TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, THE JUDICIARY, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (Senate - October 20, 2005)
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Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I take the floor to withdraw an amendment, but I will not withdraw it for the moment. I will say a few words and then ask that the amendment be withdrawn. I do not need consent to do that as sponsor of the amendment because the yeas and nays have not yet been ordered.
If there were a high school or college student listening, I think it would be a good lesson for them, particularly if they are interested in political science, to understand where we are at this moment from a parliamentary standpoint and why I am withdrawing the amendment I offered yesterday.
Incidentally, this will not be the last my colleagues see of this amendment. We have had it on the floor before. It has been passed by the Senate before, as a matter of fact, dropped in conference. We will not have an opportunity to vote on it now because of the parliamentary circumstances.
So let me describe what it is. First of all, the amendment is germane and relevant to this appropriations bill. I have the right and did offer an amendment yesterday that prohibits the expenditure of funds in this appropriations bill by an organization called OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is a relatively small Federal office deep in the bowels of the catacombs of the Treasury Department. The job of the Office of Foreign Assets Control is to try to track down and intercept the money that supports terrorism, to go find the money that supports Osama bin Laden, to go find the money that supports terrorism.
Well, the Office of Foreign Assets Control does more than that now. In fact, my understanding is they have more people in the Office of Foreign Assets Control tracking Americans who travel to Cuba to take a vacation than they do tracking the money that goes to support terrorism for Osama bin Laden's network.
So let me describe what they do because, as you know, in this country's zeal to punish Fidel Castro--we are going to slap around Fidel Castro; we don't like him; it is a communist country; he is a communist leader; we don't like him; he sticks his finger in our eye repeatedly--we have slapped an embargo for 40 years on Cuba. We also decided if American people travel to Cuba, they shall be fined. So we have restricted the freedom of the American people to travel in order to slap around Fidel Castro.
If you get on a plane today someplace and travel to Cuba, and you do not have a license, here is what is going to happen to you. By the way, you won't be able to get a license because they are offered down at the Office of Foreign Asset Control and over at the State Department, and if you apply for a license to travel to Cuba, they will say no.
But I will give you an example. Kurt Foster went to Cuba. He was under suspicion of having taken a vacation in Cuba. And be darned if he didn't take a vacation in Cuba. He didn't know it was illegal. But he got back to this country and, boy, they tracked him down.
Those folks at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, they have that magnifying glass and the cap with brims on both sides, and they scour around to figure out if there is an American who has gone to Cuba.
They found this guy, Kurt Foster. All right. He purchased an airline ticket to Cuba and failed to declare Cuba as a country visited, and they fined him $7,500. Then he used a credit card while in Cuba, and they fined him $1,000. Then he paid for lodging, food, and drinks while in Cuba--he spent $175 there--and they fined him $10,000 for that. Then he brought back a box of cigars and 27 other Cuban goods at $10 each, and that was a $520 fine.
So Mr. Kurt Foster was fined $19,020 by our U.S. Government. Why? What was the transgression? He visited Cuba. God forbid this man should visit Cuba. But Kurt Foster, that is a man without a face.
Let me just put a face on this issue, as I did yesterday. This is a picture of Joni Scott. I met Joni Scott. She came to my office. She is a wonderful young woman, a missionary, someone with great zeal in her faith.
She went to Cuba to distribute free Bibles on the streets of Havana, Cuba. This wonderful young American woman wanted to distribute free Bibles in Cuba. She did not know you had to have a license. She came back. Our Government tracked her down. They are going to slap a big fine on her for distributing free Bibles in Cuba. That is Joni Scott.
Here is Mrs. Slote. I have also met Mrs. Slote. As you can see, she is about 76, 77 years old in this picture. She is a senior Olympian. She is wearing a bicycling outfit because she likes to bicycle. Joan Slote actually answered an advertisement in a Canadian cycling magazine. So she joined a Canadian cycling group on a tour of Cuba on bicycles. She didn't know it was illegal for an American to travel to Cuba. She came back. Her son had brain cancer, was dying, and she was attending to her son.
In the meantime, our sleuths down at the Treasury Department tracked her down. They were going to slap a $10,000 fine on her, but she didn't get it because she was not home. She was attending to her son who was dying of brain cancer.
So then, the next effort by the U.S. Government was to attach her Social Security. They were going to take her Social Security away. Why? Because she bicycled in Cuba.
These folks in this picture are disabled marathoners, folks in wheelchairs, folks with lost limbs. They are people with the kind of spirit that is in the Special Olympics, who are disabled marathoners. Their big deal was going to be done in Havana, Cuba, the international event. They raised the money. They trained. They looked forward, with great hope, to go to this international event. Guess what. This country denied the opportunity for them to travel to their international event. Why? Because it was in Cuba.
I have no brief for the Castro government. That is not my purpose.
This man, as shown in this picture, by the way, is a Cuban. He came to this country legally. He is an American citizen. He joined the Marines. He went to Iraq and is a hero. This man has a Bronze Star for serving this country. Both his sons are still in Cuba. One of them was desperately ill. He came back from fighting in Iraq, where he earned a Bronze Star because of his heroism. Then he wanted to visit his sick son in Cuba, and his Government said: You don't have the freedom to do that. You can't see your son.
That is what his Government said. You fought for freedom in Iraq, but you don't have the freedom here to travel to Cuba to see your son.
I offered a bipartisan amendment yesterday for myself, Senators Craig, Baucus, and Enzi, two Democrats, two Republicans. That amendment has passed the Senate previously. The amendment simply said: No funds may be used in this appropriations bill to enforce the travel limitations on the American people traveling to Cuba. Once again, what we have done is, we have decided to restrict the freedom of the American people in order to slap around Fidel Castro--not much of a bargain in a democracy.
Senator Murray is from the State of Washington. I know a man from the State of Washington who, after his father was cremated, took his father's ashes to Cuba because his father wanted his ashes dispersed on the grass in the church where he had ministered in Cuba before coming to this country. When his father died, his compliant son did what he was requested to do. He went to Cuba to distribute his father's ashes.
Our Government--God bless those folks in OFAC with those tiny little glasses and that magnifying glass tracking American citizens--tracked him down and levied a fine for taking his father's ashes to Cuba.
Now I offer the amendment. The Senate has previously agreed to the amendment. Sufficient votes exist in the Senate to agree to the amendment. Yesterday a colleague, following the rules of the Senate, came and offered a second-degree amendment. What is the second-degree? It is about abortion. So the reason I say this is an interesting lesson for people involved in political science is, we now have an amendment that deals with the issue of the freedom of the American people to travel to Cuba second-degreed with an amendment dealing with abortion.
My colleague Senator Ensign offered this second-degree amendment, the Child Custody Protection Act, related to the transportation of minors and circumvention of certain laws relating to abortion. It is an interesting lesson in how our system works around here.
We will offer this again. One of my colleagues was intending to offer a second-degree so we wouldn't have this mischief, but that second-degree didn't get offered. So the result is, another colleague comes over and offers an abortion amendment on a very simple, germane, and relevant amendment dealing with the subject of travel to Cuba.
One of the things that makes the American people a little less than ecstatic about the way we work here is things that ought not use any brainpower at all, such as deciding to penalize Americans, taking away the freedom of the American people to travel because we don't like the Cuban government. We don't do that with China. China is a communist government. We say the best way to move people toward better human rights and democracy is through trade and travel. So we encourage people to go to China. Vietnam is a Communist country. We do the same--engagement, trade, and travel. But we say with respect to Cuba, what we have to do is restrict the freedom of the American people. That is unbelievably ignorant as a public policy.
We will change it one day, and there are sufficient votes in the Senate to change it. But because there is now a second-degree amendment dealing with abortion attached to the amendment, I will withdraw the amendment this afternoon and simply tell my colleague who offered this that he will have delayed this a bit. But inevitably, I and my colleagues will come to the floor. We will have a sufficient opportunity to prohibit this kind of legitimate but certainly strange mischief with a second-degree amendment on abortion attached to a Cuba travel amendment. It is going to happen. We are going to vote on this and we will, as we have in the past, vote to eliminate the restriction of the American people's right to travel.
I know why this is happening. This is all about politics. It is about politics in Florida and politics in New Jersey and perhaps a couple other areas, but mostly Florida and New Jersey. It is reaching out to those people who block the vote because the tougher you sound on Cuba, the better for them. So the President, about 3 years ago, decided to tighten it up even further, shut it down. Family vacations, family opportunities to interact, to send money home, he has tightened it all down.
Incidentally, there is an amendment that was passed that is now law offered by myself and then-Senator John Ashcroft. Talk about odd fellows; Senator Ashcroft and I together offered an amendment that became law that finally opened up a bit the ability of our country to sell food into Cuba. We had been unable to even move food into Cuba. Senator Ashcroft and I offered the amendment. It is now law. We can do that. The administration is now trying to shut that down. I fixed that in this subcommittee at the subcommittee level. I have a provision in this bill that shuts down the administration's opportunity to play mischief with the opportunity for our farmers to sell food into Cuba. It is immoral to use food as a weapon. We know that. This isn't rocket science.
I wanted to explain as I withdraw this amendment for the moment why I am forced to withdraw it: because the majority slaps an abortion amendment on an amendment dealing with the American people's right to travel. It is unbelievable. It is within the rules, but still unbelievable.
Those who have gained a few days respite on this will not apparently have to vote today when I withdraw the amendment, but they will vote. When they vote, the Senate will approve the underlying amendment that I, Senator Craig, Senator Enzi, and Senator Baucus have offered.
AMENDMENT NO. 2133, WITHDRAWN
With that, I withdraw the amendment No. 2133.
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