Every Child Achieves Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, the deadline for negotiators to strike a deal with Iran on its illicit nuclear program has been extended yet again. The deadline was June 30. It was postponed until Tuesday, and that was put off again for a few more days.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the chief negotiator said:

We are continuing to negotiate for the next couple of days. That does not mean we are extending our deadlines, we are interpreting [the deadline] in a flexible way.

What does that mean? You either have a deadline or you don't have a deadline.

By the end of the week, the White House could announce that it has struck a deal or it could say once again it needs more time. If there is a deal, Congress will need to look very closely and carefully at what it actually says.

There are some important things that I will be looking for in any agreement that is struck. First and foremost, any deal is going to have to dismantle Iran's nuclear weapons program. It is going to have to prevent Iran from ever developing a path to a nuclear weapon. It is going to have to ensure that Iran completely discloses its past work on nuclear weapons. Iran is also going to have to submit to an inspection and verification regime that is both extensive and long term--not just inspections when the Iranians want it, when they allow it, or where they say it can occur. That is the only way we can really confirm that Iran's promises are more than empty words.

America and other countries should not suspend sanctions until all of these conditions are met. So far, I have not seen much to indicate that our negotiators understand how important these goals are.

There appear to be a lot of questions that have not been resolved and a lot of foot-dragging by Iran to try to get additional concessions.

On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry said: ``We're aiming to try to finish this in the timeframe that we've set out.'' Well, that timeframe was 7 months ago, in November of last year. The Obama administration said it had reached what it called an interim agreement in November of 2013, and it said that it had a deadline of 1 year to reach a final agreement. That would have been November of 2014. When November 2014 came along, Iran got 6 more months to bully this administration into giving up even more ground.

The deadline has been pushed back time and time again. According to news reports today, it may be pushed back even further.

The Obama administration started negotiating with Iran more than 5 years ago. In 2009, President Obama said that we ``will not continue to negotiate indefinitely'' with Iran specifically. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that same year that the window of opportunity for Iran would ``not remain open indefinitely.'' I would love to know what their definition of the word ``indefinitely'' is.

I think these missed deadlines are embarrassing for the Obama administration. The administration's willingness to keep extending the talks make it look desperate. You know what. The Iranians know it. That is a big problem.

Iran is now demanding that the arms embargo be lifted as part of the negotiations. This recent last-minute demand shows that Iran knows how desperately eager President Obama is for a deal, any deal. This issue was supposed to have been settled already. In April, the White House said that ``important restrictions on conventional arms and ballistic missiles'' will be a part of any final agreement. Now Iran is seeing that the President and Secretary Kerry are desperate for an agreement to build their legacy, so it is bringing up the arms embargo again.

According to news reports, our negotiators have been willing to make a lot of concessions to get any deal. There was an article recently in the Washington Post about the negotiations. The headline was ``In final hours, Kerry says Iran talks can go either way.'' The article said that negotiators have ``a general feeling that they have come too far to fail.''

I want to be clear. Walking away from these negotiations without a deal is not a failure. Failure would be signing a bad deal. Failure would be lifting sanctions before Iran has shown that it has begun dismantling its nuclear program. Failure would be a deal that does not automatically reinstate sanctions if it turns out Iran is not complying with the deal. Failure would be a deal that allows any money Iran gets from sanctions relief to end up continuing to support terrorism, which Iran does. Failure would be a world that is a much more dangerous place for all of us.

So far it seems as if this administration is willing to make a deal at any cost. We have seen one point after another where the administration has apparently agreed to give the Iranians exactly whatever they want. The negotiations went from initially being about stopping Iran's nuclear program to now being an attempt to delay or to manage Iran's nuclear program.

Even before the June 30 deadline passed, Senator Menendez said: ``For me, the trend lines of the Iran talks are deeply worrying; our red lines have turned into green lights.''

That is from a Democratic Senator. It was that kind of concern that led Congress--this Senate--to pass a law in May saying that Congress would be able to review any deal with Iran before the Obama administration could lift sanctions. Remember, the Obama administration fought that law--a law with a bipartisan, veto-proof majority in this body. The President didn't want Congress or the American people to have any say at all. Actually, the White House said they were planning to go directly to the Security Council of the United Nations before going to the elected representatives of the people of the United States.

Any deal with Iran on its nuclear program would have a huge effect on our security, and the American people do get a say. If somehow the administration manages to strike a deal and it sends over all the necessary materials, Congress--if it is done today--will get 30 days to review it. That is time we can use to make sure it really is in our country's best interest. If the administration can't get us the full text of an agreement before this Friday, the timeline jumps up to 60 days to review it. That is what we said in the law we passed in a bipartisan way this spring.

If our negotiators can reach a deal with Iran, whenever that happens, Congress will use the time to look very closely at every word. If our negotiators can reach a deal with Iran, whenever that happens, Congress will make sure that we look at every word and know what is in it. The goal--the entire reason we are having these negotiations--is not just to get Iran to say yes to something; the goal initially was and should remain to stop Iran's illicit nuclear program.

If the Obama administration allows Iran to continue with that program, the world will be less safe, less stable, and less secure. Any agreement our negotiators come up with must be accountable, must be enforceable, and must be verifiable. If that is not the case, then it is a bad deal, and the Obama administration must not strike a bad deal with Iran. This Nation and the world cannot afford that, and Congress cannot allow it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be equally divided.

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