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Fresh Squeezed Politics - March On Politics Blog

Martinez on Cuba Provisions: Why Do This?

Posted Mar 3, 2009 by Billy House

Updated Mar 3, 2009 at 04:57 PM

Florida GOP Sen. Mel Martinez has just taken to the Senate floor to urge his colleagues to help him strip provisions from a $410 billion spending package that could ease some travel to that country and soften other restrictions.

“I would hope that we could have this debate outside of this omnibus bill … not to have it lumped in this massive spending measure that has to be passed by Friday,” said Martinez, of discussions of changing U.S.-Cuba policy.

Tucked into the bill is not language to outright end the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo with Cuba. But as approved last week by the U.S. House, there is wording tucked into the bill to:

—allow family members to visit their relatives in Cuba once a year, rather than once every three years;

—reverse regulations on the sale of food and medicine to Cuba;

—and eliminate the practice of requiring Cubans to pay for American produce up front before it leaves U.S. ports, and instead let them pay when the products arrive in Havana.

But Martinez asked why these changes – which would be only through the end of the fiscal year in September – would be pursued without first receiving the release of Cuban political prisoners or other “signs of positive behavior.”

“Why just lay these changes out there and ask for nothing?” Martinez asked.

He also complained that what is likely to result is a spike in tourism travel to Cuba in the “guise” of humanitarian aid, something he says does no one any good.
Martinez called the provisions “reaching out in a misguided way.”

Martinez’s remarks come as the omnibus bill is expected to be voted on Thursday.

It also comes as New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, another Cuban-American senator and opponent to softening relations with that country, has placed a “hold”

on the nominations by President Barack Obama of of Harvard University physicist John Holdren and Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco.

Holdren has been tapped to serve as head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Lubchenco would lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Menendez is using the holds to try to impact the Senate’s and administration’s policy toward Cuba.

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