The problem with this is the Vice President is a better speaker. Cant upstage the candidate. Has been it has been an honor. Lets give a round of applause for governor jeb bush. [applause] andrew keen, the author of the internet is not the answer on Internet Companies and how they make profit. In the old days, people went to the factory to work, they went home, and they had money in the pockets. These days, were all working for the internet, and we are not paid. It is not a knowledge that we are working for them. Worse than that, then we are being packaged up as the product. What the companies are doing is learning more about our behavior from what weve published, what we buy, what we say, we dont say. They are learning about us. And they are transforming us, and repackaging us as the product. Not only are we working for free, but that we are being sold. It is the ultimate scam. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on c span q a. Here are a few of the comments we recently received on the state of the union address. I heard a lot of great things about talking about science and nasa. As a scientist myself, i can appreciate his position. I know there are a lot of great people who do very great science. It is great to see the present them looking towards the future and not the past. I thought the rebuttal he gave to the republicans was spectacular. Ive not see his speech so improvised in a long time. Im happy to see that after 50 years of doing things the wrong way, were getting her act together and opening up trade with a nation that is very important in our hemisphere. The same thing could be related to Foreign Policy. We been doing the same thing in afghanistan and iraq, and the middle east as a whole, and were getting the same results. Every 10 years we go into a country, there is a breach of conscience, a blowback. He has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people without congressional authority. Ive seen a few things. Some of the stuff that has been leading up to the address, i have to argue opposite. They said the unemployment has gone down, the economy has improved, i dont think that is the case. People have to remember that without unemployment colleague only have the extension so long and then you do not qualify for unemployment benefits. Those who get dropped from unemployment to not count as unemployed. That does not mean unemployment has gone down, it needs people are falling through the cracks. If you look at it from that perspective, the Unemployment Rate is probably 10 points higher than what is being estimated as. Continue to let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Collis, email us, or send us a tweet. Join the c span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. President obama is currently in india. In a joint News Conference today, the two leaders announced that they have reached an energy agreement. Issues including viability of supplies in the event of a nuclear accident, and u. S. Demands on tracking the whereabouts of nuclear material. President obama is expected to leave india on tuesday when he will travel to saudi arabia to pay his respects to the family of the late king abdullah. Nuclear negotiations with iran were the subject of a Senate ForeignAffairs Committee meeting. They addressed whether new sanctions should be imposed wall negotiations continue. This is three hours. [indiscernible] californians are here today to ask you to not make new sanctions on iran. Ranking member menendez. It is on you to keep the peace in the area. The public needs to be heard on this issue. We want no new sanctions. The people of california want diplomacy not new sanctions. Im going to call the meeting to order. I would say to people in the audience that we would appreciate you for. We understand that people have strong emotions about what happens in this committee. We hope you will respect the work of the committee. I have never operate operated a gavel. I learned when i was young to operate a hammer. My staff will need to be a little more gentle with this. I want to welcome everyone to the committee. We switched sides. That was not symbolic. I understand that because of the number of seats it works better this way. I want to welcome the new members of the committee and say that under senator menendezs leadership, i believe this committee has caused its profile to rise. We passed a number of very important pieces of legislation out of this committee. I think it is because of the leadership that has happened. I want to thank him for that. I want to say to all committee mmembers that we plan to build on that. We have another very important issues to deal with. The nation has put its trust in us to deal with these issues in a sober way. I think that the issue today that we will be talking about really causes us to remind ourselves of the indispensable nature of u. S. Leadership. I think the committee, like any committee, has important things to deal with and we have a urgent things to deal with. We need to do both. Important is for us to continue as a committee to show the importance of strategic u. S. Engagement and how that improves our economy, and makes us safer here home. At the same time, we need to make sure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. What will take some time to bill, i would like us to work towards a state department authorization. What that means is that the state department is operating off a policy that we past 13 years ago. If we want to leverage our efforts, what would make sense i look forward to working with Ranking Member minden this in this way it would be to ensure that the state department is leveraging those things that we would like to see happen. I would do not want to shy away from physical issues this hearing is evidence of that. I want to make sure that we strengthen our nation in the process. Today we are here to talk about iran. I want to say to our participants, thank you for being here. There are legitimate concerns from almost everyone on this committee. It is not in any way disloyal. Not an infringement on anyone else to say that we have legitimate concerns. When you think about where we are in the iran negotiations we have six u. S. Security resolutions un resolutions a call for full suspension of enrichment. We then moved to the standard called practical needs. In other words, if you are in iran and you have you want to do enrichment, even though that is in violation of the Un Council Security resolution, what are the practical needs of the country . That is the 500 centrifuges. Yet, we know negotiations have moved way beyond that. We know that. We talk about dismantlement. We have concerns of what dismantlement now means. Some say it now means simply unplugging, or disconnecting the plumbing, to use course terms. People talk about research and development. We know the iranians are way beyond that in research and development. The agreement itself doesnt speak at all to Ballistic Missile development. Significant concerns for all of us. And we believe though im not sure this is the case, and maybe it is not true, and maybe some of you can buy enough today we are concerned about what we will cause iran to do given their past military dimensions. I think many of us think that their way down the road in a military development until 2003. I think we would like to understand the type of technology that their developed. I know this there still stiff arming the irea as far as access to the facilities. This continues to cause great concern around the trustworthiness. I think we all know that their destabilizing the region. We watch what is happening in yemen, with hezbollah, with hamas. We know that they are even with the minor amounts of money that had been lessened from the sanctions regime that we all Work Together to put in place even with that, we know that has enhanced their ability to destabilize the region. We know that. You can imagine if we end up with a really bad deal that creates a Nuclear Arms Race in the region and makes the world less safe. And yet, much more money is released, they could destabilize the region even more. Im proposing legislation and i look forward to hearing from you today that builds off the one, two, three agreement that we have in place right now. Marquis is very familiar with this. 23 times this nation has approved a one, two, three agreement. Yall reach an agreement with the country, and we approve it. Senator kerry says that i would like to understand today how you like to see us have muster. One way to do it is to have an up and down vote. There have been a lot of discussions about we might do and what we might not do. I talked to Prime Minister cameron. I talked to the u. K. Excuse me the European Union negotiator. Netanyahu is visiting us on this very issue. Weve heard no one say that if congress were to weigh in, it would have anyway at destabilizing the negotiations. In fact, we understand that Irans Parliament may have to approve their agreement. I hope today you will share with us are appropriate role that we need to play. With that, sorry to give such a long opening comment, Ranking Member menendez. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me also welcome the new members to this committee. It is a very Important Committee to serve on. I welcome you and i think youll find an extraordinary experience. Since this is the first hearing that we have had since the committee has assembled, i want to say during the two years i was chairman, we worked extremely well in a collaborative fashion. This committee was an island of bipartisanship on so many issues that passed the committee. We look forward to working with you in the same context, and with the same goals at the end of the day. We look forward to you having a very successful chairmanship of the committee. I want to in the context of the hearing say that i share your concerns that the iranians are playing for tim time. Over the past 18 months, weve been moving closer to their positions on all key elements on the iraq reactor, enrichment, and irans disclosure of the military dimensions of its Nuclear Program. I think we need to review how we got this point. Iran, over the course of 20 years, to see the International Committee and violated Un Security Council resolutions to arrive within weeks of achieving Nuclear Breakout capacity. Iran came to the table only after the years of impact of sanctions the answer in fact their economic stability. For us to give up the level sanctions that would take years to reimpose, we need a deal that truly reverses their Nuclear Program, rather than just buying a little time. This is why im concerned about more than breakup time. Im concerned the agreement wont provide a clear picture of the military dimensions of irans programs which are critical to understand how far down the road they were as it relates to weaponization, so that we understand the time frames of any breakout capacity. So that we know just how close iran is to be able to make a Nuclear Weapon. Im concerned that instead of dismantling and closing as we were told would be the case at the beginning these negotiations the iraq reactor will not now be converted. After 18 months of stalling, iran needs to know the other will be consequences for failure. Some of us believe those consequences should be additional sanctions. While were playing nice, iran is playing an asymmetrical game violating, in my view, the spirit and intent of sanctions. In november, i ran violated the interim agreement by feeding gas into its centrifuge at the research facility. The issue of whether this was a violation of the interim agreement is only an issue because of the time of the interim agreement the centrifuge had not been used for enrichment. That is spent, if ive ever heard it. In any case, the action clearly violated the intent of the agreement. It violated ieea. Its interesting to note that as we talk about these agreements, if we are able to get an agreement, it was a group of scientists outside of the administration who noticed this and inform the administration about it. That makes me worried about how verification processes work moving forward. In december, the uns panel of experts said in a report that iran has been aggressively trying to buy technology for the Research Reactor that as originally design worried create plutonium for a bomb. Under the interim agreement, iran agreed to make no further advances. Irans position is that any purchases alone would not contravene the agreement, only new construction. If you believe that, i have a reactor to sell you. Just last week, construction on two new Nuclear Reactors was announced. One night technical violation of the joint plan of action, and the announcement is clearly meant to leverage further gain on the negotiation. The very next day, a Washington Post correspondent who has been imprisoned for 178 days. As the Washington Post said in a recent publication, it is hard to so, we have this whole alternate track that the iranians can cheat on, but because it is typically not in a joint plan of action, we do not call them on it. Thats a great opportunity, if you can get it. The you can advance your interests outside of bjp jpoa, a quote not violated. Iran is taking steps that can only be interpreted as provocative. It seems that we are allowing iran to shuffle the deck and deal the cards in this negotiation, and we are playing dealers choice. Frankly, that is not good enough. We need to get in the game. Up until now, iran has not been motivated to make tough decisions. I hope there will be an agreement in march. I also believe that we need to make clear that there are consequences to no deal, or to a bad deal. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding a hearing. Thank you, mr. Ranking member. To the other members, we do not usually give those long comment on the front and. This is obviously one that both a lot of concern. The committee will operate by the earlybird rule. If youre here when the gavel goes down, you will know what order you are in. In order i know we will not be totally rigid since the senator has to go to another meeting, she wants to say somewhat on the front end, i will allow her to do that. I have to be at a different meeting down the hall, i so appreciate this. I want to thank both my chairman and Ranking Member now. We are all here today with the same goal. That is to prevent iran from acquiring a new Nuclear Weapon. We have different thoughts as to how to do that, that is why the media so critical. We have an historic opportunity to peacefully achieve this goal. To me, it seems like this give diplomacy a chance to work. To me, it seems like common sense. President obama said that war should be a last resource, not first. Im concerned. Its not partisan. I have a concern that reaches across party lines that sound colleagues are pushing to enact new sanctions while negotiations are still the table. I do not think that strengthens us. These negotiations are going on right now. In fact, i think if we were to enact the legislation, we would jeopardize a chance of having a far reaching, comprehensive agreement. We know it will be hard. Our own president has said it will be a 50 50 chance. Our own Intelligence Committee said, new sanctions would undermine the prospects for a successful, comprehensive Nuclear Agreement with iran. Passing the sanctions legislation would threaten the unity that we have with the world. That is critical. I want to quote Prime Minister kamman was said last week, as the country who stands alongside america, it is the opinion of United Kingdom that further sanctions at this point will actually help to bring the talks to successful conclusion. And they could fracture the International Community, and i think a new sanctions bill would give iran of possibly to walk away. I think its such iran the cat really deal with america. In the end, they may not be able to, and we may not be able to either. Its all about timing. We know that. Everything is not timing. This is not the time. In closing, let me say, i opposed the legislation ive seen so far. Ive not seen the new proposal, and look forward seeing it. I work in legislation was senator paul to send a clear and unequivocal signal that iran will be held accountable for its actions, and any failure to meet its commitments will be met with swift action from congress. Our bill, in essence, would allow for expedited consideration by congress, if the present in consultation with the Intelligence Community determines that iran has violated any existing Nuclear Agreement. Senator paul and i are putting the final touches on this bill. We think it is a modern proposal. I think we will see three options. One that would essentially do nothing. One that perhaps goes too quickly to sanctions. Center paul will be working on that with me. He is very excited to share. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Just to be clear before we moved that witnesses. There has an a lot of confusion as to what this committee does. This committee will be looking at ways for congress to weigh in. One of those is to approve up and down a deal. That is what we do with every civic nuclear deal that comes our way. With that, i want to move to the witnesses. Our first witness is antony blinken. He assumed his post after being approved by the senate in december. He is a former National Security advisor to the president. Welcome back. Our second witness todays david cohen, the under secretary of state. I want to thank you both for being here. We would remind you that your full statements, without objection, will be included in the record. If you could keep your remarks to around five minutes, we would appreciate it. I know there will be numbers of questions. We look forward to testimon