Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in speaking on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

While this deal is far from perfect, I believe it is the best option available to us right now for preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

I share many of the concerns with this agreement that have been expressed by my colleagues, but the choice I ultimately had to make was between accepting an imperfect deal or facing the serious ramifications throughout the world if Congress rejects a deal that has the support of the international community, including many of our allies.

As I reviewed this agreement, I kept two fundamental questions in mind: No. 1, does this agreement advance the goal of keeping Iran free of nuclear weapons, and No. 2, is there a viable alternative that would be superior to this deal?

As many colleagues before me have outlined, this deal outlines a significant reduction in Iran's fissile material stockpile, reducing their uranium stockpile by 98 percent. It restricts Iran's production capacity and completely removes their ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium. It further limits Iran's research and development activities. These reductions and restrictions on Iran's nuclear infrastructure will extend Iran's breakout time from a matter of months to at least 1 year over the next 15 years.

This agreement also established a verification regime that includes continuous inspections. With the assistance of our intelligence community, verification goes beyond the four corners of this agreement. What this means is that we will have significantly more information about Iran's nuclear program with this deal than we would have without it.

The other major question we have to ask is, Is there a viable alternative to this deal? I have given those opponents numerous opportunities to convince me there was a viable alternative. The conclusion I have reached is that there is not.

I have been a strong supporter of tough international sanctions that helped bring Iran to the negotiating table in the first place. Since I have been in the Senate, I have supported every important piece of sanctions legislation passed by Congress. But during my deliberations, I spoke with representatives of many foreign governments--not the EU or the P5+1 entirely but also those nations, particularly in Asia--about whether they would be willing to uphold sanctions to pressure Iran if we turned this deal down. In virtually every case, the response I got from allies was that if Congress were to reject this deal, the vast international sanctions that we have in place would fall apart. As we saw in the literally dozens of years prior, just U.S. unilateral sanctions alone are not enough.

I have determined that moving forward with this international agreement is our best option now to advance U.S. and world security.

I know we have other Members who want to speak, but let me add a couple of final comments.

While I support this deal, I believe there are additional actions Congress can and should take to strengthen it. I want to make sure that we--the United States--have the ability to respond to any Iranian activities with all means at our disposal.

While the inspections provided in this deal will give us better insight, there is more we can do. I am working with my colleagues--both supporters and opponents of the deal--on efforts to shore up its weaker points. I will work to clarify that Congress retains the ability to pass sanctions against Iran for nonnuclear misbehavior. My hope is that in future legislation, we will spell out that this agreement will not shield foreign companies if sanctions must be reimposed because of Iranian violations. And I will seek more reporting from the administration, including on how Iran uses any funds received through sanctions relief.

Moving forward, I will work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure Israel's security. I will press the administration and work with my colleagues to ensure that Israel preserves a qualitative military edge.

I will look for ways to strengthen our commitments to Israel and support additional efforts to stop Iran from advancing both the nuclear agenda and from other efforts to destabilize the region.

Let me assure you that this agreement is the beginning and not the end of our combined international efforts to keep Iran free--not just today and not just for the next 15 years but forever--from having a nuclear weapon.

Before my colleague from Delaware speaks, I want to thank him for his efforts and many of us who spent a great deal of time the last few weeks of August talking about how we could build upon this agreement to make it stronger. He received assurances from the President and letters. I know that he and I and others are working on how we can even move beyond those assurances to make sure that we can look back on this agreement and recognize that we move not only the issue of peace but the issue of security going forward.

I yield the floor.

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