Up Close: Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)

The Senate this past week voted on a transportation bill that did not include construction of a new tunnel to alleviate the ride for New Jersey commuters.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., voted against it, explaining that the bill "only had three years worth of funding."

"So, as it's written, it's as it relates to the president's request to Congress for highways and mass transit, it's $135 billion short," said Menendez. "It doesn't deal with some of the critical challenges as we have in the region."

Menendez also has been an outspoken critic of the nuclear agreement that the U.S. reached this month.

He said he has not come out formally against the agreement, but clarified."I have expressed a series of ... concerns I have about the agreement."

"This agreement, as we started these negotiations a few years ago, I thought that our goal was to stop Iran's nuclear program, not to preserve it, and the agreement largely preserves, although it may delay," said Menendez.

He also said that the large sanctions relief concerns him. "We can ill afford at a time that they're going to to be flush with money that they are also going to get greater access to conventional weapons and missile technology."