Iran
Floor Speech
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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
The political pundits are all focused on was this a good deal, was this a bad deal. But we're not here in Congress to give a grade to the administration. We are here in Congress to decide what legislation should be passed. Congress is a policymaking body, although so often those in the administration think that we are, at most, advisers or critics; but let us take a look at this deal, and we'll see that what we get out of this is at least overstated by its proponents.
Because we are told that this halts their enrichment of uranium. It is true that it limits their 20 percent uranium; and Iran will not be making progress during the 6-month period of this deal toward its first bomb, but they will be making very substantial progress toward their eighth, ninth, and 10th bomb. And Iran is not a nuclear power until they have some to hide, one or two to test. It is not their objective to have but one, because throughout this agreement it is very clear the centrifuges keep spinning, the amount of low enriched uranium keeps growing; but we're told that Iran will not be increasing its stockpile. If you read the agreement, yes, they will, but they have to convert to uranium oxide metal, that which they produced during the term of this agreement.
There are some proponents of the agreement that say, Well, that means that they are neutralizing all that they produce under the agreement. That is hardly true.
I have been the chair or ranking member of the Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee since it was created in the early part of this century, and I have worked with the nonproliferation experts. The fact is that this uranium oxide, this huge new additional stockpile to be created over the next 6 months can be converted back to gaseous form and then enriched further. And converting it back to gaseous form will take only a couple of weeks.
So this agreement provides that Iran makes substantial progress toward more low-enriched uranium, building its stockpile toward a real collection of nuclear bombs.
We are also told that we have given up very little in this agreement. We have given up far more than you can find in the text because the most important thing about our sanctions is momentum. And we passed additional sanctions in 2010, 2011, 2012; and, if hadn't been for this agreement, the Senate would have passed the bill that we worked on in the summer, and we would have passed additional sanctions in 2013.
The content of those sanctions is important, but even more important is the momentum. If you are a multinational corporation, you can find a law firm that will find loopholes in our existing sanctions, but you will decide not to invest a lot into that business plan because you know Congress is going to pass more sanctions.
Well, now you know we are not passing any sanctions
in 2013; and the question before us, as legislators, is whether we will be passing sanctions in 2014.
Why is momentum so important not just to those international businesses trying to decide whether to invest in exploiting the loopholes? Most of economics is psychology. It is currency values. It is consumer confidence. It is business confidence. It is investment. And we saw the celebrations in Tehran as the business community celebrated this agreement because it ends the continuing momentum toward additional sanctions.
But we are not here, again, to grade the administration. That is for pollsters and pundits. We are here to decide whether to pass legislation.
It is very clear we are not going to pass legislation that becomes effective in 2013. The question before us is whether we will pass legislation which, by its terms, becomes effective June 1, 2014. And the reason the administration sent some of its top officials to brief us in a classified briefing today is because they want to convince us not to take any action in the first 5 or 6 months of 2014. Well, what does that mean? That means, in effect, we are not going to take action in 2014. Why is that?
Most people think that this deal expires in late May, 6 months after it was adopted on November 24, 2013. That is not the case. The start date is some day to be determined sometime probably in late January. So if we, as a Congress, are convinced not to take any action, not to pass any legislation, not to go through the committee process and the markup until after this agreement has terminated, we are talking about late July. Well, at the end of July, we go on break. We come back for, what, 2 or 3 weeks between then and the November elections.
So if the administration can convince us to not do anything until 6 months after the trigger date, which is a date to be determined sometime in January, they can assure the Iranians that no new sanctions will be adopted in 2014. And that will be apparent to those doing business in Iran and those doing business with Iran.
The administration complimented us more than once, saying these sanctions are what brought Iran to the table, but let us remember that the administration opposed the adoption of these sanctions every single time. The reason we did not adopt any sanctions against Iran in 2009 was because of opposition from the administration and the tremendous intellectual clout and credibility that the State Department and administration bring.
But it is not just this administration. We didn't pass any sanctions during the entire 8 years of the prior administration. Oh, we passed some through the House, but they stopped them in the Senate, and with considerable effort. Not one bill became law. So we have seen two administrations do their best to delay, dilute, prevent, and defeat sanctions legislation.
So now they say, Isn't it great we have this legislation, but don't pass any new legislation. Let us remember, we were against the legislation they now say is so great.
The best example of this is the Kirk-Menendez amendment in 2011. That was the bill that prevented Iran's central bank from clearing their petroleum dollar-denominated transactions through the American banking system. Well, what did the administration say in the form of a letter from Secretary Geithner? He wrote on December 1, 2011: ``I am writing to express the administration's strong opposition to this amendment because, in its current form, it threatens to undermine the effective'' sanctions. ``In addition, the amendment would potentially yield a net economic benefit to the Iranian regime.''
There is only one reason Iran is at the table today. It is because of the sanctions we have adopted the last 3 years. And the most important of those was the Menendez-Kirk sanctions that the administration fought against.
What we ought to do is adopt legislation providing additional sanctions. And we have already written them. We passed the bill in June, with 400 votes on this floor. We should have those sanctions--and I would think others--go into effect on June 1, unless Congress, in an expedited proceeding, passes a resolution saying, Hold off. We've seen enough progress. These sanctions don't need to go into force.
Instead, and the other choice, we can do nothing on the theory that we will do the right thing in the last few days of July, as if Congress turns on a dime, as if the State Department has been unsuccessful in delaying, defeating, and diluting sanctions in the past. That, I think, would be a mistake.
With that, I would point out that this deal calls for a rollback of sanctions that violates American law in a number of respects. It will not be the first time that an administration has refused to enforce the sanctions bills passed by Congress.
I will say that from 2010 through 2013 this administration has done a much better job of enforcing such legislation than either of the prior two administrations. But as a technical matter, the administration has agreed to waive that which the law does not allow it to waive, particularly section 504. And I will go into the details in some other forum.
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