Iran Nonproliferation Amendments Act of 2005

IRAN NONPROLIFERATION AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - October 26, 2005)

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Committee on International Relations, and a member of the Committee on Science, and as a member of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, and, in fact, the ranking member of International Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee, I am well aware of the conflict of two goals of the Federal Government. One of those is to meet our obligations to the international space station. The other is to use every device possible to try to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to try to prevent Russia from assisting in that process.

For me, these goals are not of equal weight. The supreme goal and objective and obligation of the Federal Government is to protect our people. Iranian nuclear weapons could be smuggled into our cities, and I would say that we should adopt no legislation and leave on the books current law that puts one objective, and that is limiting Iranian nuclear weapons, as the sole objective that is embodied in our statutes.

But, in fact, some balance is going to be struck, and it is not going to be the overwhelming balance that I would strike, a balance in favor of doing everything possible to limit Iranian nuclear weapons development and giving far less weight to meeting our international space station obligations.

I want to take this opportunity to commend the ranking member and the chairman of the Committee on International Relations and of the Committee on Science and the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) for doing a very good job of trying to narrowly tailor this legislation, to try to balance those two goals in not the way I would, but in a way that I have to concede is reasonable. And for that reason I will not ask for a recorded vote on this bill. I recognize that if this bill does not pass in this form, it is as likely to get worse as it is to get better because, in fact, my colleagues have labored very effectively and have taken some input from me to create a bill which is tailored to the twin objectives.

Now, I would hope the day would come when the President of the United States could certify to this Nation that Russia is doing everything possible to help us prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and in any case was not helping Iran to develop those terrible weapons. But until that day comes, present law says that we cannot contract with agencies of the Russian Government space program no matter what for various space-related activities.

As I understand this bill in its final revised form, and I see most of the principal authors of the amendment to it here on the floor, and I know the rest will correct the record tomorrow if I misstate anything, but I would yield to anyone here to correct me if I am wrong, the bill in its present form creates a very limited exception to present law. It allows NASA to contract with Russian Government space agencies only when those agencies are the only available seller of goods and services necessary to meet our obligations to the international space station.

There are two important aspects of that understanding. One is the language that I said, the only available seller of essential goods and services. That is to say this bill does not authorize us to turn a blind eye to Russian space agency cooperation with the nuclear plans of Tehran just because the Russian space agency is the cheapest or the most convenient or a few days faster. It allows us to ignore those important Iran nonproliferation goals only when it is absolutely necessary and only when necessary to meet our own obligations to the space station, not obligations of other countries.

To reiterate, not only is this bill limited to situations where it is necessary, not merely convenient, for us to contract with the Russian space agency, but it is also a requirement that we are meeting our obligations to the international space station, not a circumstance when we are paying the Russians to meet their own obligations or the obligations of some other country.

So I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. And to put it in context, I think this bill does a good job of striking what is the best balance we are likely to see in this legislative process between our goals.

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