Approval of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

Floor Speech

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Mr. LYNCH. I want to thank the gentlewoman from California for leading this debate on our behalf, and I want to thank her for the great work she has been doing on all of this.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3461, legislation to approve the Iran nuclear agreement. While I will admit this deal is not absolutely perfect, I believe it does offer the best chance of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Mr. Speaker, the Iran nuclear agreement is an opportunity, the likes of which we could not even imagine a few years ago: a chance to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and to do so without engaging in another costly and bloody war.

Now, I did not reach this conclusion lightly. I did so only after closely examining the deal and the classified and unclassified supplementary documents. I also spoke to experts and numerous officials who were closely involved in the talks, including one of the IAEA inspectors, and carefully weighed the arguments from both sides.

While I still have some concerns, I simply do not see an alternative that will constrain Iran's nuclear program and maintain the global cooperation needed to enforce these limits.

Mr. Speaker, the plain language of this agreement explicitly states that ``under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons.'' There is no waiver, no exception, no qualifier or sunset. Iran may never have a nuclear weapon, period. That is what the agreement says.

Now, of course, nobody believes a simple affirmation alone is enough, especially with Iran's history, which is why this deal imposes tough limitations on Iran and includes safeguards to better ensure that if Iran cheats, we will know and can respond by reimposing economic sanctions, or, as the President has indicated, the military option remains on the table.

I want to note some of the limitations that are in the agreement.

Iran must cut its low enriched uranium stockpile by 96 percent. It currently has 7,500 kilograms of low enriched uranium. It has to cut that to 300 kilograms--from 7,500 to 300.

Iran must cut its centrifuge capacity by over 66 percent--from 19,000 centrifuges to 6,104; and of the 5,000 it may run, all must be the lower efficiency, first generation centrifuges.

The reactor core in the heavy water plant at Arak must be removed and filled with concrete, making it unusable for nuclear weapons, and it must be redesigned for nuclear energy purposes only.

Mr. Speaker, we all know that this deal is not based on trust. In fact, it assumes Iran will try to cheat. That is why the inspections regime is so intrusive. In addition, IAEA inspectors will have full access to all declared sites and use of the most advanced technology available.

It also subjects Iran's entire nuclear fuel cycle to inspections, from uranium mining to waste disposal and every stage in between. No other member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is subject to that scrutiny, nor would we be inspecting Iran's whole fuel cycle if we trusted them.

Mr. Speaker, let's be clear about something. The United States did not negotiate this agreement alone. This was a joint effort with the UK, Germany, France, China, Russia, and the EU. Those countries are in a more vulnerable position than the United States if Iran should violate this agreement.

Now, any observer of foreign affairs will tell you that in recent years it has been next to impossible to get this mix of countries to agree on anything, much less a deal with such significance as this. Yet that is what we have here--an agreement that major global powers back and are ready to enforce the agreement. And if we sabotage it now, if we are the only country to say ``no'' to diplomacy and ``yes'' to military action, we may very well do so alone.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, this agreement is not perfect. However, no one got everything they wanted in this agreement. For every critic who says the P5+1 gave away too much, there is one in Iran who says the Iranians did the same.

This deal has vast potential, but its success will ultimately hinge on its implementation. It would be better use of our energies to focus on ensuring that this deal succeeds and that the IAEA has what is necessary to carry out its mandate.

One final point, if some of the critics are right and we eventually have to resort to a military option with or without our international neighbors, I think it would be much better for us to have had hundreds of inspectors on the ground inspecting nuclear and nonnuclear facilities.

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