We do not need the Congress of the United States. We are going to do an executive agreement. There was no involvement of the American people through their representatives in Congress to weigh in on one of the most important foreign policy issues in a generation. So this body acted. This body acted. Through the leadership of many Members on both sides of the aisle--Senator Corker, Senator Cardin--we passed legislation--98 Senators--that said: No, the Congress has a role. Congress should have a role. Initially, the President said: I am going to veto that. We don't want you involved. I am going to veto that. But this body came together and said: We want to be able to vote on this agreement. Our constituents want to be heard. There were more affronts. The U.N. Security Council voted on this deal before Congress even started the debate on this deal. Again, Members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, went to the administration--wrote the President, wrote Secretary Kerry--and said: Please do not do this. This would be an affront to the American people. They did it anyway. So now we have come to this moment. The U.N. Security Council and its member states have voted on the deal. The Iranian Parliament will need a majority vote to pass the deal, but the world's greatest deliberative body won't. On one of the biggest foreign policy and national security issues facing the United States, a partisan minority of the Senate has decided to take a pass on even voting up or down on the substance of this agreement. Many of my colleagues have come to the floor over the last several weeks--both sides of the aisle--to explain why they are for or against the agreement. It has been a very good debate. People focused on this issue very intently. People of good will have a serious difference of opinion. I disagree profoundly with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but I respect them for explaining to the public why they are supporting a deal that so many Americans oppose and oppose intensely. That has been one debate, but I am not sure I have seen any of my colleagues come to the floor to explain why they voted to filibuster a vote on the President's agreement with Iran; why they voted to deprive the American people of a right to be heard through their representatives in the Senate on the substance of the deal--not a procedural move but the substance of the deal; why they are letting the White House continually press to usurp their constitutional authority to weigh in and make foreign policy for our country; why they have done a 180-degree turn after voting for Corker-Cardin, saying that we need to vote on this, that the American people and their voices need to be heard on the substance of this deal, and then voting to stifle these same voices by supporting a filibuster. I have been trying to see what the rationale of this is. Certainly there seems to be one where the White House says they should be doing this in order to spare the President the embarrassment of having to veto a bipartisan majority resolution of disapproval of the Iran deal. There are other press reports saying the filibuster happened to protect President Obama's legacy. With due respect to the President, he will be gone--he will be moving on in a little over a year and a half--but the security implications of this dangerous deal will be something the American people--our kids and maybe even our grandkids--will be living with for years. This issue is much bigger than any so-called Obama legacy. Today I have heard many of my colleagues come to the floor and say the agreement has already been voted on. I am a new Member of this body, but I am not sure that is exactly the case. The agreement has not been voted on. My colleagues have not held an up-or-down vote on this agreement. They are actually avoiding voting up or down on this agreement with their filibuster. They know it, and they should be clear on this point with the American people. I think this body is making history during this debate. It appears that for the first time in U.S. history, an immensely important U.S. foreign policy agreement will move forward with a partisan minority of support in both Houses of Congress. For the first time in U.S. history on an agreement that is critical to our national security, the agreement will advance not on the basis of a vote on substance--a majority vote on substance--but on the basis of a filibuster, a procedural vote. And for the first time in U.S. history, the President of the United States sought the vote of foreign nations, including the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, in approving and implementing a major foreign policy agreement and then fought the vote of the American people to weigh in on that same agreement. Yes, the Senate is making history on the President's Iran deal, but it is not a history we should be proud of. It is history, I fear, that will be remembered for undermining our national security and the U.S. Constitution. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise to add my voice for the bipartisan disapproval of the President's nuclear agreement with Iran that we have been debating all week and that we will continue to debate. I do so in the spirit that resulted in 83 U.S. Senators from both sides of the aisle writing a letter just last year to the President of the United States. This letter hasn't gotten a lot of attention in this debate, and I certainly think it should. In that spirit, the Senate, in an incredibly bipartisan way--by the way, several of those Senators are still here. There were 41 Democrats, 41 Republicans, and 1 Independent who signed this letter to the President of the United States saying: These are the strategic goals we want in this agreement, these are the goals we should have for the security of the United States, and these are the goals we think will protect America and our allies. None of these have been met in the nuclear agreement we have been debating. This letter says that Iran must dismantle its nuclear weapons program and it must be prevented from ever having a path to a nuclear bomb. It also states that Iran should have no inherent right to enrichment. I commend my colleagues to reread this letter. The President's nuclear deal clearly does not meet the goals that are laid out in the letter. Nonetheless, it has become clear that a number of Senators on the other side of the aisle are going to vote to support the President's agreement despite having signed that letter. That is going to be a personal decision for them, but if you are a signatory, you ought to take another look at the letter you signed to the President and the American people in 2014. I will lay out a few of my concerns about the deal. I think many of my colleagues have done a fantastic job this week. I don't want to name names, but there are so many on both sides of the aisle--again, bipartisan--who have raised their concerns about the President's Iranian nuclear deal. One of the biggest frustrations I think so many of us have seen as we have done our sacred duty in this body--to read the agreement, to understand the details, to go to all of the hearings and briefings, to reach out to experts in the field--as we have raised questions about this agreement, what we don't get is straight talk. What we have been getting, unfortunately, is spin. I think Senator Coats did a great job yesterday of explaining how this agreement is filled with ambiguities, with language that allows it to mean so many different things to so many different people, including Iranians. Let me provide a few examples that many of us have raised and that I have spoken on the floor about in the past, but I think they are important enough and they bear repeating. First, Secretary Kerry came and said to us: There is no grandfather clause in this agreement. So we see Europeans rushing now to invest in Iran. The Secretary said there is no grandfather clause. Here is what paragraph 37 of the agreement says: In such an event that sanctions are reimposed, the provisions in this paragraph would not apply with retroactive effect to contracts signed between any party in Iran or Iranian individuals and entities prior to the date of application. That sure sounds like a grandfather clause to me, but we are told it is not. Second, there has been much talk about this snapback provision, but there is no provision in this agreement that says ``snap back.'' We talked about how we are going to immediately increase sanctions overnight. I had the opportunity to be a part of the Bush administration's team that was economically isolating Iran. We went around the world to our allies--we had to threaten, in many cases, our European and other allies to divest out of Iran. That is how we got the economic isolation of Iran. It took years to do this. It took years. Yet, this administration is saying: Overnight, despite the fact that European companies are already in Tehran investing, we are going to snapback sanctions overnight. It is not a snap. Divestiture out of Iran is a slog, and it will take years, again. The snapback is a fallacy. Finally, Senator Ayotte and others have done a great job of raising questions about a basic scenario that is laid out--very important--with regard to other paragraphs in this agreement. In an important hypothetical, which is actually very likely, we have asked Secretary Kerry and Secretary Lew--a number of us: Let's assume sanctions are lifted. In six to nine months, the economy starts humming, the Annex II sanctions are lifted, is Iran still a sponsor of terrorism--the world's largest sponsor of terrorism--and they commit an act of terror. This body goes to reimpose sanctions; whoever the next President is agrees because of some heinous act of terrorism. What Iran can do is cite either paragraph 26 or paragraph 37 that states: ``If sanctions are reinstated, in whole or in part, Iran will treat that as grounds to cease performing its commitments'' under the entire agreement. So what happens? We resanction Iran for a terrorist action that they are likely to take. They say: Hey, we can legally walk. Read paragraph 26. Read paragraph 37. Read our letter to the U.N. Security Council. It is all laid out there. They walk, legally; the sanctions are lifted, they are still the No. 1 sponsor of terrorism in the world, their economy is humming, and they are on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon. We have asked that question to the administration leaders who negotiated this deal time and time again, and they have never given us an answer as to why that is not a correct reading of this agreement-- because it is. These are just a few examples. Many of my colleagues have done an outstanding job of looking at different parts of this agreement and expressing our concerns, but just as important is what our constituents think. What do Alaskans think? What do the American people think? Like all of my colleagues, I spent my recess back home in Alaska, and I spoke to hundreds of my fellow Alaskans at townhall meetings, roundtable discussions, our State fair. Remarkably, I did not have one Alaskan come up to me saying: I really think you should support that Iranian nuclear deal of the President's. Every single interaction I had was in opposition to this agreement, and it was visceral, particularly among Alaska veterans. We are a proud State. We have the largest number of veterans per capita of any State in the Union. But whether they were recent vets from Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam vets, they literally would look at me and say: What on Earth are we doing? Help me understand that, Senator Sullivan. What are we doing? Visceral. During this debate this week, even some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--they are not big supporters--are using terms such as ``seriously flawed,'' ``deeply flawed,'' ``serious concerns,'' ``falls short in many areas.'' Across the country, Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to this deal by a margin of 2 to 1. And the more the public knows about the deal, the more they dislike it. These poll numbers in terms of support are dropping. Right now, the latest poll, 21 percent of Americans--that is it--support this deal. The people are wise. They elected us to listen, and we should do so. They might not know all the details as some of us do, but they know-- they know--I saw it from my constituents--that something is fundamentally wrong with this agreement. So we have to ask ourselves why. Why? Why are Americans--the more the President and John Kerry talk about this agreement, the more Americans become opposed to it. And why are even the supporters, as we saw this week, so tepid in their support? Now, all negotiations require compromise. All negotiations require concessions. We all know this. We have negotiated. In fact, many of my colleagues, particularly on the other side, emphasize this. Concessions are part of what we do. They are part of an agreement, but at a certain point, concessions become humiliations. If they are too significant and too frequent, concessions are humiliations. No one likes to be humiliated, but especially proud citizens of a great Nation like the United States do not like to be humiliated. That is what I believe is going on here. This, I believe, explains the visceral reaction we have seen in opposition to this deal. Americans feel that our concessions not just to any country, but to the world's No. 1 sponsor of terrorism, have gone so far that they are humiliating to our great country. People feel that our concessions have gone so far, it is as if we are treating Iran as an equal, and Iran is not an equal to the United States of America. I first started to realize this and sense it during a closed briefing with Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. She was sent to brief the Senate on the secret side deal between the IAEA and Iran involving the inspection regime at the Parchin military facility, long suspected as Iran's premier nuclear weapons facility. Senator McCain spoke about this briefing yesterday. For those of us--again, Democrats and Republicans--who went to this briefing, it was pretty remarkable, and I am not saying that in a positive way. It was actually unbelievable to have a senior member of the Obama negotiating team first begin the briefing by telling us she had seen this secret side deal, but she didn't have a copy of it, and she wasn't allowed to have a copy of it because it was just between Iran and the IAEA. So the Iranians had it, they were reading it, but not us. No matter that the President had just signed a law--the Corker-Cardin law--that required the administration to provide this agreement to the Congress. No matter that the United States is a board member of the IAEA--not only a board member; we are the country that came up with the idea of the IAEA. This was an American initiative in the 1950s. Our board member could have demanded this agreement, but we were told it was just between Iran and the IAEA. This, of course, was an affront to the law, to the American people, but the worst was yet to come. Under Secretary Sherman then actually described the substance of this secret side deal, the essence of which we all know now because it was eventually leaked to the press. Here is the essence of that side deal: Iran will conduct the inspections at the Parchin nuclear facility by themselves, with no one else present. Let me repeat that. No one else is allowed in that facility. Iran will conduct the inspections by itself. They will take air samples. They will take environmental samples. She was literally describing Iranian officials with a camera filming themselves in the facility with no one else there, and they were going to give this film and these samples-- whose chain of custody we can't trust--to IAEA officials, who are not allowed in the facility. Every jaw in that room dropped, every Senator--Democrat, Republican. I remember looking around the room. We couldn't believe it. Heads were shaking. The U.S. Senate was stunned. After claims by the President that his agreement had the most intrusive inspection regime ever, after being told by the President that his agreement had nothing to do with having to trust Iran--it wasn't about trusting Iran--we are told in a briefing by one of his top negotiators that with regard to the most suspicious nuclear weapons facility site in Iran, the Iranians will inspect themselves. The AP broke the story, and when they did, they stated that the secret side deal at Parchin will ``let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny--past work on nuclear weapons.'' Let me repeat that. This is the AP. The side deal--that we are agreeing to, by the way, in the Senate, or that some of my colleagues are--will ``let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny--past work on nuclear weapons.'' This secret side deal is absurd on its face. This secret side deal will let Iran cheat with impunity. This secret side deal is fully and unequivocally based on trusting the Iranians, regardless of what the administration officials say about the deal. And this secret side deal is not just some kind of concession; it is a humiliation. The IAEA has never done this with any country, ever--especially a country that is a serial cheater and continues to be the world's No. 1 sponsor of international terrorism. For these reasons alone, as Senator Perdue mentioned yesterday, the Senate should reject the President's deal. It certainly doesn't square with many of the demands in the March 2014 Senate letter from 83 U.S. Senators last year, one of which was: We believe Iran must fully resolve concerns addressed in the United Nations Security Council resolutions, including any military dimensions of its nuclear program. Well, that is not going to happen in Parchin. We believe Iran must also submit to a long-term and intrusive inspection and verification regime--83 Senators said this to the President. That is not going to happen at Parchin either. But these kind of absurd concessions go much further than the Parchin inspection side deal, and they are the driving force for why so many Americans reject this deal so overwhelmingly. When we agreed to lift sanctions on General Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, that wasn't a concession, that was a humiliation. Senator Ernst said last night it was a slap in the face to our veterans, many of whom were killed by IEDs supplied by General Soleimani. When the leader of Russia, one of our so-called international partners, met with General Soleimani recently to discuss arms transfers, that wasn't a concession, that was an outrage. When the United States, in the President's agreement, states that it wants ``a new relationship with Iran'' and they don't respond in kind in the agreement but respond by saying ``Death to America'' in their weekly chants, that is not a concession, that is a humiliation. When we agree in the agreement to ``protect Iran from nuclear security threats, including sabotage''--that is in the agreement--that is not a concession, that is an outrage. When the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says that under no circumstances should Iran ever obtain ballistic missiles and only days later the Secretary of State agrees to lift the ban on ballistic missiles and conventional weapons, that is not a concession, that is an abdication. When we go into minute detail in this agreement--dozens of pages on our obligations to lift sanctions, including our obligations to literally import Iranian pistachios--that kind of detail--yet we can't get four American hostages released, that is not a concession, that is a humiliation. Finally, when we give the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism upfront relief and tens of billions of dollars in a signing bonus and we are told by administration officials that certainly Iran is going to use some of those proceeds to conduct terrorism activities against Americans and our allies, that is not a concession, that is a surrender. It is a culmination of the so-called concessions that give our constituents the sinking feeling that the President's agreement is decidedly not in our interest. That is dangerous for our country, and it is the scope and number of these concessions that solidify the sense that during these negotiations we have slowly and subtly ceded our power to a country that just recently was considered the world's No. 1 pariah state. When these negotiations began, every country in the world was standing against Iran and international sanctions were crippling them. That is what brought them to the table, as Senator Corker mentioned earlier today. And guess what. This was due not to the international community's leadership, not to China, not to Russia, not to the European Union, this was due to the leadership of the United States of America, the Members in the Democratic Party and Republican Party of the Congress, and members of the Bush administration and the Obama administration. That is what brought them to the table--American leadership, Congress, and the executive branch working together. Remarkably, the deal the President and the administration have negotiated has flipped all of this on its head. It is incredible that we are at this point, as if we are treating Iran as an equal, blessed by all the world's great powers. Make no mistake, we are, as Senator Cardin and others mentioned--this deal legitimizes Iran's nuclear program and it blesses Iran as a threshold nuclear power. So the question has to be asked: Why not stick the original goals set out by the Senate just a year ago, in 2014, in the letter to the President to dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities, to prevent them from having enrichment capability. Well, according to the President, he has stated, ``There is no one who thinks that Iran would or could ever accept that, and the international community does not take that view that Iran can't have a peaceful nuclear program.'' The Congress of the United States and the Senate of the United States thought that just a year ago. So it is remarkable that the President says now there is no way we can get that done. Why not go back to Iran and the P5+1 and get a better deal, one without the serious flaws that so many Members, Democratic and Republican, have stated over the last week? In a remarkable interview with the Atlantic Monthly, Secretary Kerry talks about how, if we sought a better deal, if he went back and sought a better deal--a deal, by the way, that 83 Senators said we needed to have--we would be ``screwing Iran and the Ayatollah, and we will be confirming the Ayatollah's suspicion that the United States is untrustworthy.'' That is a quote from the Secretary of State of the United States. In another interview, Secretary Kerry said he would ``be embarrassed'' to go out and try for a better deal. What is most remarkable of all is that in attempts to sell this deal to the Congress and the American people, the President and his team no longer emphasized that Iran, the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism, is isolated, is a pariah state, but instead they emphasized that our most important ally in the Middle East, Israel, is, and so, too, is the Congress, and so, too, will be the United States if we don't approve the President's deal. On August 5, the President stated that ``every nation in the world that has commented publicly supports this agreement, except Israel.'' And U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, our Ambassador, recently stated, ``If we walk away, there is no rewrite of the deal on the table. We would go from a situation in which Iran is isolated to one in which the United States is isolated.'' This rhetoric represents a fundamental shift in a world view. We have been debating this Iranian deal for the past week, but we really are debating America's role in the world. There is a world view that is taking hold with this administration, one where America is no longer the leader of the free world but a player as part of an international partnership, one where we don't lead by example but are being led by others, one where we are leading from behind, one where we are embarrassed--that is in the Secretary of State's words--rather than steadfast, and one where we are more worried about ``screwing'' the head of a pariah state than standing with our most steadfast ally in the region, the nation of Israel. This kind of deal that we are debating today is what an echo chamber produces. This is what happens when you want a deal too badly, when you will not walk away from the table during negotiations, when your view of America's leadership role in the world is tentative, tepid, and not confident, and this is what happens when you fail to listen to the American people. This is what happens. Right turns wrong, good turns bad, a country that recently was a pariah state, the largest state sponsor of terrorism, is steering the negotiations and welcomed to the community of nations, and top officials in the United States of America are afraid that we will become isolated if we demand a stronger deal that keeps us and our allies safe. This, in effect, is how bad and dangerous policy is made. I would like to conclude by talking about our role with regard to this agreement. History has shown that on most major foreign policy issues, when the United States of America is most effective and most strong is when the Congress and the Executive are working together. That is the way our Constitution was structured, and that has been America's history since the founding of the Republic. The examples abound from this Chamber. The Louisiana Purchase--something important to you, Mr. President--passed the Senate, bipartisan majority vote 24 to 7; NATO was ratified by bipartisan majority, 82 to 13; the first strategic arms limitations negotiations with the Soviet Union, bipartisan majority, 88 to 2; even something as controversial as relinquishing control of the Panama Canal to Panama, bipartisan majority, 68 to 32. More recently in 2010, this body voted to further reduce nuclear arms with the Russians, bipartisan majority, 71 to 26. One common area of agreement is that everybody who has talked about this agreement this week on both sides of the aisle has stated it was one of the most important national security issues facing the United States in a generation, whether and how and to what degree the world's largest sponsor of terrorism is going to obtain a nuclear weapon. But perhaps for the first time in U.S. history, an agreement that is so grave and important for the national security of our great Nation is going to move forward, not with a bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate but a partisan minority in both Houses. Such result will undermine America's strength and I believe shows a profound disregard for our constitutional form of government. Even the Iranian Parliament is going to need a majority to pass this agreement, but the world's greatest democracy will not, and I believe that is another humiliation. Finally, just a few hours ago we saw what has been a theme throughout this entire process--how the administration has been dismissive of the American people, not wanting a role for the American people through their representatives in Congress to weigh in on this deal. If the President is so proud of this agreement, he shouldn't be directing Democrats to filibuster it. I believe the vote we just took is a sad day for the U.S. Senate. If this deal was good for the country and our allies, I would certainly be gladly supporting it, but it is not, and a bipartisan majority of the Senate knows it. That is why a bipartisan majority of this body is voting against it. We are doing so because it is a bad deal, a deal that will make the world more dangerous, and we are doing so because the American people see that, too, and they are counting on us to protect them. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce S. 1944, the RED Tape Act of 2015. The letters R-E-D stand for Regulations Endanger Democracy. They do, and they are. This bill will help cut burdensome regulations-- regulations that I think everybody agrees have been strangling our economy, regulations that many of my colleagues and I and economists around the country and around the world believe are at the heart of why we can't grow the great American economy. Let me spend a few minutes on the economy, what the regulations are doing, and why I believe this bill is so important and why we are working hard to get bipartisan support for it. There is a debate going on in this country and on the Senate floor: Are we in decline? Is America in decline? Are our best days behind us? Is China going to own the 21st century the way we did the last century? Now, I am an optimist. I don't think we are in decline. We don't need to be in decline. Here is the reason why. We don't hear about it much, but when we look and compare the United States to other countries, we have so many comparative advantages. We still have so many comparative advantages. Imagine the United States is in a global poker game with all the other major nations of the world around the table. We don't hear this much, but relative to other countries, we look at our hand and we hold aces. As a matter of fact, we hold most of the aces. Let me give a few examples. The high-tech sector. Whether it is Silicon Valley, Massachusetts, places throughout the entire country, we still have the most vibrant, innovative high-tech sector of anyplace in the world, the ability to commercialize ideas with private equity and financing. If you have a good idea, an entrepreneurial idea in America, you can commercialize that, you can take that to market more quickly, more efficiently than any other place in the world. Our agriculture sector for decades has been probably the most efficient agriculture sector in the world, feeding the world, literally. Universities. Look at America's universities relative to any other place, any other country. I had the great honor--my oldest daughter of my three teenaged daughters graduated from high school last year. My wife and I took her to a number of universities she was looking at across the country. We have States--Massachusetts, California--that probably have better top research universities just in those States than other countries have in their entire country. In my State of Alaska, we have great universities. It is a huge advantage. Energy. Once again through American innovation, we are the world's energy superpower again, the way we used to be, producing more oil, more gas, more renewables than any other country in the world. It is a huge advantage. Fisheries. We are one of the top countries in the world in terms of the harvest of fisheries, and my State of Alaska is the superpower of American seafood. We harvest more than 50 percent of all seafood in America--a huge advantage for our country. The military. I don't have to say much more about the military. We have the best, most professional military in the world, probably in the history of the world, unrivaled by any other nation, not even close. Then even issues like--we talk a lot about immigration and how our system is broken and how the border needs to be secured. Absolutely. But we are still the country of the world that other people of the world want to come to. They want to come here. I recently attended a naturalization ceremony in Juneau, AK. If you want to take pride in our country, if you want to see something great, go to a naturalization ceremony. See people who have been thinking about becoming an American for most of their lives finally achieving that goal. It will bring tears to your eyes. It brought tears to my eyes. Then, of course, in terms of comparative advantages, there is our form of government, our Framers, our Constitution--the longest standing constitutional democracy in the world. It certainly is not perfect, but again, relative to other countries, it is a huge advantage. So, as I mentioned, we have all the aces. In that big global game of poker, we have a great hand. As President Reagan said a couple decades ago, we are ``the greatest, freest, strongest nation on earth.'' And I believe we still are. But, of course, like all countries, we have challenges. Here is the biggest challenge, I believe: If we have all the aces, if we have all these comparative advantages, why can't we grow our economy anymore? Why can't we create opportunities for young college graduates? Our gross domestic product shrunk the first quarter of this year for the third time in the last 9 years. That hasn't happened in more than 60 years. From 2011 through 2014, our gross domestic product only grew at a little bit below 2 percent. The comparative advantage, the growth rate that made our country great from 1790 to 2014--U.S. real GDP growth in real dollars--averaged an annual rate of 3.7 percent--almost 4 percent GDP growth. That is the average for our country's history. That is real, robust American growth. That is what made us great. The Obama administration's average is 1.36 percent per year. Just last week--and I know this is an issue that you and I have talked a lot about--it was revealed that we now have officially the worst economic recovery in 70 years. An article in the Wall Street Journal says that new GDP revisions show the worst recovery in 70 years and it was even weaker than we thought. This is a huge problem. We can no longer grow our economy. When that happens, we hurt the most vulnerable in society. But what is even more frustrating than that is when you come to Washington, it seems that nobody actually seems to care about this topic anymore or that we are going to dumb down our expectations. It was pretty amazing. Some economists cheered. Our growth rate that was announced last quarter was a little bit over 2 percent GDP growth, and they cheered it. But, again, the issue doesn't even seem to be something that people here are focused on. Let me give you an example. The first quarter of this year, the U.S. economy--the greatest economy in the world--went back into recession. We shrunk. That is a big deal. That should frighten people. Did the White House say anything? Did the Secretary of the Treasury come out and say: Oh, my gosh, we are back in a recession; here is what we are going to do to grow this economy because we know growth is the key to almost everything. Not a word--in fact, what is starting to happen is--and it is a very, very dangerous trend in Washington--we are just going to dumb down our expectations. Yes, traditional levels of U.S. economic growth are almost 4 percent since the founding of our Nation. But guess what we are going to call it now. We are going to call 2 percent growth--which is all we can achieve, it seems--the new normal. We are not going to try to get back to 4 percent, the traditional levels. Democrats and Republicans have done that for decades, centuries. We are going to say: No, America, you need to be satisfied with the new normal--2 percent GDP growth. Terms such as the ``new normal,'' ``secular stagnation''--some are even talking that this is our destiny as a nation. I don't like that term--``new normal.'' It is a surrender. It is a surrender of American greatness. It is a surrender of our future, and it is a surrender of our kids' future. If we stay at these levels of growth--1.5 percent, 2 percent of GDP growth; the Obama administration growth levels--the challenges that we face are huge debt, infrastructure, funding the military, funding social programs, and even the cohesion of our great American country. All of these challenges will be much, much harder to address. I believe one of the most important things we can do in this body, which we are not doing enough of, is to focus on this issue. Why are we not growing the American economy anymore? We have to get back to these robust levels of growth--Democratic, Republican levels. We have to get back to traditional levels of growth. We can do better. Our history is better. This is the greatest economy in the world, and we need to unleash it. What is the problem? How do we do this? How do we get back to these levels of growth? If we are holding all the aces, what is holding us back? I believe a huge part of the problem of what is holding us back is actually this town, the Federal Government, and the agencies here that are stifling economic growth with redtape from the alphabet soup of agencies--the IRS, the EPA, and the BLM--that are constantly promulgating new regulations. As opposed to being partners in opportunity, our Federal Government wants to regulate everything, all aspects of our economy. Regulations across the country, from Alaska to Maine, are hurting businesses, are hurting the economy, and are hurting our citizens, especially the most vulnerable. Again, this is not a partisan issue. Almost all of us on both sides of the aisle agree that we need to cut redtape. Even President Obama's own Small Business Administration puts the number--the annual cost of regulations that grow every year--at $1.7 trillion per year. It is almost $1.8 trillion per year. If that were the economy, that would be one of the largest economies in the world. That is a staggering number, and they are growing. Regulatory costs amount to an average of almost $15,000 per household. It is around 29 percent of an average family budget of $51,000. People are noticing, not only in this country but globally. On Friday, the Financial Times had an article: ``The land of free markets, tied down by red tape.'' Every nation needs a unifying idea. Americans love to see themselves as champions of free markets and entrepreneurial zeal. That halo is coming off America because of regulations. What should we do? I believe we need to freeze the growth of regulations. That is what my bill, the RED Tape Act of 2015, does. The cumulative Federal rules since 1976 is what we do here. We grow them like some irresistible force of nature. But it doesn't have to be that way. Unfortunately, my State has been ground zero for many overburdensome regulations--bridges, roads, and mines that take years simply to permit, not to build. In rural Alaska, we are letting trash pile up because they don't make small, portable incinerators that comply with EPA regulations. Because of Federal roadless rules in southeast Alaska, we can't even build new alternative energy plants for energy-starved citizens of my State. Nationally, bridges are crumbling and can't get built because of overly burdensome regulations. Let me provide one more example that you are aware of, Mr. President. Banks are failing. Because of regulations and a bad economy, over 1,300 small community banks have disappeared since 2010, and only two new banks in the United States have been chartered in the last 5 years. Even during the Great Depression we had on average 19 new banks a year. In the last 5 years, we have had two. As the article said, ``the entrepreneurial halo is starting to slip, too, since increasing quantities of red tape are making life harder for start-ups.'' Let me be clear. Regulations are not all bad. Many of them keep us safe from harm. But the mountains and stacks of regulations over the decades undermine our future. What my bill would do is very simple. It is using a simple one-in, one-out method. New regulations that cause financial or administrative burdens on businesses for the people of the United States would need to be offset by repealing existing regulations. You issue a new reg and you repeal an old reg. If an agency doesn't want to do this, the cost of living adjustments for the agency personnel will be withheld until the agency abides by this law. It is very simple. What we need to do is stop this growth of regulations on the American people and on our economy. This bill will help keep the regulatory system under control. It will help cut the redtape that binds us. It will bind the regulatory system instead, and it will help bring back the shine of that entrepreneurial halo in great American spirit that we all yearn for. Finally, it will make sure that the aces we have in our hand--the comparative advantages that we have over every other country in the world--are used to benefit our country, grow our economy, and create a brighter future for our children. I ask my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce S. 1944, the RED Tape Act of 2015. The letters R-E-D stand for Regulations Endanger Democracy. They do, and they are. This bill will help cut burdensome regulations-- regulations that I think everybody agrees have been strangling our economy, regulations that many of my colleagues and I and economists around the country and around the world believe are at the heart of why we can't grow the great American economy. Let me spend a few minutes on the economy, what the regulations are doing, and why I believe this bill is so important and why we are working hard to get bipartisan support for it. There is a debate going on in this country and on the Senate floor: Are we in decline? Is America in decline? Are our best days behind us? Is China going to own the 21st century the way we did the last century? Now, I am an optimist. I don't think we are in decline. We don't need to be in decline. Here is the reason why. We don't hear about it much, but when we look and compare the United States to other countries, we have so many comparative advantages. We still have so many comparative advantages. Imagine the United States is in a global poker game with all the other major nations of the world around the table. We don't hear this much, but relative to other countries, we look at our hand and we hold aces. As a matter of fact, we hold most of the aces. Let me give a few examples. The high-tech sector. Whether it is Silicon Valley, Massachusetts, places throughout the entire country, we still have the most vibrant, innovative high-tech sector of anyplace in the world, the ability to commercialize ideas with private equity and financing. If you have a good idea, an entrepreneurial idea in America, you can commercialize that, you can take that to market more quickly, more efficiently than any other place in the world. Our agriculture sector for decades has been probably the most efficient agriculture sector in the world, feeding the world, literally. Universities. Look at America's universities relative to any other place, any other country. I had the great honor--my oldest daughter of my three teenaged daughters graduated from high school last year. My wife and I took her to a number of universities she was looking at across the country. We have States--Massachusetts, California--that probably have better top research universities just in those States than other countries have in their entire country. In my State of Alaska, we have great universities. It is a huge advantage. Energy. Once again through American innovation, we are the world's energy superpower again, the way we used to be, producing more oil, more gas, more renewables than any other country in the world. It is a huge advantage. Fisheries. We are one of the top countries in the world in terms of the harvest of fisheries, and my State of Alaska is the superpower of American seafood. We harvest more than 50 percent of all seafood in America--a huge advantage for our country. The military. I don't have to say much more about the military. We have the best, most professional military in the world, probably in the history of the world, unrivaled by any other nation, not even close. Then even issues like--we talk a lot about immigration and how our system is broken and how the border needs to be secured. Absolutely. But we are still the country of the world that other people of the world want to come to. They want to come here. I recently attended a naturalization ceremony in Juneau, AK. If you want to take pride in our country, if you want to see something great, go to a naturalization ceremony. See people who have been thinking about becoming an American for most of their lives finally achieving that goal. It will bring tears to your eyes. It brought tears to my eyes. Then, of course, in terms of comparative advantages, there is our form of government, our Framers, our Constitution--the longest standing constitutional democracy in the world. It certainly is not perfect, but again, relative to other countries, it is a huge advantage. So, as I mentioned, we have all the aces. In that big global game of poker, we have a great hand. As President Reagan said a couple decades ago, we are ``the greatest, freest, strongest nation on earth.'' And I believe we still are. But, of course, like all countries, we have challenges. Here is the biggest challenge, I believe: If we have all the aces, if we have all these comparative advantages, why can't we grow our economy anymore? Why can't we create opportunities for young college graduates? Our gross domestic product shrunk the first quarter of this year for the third time in the last 9 years. That hasn't happened in more than 60 years. From 2011 through 2014, our gross domestic product only grew at a little bit below 2 percent. The comparative advantage, the growth rate that made our country great from 1790 to 2014--U.S. real GDP growth in real dollars--averaged an annual rate of 3.7 percent--almost 4 percent GDP growth. That is the average for our country's history. That is real, robust American growth. That is what made us great. The Obama administration's average is 1.36 percent per year. Just last week--and I know this is an issue that you and I have talked a lot about--it was revealed that we now have officially the worst economic recovery in 70 years. An article in the Wall Street Journal says that new GDP revisions show the worst recovery in 70 years and it was even weaker than we thought. This is a huge problem. We can no longer grow our economy. When that happens, we hurt the most vulnerable in society. But what is even more frustrating than that is when you come to Washington, it seems that nobody actually seems to care about this topic anymore or that we are going to dumb down our expectations. It was pretty amazing. Some economists cheered. Our growth rate that was announced last quarter was a little bit over 2 percent GDP growth, and they cheered it. But, again, the issue doesn't even seem to be something that people here are focused on. Let me give you an example. The first quarter of this year, the U.S. economy--the greatest economy in the world--went back into recession. We shrunk. That is a big deal. That should frighten people. Did the White House say anything? Did the Secretary of the Treasury come out and say: Oh, my gosh, we are back in a recession; here is what we are going to do to grow this economy because we know growth is the key to almost everything. Not a word--in fact, what is starting to happen is--and it is a very, very dangerous trend in Washington--we are just going to dumb down our expectations. Yes, traditional levels of U.S. economic growth are almost 4 percent since the founding of our Nation. But guess what we are going to call it now. We are going to call 2 percent growth--which is all we can achieve, it seems--the new normal. We are not going to try to get back to 4 percent, the traditional levels. Democrats and Republicans have done that for decades, centuries. We are going to say: No, America, you need to be satisfied with the new normal--2 percent GDP growth. Terms such as the ``new normal,'' ``secular stagnation''--some are even talking that this is our destiny as a nation. I don't like that term--``new normal.'' It is a surrender. It is a surrender of American greatness. It is a surrender of our future, and it is a surrender of our kids' future. If we stay at these levels of growth--1.5 percent, 2 percent of GDP growth; the Obama administration growth levels--the challenges that we face are huge debt, infrastructure, funding the military, funding social programs, and even the cohesion of our great American country. All of these challenges will be much, much harder to address. I believe one of the most important things we can do in this body, which we are not doing enough of, is to focus on this issue. Why are we not growing the American economy anymore? We have to get back to these robust levels of growth--Democratic, Republican levels. We have to get back to traditional levels of growth. We can do better. Our history is better. This is the greatest economy in the world, and we need to unleash it. What is the problem? How do we do this? How do we get back to these levels of growth? If we are holding all the aces, what is holding us back? I believe a huge part of the problem of what is holding us back is actually this town, the Federal Government, and the agencies here that are stifling economic growth with redtape from the alphabet soup of agencies--the IRS, the EPA, and the BLM--that are constantly promulgating new regulations. As opposed to being partners in opportunity, our Federal Government wants to regulate everything, all aspects of our economy. Regulations across the country, from Alaska to Maine, are hurting businesses, are hurting the economy, and are hurting our citizens, especially the most vulnerable. Again, this is not a partisan issue. Almost all of us on both sides of the aisle agree that we need to cut redtape. Even President Obama's own Small Business Administration puts the number--the annual cost of regulations that grow every year--at $1.7 trillion per year. It is almost $1.8 trillion per year. If that were the economy, that would be one of the largest economies in the world. That is a staggering number, and they are growing. Regulatory costs amount to an average of almost $15,000 per household. It is around 29 percent of an average family budget of $51,000. People are noticing, not only in this country but globally. On Friday, the Financial Times had an article: ``The land of free markets, tied down by red tape.'' Every nation needs a unifying idea. Americans love to see themselves as champions of free markets and entrepreneurial zeal. That halo is coming off America because of regulations. What should we do? I believe we need to freeze the growth of regulations. That is what my bill, the RED Tape Act of 2015, does. The cumulative Federal rules since 1976 is what we do here. We grow them like some irresistible force of nature. But it doesn't have to be that way. Unfortunately, my State has been ground zero for many overburdensome regulations--bridges, roads, and mines that take years simply to permit, not to build. In rural Alaska, we are letting trash pile up because they don't make small, portable incinerators that comply with EPA regulations. Because of Federal roadless rules in southeast Alaska, we can't even build new alternative energy plants for energy-starved citizens of my State. Nationally, bridges are crumbling and can't get built because of overly burdensome regulations. Let me provide one more example that you are aware of, Mr. President. Banks are failing. Because of regulations and a bad economy, over 1,300 small community banks have disappeared since 2010, and only two new banks in the United States have been chartered in the last 5 years. Even during the Great Depression we had on average 19 new banks a year. In the last 5 years, we have had two. As the article said, ``the entrepreneurial halo is starting to slip, too, since increasing quantities of red tape are making life harder for start-ups.'' Let me be clear. Regulations are not all bad. Many of them keep us safe from harm. But the mountains and stacks of regulations over the decades undermine our future. What my bill would do is very simple. It is using a simple one-in, one-out method. New regulations that cause financial or administrative burdens on businesses for the people of the United States would need to be offset by repealing existing regulations. You issue a new reg and you repeal an old reg. If an agency doesn't want to do this, the cost of living adjustments for the agency personnel will be withheld until the agency abides by this law. It is very simple. What we need to do is stop this growth of regulations on the American people and on our economy. This bill will help keep the regulatory system under control. It will help cut the redtape that binds us. It will bind the regulatory system instead, and it will help bring back the shine of that entrepreneurial halo in great American spirit that we all yearn for. Finally, it will make sure that the aces we have in our hand--the comparative advantages that we have over every other country in the world--are used to benefit our country, grow our economy, and create a brighter future for our children. I ask my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. You want to know what the Iranians say about the reimposition of so-called snapback sanctions? Here is what they say: It is clearly spelled out in the agreement that both the European Union and the United States will refrain from reintroducing or reimposing the sanctions--now they are talking about Annex II sanctions--and restrictive measures lifted under the agreement. It is understood that reintroduction or reimposition, including through extension of the sanctions and restrictive measures, will constitute significant nonperformance which would relieve Iran from its commitments to this agreement in whole or in part. My colleague Senator Ayotte from New Hampshire yesterday asked Secretary Kerry and Secretary Lew about this provision. They did not give a clear answer because there is no clear answer. Right now there is huge disagreement between the United States and Iran on the language in the agreement on whether, to what degree, these so-called snapback provisions will work or will undermine our national security interests, which is what I believe they will do. I have asked the administration to quit using that term. It is not in the agreement. The language makes clear that it is going to take years. There is no ``snap.'' If we ever use it, that is it for the agreement. They have not given the Members of this body a straightforward answer on that issue. We need to keep asking these kinds of questions. We need to keep doing our due diligence, but we need clarity. The American people need clarity, not spin, on critical issues such as this side IAEA agreement, which nobody seems to have read, and we certainly have not seen; the grandfather clause, which certainly looks like a grandfather clause, but now we are told by Secretary Kerry is not a grandfather clause; and perhaps, most importantly, this so-called snapback provision which I believe is illusory and is aimed at us, not at the pariah state that we are all concerned about, and that is Iran. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the important agreement that we are debating here on the Senate floor--the Iran nuclear agreement. I want to begin by saying that there seems to be, as we debate this and as we hold hearings, a growing sense of frustration as we do what is really our sacred duty here in the Senate--to review, debate, and, ultimately, to vote on this agreement as to whether it is something that is going to keep our country secure or undermine the national security of the United States and our allies. This frustration stems from a number of sources. Let me just name a few. First, I think many Democrats and Republicans feel there has been a dismissive attitude from the administration with regard to this agreement and a dismissive attitude, actually, towards the American people on whether the Congress should weigh in on this agreement, should represent their constituents on something that is this important to the national security of the United States of America. I mention this because if you look at the last several months, every step of the way the administration has tried to cut out the role of the Congress. Initially, they said it was an Executive agreement and Congress would have no role. Well, I don't think our constituents liked that, and certainly, the Senate didn't like that. So we started debating the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. The President said he was going to veto it. Again, that was dismissive of this body and the American people. Fortunately, this body had a very strong veto-proof majority. We are debating it--but not because they wanted us to but because we are representing our constituents who know how important this is. Then the agreement is taken to the United Nations before we weigh in on it at all. Members of the United Nations, citizens from other countries, are voting on this agreement before we had the opportunity. Again, bipartisan Democrats and Republicans said: Secretary Kerry, don't do that. It is an affront to the American people. But they did it. So we are debating it, and that is important. But that attitude of dismissiveness of this body and the people we represent is frustrating. There is a second reason there is frustration in the Senate, and it stems from the fact that we are not sure that we are getting the straight scoop. We are not sure we are getting all the documents. The law requires every document to this agreement come to this body. Yet we found out 2 weeks ago that there is a very important agreement, the agreement between the IAEA and Iran on implementation of this agreement. How did we find out about that? One of my colleagues, Senator Cotton, got on a plane, went to IAEA headquarters in Vienna, and found that out--again, frustration. We are not receiving all of the documents, as required by law, to be able to review. Third, in terms of frustration, there is a sense that as we are doing our duty here, as we are digging into this agreement, as we are reading it, as we are reaching out to experts, as we are trying to understand it, as we are questioning administration witnesses at hearings, as we are doing our required and sacred due diligence, we are told time and again that the plain language of the agreement doesn't appear to mean what it means. This is frustrating. This is particularly true with regard to sanctions. Let me give you a few examples. First we had a closed briefing. Almost every Member of the Senate came to that briefing a couple of weeks ago. There was a big question. Was there a grandfather provision with regard to sanctions; meaning, if you are a company and you rush to Iran right now and cut some deals and sanctions are later imposed, does the mere fact that you jumped in early mean that you are grandfathered away from these sanctions? Well, a lot of people had questions. The Secretary of State looked at 100 Members of the Senate and said: There is no grandfather clause in this agreement. There is no grandfather clause in this agreement. This is paragraph 37 of the agreement. I am just going to quote it, because it certainly sounds like a grandfather clause to me: ``In such event [that sanctions are reimposed], these provisions''--in this paragraph--``would not apply with retroactive effect to contracts signed between any party and Iran or Iranian individuals and entities prior to the date of application . . .'' That is when the agreement starts to be implemented. That sounds like a grandfather clause. Now, maybe there are elements here, maybe there are special circumstances that make it not a grandfather clause, but the Secretary of State was in front of all of us saying that there is no grandfather clause. It is hard to square that with the plain language of this agreement. Let me give another example--the much-touted snapback provisions in the agreement. Secretary Lew, the Secretary of the Treasury, has talked about how we have a strong snapback provision, how it is going to be prompt, and how it is powerful. These are terms that he has been using in testimony. In many ways I think Members of this body, Democrats and Republicans, see that the effectiveness of this entire deal might hinge on this so-called snapback provision. The more I read about our sanctions and how they work in this agreement, the more questions I have, because to this Senator the snapback provision seems to be an illusion. It actually seems to be aimed back at the United States. I don't think we should be calling it a snapback provision. Maybe it should be called the boomerang provision, because it is aimed at us. Let me talk a little bit more in detail about this. First, the term ``snapback'' was not in the agreement. It is a good term--catchy--and sounds good. It is actually a term used in trade negotiations when a party violates a trade agreement. Trade agreements will have snapback provisions where we raise tariffs on goods immediately. That is a snapback. But that is not what is going on here. That is not what is going to happen here. The practical reality of sanctions, particularly economic sanctions, is that there is no snap when you put them in. It is a slog. Let me give you an example. In my experience, I worked with many people at the beginning of our efforts in the Bush Administration, during 2006, 2007, and 2008, to start economically isolating Iran. What does that mean? Well, what we did is we leveraged the power of the U.S. economy in close coordination with the Congress of the United States, and we went to countries and companies that were big investors in Iran, say, in the oil and gas sector, and we told them that they needed to start divesting out of the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world or the Congress of the United States might look to sanction their company or limit their access to the American market. We were leveraging the authority of the Congress and the power of our economy to get countries--yes, many of which were our allies--such as Norway, Germany, France, and Japan to divest and economically isolate Iran. That took months and years to accomplish. It was a slog. There was no snap. What do we see today? European companies--it is in the newspapers every day--European CEOs, senior administration officials in Germany, and government officials are already in Tehran. Already, there are companies looking to set up shop, looking to invest billions, as they did before. They are there now. This deal is not even done yet. They are there. They cannot wait, licking their chops to reinvest in one of the--not one of the biggest, the biggest terrorist regime in the world, which has done more to kill Americans than probably any country in the world in the last 30 years. Of course, this is disappointing, but this history is a reminder to all of us that the sanctions regime Secretary Kerry talks about--and we certainly did have Iran surrounded in terms of sanctions--which was a 110-percent-American-led sanctions regime, involving Democrats, Republicans, this Congress, and the Bush administration. Yes, a lot of credit goes to the Obama administration on this economic isolation of Iran, which is what brought them to the table to begin with. If we reimpose sanctions, there certainly won't be a ``snap'' when it happens. It will be slow. It will be a slog again trying to convince reluctant Europeans, Russians, and Chinese to pull out of the market once again. Finally, I just want to say one other thing, and it goes back again to the plain language of the agreement, where again the snapback provision, so-called snapback provision, seems aimed back at us, the boomerang provision. I posed a hypothetical to Secretary Kerry, Secretary Lew in a closed session, in a Senate Armed Services session yesterday to try and get specifics on what would happen in certain situations. I gave them this hypothetical: Let's assume sanctions are lifted in the next 6 to 9 months. These are called Annex II sanctions. It is a huge list of sanctions, the most powerful sanctions our country has placed on Iran. All of them--financial, oil, market--are going to be lifted in 6 to 9 months. Let's assume that happens. As we are already seeing, European companies, other countries, certainly the Chinese, Russians, Japanese, are going to be rushing into this market, investing billions once again. Assume the Iranian economy is going to start humming with all of this new investment, the lifting of sanctions. A senior Iranian official recently said they are looking for $120 billion of new investment by 2020. They are likely going to get a lot of it, and they are abiding by the deal--no violations of any of the nuclear aspects of this deal. Then, what I think is very likely, sometime within the next 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years, Iran commits a major act of terrorism. Let's say they kill more American troops. Let's say they blow up a consulate or embassy somewhere. They are the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. It doesn't look as though they want to do anything but continue to do that, so that is a very likely scenario. When that happens, this body reapplies sanctions. It looks at Annex II, some of our most powerful sanctions. We are very upset--bipartisan. We reapply sanctions. The President, whoever that is, signs it because that President, he or she is very upset, and we reimpose serious Annex II sanctions. Now, what happens then? I think what is going to happen, very likely at that point, is Iran is going to look at this agreement, and they are going to cite either paragraph 26 or paragraph 37. Let me read you both of those. Again, this is the plain language of the statute. Paragraph 37. Iran has stated that if sanctions are reinstated in whole or in part, Iran will treat that as grounds to cease performing its commitments under the entire agreement. Another provision. Iran has stated it will treat the reintroduction or reimposition of the sanctions specified in Annex II as grounds to cease performing its commitments under the agreement. That is in the agreement. So, you see, if we reimpose sanctions as part of the snapback, Iran can look at this agreement and say: I'm done. I'm walking. I can legally leave this agreement. They can legally leave this agreement with a humming economy, on the verge of a breakout of a nuclear weapon, still being the largest state sponsor of terrorism, and they can say: Hey, I complied with the agreement. The United States reimposed sanctions. I told them what I was going to do, and they do it. Again, bottom line, if we use the so-called snapback provision, it certainly appears from the language of this agreement that the deal is done. So I have asked Secretary Kerry and Secretary Lew twice now: How is that an improper reading of the agreement? Secretary Lew, the Secretary of the Treasury, is trying to argue we are reading that language wrong. He says Annex II sanctions--the big American sanctions, which are what has kept Iran down and what has brought them to the table--can be reimposed if they are reimposed for nonnuclear violations like terrorism. When I read this agreement, that seems to be a bit of a stretch. Certainly there is a lot of ambiguity, but it is also clear the Iranians clearly won't agree with that reading. They don't agree with that reading. This was filed--I ask unanimous consent to have this printed in the Record. This is the Iranian letter dated 20 July 2015, to the United Nations Security Council. It is their interpretation of the agreement.

Mr. SULLIVAN

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

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to begin my remarks this afternoon by commending my colleague from North Dakota for her weekly tributes to our Vietnam veterans. I have watched her do that week after week. It is very moving. It speaks volumes to her character as well as the character of the veterans from North Dakota. Nuclear Agreement With Iran Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to speak about one of the important issues facing the Senate today, for weeks, months, and maybe even years, and that is the debate we are having over the Iran nuclear agreement. Many of my colleagues have already spoken very eloquently and very patiently about this agreement. I want to give one example. My colleague from Maine, Senator King, was on the floor the other day when I was presiding. He was imploring us to fully debate the issue. He stated: ``The truth emerges from the fire of an argument on an issue of this importance.'' I couldn't agree more. We should debate this issue. We should fully vet this issue. We should bring all of the voices of the people we represent into this body to debate this issue. Where to begin? There is so much here, so many issues. We have seen some of them: centrifuges, enrichment, inspections, sanctions, and anywhere, anytime inspections. We have to examine all of that. I thought it was important today to step back and take a look at some of the big issues. There are three issues that I believe are particularly important as we start this debate: first, the role of the American people and this body and the Congress with regard to this agreement; second, the basic underlying premise of this agreement--the driving force that in many ways is behind this agreement; and third, the main goal as has been agreed to by the President and by Members of this body on what we should be trying to achieve with regard to this agreement. First, the role of the American people in this body. There is confusion, which has been perpetuated by this administration, that those of us who are asking questions and are skeptical of the agreement are somehow being partisan. The President said that Republicans, no matter the deal, will disagree with him and not vote with him. In some ways he seems to be making this about his personal agenda. But with all due respect to the President, the Iranian nuclear agreement is much bigger than President Obama--much bigger. The President will be gone in 18 months, and the American people will have to live with the consequences of this agreement for decades. That is why it is so important that the Congress debate and approve or disapprove this agreement. Yet, had the Obama administration had its way, we would not be doing this today--what we are doing right now--debating this agreement. In fact, throughout this process, from the very beginning, they have been dismissive of the role of the American people through their representatives in Congress to weigh in and bring clarity and wisdom to what this agreement is all about. Just a few months ago, the President said that he did not want the Congress to be involved at all. We started debating an act on this floor to provide this body with an opportunity to review and approve. He said he would veto it--no involvement from the American people. The administration only backed off when a bipartisan group of Senators, Democrats and Republicans, stood firm--a veto-proof majority--and said: No, the American people need to be read into this agreement. That was when we passed the Iran Nuclear Review Act. I personally would have preferred that this be viewed as a treaty by the administration, but we are reviewing it now under that law. The President and Secretary Kerry have taken the deal to the U.N. Security Council--again, before Congress and the American people even started to debate the issue. The Russians and Chinese were voting on this agreement before we had the opportunity to do so. Members of this body, Democrats and Republicans, implored the Secretary by saying: Don't do this; it is an affront to the American people. They didn't listen. Finally, the President is saying--even before we debate--if we are not in agreement with him, he is going to veto whatever we do in this body. This is not how the Federal Government is supposed to conduct foreign policy. Throughout the history of this great body, weighing in and voting on international agreements and international treaties of this magnitude have been the Senate's most important job, the heart and soul of what we do in this body. Sadly, two former Members of this body--the President and the Secretary of State--have actively fought against our involvement. But Alexander Hamilton knew better. In the Federalist Papers, he spoke about the critical role of the Senate in foreign affairs. He warned against the President having sole authority over issues of such a ``delicate and momentous kind.'' He argued vigorously for the Senate to have a say on critical foreign policy and national security issues. Our history and the Constitution reflect this, and that is where we come in, and that is why we are debating this. In examining the agreement, I think it is important to understand and look at the bigger picture. What is the driving force? What is the underlying premise? What is the philosophy that is motivating this agreement? It is not hard to discern. From the beginning of the Obama administration, the President and his team have been focused on transforming our relationship with Iran to bring it into the community of respected nations, thereby transforming the Middle East. The President has talked about this a number of times. He highlighted this in a speech to the United Nations in 2013, and it is here again in the text of this agreement. The text of the agreement states that the P5+1 expresses its desire to build a new relationship with Iran. That is in the agreement. This is a bold and ambitious goal, no doubt, but it is also dangerously naive. Interestingly, there is no reciprocal statement in the agreement by Iran about Iran wanting to have a new relationship with the United States or the West. We want it; they don't seem to want it. In fact, with its leaders regularly still chanting ``death to America; death to Israel'' even after the signing of this agreement, it seems very clear that Iran does not want a new relationship, and this is the biggest flaw of the agreement. It amounts to a high-stakes bet--the highest of stakes: the security of the United States--that Iran will change its behavior. What I fear the most is if they don't change--and there is no sign that they are going to--within 10 years, by its own terms, this agreement will enable Iran to have a much stronger economy, a significant ballistic missile capability, to be on the verge of a nuclear bomb and still be the world's largest sponsor of state terrorism. This is a huge risk for the security of our country and our allies in the Middle East. It doesn't have to be this way. This agreement could have mitigated these risks. We do this all the time in diplomacy. We tell countries that we negotiate with: If you improve your behavior, you will get rewarded incrementally, step by step--step by difficult step. For example, during the debate we had on the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, I offered an amendment that was simple, but it was based on this issue: Sanctions would be lifted on Iran once Iran came off the list of countries that sponsored state terrorism. Simple. If you improve your behavior, you will get rewarded. This agreement does not do that. Instead, when you look at the structure of this agreement, it allows Iran to get almost all of the benefits up front. Almost half of this agreement is about our obligations to lift sanctions in very minute detail--our obligations to lift sanctions on Iran within the next several months. Think about that. We had the leverage. The countries that negotiated this are among the most powerful in the world. We had Iran on the ropes with strong, American- led sanctions. We had the leverage, and we lost it with this agreement on the hope that Iran will change its behavior. So far, it is clear that their leaders did not get the memo on the change of behavior or on the new relationship. Iran is still destabilizing the Middle East, holding Americans hostage, threatening Israel, and supporting terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and others, throughout the world. In fact, Iran, which is a nation that has had imperial ambitions throughout the Middle East for centuries, could very well accelerate its destabilizing activities as a result of the power and prestige this agreement provides them. Supporters of this agreement, including the President, are arguing: Look, United States, we have done this before. We have negotiated with our enemies to a positive end. President Reagan did it with the Soviet Union. He got a constructive deal. But this is a flawed analogy both strategically and tactically. When we negotiated with the Soviet Union, it was a negotiation between the world's two superpowers that were armed with nuclear weapons, similar military strength--thousands of military weapons. Here, however, we are bringing a nuclear pariah into the club of nuclear powers. This is very different. Tactically, Team Obama has never demonstrated the desire to walk away from this deal. This wasn't the case with President Reagan. He famously walked away from the Soviets in Reykjavik, Iceland, over a verification issue on the INF agreement. ``This meeting is over,'' President Reagan said to George Shultz, his Secretary of State, when he thought we were giving away too much. ``Let's go, George. We're leaving,'' said the President. And they did. They left. A year later, Mikhail Gorbachev came back to the table and agreed to onsite inspections of their nuclear facilities. America and the USSR signed the INF treaty, and Soviet power began to unravel. Contrast that to the experience we have heard about in the last few months of these negotiations on the issue of conventional weapons and ballistic missiles. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, GEN Martin Dempsey, testified in front of the Armed Services Committee very recently. He said: ``Under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking.'' That was said by the No. 1 military adviser to the President of the United States. But we did. Within 7 days of that statement, we did. The embargo on conventional weapons and ballistic missiles is going to be lifted as part of this agreement. When the Russians and the Chinese pushed this position at the very end of these negotiations, Secretary Kerry should have listened to General Dempsey's military advice and he should have done what Secretary Shultz did. He should have walked. He should have walked away to get a better deal. Finally, I wish to conclude by underscoring what everybody, from the President to Members of this body, has agreed should be the principal negotiation objective of this agreement, which has always been to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and to dismantle its nuclear capability. In fact, this body weighed in last year--March of 2014--in a letter written by 81 U.S. Senators to the President of the United States about these negotiations. The letter had a number of benchmarks for the negotiators. One stated that sanctions ``must continue until Iran abandons its efforts to build a nuclear weapon.'' The letter then goes on to cite another critical basic goal of the agreement. It states: ``We believe any agreement must dismantle Iran's nuclear weapons program and prevent it from ever having a uranium or plutonium path to a nuclear bomb.'' Last year, 81 Senators stated that. Let me repeat that: ``We believe any agreement must dismantle Iran's nuclear weapons program and prevent it from ever having a uranium or plutonium path to a nuclear bomb.'' I agree with the 81 Senators. Mr. President, 40 Democrats, 40 Republicans, and 1 Independent signed that letter, and 72 of those Senators are still Members of this body. But they need to ask themselves: Are they sure this goal has been achieved? I have read this entire agreement. I believe this goal has not been achieved, and that should deeply concern all Members of the U.S. Senate. Let me conclude by quoting someone I normally do not quote on the floor of the U.S. Senate--Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who just this past Saturday stated the following: ``Even after this deal our policy towards the arrogant United States will not change,'' and then he led the crowd he was before into chanting ``Death to America.'' That is the country that we are hoping and risking our future on that will change, that we will have a ``new relationship'' with, as the agreement states. To the American people: We will continue to debate this critical issue. In the words of my colleague from Maine, we will bring the fire to the debate and a truth will emerge. Unfortunately, here is one truth that I find self-evident: Iran is not changing anytime soon. That is because this agreement didn't force it to. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.