[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 170 (Tuesday, October 17, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5031-S5033]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2210

  Mr. HAGERTY. In the aftermath of the barbaric massacre committed by 
Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas, there has been significant 
attention given in the U.S. Senate to the $6 billion the Biden 
administration unfroze as part of a ransom deal with Iran. This is 
understandable. Because money is fungible, the combination of waivers 
and nonenforcement of sanctions has enabled Iran to spend billions of 
dollars bankrolling terrorists, including Hamas.
  The $6 billion was just the latest installment of an enormous 
windfall the Iranian regime has enjoyed ever since Joe Biden took 
office. But not enough attention has been paid to the way Congress has 
willingly abdicated its responsibility and allowed the executive branch 
to get away with a reckless policy of appeasement toward Iran.
  According to many recent news reports this year, the Biden 
administration was negotiating an unwritten agreement with Iran in 
which the United States would relieve billions of dollars of sanctions 
on Iran in return for a number of Iranian promises.

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  One of the architects of this strategy of pursuing an informal and 
unwritten agreement with Iran as part of a broader strategy of 
appeasing the Iranians was none other than Rob Malley. Rob Malley was 
placed on unpaid leave by the State Department in June. He has had his 
security clearance suspended amid a probe into the possibility that he 
mishandled classified material. The results have been catastrophic. 
Iran has received tens of billions of dollars in revenue it would not 
have received had sanctions been properly enforced.
  Iran has continued to obstruct nuclear inspection efforts, and its 
proxies have continued engaging in terrorism across the region, most 
recently and most tragically in Israel.
  Furthermore, rewarding hostage-taking by paying $6 billion for the 
potential release of five American hostages, as the Biden 
administration recently did, is just one element of this unwritten 
agreement. It only incentivizes more hostage-taking of U.S. citizens 
abroad, both by Iran and by other adversaries.
  To that point, as of now, it appears that Iran-backed Hamas is 
holding 13 American citizens hostage in Gaza. Let me be clear. I 
believe the Biden administration's Iran policies are deeply misguided 
and threaten the security of Americans and of our partners and allies 
in the Middle East.
  But I am not here today to debate the pros and cons of resurrecting 
the Iran deal or any specific agreement the Biden administration has 
made with Iran. The massacre in Israel last week should have settled 
that debate; though I suspect we will likely continue to have that 
debate in the months ahead. Rather, I am here today to argue for 
preserving the role of Congress amid concern that the Biden 
administration has continuously refused to enforce sanctions as part of 
a gradually unfolding agreement with Iran and is doing so in such a 
manner that is designed to circumvent its legal obligation to submit an 
agreement to revive the Iran nuclear deal to Congress for review and 
for an up-or-down vote.
  When President Obama pursued the original Iran nuclear deal, his 
administration blatantly disregarded its constitutional duty to submit 
the agreement as a treaty requiring the advice and consent of two-
thirds of the Senate. In response, Congress passed a law known as the 
Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA, by a vote of 99 to 1. In 
brief, the INARA law says that if the United States and Iran make any 
agreement related to Iran's nuclear program, the White House must 
submit it for congressional review and potential up-or-down votes in 
the Senate and the House of Representatives.
  The nearly unanimous bipartisan passage of INARA by the Senate 
reflected the Senators' bipartisan frustration that the executive 
branch was ignoring the Constitution and trying to circumvent Congress 
on such an important matter. And yet since taking office, the Biden 
administration has disregarded its legal obligations under INARA, and 
the U.S. Congress has allowed this administration to get away with it.
  If the multitude of reports are accurate, the Biden administration 
was intentionally avoiding calling its unfolding agreement with Iran an 
official agreement. That was an effort to, again, sidestep 
congressional approval that is required under INARA. In early 2021, I 
was concerned that this might happen, so I introduced the Iran 
Sanctions Relief Act, or ISRRA, in the 117th Congress and reintroduced 
it in the 118th Congress.
  As a backup to INARA, my bill requires congressional review and an 
up-or-down vote on any Presidential waiver of Iran sanctions, whether 
that is labeled as an agreement or not.
  My vote borrows a provision from the Countering America's Adversaries 
Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, that overwhelmingly passed Congress 
back in 2017. The CAATSA provision allows for congressional review and 
an up-or-down vote on any Presidential waiver of Russian sanctions. My 
bill takes, word for word, that same provision and applies it to any 
Presidential waiver of Iran sanctions.
  This is important because any new agreement to revive the Iran deal 
will require, once again, the executive branch to waive Iran sanctions.
  Additionally, in light of reports that the $6 billion the Biden 
administration unfroze was part of the larger unwritten and informal 
agreement with Iran, Congress would have had the opportunity to object 
before the money was unfrozen had my bill had the force of law.
  In other words, my bill protects the role of Congress as the 
executive branch continues to ignore its legal obligations and refuses 
to submit a new agreement to the Senate and to the House. So far, 41 
Senators have cosponsored the Iran Sanctions Relief Review Act. This 
number is significant because 41 Senators would be more than enough to 
deny the Senate's advice and consent if the executive branch actually 
followed the Constitution and presented a new Iran agreement to the 
Senate as a treaty.

  The House companion to this bill has passed through the House Foreign 
Affairs Committee with bipartisan support. We must protect the first 
branch of government from an executive branch that seeks to encroach it 
or to ignore it.
  As in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign 
Relations Committee be discharged of further consideration of S. 2210 
and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further 
ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that 
the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, no one is 
proposing lifting sanctions on Iran. This is a legislative proposal 
seeking to solve a problem that simply does not exist. So let's make 
that clear from the outset.
  Second, the Biden administration has been incredibly tough on Iran. 
Frankly, the Biden administration has drawn a lot of criticism from 
people like me for not reengaging in the JCPOA. Instead, the Biden 
administration decided to drive a harder bargain with the Iranians.
  It is also not true that the Biden administration has not implemented 
new and additional sanctions on Iran. In fact, just a month ago, the 
Treasury Department announced the 13th round of new sanctions on Iran, 
mostly relative to the brutal suppression of the protest movement 
inside of that country.
  And so it is important to get the record straight in terms of what 
this administration's record has been on Iran. And it is also important 
for us to not create some fantasy world in which the prior 
administration's Iran policy was working.
  President Trump's Iran policy was an unmitigated disaster. An 
absolute disaster. Whatever you think about the JCPOA, there is just no 
question that after we withdrew from the JCPOA, a set of very bad 
things happened: One, Iran started shooting at American troops inside 
Iraq and inside Syria, something that was not happening during the 
Obama administration while we were in the JCPOA. Second, their support 
for proxy groups continued to increase, including to groups like Hamas. 
Third, they restarted their nuclear research program. They are now 1 
month away from a nuclear weapon. And fourth, the coalition that had 
been assembled to organize efforts to contain and to isolate Iran fell 
apart.
  And so let's not put a gloss on what was a disastrous Iran policy 
under the previous regime. But as to the Senator's proposal, even if we 
have disagreements on the JCPOA or on Iran policy, this proposed 
legislation is just really bad policy. It is really bad policy, and it 
will make American sanctions much weaker and much less effective.
  Why is that? What this proposal suggests is that for Iran sanctions, 
every time you lift or waive a sanction, you have to come to Congress. 
Now, we have sanctions levied against, I would guess, thousands of 
Iranian institutions, organizations, and individuals. And the purpose 
of sanctions is to change behavior, right? It is not just punishment. 
Sanctions are about delivering a consequence to an individual, an 
organization, or a country for their bad behavior as a means of trying 
to get them to change that behavior. And once they change that 
behavior, the sanction is lifted.

[[Page S5033]]

  That is why Congress, traditionally, does not require a separate 
congressional review process, a separate congressional vote every time 
an administration lifts a sanction because you need for an 
administration to be nimble in applying sanctions and also lifting 
sanctions because if a foreign individual in Iran or any other place 
understands that in order for a sanction to be lifted not only does the 
administration have to lift it but Congress has to have a debate and a 
vote, it is no incentive to change behavior.
  So I just think this is really bad policy. Whether or not you like 
President Biden's Iran policy--and I do--whether or not you supported 
the JCPOA, tying the administration's hands on sanction policy in this 
way just makes the sanctions much less effective. I get it. The 
Republicans don't like Joe Biden, and they don't like Joe Biden's 
foreign policy, but this would be bad under a Republican President as 
well.
  I am very glad to work with my colleague on increasing the role that 
Congress plays on broad foreign policy decisions, but I think that 
there are some day-to-day administrations of foreign policy, like the 
decision as to when to waive or lift a particular individual sanction, 
that would become far too burdensome and contrary to national security 
interests if Congress got involved to the degree that this legislation 
suggests.
  And so for that reason, simply because I think this is bad policy--
whether this was about Iran policy or Venezuela policy or Russia 
policy, I just think it makes our sanctions policy much harder to 
effectuate and ultimately makes our sanction regimes weaker, not 
stronger.
  For those reasons, I would object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. HAGERTY. Mr. President, I would welcome the opportunity to work 
with my colleague Senator Murphy on sanctions policy, sanctions 
policies that make sense, but I would say this. If this policy is good 
enough for CAATSA in Russia, why wouldn't it be good enough for Iran?
  The Senate has already passed CAATSA. I have used the exact language. 
I would also like to say this. If it is true that this administration 
is not waiving sanctions and is not entering an agreement, they should 
have no difficulty with this level of review. I don't believe that is 
the case.
  And I also would like to address the accusations, I should say, 
leveled against the policy in the last administration after the 
withdrawal of the JCPOA. Iran never stopped their nuclear program. 
Israel, in a very brave and courageous raid, proved that they were 
continuing on that path.
  As part of my prior job as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, it was my 
responsibility to get Japan to stop buying Iranian crude. I was 
successful at that after many rounds of negotiation. We cut Iran's fund 
flows down to a trickle. That starved Iran's ability to fund its 
proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah. In fact, it was widely reported in 
the media that Hamas and Hezbollah were going broke.

  That all changed when the policy of appeasement came back in 2021. By 
avoiding sanctions, by not enforcing sanctions, the estimates are as 
high as $80 billion of fresh illicit oil revenues that have entered 
Iran's coffers. We know about the payment that was allowed by Iraq to 
Iran by this administration. Senator Cotton just addressed this and the 
$6 billion that has received so much scrutiny in the media just 
recently.
  All of this has enriched Iran. All of this has put Iran in a better 
position to fund its proxies and fuel them, and I think all of this is 
part of a very misguided policy of appeasement.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all 
postcloture time on the Gilbride nomination be considered expired at 
5:15 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.