Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2008

Floor Speech

COMPREHENSIVE IRAN SANCTIONS, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND DIVESTMENT ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - September 26, 2008)

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Mr. SHERMAN. Let me quickly respond to the comments of the gentleman from Ohio. He can attack this bill as he will, except he cannot say that it is related to George Bush. Bush stalled and weakened this legislation throughout the 110th Congress. It would be law today without the opposition of the Bush administration.

He also tells us, he quotes from the NIE, that Iran seems to have suspended its weaponization program. Weaponization is the small, easy and delayable part of developing a nuclear weapon. The tough part is getting enough highly enriched uranium, and Iran is working full bore and proudly unveiled 3,000 and more centrifuges to do that. They can wait a couple of years, and then work on the engineering of how to take that enriched uranium and turn it into an atomic weapon, without delaying for a day the day they have become a nuclear power state.

I also want to agree with the ranking member when she states that this bill does not waive or make waivable any sanction in existing law. The sole purpose of this law is to increase and apply new sanctions to Iran, not to waive or make waivable any sanction under existing law.

The goal of this bill is to drive home to the people and elites of Iran that they face economic isolation if they do not abandon their nuclear program. But let's not exaggerate its impact. It is long overdue, modest steps in that direction.

The bill includes concepts from two important Iran sanctions bills that passed the House overwhelmingly in 2007. Within 6 months of our taking office, with the strong support of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer, under the leadership of Chairman Lantos and Chairman Frank, the House passed the two Iran sanctions bills that have become the centerpiece legislation of efforts on Iran in the 110th Congress: H.R. 1400, the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, authored by the late Tom Lantos; and H.R. 2347, the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act, authored by Chairman Frank and introduced in the Senate by Senator Obama.

We have worked over the opposition of the Bush administration to pass these bills through the House. Then they got bogged down in the Senate. Now the Senate, with Senators Dodd and Shelby, have reached consensus on an Iran package that encompasses the concepts in the House bills, though weakens them. This bill would already be in the Senate DOD authorization bill had a bipartisan consensus not broken down.

So now we have this imperfect bill which we need to enact, and hopefully the Senate will act on it in the next few days.

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Mr. SHERMAN. The bill takes important steps like reinforcing the embargo on Iranian goods. We don't import oil from Iran. We only import the stuff that we don't need and they couldn't sell elsewhere. Unfortunately, this provision is waivable.

If it clarifies that a U.S. company, and I take some pride in authoring this provision, may not use its overseas subsidiaries to do business with Iran that it could not do on its own. Unfortunately, this provision is also waivable.

I would hope that people would understand, you get overwhelming rhetoric from the administration about how much they hate Ahmadinejad. The little secret is they have a love for the total independence of multinational oil corporations that exceeds their hatred of Ahmadinejad, and that is something the country does not understand. That is why the Bush administration has bottled up this legislation. We need to pass it now.

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