[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15534-15536]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     IRAN SANCTIONS EXTENSION BILL

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, the Senate will soon act on a 
measure, the Iran Sanctions Extension Act, that I have long advocated, 
and I am proud to be a main cosponsor of this measure. It is a critical 
step toward deterring and impeding support of Iran's development of 
conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
  I am here to encourage my colleagues to support this 10-year 
reauthorization of the ISA, as it is known. We must act before it 
expires, before the end of the year. We really have no practical 
choice. The practical effect of the Iran nuclear agreement depends on 
our resolve and on our commitment to reliably and durably stop a 
nuclear-armed Iran by using sanctions and other means, if necessary. 
This measure should remove all doubt and dispel all question that we 
have that resolve and commitment to make sure the Iran nuclear 
commitment is enforced effectively. It must be enforced effectively not 
only for our own security but really the entire world's security. That 
is the reason I have championed efforts to stop a nuclear-armed Iran 
and make sure this agreement is both verifiable and enforceable.
  I have long advocated for this renewal and most recently urged Leader 
McConnell to prioritize passage of this measure in the waning days of 
this Congress. I was joined in this effort by Senators Stabenow, 
Merkley, Wyden, Klobuchar, Heinrich, and Schatz. I thank Senator 
McConnell for following through on this request and bringing this bill 
to the floor for a vote today.
  This important bipartisan bill has already been approved by the 
House--in fact, overwhelmingly passed in November--and now the Senate 
must do the same. It must leave no question or doubt that we have the 
resolve and commitment to continue bipartisan support for efforts to 
block a nuclear-armed Iran.
  The ISA is essential to ensuring that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of 
Action continues to prevent Iran from realizing its nuclear ambitions. 
For the United States to maintain its unambiguous ability to 
immediately snap back sanctions in coming years, the ISA must be 
renewed--and I hope it will be by a strong and overwhelming bipartisan 
majority--or we will surrender this critical capability.
  Reauthorization is a significant step that will send a strong signal 
to Iran that our Nation is fully and irrevocably committed to 
vigorously enforcing the nuclear agreement regardless of the 
administration and irrespective of the Congress. Future administrations 
need this ability to snap back existing sanctions--a step necessary for 
its enforcement, consistent with the agreement and anticipated by it. 
There is nothing inconsistent in what we do today with the agreement.
  This strong message to Iran is that we are ready, willing, and able 
to hold Iran accountable. We can ill-afford to allow sanctions that 
deter and impede Iran's development of conventional weapons of mass 
destruction to expire, as they would expire at the end of the year. My 
hope is that as many as possible of my Senate colleagues will join in 
this effort today.
  But holding Iran accountable will scarcely end here. We must confront 
Iran's maligned activities beyond its nuclear program, its continued 
pursuit of intercontinental missile development, its suppression of 
free speech and other vital civil liberties in its own country, and, of 
course, its sponsorship of terrorism around the world. We must fortify 
the security of our allies in the Middle East, most especially Israel, 
and our Nation. Our major strategic partner in that region is Israel. I 
look forward to working with my colleagues on the NDAA, which will 
provide additional missile defense capabilities to that great ally. And 
we must see what we do today in renewing the Iran sanctions agreement 
as part of an overall effort to secure the freedom and democracies that 
exist in that region insofar as they are always threatened and make 
sure we protect our Nation from a nuclear-armed Iran.
  The Iran sanctions renewal sends a signal and a message, unmistakable 
to Iran and the world, that we are committed not just to the words of 
this agreement on paper but to the real enforcement of them and to 
making sure Iran is held accountable if it violates this agreement in 
the slightest way.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KIRK. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KIRK. Madam President, on December 1, 2011, the Senate voted 100 
to 0 to pass the Menendez-Kirk amendment to impose crippling sanctions 
on the Central Bank of Iran. As this chart shows, the Menendez-Kirk 
amendment decreased the value of Iran's currency by 73 percent the 
following year.
  On November 30, 2012, the Senate passed the second Menendez-Kirk 
amendment by a 94 to 0 vote. This amendment cut off Iran's energy and 
shipping sectors from international markets. It also restricted Iran's 
ability to barter in gold and other precious metals. These Iran 
sanctions played an indispensable role in forcing Iran to the 
negotiating table, but the administration wasted our powerful economic 
leverage when it agreed to a bad deal with Iran.
  Since this disastrous deal, Iran's behavior has worsened. Iran has 
taken more American hostages, including Baquer Namazi and Reza Shahini. 
Iran received over $100 billion in sanctions relief and has increased 
support to terrorists groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. In fact, 
Iran announced the creation of its own foreign service to cause 
problems in Yemen, Iraq, and Iran and those places. Iran has conducted 
multiple missile tests on October 15, 2015; October 21, 2015; March 8 
and 9, 2016; April 19, 2016; and July 11, 2016.
  In June of 2015, Senator Menendez and I introduced S. 1682, a bill to 
renew the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 for 10 more years. I am glad to 
see the Senate is again taking up a similar bill based on legislation 
by Congressman Ed Royce that passed the House by 419 to 1.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Iran sanctions bill with 
overwhelming numbers. President Obama should immediately sign the Iran 
Sanctions Extension Act into law.
  I urge the next President to join with the Congress to do much more. 
Our children should never be asked to clean up a nuclear war in the 
Persian Gulf. Iran, which is the biggest sponsor of world terrorism, 
should not have nuclear weapons.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and yield back my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. PETERS. Madam President, I rise to express my support for 
legislation that the Senate is considering today that will extend the 
Iran Sanctions Act for 10 years before it expires in just 30 days.
  I will be voting for this bill later today, and I am proud to have 
cosponsored similar legislation earlier this year. The Iran Sanctions 
Act, or ISA, is an important aspect of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
  The ISA was enacted in 1996 to tighten sanctions on Iran in response 
to its growing nuclear program and support for terrorist organizations, 
such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The ISA provides the legislative authority 
for many of the sanctions on Iran that were lifted but may be 
reimplemented if Iran violates the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, 
or JCPOA. These include sanctions on foreign investment in Iran's oil 
and gas fields, sales of gasoline to Iran, and transportation of 
Iranian crude oil. Even though these sanctions were suspended by the

[[Page 15535]]

JCPOA, we need this legal framework to address any Iranian violations 
of the deal so that sanctions can be rapidly put back in place if 
necessary.
  Additionally, this framework maintains some sanctions that were not 
lifted under the JCPOA. The ISA still requires the United States to 
sanction entities that assist Iran with acquiring or developing weapons 
of mass destruction--that provide ``destabilizing numbers and types'' 
of advanced conventional weapons or participate in uranium mining 
ventures with Iran.
  These provisions remain in place, and it is absolutely critical that 
Congress not allow them to expire at the end of the year.
  I believe the Iran Sanctions Act has been effective and must be 
renewed. Tough sanctions were absolutely critical to bringing Iran to 
the negotiating table--sanctions such as those in the ISA and the 
Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 
2010, which I voted for as a Member of the U.S. House of 
Representatives.
  The JCPOA is the result of these and other tough multilateral 
sanctions put in place through cooperation with international partners, 
but it is essential that the deal is strictly enforced.
  Earlier this year, I led a letter to President Obama, along with 14 
of my colleagues, to express our concern about the lack of technical 
details published by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, 
in reports on Iran's compliance with the JCPOA.
  While the IAEA is the watchdog responsible for monitoring Iran's 
compliance with the JCPOA, it is up to the United States and other 
parties of the JCPOA to respond to any violations.
  To ensure strict compliance, the IAEA should also publish technical 
details, including the total quantity of low-enriched uranium in Iran 
and the amount produced in Natanz, specifics on Iran's centrifuge 
research and development, and progress made on converting Iran's 
nuclear facilities. These details will provide independent experts and 
Members of Congress conducting oversight of the JCPOA the opportunity 
to renew the data behind the IAEA's analysis.
  Iran opposes what we are doing here today, and they will say that 
renewing the Iran Sanctions Act is a violation of the JCPOA. Well, let 
me say, that is simply not true. Reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions 
Act in no way violates the JCPOA. The Iran Sanctions Act has been the 
law of the land since 1996. It was in place when the JCPOA was adopted, 
and it remains in effect today.
  With our vote today, Congress will make clear that the United States 
will not hesitate to maintain sanctions on Iran and those that seek to 
provide the world's largest State sponsor of terrorism with weapons of 
mass destruction. We stand ready to impose rapid and strict punishments 
for any violation of the JCPOA. This sanctions regime is how we hold 
Iran accountable, strengthen our security, and deter Iranian hostility 
towards our allies, especially the State of Israel, which Iran has 
singled out as a target for destruction.
  Diplomacy is always our preferred course of action, but it does not 
work in a vacuum. It only works if it is backed up with credible 
deterrence.
  Today we show that the United States will continue our leadership 
against Iranian aggression--work that must continue in the years ahead.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, continued implementation of the Iran 
nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, 
JCPOA, is our best shot at stopping Iran from developing a nuclear 
weapon. And so far at least, that agreement has been working.
  The Iranians are fulfilling their JCPOA commitments. And so we must 
also maintain our commitment both to the letter and to the spirit of 
this historic agreement. Assuming Iran continues to comply, the 
agreement can and should last for many years. I know many have noted 
President-Elect Trump's negative comments about renegotiating its terms 
or even scrapping it outright. I suspect--at least I hope--that once he 
learns more about the actual national security consequences of 
scrapping the agreement--of which we were all reminded yesterday by CIA 
Director John Brennan--he may reconsider.
  We know Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, that it destabilizes 
the region and violates the human rights of its people. That is why 
Western policymakers agreed to separate out and try to secure agreement 
on this one discrete issue. They knew an Iran with a nuclear weapon 
would be especially dangerous--to us, to Israel, and to the region.
  In fact, it is important to keep in mind that this whole process 
began in the Bush administration, with a Republican President who was--
in the wake of the Iraq War--willing to engage Iran diplomatically. The 
Bush administration laid the foundation for what eventually became the 
Iran Nuclear Agreement--sanctions relief in return for strict limits on 
Iran's nuclear program.
  In June 2008, President Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza 
Rice signed a memorandum with the P5+1, which said that, in return for 
Iran doing key things to limit its nuclear program, the U.S. was ready 
to recognize Iran's right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes; 
treat Iran's nuclear program like any nonnuclear weapons state party to 
the nonproliferation treaty, if international confidence in the 
peaceful nature of its program could be restored; provide technical and 
financial aid for peaceful nuclear energy; and work with Iran on 
confidence-building measures, begin to normalize trade and economic 
relations, and allow for civil aviation cooperation.
  All of this should sound familiar because it was effectively the 
early outline of the Iran Nuclear Agreement.
  As you know, the scope of the sanctions relief provided to Iran under 
the JCPOA is explicitly limited to nuclear-related sanctions. The 
United States continues to enforce vigorously a variety of nonnuclear 
sanctions against Iran, including for ballistic missile violations, 
human rights abuses, and acts of state-supported terrorism. Our primary 
trade embargo against Iran remains largely intact. Thus, our ability to 
maintain sanctions pressure on Iran has been preserved, even as we 
secured an agreement to prevent a state sponsor of terrorism from 
acquiring a nuclear weapon.
  Today we are debating a simple 10-year extension of the Iran 
Sanctions Act. Strictly speaking, extension of the act is not legally 
necessary to continue to enforce our existing sanctions against Iran. 
As administration officials have testified before the Banking Committee 
and elsewhere, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and 
other authorities provide all of the tools that we would need in order 
to keep the pressure on Iran--or even to ratchet up the pressure 
incrementally, if warranted.
  But I believe that extending it today is important for two reasons. 
First, it is a signal of our resolve to keep the heat on Iran and its 
leaders and to ensure that, if they stray from the agreement through 
any significant violations, together with our partners in Europe, we 
would respond forcefully--including if necessary by immediately 
snapback sanctions on Iran. And second, today's action will make even 
clearer that we will continue to enforce the nonnuclear sanctions on 
Iran related to terrorism and ballistic missiles and human rights 
violations.
  As we consider extension of the Iran Sanctions Act today, I hope that 
we will keep in mind what is truly necessary in order to maintain our 
current sanctions architecture. The JCPOA was a groundbreaking 
agreement designed to prevent Iran from obtaining a weapon of mass 
destruction--but it is also a relatively new and somewhat fragile 
agreement. We should be very careful, going forward, not to violate the 
terms of the JCPOA by simply imposing under another guise the old 
sanctions that were waived or suspended under the nuclear agreement. If 
that were to happen, our success in preventing Iran from obtaining a 
nuclear weapon could be unwound in a matter of weeks--or even days. And 
then we would be isolated internationally, instead of Iran being 
isolated as

[[Page 15536]]

the outlier by the international community, as it was under the JCPOA.
  Our debate today sends an important signal to Iran: We resolve to 
continue our fight against terrorism worldwide, to counter Iran's moves 
to further destabilize the Middle East region, and to impose 
consequences for the grave human rights abuses that, sadly, continue in 
Iran to this day. Of course, in addition to renewing these sanctions 
and maintaining tough JCPOA oversight, Congress must also continue to 
support robust military and other aid to regional partners like Israel. 
We should focus both on ensuring strict implementation of the agreement 
and on the most effective ways to pressure Iran's leaders to change 
their destabilizing behaviors in the region.
  There is no question of our willingness to maintain our current Iran 
sanctions architecture. We can and we will continue to vigorously 
enforce nonnuclear sanctions against Iran. And I believe we presently 
have all of the tools we need to do so. I urge my colleagues to support 
this measure.
  Mr. PETERS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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