Enhanced Iran Sanctions Act of 2025

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1422.

Mr. Speaker, no one in this Chamber should be under any illusions about the nature of the Iranian regime. For decades, Iran has funded terrorist proxies, threatened our partners and allies, supplied training and arms that killed and maimed dozens of American forces in Iraq, and pursued weapons capabilities that destabilize the Middle East and endanger global security.

Congress has long acted in a bipartisan way to confront that threat. One of the most powerful tools available to the United States has been economic pressure, sanctions that deny the regime the revenue it uses to fund terrorism, repression, and regional aggression.

That is precisely what this legislation seeks to strengthen. The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed this bill out of committee almost 1 year ago. The purpose was straightforward: to tighten enforcement against Iran's oil trade and target the global financial networks that allow Tehran to continue selling its petroleum despite existing sanctions.

This bill provides the executive branch with additional tools to do exactly that, although it is unfortunate that some of the sanctions authorities have been watered down at the Trump administration's request.

This legislation expands secondary sanctions authorities to target foreign companies that knowingly purchase, transport, refine, insure, or finance Iranian oil and petroleum products. That includes shipping companies, port operators, insurance providers, and other logistical actors that help move Iranian crude around the world.

Crucially, it focuses attention on the network of foreign refineries and intermediaries, particularly in China, that have become the primary buyers of sanctioned Iranian oil, giving the executive branch clearer authority to penalize those actors and disrupt that trade.

Taken together, these measures are intended to close loopholes in the existing sanctions architecture and make it far more difficult for Tehran to generate billions of dollars in oil revenue.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration spent years talking about maximum pressure. The reality looked very different. In practice, the administration often failed to fully enforce the sanctions authorities already available to it and at times actively undermined them. Last year, President Trump pardoned the founder of Binance, who pleaded guilty to a sanctions evasions crime pertaining to Iran in 2023.

The administration also failed to meaningfully disrupt the Iran-China energy trade or marshal the sustained diplomatic effort required to build international pressure against Tehran's illicit oil exports.

As a result, Iran continued generating billions in energy revenue while the administration's policy drifted. Now we find ourselves in a very different, and far more dangerous, situation.

The United States started a war with Iran that Congress did not authorize and the American people overwhelmingly think makes us less safe. Thirteen Americans have died in the conflict, and over 140 have been injured. The administration started this military campaign without a strategy or an endgame. The regime has not collapsed, but gas prices are up 30 percent. Americans are paying $2 billion each and every day because of this administration's impulsive and illegal war.

Consider the trade-off: The money Trump has already spent on this war could have paid for a full year of ACA premium tax credit extensions for Americans here at home.

What about that price at the pump?

In a ham-handed attempt to fix a problem of its own making, the Trump administration has suspended sanctions against Russian oil used to finance Putin's war machine, while at the same time it dawdles on a peace solution in Ukraine. It is possible that the President will soon declare victory and move on. However, the question of Iran will remain, as will its threats of retaliation and destabilization. It may very well emerge from this conflict damaged, unstable, and led by a leadership even more extreme and vengeful than before.

That is why tools like the ones in this bill remain important. Sanctions can help contain the regime's ability to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure, reconstitute its military capabilities, and restart its nuclear ambitions.

Strong enforcement of these sanctions can also ensure that Iran cannot, once again, finance stabilizing activities across the region through oil revenues flowing into Tehran.

At the same time, the future of Iran is highly uncertain. Only time will tell whether the conduct of the administration will, in the long run, cause more harm than good. However, our responsibility is to ensure that the Iranian regime does not have the resources to rebuild the machinery of repression at home or violence abroad.

This legislation strengthens the tools needed to maintain that pressure for those with the sense to use it.

Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation. I urge its support, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill will be critical for closing loopholes in our existing sanctions infrastructure against Iran, strengthening the President's authorities to limit Tehran's oil trade. I compliment the bill's sponsor, my colleague from New York.

Last year, after an air attack, President Trump announced that we had obliterated Iran's nuclear capacity, but here we are again. Apparently, the job last year wasn't sufficient.

Trump's war of choice with Iran this year has made this bill even more necessary because while the President may want to move on from this war he started at some point in time, war is a two-way street. Just because he may want to claim victory, as he already has, and even though Iran's capabilities will be reduced, Iran may very well pose an even greater threat now that diplomacy has been taken off the table by this President.

To limit the long-term threat posed by Iran, it is critical that we further limit Tehran's ability to circumvent existing sanctions, tighten the screws on its ability to sell oil, and ensure that it does not gain access to the resources it needs to reconstitute either its nuclear program or its weapons capabilities.

This President has put us at considerable risk by starting this war and enabling a regime that is perhaps even more hard-line than the one that preceded it. While we can't close Pandora's box, we can and should take all steps necessary to prevent Tehran from building back the arsenal it now would surely want to use against us.

This bill accomplishes some of that task, and I support it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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