Marco Rubio

It is the efforts of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Congressman Smith and Senator Rubio, who speak up and take a stand on human rights that give me hope for the future.

My hope is that today's discussion is going to move the ball forward on building a dialogue between all the parties on fishery management.

We must find a way to continue the tradition of those whose livelihoods are dependent on the water and those who enjoy these natural treasures.

I have heard some people say, and it has not been my experience, but some people say people will manipulate the data.

How do we get more people to participate in it?

It is important we convey boating safety as Americans begin their summer plans and head to our coastal waters.

Finally, nearly 3 years ago, Congress passed the Billfish Conservation Act of 2012, which put in place important conservation measures prohibiting the sale of several threatened Pacific caught billfish in the United States.

I also hear a lot of growing concern among stakeholders, especially with the Gulf of Mexico, that NOAA is not providing sound data, leading to a general sense of agency mistrust.

Hearing held on May 20, 2015

Does not the fact that that, in and of itself, is considered subversive, tell us everything we need to know about that regime?

I think it is important to point out that--and I think Senator Menendez touched upon this--but, these programs--these were not weapons program, correct?

I would also put in the request for those documents.

Well, we will make that request, as well, of the Secretary of State.

I think this is a critical point, because weapons between China--weapon sales between China and Cuba are not otherwise sanctioned internationally.

This is the second time in 18 months that the Cuban military has been caught smuggling weapons internationally.

I think it is important for members to understand, before they approve that funding--and I think it is important for the State Department to understand, before they come here and ask for that--we need to understand exactly what we are…

It is the administration's policy that, through a engagement that is diplomatic, that allows our law enforcement people to speak to one another, we will pursue, at every level that we can, the return of fugitives.

It should not be represented as an embassy just like any other we have around the world

If we are going to have an embassy, it should be a real embassy, not an embassy that is mined with Cuban intelligence officials

We have no commitments yet that we will be allowed to bring our own equipment, and we have no commitments yet that we would be allowed to bring secured containers of equipment into the embassy.

We are being asked to invest money in an embassy in Havana, but we are going to have to hire Cuban agents to work in the embassy.

Let us talk, first, about personnel.

There is no substitute in this hemisphere for strong American leadership, technical assistance, and the leveraging ability that we bring.

There are entire parts of those countries that are not under the writ of the government.

How are we going to measure progress? Do we have benchmarks set for how we are going to measure success?