The 5Rs: Rivera, Rick, Rubio, Ros and Repsol

HAVANA TIMES:
The 5Rs: Rivera, Rick, Rubio, Ros and Repsol

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=71411

by Dawn Gable

HAVANA TIMES - The Spanish petroleum company Repsol continues to be
the punching bag of David Rivera, Marco Rubio, Ros-Lehtinen and Rick
Scott.

The company is the first and current firm exploring the deep waters
of Cuba's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in hopes of tapping
into the 9.3 billion barrels (bbl) of oil that the United
States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates is stored there.

The latest blow to the company comes from Florida representative
Rivera, who is under FBI and IRS investigation for "living off his
campaign contributions for nearly a decade,"

Rivera
successfully offered an amendment to the House version of the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 last week
that would prohibit defense contracts from being awarded to any
company that does business with nations on the State Department's
State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list: Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba.

(Ironically the proposed legislation also contains a clause that
prohibits prisoners at Guant=E1namo from being transferred to SST
countries, despite the fact that the Gitmo prison is located in
Cuba!)

The Congressman's press release mentions only one company that would
be affected by his amendment: Repsol, which happens to have over
$300 million in contracts with the US Defense Dept.

But Rivera's jab at Repsol still has several hurdles before becoming
a law. So far the Senate version contains no similar language and if
that remains the case then the amendment can be stripped out in the
final reconciliation between the two chambers' versions.

<http://www.havanatimes.org/?attachment_id=3D71413> The amendment is
intended to make up for the fact that Rep. Ros-Lehtinen failed to
pass a bill that would have prohibited all companies involved in oil
exploration in Cuban waters from doing business with the U.S.

It is also meant to provide a work-around for the controversial
state law signed by Governor Scott last month that would disallow
state and local governments from contracting companies that do
business in Cuba or Syria.

As pointed out by the Miami Herald, only a handful of companies
dealing with Syria would be affected while over 200 doing business
with Cuba would be.

Aware that states are not free to establish their own foreign
policy, Scott immediately issued a signing statement acknowledging
that the law is unenforceable and citing the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court
ruling, Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, which prohibits
states from making laws regarding foreign commerce.

Rivera responded to Scott's backtracking by threatened to sue him if
the law is not enacted. This led to the governor backtracking on his
backtracking and now he says he will enforce it. In that case, it is
likely that Repsol, the US Chamber of Commerce, as well as a few
Canadian companies will sue him instead.

Senator Rubio, falling back on the current weapon of choice of US
lawmakers of Cuban descent, claimed that the law is not in conflict
with federal law, but rather reflects current national policy
because Syria and Cuba are designated SST. MORE