Iran Freedom Support Act

IRAN FREEDOM SUPPORT ACT -- (House of Representatives - September 28, 2006)

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant support of this bill and in strong support of its authors--who got what they could from a President who has a veto pen, and is determined to continue our ineffectual policy toward Iran.

America has been blinded by the flash of this President's overly aggressive response to Iraq's tiny ``weapons of mass destruction'' program. So, as a result, we have settled for a loud but pitifully ineffectual effort, both toward North Korea's nuclear program and toward Iran's.

In this bill, I had an amendment that would have prohibited U.S. corporations from doing business with Iran through their foreign subsidiaries. That amendment was stripped in conference. So Halliburton is protected; the American people are not.

This bill extends the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which was so effective, along with other measures, in getting Khadaffi to change his policies. However, as toward Iran, the last administration and this administration has a policy of ignoring widely reported investments in the Iran oil sector. The bill says we are supposed to sanction oil companies that invest even $40 million in Iran's oil sector. When tens of billions of dollars of investments are announced in the Wall Street Journal, the President's response is, he didn't get that copy.

We have got to pass this bill, but we have got to do a lot more. And we have got to make sure that, in our policy toward Russia and China about Moldova, Abkhazia, and currency controls, that we make it clear that support on Iran will lead to our change on those issues that are so important to Russia and China. We need linkage, and we need an effective policy

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