Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I don't intend to talk about the nomination, but I have talked to my friend from Michigan about this, and I would ask unanimous consent that my time come from the Republican time on the nomination discussion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
CYBER SECURITY
Mr. BLUNT. I rise today on two topics. One, I want to say that while I don't agree with everything my good friend from Rhode Island just said about the issue he was talking about, the two of us have worked all this year to try to bring people together on the issue we failed to deal with today on cyber security.
Senator Whitehouse and I, along with Senators KYL and MIKULSKI, at the very first of the year began to create opportunities for Senators to sit down together and talk about the threat we face and talk about what we need to do to deal with it. I am convinced and I believe all the people I just mentioned are equally convinced that two things will happen: No. 1, we will eventually have a cyber attack on our country that will be successful in some way that many Americans will understand the danger we face from the cyber threat and, No. 2, that we will eventually pass a bill. My strong belief is that will be a better bill if we pass it before that event rather than after that event.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, may I simply interject, with the Senator's permission, to say how much of a pleasure it has been to work with him on this issue and to say that I think a great number of Senators on both sides of the aisle have worked in very good faith to get to a point where we can pass a bill. And I pledge to him, despite the unfortunate outcome of today's cloture vote, that I am committed to continuing to work with him, Senator Kyl, Senator Graham, Senator McCain, and others--I guess Senator Chambliss--on the other side of the aisle so we can indeed take the necessary steps to protect our Nation from this threat. But I say this with a strong consciousness of the very good will and the very hard work Senator Blunt put into this effort and with great appreciation to him personally.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend from Rhode Island, and I think we can move forward. I think there is good faith.
As I said, we started--the four of us--beginning to get people together. That group was quickly joined by Senators COLLINS and LIEBERMAN, so then six of us began to get people together. There were any number of meetings this week with about two dozen Senators, about equally divided between both parties, trying to find a way forward. I didn't think we found that in the cloture motion today. The motion said: Here is how we are going to proceed to finish the bill, and so we didn't move forward today. But I hope we can continue to work with Senator Reid and others to create the sense that Senator Whitehouse just expressed, that there is great bipartisan effort being made to find a solution that not only would pass a Senate bill but would wind up with a bill on the President's desk sometime this year.
You don't have to look very far to find people who will say that the greatest threat we face at this moment is the threat of some kind of cyber attack. At the highest levels of our military structure, of our intelligence structure, they quickly come to that conclusion. And leaving here for the work period in August that Congress has had since the beginning of Congresses without having this done on the Senate side is disappointing to me.
On the other hand, there wouldn't have been a bill even if we had passed a bill today because we have to work with the House to have a bill that winds up with a piece of paper on the President's desk--a relatively small stack of paper--that he can sign and that then becomes the law that allows us to either minimize or hopefully avoid the current certainty that someone will eventually begin to get to our critical infrastructure in a way that makes it hard for the country to get water, to get electricity, to communicate, or to address the financial network. You know, 3 or 4 days anywhere in the country where the electricity is out, suddenly you begin to see all of the things that are dependent on just the electrical grid alone.
Hopefully we can do this. I know work is being done. I will be involved in some of it later today. As I said, I am disappointed we didn't get this done, but it has to be done. We can't leave here this year with the House saying ``we passed a bill'' and the Senate saying either ``we didn't pass a bill because one side didn't want to work with the other'' or ``we passed a bill, but the House wouldn't agree to it.'' This is not a problem that we just need to have a political answer to; this is a problem we need to have a real answer to.
IRAN SANCTIONS
What I also came to the floor to talk about today is something we actually managed to get done just a few days ago when the Senate passed the House-passed Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act. This is one thing people who don't agree on much of anything else in the House and Senate can figure out how to agree on. This bill, while I think it could have been a little stronger, was still a strong effort to reach a conclusion that hopefully the President will sign as soon as possible and send the right message to Iran that even amid our vigorous disagreements on all these other issues, including something as important as cyber security, Congress stands united against Iran
developing nuclear capacity.
Let me give some of the highlights of the bill. This would create strong new measures on any entity that invests in Iran's petroleum, petrochemical, or natural gas sector, strong measures against any entity that provides goods, services, and infrastructure or technology to Iran's oil and natural gas and any entity that provides refined petroleum products to Iran.
Iran is an economic basket case. They have all this oil, but they can't turn enough of it into gasoline for their own country because of the kind of government under which they are suffering.
Again, this bill would create new, strong measures against any company or entity that insures or reinsures investments in Iran's oil sector; that engages in joint ventures with the National Iranian Oil Company; that provides insurance or reinsurance to the National Iranian Oil Company or the National Iranian Tanker Company; that helps Iran evade oil sanctions through reflagging or some effort that tries to hide the real source of oil coming from Iran; that sells or leases or otherwise provides tankers to Iran; that transports crude oil from Iran concealing the origin of Iranian crude in any way. These are good measures that strengthen what we have been doing, and what we have been doing is having some impact. I believe we need to have more impact because the result would be so unacceptable if Iran successfully gets a nuclear weapon.
The bill prevents Iran from bringing money back when it sells oil in other countries. Now, 80 percent of their hard currency comes into the country that way. So we would say that can't happen. And 50 percent of all the money that runs the government comes in that way. When the President signs this bill, we are saying this shouldn't be allowed to happen. It also prevents the purchasing of Iranian sovereign debt.
I have been working on this issue for a long time. In 2006 I worked with my colleagues in the House and Senate and the administration to secure the first Iran Freedom Support Act, which updated the Iran sanctions law and put into law many of the things we have been doing. This bill, along with that bill, addresses problems we need to be concerned about as a country.
Late last year the Senate passed an amendment to the Defense bill, 100 to 0, to block Iran's access to global capital markets. Foreign banks that do business with Iran's banks won't be able to do business with the U.S. financial system.
Nobody disputes what a nuclear Iran would mean to the world. Iran is currently led by a man who has called for the destruction of our ally Israel. Iran's government funds and supports terrorist organizations and regimes all over the Middle East that threaten American allies and interests and American citizens. The Iranian regime is dangerous, it is undemocratic, it treats its own people brutally, and it associates itself with other countries that do the same thing. North Korea, Venezuela, and Syria are allies of Iran. What does that tell us? We can sometimes tell a lot about a country by the few friends it has left in the world. Iran bankrolls Hezbollah and has strong financial ties with Hamas. Remember, this is a country that can't even produce their own gasoline, even though they send oil out every day, because they are focusing on nuclear activities when they have so many other needs. So there is no reason to believe a nuclear Iran would not be a threat to the United States.
Some of our country partners in that region, such as Turkey, feel they have to develop nuclear programs if Iran does.
The Iranian people, many of whom advocate for freedom and demonstrated their bravery in the 2009 uprisings, are not our enemies. This government, however, is our enemy, and this government should not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
We are going to have to work together to more vigorously persuade countries such as Russia and China that their ties with Iran aren't in the best interest of the world. We have to work to encourage our European allies to accept some further risk as they also continue on the path they are on to make these sanctions work better.
I understand there is some risk here, but the Senate--which doesn't agree on a lot of things--agrees that an unacceptable conclusion to what is going on in Iran right now would be a nuclear Iran.
I urge the President to sign this bill to implement the provisions as quickly as possible and to work with other countries in the world to see that we all advance the interests of peace by insisting that Iran not continue on the course it is on.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
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