Voting to Place Strongest-Ever Sanctions Against Iran

This past Wednesday I voted for the AIPAC-endorsed Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, which includes the strongest set of sanctions ever enacted to isolate any country with which the United States was not in armed hostilities.

We need to do everything we can in our power to make sure that Iran does not gain the ability to arm itself with nuclear weapons that it can use to threaten its neighbors, starting with Israel and other American allies in the region. This bill will also help put more international scrutiny on the humanitarian crisis in Syria. I’m proud to have voted for the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act and urge the president to sign it promptly.

In an effort to dissuade Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability, in December I had voted to help overwhelmingly , which tightened sanctions on Iran. The version of the bill voted on today, H.R. 1905, emerged from House-Senate negotiations and expands the previous bill.

H.R. 1905 will:

• place virtually all of Iran’s energy, financial, and transportation sectors under U.S. sanction. Companies conducting business with Iran in these sectors face losing access to U.S. markets;
• impose sanctions designed to prevent Iran from repatriating any proceeds from its oil sales, thus depriving Iran of 80 percent of its hard currency earnings and half of the funds to support its national budget;
• impose tough new sanctions on the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC);
• target Iran’s use of barter transactions to bypass sanctions, the provision of insurance to Iran’s energy sector, and the provision of specialized financial messaging services to the Central Bank of Iran;
• require the President to provide Congress with a public list of individuals working on behalf of the Iranian or Syrian government who take part in serious human rights violations including attacks on freedom of expression in each of their respective countries
 

In the past 6 months, the United States and its international partners have substantially increased the economic pressure on Iran and engaged in several rounds of talks with Tehran. Unfortunately, Iran has rebuffed the opportunity for serious negotiations while stepping up the pace of its nuclear program.

“America and our allies must unite in a tough response to Iran’s belligerent approach,” according to AIPAC. “ We must continue to send a strong message to Tehran that it will face unremitting pressure until it complies with its international obligations and end its nuclear weapons quest.”

 is the representative of New York’s Fourth Congressional District. She was first elected in 1996.