Ben Cardin

The Clean Water Act provides for Federal guidance as to acceptable clean water.

Part of the Federal Government's partnership is to provide resources.

If you are confirmed, will you support the Federal role in the Chesapeake Bay Program as envisioned by the partners and stakeholders, enforcing the TMDLs, if necessary?

I want to thank you for being responsive to our questions today, and I thank you for being willing to put up with such a long day.

The United States should lead the world in developing those standards on corruption.

I fully expect that I will continue to use whatever means I can to change our committee practices...

I can assure you the disagreement on supplying tax returns has nothing to do with Mr. Tillerson.

I hope we will be able to get the cooperation in a timely way so that the committee can have this information before we are called upon to act on your nomination.

I absolutely respect what you are saying, and my intentions are to fully maintain your legitimate rights of privacy.

I am going to ask consent to put into the record the lobbying disclosure form from ExxonMobil Corporation that indicates that approximately $3.4 million was spent in lobbying on behalf of the Iran Sanctions Act.

There is going to be an economic price you are going to pay.

We are going to get the strongest reaction on sanctions from the United States.

I take it you support that type of action.

Do you also commit to support the global Magnitsky Law using the tools of our visa restrictions to prevent human rights violators from coming to America?

And this year under the National Defense Authorization Act, that was extended globally and now applies to human rights violations throughout the world.

Do you support that law?

Thousands of people in Russia have been harmed or killed as a result of Mr. Putin's leadership, and millions have been impacted by that.

And do you also agree that Russia under Mr. Putin's leadership fails in that category?

Do you agree with me that creating stable, democratic, and free societies around the world that support the aspirations of their people, including basic human rights, is in our long-term national security interests?

We need to stand up to this bully in Moscow and increase the cost for his behavior.

That is why I was proud to introduce a bipartisan bill yesterday with Senator McCain and several members of this committee.

Last week, the intelligence community found that Mr. Putin did, indeed, direct efforts to interfere in our elections.

Perhaps the most egregious events we have seen recently has been where President Putin of Russia, having effectively killed his nation's nascent democracy.

It requires those of us who believe in the enduring values of the democratic experiment to nurture and support it.

I know your commitment to our national security and to foreign policy, and I know you all will be great additions to our committee.