[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13941]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kansas (Mr. Yoder) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. YODER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the people of the 
Third District of Kansas and on behalf of American people who are 
counting on us to put their security before the obvious partisan 
politics of Washington, D.C. I also join a bipartisan majority, leaders 
of each party in each Chamber, to stand up and be counted as one of the 
many voices in this country in opposition to the President's deal with 
Iran.
  Like others who plan to oppose the ratification of this deal, I am 
not opposed to the idea of diplomacy, but I am opposed to the idea of 
surrender diplomacy. This administration asked us to trust Iran; but as 
Iran continues to be the largest world state sponsor of terror, as they 
continue to shout ``death to America'' and call for our destruction and 
the obliteration of Israel, our greatest ally, how can we trust Iran?
  With secret deals, side deals, and self-verification, this 
President's capitulation will lead to a nuclear Iran for the first time 
in history and an American endorsement of their efforts to get there.
  Well, the Ayatollah has convinced the President that it only needs 
nuclear capacity for peaceful purposes. But why does Iran need nuclear 
capacity at all? Iran has the world's fourth largest proven oil 
reserves, totalling 157 billion barrels of crude oil, and the world's 
second largest proven natural gas reserves, totalling 1.193 trillion 
cubic feet of natural gas.
  With such a robust energy sector, why should Iran, a nation that has 
consistently defied the international community on this issue, be 
granted the ability to proceed with a nuclear energy program? Why 
should we trust Iran? Have they earned the right to be trusted?
  Simply put, Mr. Speaker, this is a gift to the ayatollahs of Iran. 
For starters, it releases hundreds of billions of dollars in assets to 
the regime in Iran, giving them a gift basket full of cash to flood 
terrorist organizations which seek to harm Americans and our allies.
  The deal gives the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism a stamp 
of legitimacy and the means to expand its destabilizing influence 
through massive amounts of sanctions relief, even before Iran has 
demonstrated full adherence to the deal's term. It does, however, bring 
home the four Americans being imprisoned in Iran.
  When questioned as to why, this administration claims that it did not 
demand the release of American prisoners because it wanted to limit 
negotiations to just Iran's nuclear program.
  On the contrary, Iran won key nonnuclear concessions through the 
process. The deal grants amnesty to Qasem Soleimani, the head of the 
Quds force in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, who is one of the world's 
most leading terrorist masterminds and the man thought responsible for 
the death of at least 500 United States troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  It also lifts the conventional arms embargo on Iran in spite of 
public testimony from Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs 
Chairman Martin Dempsey that we should do so ``under no 
circumstances.''
  Lifting this embargo means Iran can begin to stockpile conventional 
weapons, and Russia and China can begin to legally profit off major 
weapons exports to Tehran.
  Yet perhaps the most troubling aspect of this deal is its inspections 
regime. Gone are the anytime, anywhere inspections that were required 
by Congress and outlined by the administration. In its place, a 24-day 
notice period for Iran, combined with secret side deals that this 
Congress has no knowledge of and in which the proponents of the plan 
are happy to be blissfully ignorant.
  Mr. Speaker, the proponents of this deal know that it does not make 
us safer or more secure. They know that we cannot trust Iran. They know 
that the verification process is weak and is built upon secret deals, 
they know we shouldn't lift the arms embargo, and they know that the 
hundreds of billions of dollars being released to the Ayatollah will 
end up on the battlefield in the hands of terrorists who will use it to 
kill Americans and our allies. Mr. Speaker, they know this is a bad 
deal.
  I'm proud to have my name listed along with Democrats and Republicans 
in a bipartisan majority opposing this deal.
  Mr. Speaker, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. In 
1994, we heard President Clinton sell his nuclear agreement with North 
Korea on many of the same talking points President Obama used in his 
speech to sell this deal with Iran. Yet in 2006, we watched as the 
North Koreans detonated a nuclear weapon.
  Mr. Speaker, there is still time to stop this, and I urge--I beg--my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote against this deal so we 
aren't watching Iranians detonate their own bomb just a few years from 
now.

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