June 8, 2017
are somebody or to try to pretend that you are somebody who you are not. The passport is much more secure than it used to be—both our passports and passports from those countries. In 2015, I worked with a bipartisan group of our colleagues to reform and improve this program and to secure that its robust security protocols would work as intended. We were also able to remove visa waiver eligibility for nationals of participating countries who have visited a country with a terrorism nexus, and for foreigners who participate who are originally from countries that may pose a terrorist threat. There are ways to screen that process that Americans should feel secure about. Frankly, it is a process that is getting better all the time. It is still not absolutely without risk. Travel has some risk. But thousands of people are bringing billions of dollars in tourism revenue to our economy, to see our country, and to pay our taxes. We ought to be sure we are minimizing the risk and maximizing the welcome for people we want to travel here. I also worked with my colleagues twice now to offer a public-private partnership called Brand USA. The United States of America, just a few years ago, was one of the few countries in the world that made no real effort to encourage people in other countries to visit our country. In 2014, Senator KLOBUCHAR and I worked to reauthorize Brand USA through 2020. In a combination of visa waiver fees and private dollars, efforts have been successfully made to encourage people who want to be part of our economy—even for a short period of time, as a tourist. It is estimated that across all markets, each dollar of Brand USA marketing generated more than $30 in visitor spending. Let me repeat: everywhere we spent a dollar of Brand USA—and that is a public-private dollar—more than $30 came to the United States, it is estimated, because of that. It is important for the Senate to support programs that work. Brand USA is one of those programs. The Visa Waiver Program and many others have significant, positive economic impacts on our country, on individual States, on local communities, and, by the way, on people whose business and travel necessarily take them to other countries. Travel and tourism is one area where we have successfully worked together in a bipartisan manner. I hope we can continue that progress in this Congress. I will keep working with my colleagues to ensure that we have the right policies in place to keep Americans safe, while allowing our travel and tourism industries to continue growing and creating jobs. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
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The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BLUNT). Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, when I came onto the floor, you were not presiding; you were on the floor talking about the Visa Waiver Program. It is an agreement we have with almost 40 other nations that allows for the free flow of visitors from those countries to our country. It is viewed, in part, as a way to promote tourism and help grow that part of our economy and the economies of the other 38 or 39 nations with which we already have this agreement. Some people believe it is a gaping hole for fomenting terrorism and giving terrorists the ability to infiltrate our countries and do mischief here and other places around the world. I applaud the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Missouri, for actually explaining how the system works. It is actually not just a way to enhance and promote tourism, which is important to all of our economies, it actually enhances our security if done well, done right, and done correctly. I say to the Presiding Officer, the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, I appreciate very much your making those comments today. RESOLUTION CONDEMNING RECENT TERRORIST ATTACKS
I am going to do something today, Mr. President, that I have never done before. I have never come to the floor and actually read a resolution or a piece of legislation that we are going to be voting on later today. This is a resolution that came out of discussions yesterday as we were contemplating voting on additional sanctions with respect to Iran—sanctions not related to violations of the joint agreement on nuclear weapons. They appear to be in full compliance with what they professed to do, promised to do a year or two ago. There doesn’t seem to be a question that they are doing what they promised to do, and that is good. There is what we believe is an obvious violation of U.N. requirements that say the United Nations doesn’t believe that Iran should be testing ballistic missile systems. Even though they have no nuclear weapons—we don’t believe they are going to have them anytime soon; hopefully not, because that would help spark a nuclear arms race in that part of that world—we still have, along with the U.N., this prohibition against them developing and testing ballistic missiles. They have violated that a number of times, and a lot of other nations, including us, are concerned about that. We have before us this week and again next week legislation dealing with that. My hope is that next week we will consider that legislation and have a chance to offer amendments to it. My strong hope is that we will not only be talking about our desire to see Iran fully comply with the U.N. guidelines but that we will also couple with that legislation sanctions dealing with Russia. This is a country that continues to
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make mischief in this country and countries around the world. Today, a lot of attention was riveted on the testimony by former FBI Director Jim Comey on whether there was an attempt by the Russians to influence our Presidential election last year. All 17 intelligence agencies in this country have decided unanimously that the question is not only did they attempt or want to influence the outcome of the Presidential election—they all say yes. The answer is yes. All those intelligence agencies say yes. The second thing they said is that they feel the Russians succeeded in what they wanted to accomplish because the person they wanted to see defeated— Secretary Clinton—lost, and the person they wanted to see win—Donald Trump—won and now serves as President of the United States. The issue that is going on right now in the hearings before the Intelligence Committee involve whether there was collusion between the Trump organization and the Russians during or prior to the time of the election. Ultimately, we will find out the truth, and we will let the chips fall where they may. I think we make a mistake in simply going forward and admonishing the Iranians for testing ballistic missile weapons while at the same time this effort by the Russians to really make a mockery of our election system and change the governance of this country is a far greater threat. My hope is that when we come back and take up these issues next week, that we will not address only the one involving Iran but that we will address in a thoughtful way the actions the Russians have taken and not let them get away with this. That is the debate for next week. In Iran, actually 2 or 3 weeks ago, they had elections. I have spoken about this before on the Senate floor. The elections they had were Presidential elections. Here in this country, we have Presidential elections every 4 years. As it turns out, in Iran they have them every 4 years as well. In this country, most people age 18 and older are eligible to vote. The percentage of people among the electorate who actually vote is not great. Actually, for the longest living democracy in the history of the world, it is sometimes a bit disappointing. But the percentage of people who turned out to vote in the Presidential election in Iran a few weeks ago approached 75 percent, which is a good deal higher, I believe, than what we have accomplished in recent years. They have a lot of young people in that country, and the average age of the 80 million people who work there is under the age of 25. It turns out that the young people—not like the young people in Vietnam and a bunch of other countries—they like our country. They want a better relationship with our country, and the voting that occurred in Iran 2 or 3 weeks ago actually reflected that. President Ruhani ran on a campaign that included better relations with,
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