United States Financial System Protection Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 4992 precisely because the passage of H.R. 4992, were it to become law--and I say this as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence--would put me and this Congress and the rest of us in the United States back in a position of walking on eggshells, if I might borrow a phrase used by the Republican majority. It would put me back in the position of every single week going to the spaces of the Intelligence Committee and asking the question, What kind of progress has Iran made this week in their efforts to deliver nuclear weapons, and then hearing answers that I would not like and nobody in this Chamber would like.

There is no question and there is no legal opinion of any credibility that suggests that H.R. 4992 is not a very clear violation of our obligations under the JCPOA.

The majority has talked a lot about denying access to the U.S. infrastructure financial system, which the Treasury Secretary has said we will do. What they are not telling you is that H.R. 4992 would subject non-U.S. banks to the same restrictions on U.S. banks regarding dollar-denominated transactions.

So we would say to a French bank: You cannot undertake a transaction with a German hotel developer if it were denominated in dollars.

Now, apart from the jurisdictional questions and the damage that would do to the United States dollar as the global reserve currency, it is a very clear violation of the JCPOA. There is no legal interpretation of any credibility that would suggest otherwise.

Now, let me be clear about some things that we all agree on--and I have a profound amount of respect for Chairman Royce, and we agree on some things. I have heard a steady stream from the other side of the truth that Iran is money laundering, that they are sponsoring terrorism, that they are destabilizing the region, and that they treat their people terribly. You are 100 percent right on that issue. You will find no disagreement on this side of the aisle with any of those allegations. But the fact of the matter is that the Iran nuclear deal, which is jeopardized by this bill, was a deal that said: In exchange for stopping your development of nuclear weapons, we will provide you with access to some of your own money.

That was the deal. The deal did not include: You will stop destabilizing the region and that you will stop your terrorist activity.

By the way, I am sorry about that. I would have liked to have seen a deal that would have brought Iran entirely into the community of nations, but that was not the deal. By the way, there was a time in American history when we were a bit more adult in the way we thought about foreign relations where Ronald Reagan would go to the Soviet Union--what he called the evil empire--and do an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces deal that was about nuclear weapons while the Soviet Union was murderous to their own people, destabilizing the globe, and threatening us with annihilation. But we said it was worth preserving the deal and preserving the safety that we had against ballistic weapons under Ronald Reagan.

Now, we can't disagree on some facts. I heard Chairman Royce say that tens of billions of dollars are going to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. That is simply not true. Secretary Kerry estimated--and he was referring to actual dollars into the country--that some $3 billion had come into Iran. So, yes, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, sadly, will benefit in some small way from the sanctions relief. But the figure of tens of billions of dollars is simply inaccurate. We disagree fundamentally on the Iran nuclear deal.

The fact of the matter--and I have heard allegations from the other side to the contrary--is that not the IAEA--not any global bodies--are suggesting that Iran isn't anything other than in compliance with the deal. As a consequence, instead of being 2 months away, as we were, from the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon, we are probably 12 months or more away from the development of a nuclear weapon.

Is that perfect?

Of course, it is not. It is speaking as somebody who every week considers the threats to this country being 12 months away is a heck of a lot safer than being 2 months away.

I have heard from the other side that this is a flawed deal and that it jeopardizes U.S. national security and the security of Israel. Let me quote somebody who knows something about the security of Israel, Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot, Chief of Staff of Israel Defense Forces. Six months ago he said: ``The deal has actually removed the most serious danger to Israel's existence for the foreseeable future and greatly reduced the threat over the longer term.''

If it is true for Israel, it is true for the United States. Stand up for peace, stand up for our international obligations, and oppose H.R. 4992.

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, to my friend from New York (Mr. Zeldin), perhaps we didn't get a signature, but we got compliance from Iran on their obligations to stop their production of nuclear weapons.

I want to take the rest of my time to hopefully clear up a factual matter.

I have profound respect for Chairman Royce, and Congressman Schweikert is one of my closest friends in this Chamber. We seem to have a disagreement as to whether this would jeopardize the JCPOA. This bill would subject non-U.S. banks to the same restrictions that are put on U.S. banks regarding dollar-denominated securities. I would point to, in the JCPOA, annex II, which lists the sanctions to be lifted under the JCPOA, 4.1.3, which lifts sanctions on the provision of U.S. bank notes.

This would clearly violate our obligations under the JCPOA, and I would hope that my friends in the majority would acknowledge that fact as they push this bill. I continue to urge its rejection.

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