Energy Policy Modernization Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Senator Coons, thank you for convening us.

I think it is important to restate the progress we have made. I know it has been said before, but frankly not enough attention has been paid to the fact that since implementation day Iran has shipped 12 tons of enriched uranium out of Iran and kept enrichment at that 3.67 level, which is significantly below what is necessary to create a bomb. They filled the core of the Iraq plutonium reactor with concrete, preventing them from producing weapons-grade plutonium. They started to allow the IAEA access to the entire nuclear fuel cycle or uranium enrichment, including their centrifuge production shops and uranium mines and mills.

Of course, as has been stated before, the IAEA has been given an unprecedented level of access to the entirety of the supply chain leading up to any future potential development of a nuclear weapon. That is an unprecedented level of access that will require an unprecedented level of support. We are talking about an additional $10.6 million per year that the IAEA is going to need to carry out these oversight responsibilities. The United States puts up a percentage of IAEA's funding, but it is still the minority of funding.

One development that we need to guard against are attempts in Congress to undermine this agreement in very quiet, subtle ways. There is a bill that has been introduced in the House of Representatives that would disallow the United States from funding the IAEA unless it grants the United States access to the contents of proprietary bilateral arrangements. That would have the results of stripping the funding necessary to carry out this agreement. If the IAEA doesn't get U.S. funding, it simply can't have the purview it has been granted, by virtue of this agreement, of the entire field cycle throughout the country.

As important as it is to get the personnel in place who can enforce this agreement, who can root out the ways in which Iran may take money they get by virtue of this deal and support terrorism in the region, it is also important to make sure the IAEA is properly funded as well.

Senator Coons, the only comment I would add to this discussion is this. I think for those of us who supported this agreement--I will speak for myself. I supported it because this was the most effective way to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon--period, stop. With this agreement, we were much more likely to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon than we were without this agreement, but we certainly accepted the premise that it is in our long-term security and strategic interest as a country to facilitate the transition of power within Iran from the hardliners who have chosen a path of Iranian foreign policy to be simply a provocateur and an irritant in the region to the more moderate elements who would like to see Iran reengage on big questions of both regional and global security.

I don't think you can count on that happening. I don't think anybody should have voted for this agreement or supported this agreement because they were counting on that being the end result, but you have started to see a different level of engagement, whether it is with the release of the prisoners as you spoke about, whether it was about the resolution of the detainment of U.S. personnel, and we will shortly see whether this battle that plays out almost every day inside Iran is ultimately accruing to the benefit of the moderates. We will have elections next month in Iran.

I think we should support this agreement because it strips from Iran the ability to rush to a nuclear weapon, and you see the evidence already in the steps they have taken since the implementation agreement, but I think we should read with some level of positive interpretation some of the resolution of crises that we have seen just in the time passed over the course of 2016. That doesn't mean there aren't still enormous issues still at stake, but it is in our security interests, and it was part of the discussion of this agreement to ultimately bring Iran to a place in which the will of the vast majority of that country be expressed in the leaders who speak to the world community.

I thank Senator Coons for continuing to bring us down to the floor. I think as important as it is to talk about the positive steps that have been taken since implementation day, it is also important to note that we have a lot of work undone--whether it be funding the IAEA, confirming these important positions--and we have a lot of work to do in terms of remaining vigilant about the quiet, subtle ways that may be undertaken in this body and across the hall in the House of Representatives to try to undermine this deal that is working.

Thank you very much.

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